Pretty Little Liars Episode 522 Recap: Tomorrow Will be Taco Night

They tail him out into the woods to this gated house, and the whole time Ezra and Aria are just blah blah blah who is Andrew. (Because Ezra sees a text from him on Aria’s phone because all the men on this show help themselves to reading Aria’s phone.) They blah blah blah about it for so long that they miss the part of the stakeout where they arrive at the house and Emily gets out of the car and rushes through the gate on foot. They get trapped outside.

Emily rolls her eyes and tells them to find another way in if they can, she guesses, or whatever.

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Run faster, Ezra!

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You should have worn workout pants like me!

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THEY’RE NOT PANTS.

Things are going pretty good for Spencer in London. She hated the modern retelling of Hamlet but she’s old enough to order beer legally in the United Kingdom. And oh, she does! She orders and drinks and orders and drinks and orders and drinks drinks drinks. And then she plays some darts with Colin. Spencer sure does like to get drunk and intense with British men. Remember when she danced for Wren that time? They play darts until they can’t stand up anymore and then they stumble home in the rain and make out in Colin’s apartment. Spencer smartly decides to call it a night before things get too horizontal. (ALSO TOBY IS STILL YOUR BOYFRIEND SHUT IT DOWN.)

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No offense, but I’m just trying to surround myself with the gayest people right now.

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I made out with Kurt Hummel.

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Things are not going pretty good for Ali in jail. Somebody ransacks her room and scrawls on the wall that she should take the plea deal. And then when she’s ironing (???) the jail uniforms, a girl glares menacingly at her. And then she gets so freaked out by something that she screams like a banshee! Turns out she was getting tortured by the glaring girl with her own iron! When that’s over, she calls her lawyer and asks if taking the plea deal for first degree murder means she can get to a “safer jail.” Um. No, Ali. Probably not.

This whole time, Ezra and Aria are wandering aimlessly through the woods looking for a way to help Emily’s who is still trapped inside the gated mansion.

Aria: I think we should split up.
Ezra: #EndOfEzria?!?!?
Aria: Well, yeah, but I just meant in the forest right now so maybe one of us can find a way past the gate.
Ezra: I heard you got into SCAD.
Aria: Yup.
Ezra: Have you ever been to Savannah?
Aria: No, Ali’s grandma lived real close by in Hilton Head, though, so I’m looking forward to four years of finding doll heads washed up all over the beach.

They are useless when they are teamed up together. Aria has been dang Nancy Drew this season without him around! While the lawyer is inside his house, Emily roots around in his trash and finds a pizza receipt for Varjak, who ordered one large pizza, one salad, and one order of garlic bread. She snatches the receipt, knocks over all the trash cans, waits for the lawyer to leave, then scoots out the gate behind him before it closes again.

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What the…

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I guess I’ll just throw away this leftover pizza.

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MONSTER.

Outside, she explains to Ezra and Aria about the receipt and about how Mona’s lawyer is also Varjak’s lawyer and was inside the house packing up Varjak’s gold bars and hand grenades.

Jailhouse.

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I heard you and Ashley are going to try to be gayer than me and Emily.

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I’m sorry, Ali, but Spencer is gayer than you.

Veronica: What?
Ali: I called you here to — hang on one second, the bandages covering my horrific injuries have slipped. Okay, there were go. I have called you hear to ask if you think I should take the plea bargain.
Veronica: And live the rest of your life knowing you put Hanna, the most innocent of all you guys, behind bars?
Ali: If I tell the truth, I go to jail for life. If I lie, I got to jail for ten years. Do you see how fucked this all is and how come I had to fake my own death in the first place?
Veronica: Look, whatever, I am only doing this so Spencer can get into college.

Caleb shows up at Hanna’s with some shitty news. Toby told Caleb that Tanner told him that she was getting a warrant for Hanna’s arrest. Hanna’s got two options: Run for it (she’s savvy, but wouldn’t last a week on the streets like Ali had to do), or come completely clean about all the A stuff. She’s got all the texts on her phone, right? All she has to do is show those texts to Tanner and everything will be okay! Hanna is stressed to the max and doesn’t remember that they tried this plan a hundred times in season one and it always made things worse, so she agrees to turn herself in.

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I’m here to report a fashion crime. My friend Aria, she thinks she’s wearing pants.

