This week on Pretty Little Liars some actual content related to Emily’s love life occurred! I mean, not a ton, but like three scenes which is about all we can really expect these days. Normally Riese would be here to make the jokes, but due to the recent Autopocalypse, you’re stuck with me! Let’s get to some plot and some sweaters.

We start where we left off with the liars up at Spencer’s lake house a few hours/days/eons/minutes after Lucas has taken the big plunge. A slips lakewater in to Hanna’s water bottle and she takes a big gulp. When I was at camp some kid drank lake water and got a leech in his mouth… or maybe I saw that in a movie. Turns out the police are going to dredge the lake in the morning because no one bothered to call the Coast Guard or spend fifteen minutes looking for Lucas.

THIS IS ALL JAN'S FAULT

The next day, girls get up around 4am in order to substantially hang out before school. We are immediately assured by an conveniently timed phone call that Lucas called his folks to let them know he was okay. I seriously almost turned off the TV. How is this fucker not dead? Scooby Spencer reveals that she found some Go phones and a receipt from somewhere in Philadelphia in her attic. The receipt and Go phones couldn’t possibly belong to anyone in Spencer’s family because, well, As If.

BUT HOW DO YOU MAKE THE GO PHONE GO?

Spencer wants Hanna to join her as she scours Philly solving the mystery of the receipt street address, but Hanna would much rather stay home and contemplate the fact that one of her closest friends maybe tried to kill her a little bit. Going out on a clue hunt in Philly?

Hanna spends most of the rest of the episode crying. She doesn’t even break out of her own self-involvedness to humor Mona’s self-involvedness. Seriously guys, this is a big deal, Noel dumped Mona! So while Hanna and Mona are individually breaking down, Caleb decides this is a great time to lose trust in Hanna and question why she’s a big fat liar who doesn’t want to find Lucas. This is the perfect chance for Mona and Hanna. Monanna.

MONANNA FOREVER

Side note: Hanna’s outfit is compleltely adorable, but I already talked about patterned tights at length.

Later that day in school Spencer an Aria enjoy the obviously ample time in between classes to chitchat and find love. Before I get to all that, I need to address a really serious and emotional issue.

What the fuck is Aria wearing?

FIRST OF ALL, EW

I know that I had some positive words to say about faux fur vests in the past but in this particular instance Aria looks like Elmo climbed on to her shoulders and died. Wait, I can do better. She looks like Cruella Deville’s less fashionable twin sister who works part time at a beet factory. Spencer, how do you feel about Aria’s fur thing in comparison to your adorable grey vest over the J crew button up my roommate totally has?

SO SORRY ABOUT YOUR HIDEOUS FUR VEST

Have we known each other too long to do some more plaid shirts and vests? I think not.

Button Front Tops by Just A Cheap Shirt
V-Neck Sweaters by Apt. 9

Despite her red Do Not Enter vest, Holden runs right over to ask Aria on a hot sexy date. He even asked Aria’s dad for permission to be nice and weird. He’s all like, “Heyyyy I know we went to preschool together but let’s get it on.” So Aria’s all like, “Meh. Kay,” but agrees to first track down the mystery address from the receipt with Spencer. After school, Spencer and Aria do just that and take their little fashion asses to Philadelphia to scope out the address on the receipt. Either these girls live awfully close to the city, or their parents should think about investing in those tracker things that tell you where a car has been. Aria and Spencer spend some time staring at the sky and a gum vendor but eventually declare the whole situation a bust and go along their separate merry ways to Aria can get ready for her date.

C'MON LETS GET OUT OF HERE. I CAN'T BE SEEN WITH YOU DRESSED LIKE THAT

Spencer’s seen one too many episodes of Psych and uses her fake psychic skills to deduce that since she sees two people with seeing eye dogs she must be near a school for the blind. Within minutes Spencer is inside said school which, of course, was the school Jenna went to. Spencer ends up meeting one of Jenna’s old friends/classmates/lovers/artist pals and they sit for a cup of tea. The guy, who in his IMDB entry is just credited as “Blind Guy,” looks vaguely like my high school prom date and sports a mean set of Heath Ledger curls. The actor is Alexander Nifong and here’s a shocker, he’s not actually blind. Here’s an actual shocker, he’s that guy “Jeremiah” who Blaine sang to at the Gap on Glee! Adorbs. Jeremiah wastes my time and yours telling us stuff we already know about Jenna, like that she’s kinda hot and seductive but also probably an evil villain and maybe an alien.

IF YOU'RE LUCKY, MAYBE I'LL HAVE MY WAY WTH YOU IN THE THERAPEUTIC ART CENTER

Aria sets up she and Holden’s date so that they’re attending a play Ezra has tickets for. When Ezra arrives Aria promptly ignores Holden (and he even took the time to bring her gummy bears). I think I like Holden — he sort of dresses like a 24 year old queer librarian (aka Senior Editor Rachel). Regardless, upon Ezra’s arrival, Aria’s hair blows softly in the wind and Ezra gets immediately uncomfortable… like maybe he just realized he’s been dating a high school student. Unlike every other character on Pretty Little Liars, Holden has seen a few after school specials and recognizes immediately that Aria and Ezra have some sort of passionate/sordid past and calls Aria right out on it. Just as Aria starts to get defensive, Holden reminds her that as long as their parents think that the two of them are riding off in to a romantic sunset of love, they could probably each do some sneaking around. Holden is obvi gay or a drug dealer. Or maybe he’s dating Jenna.

Great! With all that out of the way, now we can get to the gay stuff. Maya reappears magically as Emily’s forget-me pills have finally started to wear off. They’ve got big concert plans which, for the purposes of this article, I’ll assume are to see Dar Williams. The concert is 21 plus though so the girls have to get fake IDs even though Maya is clearly pushing 35. Weirdly, Maya seems all distracted by texts and phone calls. Emily brings Maya to the crisis hotline (because nothing is hotter than court mandated community service) but Maya leaves in a weird frenzy. Could it be that Maya has been contacted by A and now everything is about to start crumbling down?

Nope! Actually it’s just a good old fashioned lesbian ex is calling all the time. Or is it? Emily puts on her powerful cool new voice and tells Maya she can share the contents of her heart/texts/life force whenever she’s ready, but Maya finally explains everything is over and done, but he just isn’t getting the message. Maya’s use of a masculine pronoun to described a former lover shakes Emily to her core. Obviously Emily’s never taken a sensitivity training class. How is she supposed to know that Maya’s just gotta do Maya?

EMILY IS A GRACEFUL GAZELLE

Normally I just wear the grossest T-shirt and jeans I own to concerts. That way I don’t have to worry about getting beer spilled or smoke blown on any of my nice clothes. That being said, Emily’s shirt here is awesome. Maybe she’ll be crying later while she’s trying to wash someone else’s vomit out of it, but in the meantime that cobalt blouse is just plain bomb. Oh, did you want it?

Rounding out the episode, and bringing any suspense directly to a halt, we discovered that Lucas hasn’t been helping A at all but instead the thing he “lost” was a shitton of Caleb’ money we didn’t even know he had. Wow writers, way to not stretch or develop the characters at all this week. Way to go indeed.

LUCAS IS ONE SWEATY MAN

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