Okay! Finally! The big nighttime race thing. Let’s see, what’s important here. Well to me the most important takeaway from this episode is that, over by the volunteer tent, Aria’s wearing the coolest sweatshirt ever.

PUTTING THE STUD IN FEMME STUD

She and Caleb watch in amazement as people fawn over Mona. Apparently the cool kids loved her sob story video. They hadn’t been as worked up about anything since the Google commercial featuring the It Gets Better Project videos. Aria asks Caleb about the whole not knowing his dad thing. He found it generally non-favorable.

GIVE THE WHOLE RANGE OF OPTIONS I WOULD HAVE JUST COME OUT SOONER AND BOUGHT THREE CATS

Grandma Paula Deen sings the national anthem (uninvited) and the racers are off!

WHO TOLD YOU YOU’RE ALLOWED TO RAIN ON MYYYY PARAAAADDEEE

Spencer: Why is your grandmother singing the national anthem?
Hanna: Because she can.

Wait– where’s Emily? Oh yeah, she’s under house arrest! But her dad is leaving for a few hours and in a stroke of genius (kind of) Emily switches she and her father’s phone cases.

QUICK FINGERS. FROM ALL THE PRACTICE.

Using the power of Technology, Emily disarms the house and skip off to the nighttime charity run (I’m still not believing this is a real thing). Did she really need to sneak out? Couldn’t she have just had Paige over for some late night sneaking in IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.

COME TO MY WINDOW

Spencer, Aria and Hanna ditch the racetrack and go down to Creepy Janitor’s office. The three find Emily down there trying to break into the office with a paperclip. Obviously that will never work! Spencer takes over and successfully breaks into Creepy Janitor’s office using a bobby pin. The last dozen times I tried that while locked out of my apartment while my puppy was locked in it worked approximately not at all.

EASIER THAN GETTING INTO AN ASSHOLE

Quit cut to the finish line where Mona sees Meredith. She gives her this look I’ve only used when incredibly hot girls cut me in line at the bathroom. Like a, “I’m having a lot of feelings about you but also that was fucked” look.

I’M GOING TO FINGERBANG THAT GIRL.

Once in Creepy Janitor’s office, the girls find Ali’s diary. It was just sort of out in the open you know? Why doesn’t anyone in Rosewood seem to use bookshelves. Or safes. Or leave private things at their homes. Either way Ali’s diary instantly flips opens to a passage about Aria’s dad. Cue the pastel flashback. Look! Grace got me this amazingly perfect screen shot.

A LITTLE SUMPIN’ SUMPIN’

So yeah Ali was blackmailing Byron. C’mon guys give me something New! Aria is, understandably, upset. The Liars rip out the page and rush out of the office when they hear someone coming. The Creepy Janitor confronts them but TobAy sweeps in to the rescue as per usual. Next time he’ll probably bring a white horse. I couldn’t hate him more if I tried.

EMILY IS A LITTLE LATE TO THE SURPRISE PARTY

Just The Liars and TobAy walk out of the building, the storage shed catches on fire!

WE DIDN’T START THE FIRE, IT WAS ALWAYS BURNING SINCE THE WORLD’S BEEN TURNING.

I’m going to be honest, this probably would have been exciting/scary/thrilling except I had turned away for a second to crank up the heat in my freezing cold basement. Slightly ironic that I missed the beginning of the fire scene in doing so.

Instead of getting to watch this fire burn down, we cut to a comercial break and then to Emily’s bedroom. Is Paige in there calming Emily down with scissoring? Nope, but her dad is there on the phone with Emily’s principal.

THIS IS BOURN.

He is unimpressed. It seems Meredith was hurt in the storage fire. Emily’s dad wants Emily to let him in but is concerned his army career kept him away so long that they no longer can connect with Emily as well as he did back when she lost it and came out. He reminds her that he knows what it’s like to lose people. Like lose lose people. Um, abcFamily, we get it, he was in the army. You don’t need to constantly remind us and have him exclusively wearing army clothes. We follow this show with enough zeal to remember basic facts like that.

I’M NOT LIKE OTHER DADS. I’M A COOL DAD.

Also where is Emily’s mom? Is she not on payroll this week?

Over at Aria’s, Byron has just gotten home from driving Meredith home from the hospital. I guess they’re dating again? Or maybe she just doesn’t have any appropriate friends or family. Either way, Byron turns his previous personality on its head and goes apeshit on Aria about how he “knows what her friends are capable of.”

THE SCREAM

Turns out someone sent Meredith a note leading her into the fire and she thinks it was The Liars.

I KNOW I’M OBSESSING OVER SOMETHING SMALL, BUT THAT’S THE WEIRDEST QUESTION MARK I’VE EVER SEEN.

Aria keeps saying “No we didn’t do that,” and her dad keeps saying “Yes or Nooooo.” It’s a whole big thing.

SOUTH COAST BOUTIQUE IS HAVING A FIRE SALE?

After Aria kicks her dad out of her room she calls Spencer who has just come from giving yet another pep talk to Jason.

Aria: A set us up.
Spencer: What?
Aria: That’s why Meredith opened up that shed. A sent her over there and made it look like we did it.
Spencer: Does A go by the name of Mona? Is this her way of proving to us that she’s worthy?
Aria: I gotta go.
Spencer: Wait, Aria is it your dad? Do you want to come stay at my place?
Aria: He’s never going to let that happen.

But wait! Someone’s behind Aria’s door! Who’s at the door?

IT’S NEVER EVAN RACHEL WOOD BISEXUAL

That’s right, Byron heard that whole thing and now he knows… um… I guess I’m not sure what he knows? That A is back I guess? And that his own daughter is scared of him? There are just so many questions he won’t have answers to.

Spencer hangs up the phone and walks over to her own house. After she’s out of sight Mona comes out on to Jason’s front porch with a bandage. At first I’m sure you’re thinking what I was thinking, that Jason had started a new all mummy rock band, but no. He has a big round stab wound. But Jason took all those pictures of Aria and seemed pretty in love with her, why would he want to throw her off a train? Unless he thought that only Garret was in the box and that he had killed his sister’s murderer.

NOTHING TREATS A GIGANTIC PUNCTURE WOUND TO YOUR ABDOMEN QUITE AS WELL AS A BAND-AID.

In the final cut scene we get our usual dose of hooded A. A loosens someone’s front bike tire. I was so fucking scared it was going to be Paige. You know how she loves a good late night bike ride. Instead it was some boy with an Academic Decathlon textbook who, unsurprisingly, has an epic bike fall moments later. Looks like A needs to boost his extracurricular if he wants to go Ivy League next year.

I JUST UPGRADED MY FIXIE

Tune in next week to see A whack off members of the Anime Club, Scrabble Club and Women in Wood Technology Club (all real high school clubs I was president of). Maybe we’ll even figure out why abcFamily has to show the scariest commercials ever when I’m all alone in my basement at 11pm.

In the meantime, for those of you who miss the fashioncaps, abcFamily just started putting out Style File with the show’s costume designer Mandi Line.

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