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“Mess with bae, you’re gonna pay. – Spencer”

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Guess what happens when she gets to the police department and asks to see Tanner? Mmm hmm. A deletes all the texts off of her phone and all the other Liars’ phones, talking about, “Let’s start over!” Whoops! If only there had been other, physical evidence A’s existence! Or if only they knew how THE CLOUD WORKS.

Aria and Emily get the call that Hanna has been arrested, so they call Spencer, who tries to get on a jet plane and come home and fix everything, but — surprise! — her mom and Melissa have been lying to her about St. Andrew’s, even though Melissa just pinky-promised to stop lying. There’s no St. Andrew’s interview. They only said that so she wouldn’t know Melissa is holding her hostage. She can’t go home to Rosewood because if she does she’ll end up in jail for sure.

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Just spit it out! What are you hiding!

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Okay, don’t be mad. I was trying to get back at you for Ian and Wren.

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And I made out a little bit with Aria.

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spencer-radley

Aria and Ezra breakup for real while Emily calls Tony’s to prank Varjak with 100 anchovy pizzas.

And Hanna is in jail. She walks the jail walk and glares at Ali when she passes by her cell. But Ali is just as surprised as anyone that Hanna is in there. Tanner issued that warrant because she found Hanna’s blood on Mona’s clothes, but neither of them know that yet.

Thanks to Nicole (@PLLBigA) for the screencaps and for being the best and for sharing her actual Big A theories with me. I hope she’s right!

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Heather Hogan

Heather Hogan is an Autostraddle senior editor who lives in New York City with her wife, Stacy, and their cackle of rescued pets. She's a member of the Television Critics Association, GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics, and a Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer critic. You can also find her on Twitter and Instagram.

Heather has written 1718 articles for us.

22 Comments

  1. Thank you for the Friends reference and letting me know where I knew Ali’s lawyer from!
    ALSO
    That last Sparia photo set is magical. You have no idea how much I’ve missed Radley Spencer.
    Thanks for another hilarious and super on point recap!

  2. Prediction: Andrew is A’s minion. He’ll romance Aria, and when she realizes it’s him, she’ll run right back to Ezra.
    – Spencer, what is with you and skeezy dudes this season. Put Aria in your pocket, and think happy thoughts.
    – Okay, that burn on Ali was a total sympathy thing. In order for somebody to burn you with an iron like that, you would see them.
    – May I commend Emily. The guy heard her phone buzz, but Emily has learned to TURN OFF HER RINGER when she’s spying on someone.
    – Hanna’s tough, but we all know that she’s going to be Ali’s prison bitch.
    – Spencer, can you do me a favor? Hit Ezra with your car, back over him a few times, get out, pour gasoline on him, set him on fire, behead him, bury him upside down in his coffin with garlic in his mouth, and put a big f**king rock on his grave, so that we can make sure his storyline is dead.

    • As much as I don’t like Ezra he is very important to Arias storyline. Her whole story is how she thinks she is more mature than she really is and relies on other too much (of all the plls she needs her parents the most and usually defers to others in a group). And Ezra is important in demonstrating those facets of her personality. And while it does annoy me the other 3 don’t hate Ezra for the sake of Aria being the one to come to the conclusion the relationship is bad (the talmage essay was gold) I am willing to stand the other 3 forgiving him. And 17 year old hopeless romantic Aria would absolutely forgive her toxic and vaguely abusive boyfriend. It’s a sad reality but absolutely truth in television.

  3. I figured out why Emily suddenly cares about Ezria: Emily moved her bedroom into Arias house bc Pam moved to Texas and Byron to Syracuse and Ella to anywhere else. It’s why Mike made the “I don’t need another big sister” comment or why Emily allowed Talia to stay at her house after breaking up with her (she’s not living there!). Emily cares about Ezria bc when Ezria has problems Emily hears about it at home.

  4. Also this show was great of reminding people who claim they watch the show why the liars should never go to the police.

  5. The captions in this one were particulary inspired. (Trying to find out who’s gayer would be much more interesting than find out who’s A at this point in the show for me). Good job :D

  6. I had so many frustrated moments with this episode.
    St Andrews is in GD Scotland people! It would’ve been a long ass trip to go to that interview, we’re talking a few long train journeys and a bus at least. Also the RSC is in Stratford, half way up the country. Where the eff are the researchers getting their information for fake UK based stuff. Is it that map meme where the whole of England is London and then there’s kilts above and dragons on the left? Additionally No one plays darts in the pub unless they’re on the pub team or a regular…I’m northern, in the land of darts-or arrers as we call them-snooker or pool is the game of pub choice. Jesus H (possibly A) Christ I hate Colin. He could have taken Spencer to the Globe and they could have had an real Shakespearean experience…more fool him. Can’t wait for Spencer to get back to Rosewood and save Aria from the Ezra insanity.
    Also dammit girls screenshot your stalker texts so you can print them and take them to the cops when they finally pull you in and frame you…it’s inevitable. Have we learnt nothing all these years!
    Amazing captions and as ever hilarious recap.

    • Yes because if A can hack your texts they can’t hack screenshots and it’s not like A has ever stolen things from the girls before. Have you learned nothing all these years? the show has done a really good job of showing why the girls can’t go to the cops. In season 1 when they told about the trophy they got in trouble. Garrett and wilden who are on the force have tried to kill them. And no one would believe them if they said they were being stalked. In this universe it wouldn’t happen.

    • Also if these are your complaints I feel bad for you when watching tv. Wether or not people play darts, the location of a school, none of these things matter. And every tv show exists in its own universe with its own rules so don’t worry about useless details. In the pll universe people play darts and St. Andrews moved. Simple.

      • I tend to make sarcastic comments on these threads about the crazy that is PLL, the folk in England seem to get that when its related to the PLL interpretation of England, which requires probably the craziest and weirdest suspension of disbelief ever, (for the people in England at least)…and this is a show where two of the main characters have killed people and then never mentioned how they feel about it again.
        I think you missed that I was joking, no need to feel bad for me. I enjoy TV…it’s entertainment, it’s fun…it shouldn’t be taken too seriously…like my original comment.

        • Some people when they complain about it are not joking. There are actual criticism of pll but instead I feel like fans always harp on “problems” that aren’t real criticisms. Like the time issue.

    • I too was wondering why the hell Spencer was still in London if she had a St Andrews intermew – also, that place doesn’t even have a station, so it’s even harder to get to than most purrts of Scotland! And, yeah, I was wondering about the Globe. Though, even if Hamlet makes sense thematicatly, I see Spencer liking something less obvipuss, and also I don’t see her being a purrist – I imagine her loving weird takes on Shakespurr… Maybe this is just because I really hate historicism, and finally feel like the occasional bit of Spencer’s whole “intense clefur girl” thing is actmewally starting to ring true – she just seemed like a TV executive’s idea of what that purrson was like fur about 4 seasons…

  7. The Royal Shakespeare Company are based in Stratford-upon-Avon, not London. They sometimes stage plays in London at other theatres, but this wasn’t qualified “I’ve got tickets for the RSC at the Garrick” or some such cutesy-sounding theatre choice would’ve made me much happier.

    • In the PLL unifurse, since time and location don’t matter, they purrobably could have just said they were actmewally going to see David Garrick in Shakespurr. It makes about as much sense as the rest of the show :p

    • The RSC also plays at the Barbican (in London) every season, along with their 3 stages in Stratford-on-Avon.
      It’s not so far to London – when I was working at the RSC, and feeling lonely/depressed, I would sometimes go to London for the evening. It was a bit of a trek, but doable.
      However the St Andrews thing was tote ridic, unless of course, she had flown in a private jet, after having taken secret flying lessons. But that would never happen in PLL, right?

  8. “And then when she’s ironing (???) the jail uniforms,”

    I KNOW, RIGHT??? This show has been pulling off a lot of ridiculous suspension-of-disbelief nonsense, but this was too much.

  9. Thank you, Heather for another winner recap. Your first paragraph is a brilliant summary of the entire PLL series and puts all this craziness in perspective. Your screen cap captions are hilarious: “I don’t know, Veronica. I told Ella I’d wait. But if you really think we have a shot.” Ashley does have chemistry with just about everyone on the show, but I am glad she kicked the pastor to the curb. She becomes boring whenever he is around. I hope he has finished his coffee by now and returned to the parsonage.

      • Yes, in a discussion over coffee in her kitchen, Ashley told the pastor that she would not hold him to his promise of marriage, in light of the trial revealing her indiscretion with Alison’s brother. The pastor wanted to stick by her, but she said no.

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