by Christine Cassis
Was I the only one who thought we were going to go an entire episode without a creepy text message from A? Of course, it wasn't to be, as the girls' phones simultaneously blew up while on their way to the police station but, boy, it was a close one. Let's look back at how the girls ended up in the back of a police cruiser.
Hanna finally gets the guts to ask mom, Ashley, if Caleb can stay with them for a while. Ashley isn't totally convinced that Caleb is the best company for Hanna. She ultimately decides letting Caleb stay in the guest room is a no go. Lucky for Caleb, the basement is still an option, so long as this secret is one Hanna can keep. Caleb sneaks around, hopping into the shower once Ashley has left for work, and in a twisted turn of events, Hanna ends up in the shower with him...fully clothed. Ashley returns home and needs to sneak in to grab her phone (which she charges in the bathroom because their massive house has no other outlets?) so Hanna, who's in the bathroom grabbing her mascara, jumps in the shower to cover her tracks but not without sneaking a glimpse of Caleb's Taylor Lautner-esque assets, if you know what I mean... All this sexual tension finally reaches its boiling point a few days later when the pair share their first kiss. YEEESSSSSSS!!!!
Aria is sick of sneaking around with Ezra and decides their relationship needs to live and breathe outside of his tiny one bedroom. She signs on as the stage manager for the play Ezra is directing at the high school, but Aria can't keep her cool under pressure and she certainly can't take orders from Mona who confuses the stage manager position with that of a personal assistant. Opting out of Mona's requests to get her a snack from the "vendy" (machine), Aria decides the public appearances for Ezria are a bit much for her to handle and quits the project.
Things continue to be less than easy breezy in Ezria land. The couple have their monthly quarrel about the future of their relationship after Aria learns that beers with Byron turned into her dad helping to get her boyfriend a job at the local college. Despite the fact that Aria previously wished for Ezra to not be her high school English teacher and instead just her boyfriend, she's upset that he's considering leaving Rosewood High. He promises a move would be more about allowing more time for his writing career but can't seem to get over the fact that Aria could soon be leaving for college (in a year and a half) anyway. The couple duke it out in a couple of passive aggressive scenes but ultimately end up making up before breaking up.
Meanwhile, Spencer and Toby are still playing detective with Jenna's Braille "214." But Spencer decides they don't have all the time in the world to sit and ponder these obscure numbers, so she steals Jenna's phone for Caleb to crack. Unfortunately Caleb isn't familiar with phones for the blind and can't seem to hack it before Spencer's one-hour deadline. They still think Ian is involved, and suspicions only grow when the girls see him speaking with Jenna at school. Since when does she know him?
But all of this running around Toby has been doing with Spencer has completely distracted him from his newly resurrected friendship with Emily. Toby tells Emily that he found out it was Jenna who turned him in (to keep him close), and he apologizes for not believing in her. They have a breakfast date but Toby blows it off for some quality mystery-solving time with Spencer. Emily shows up on his porch the next morning to find Jenna playing the flute. Without hesitation, the instigator makes a few comments and gets Emily riled up just enough to be slightly jealous. That girl definitely knows how to play her cards.
But during all the drama, there's one thing that the girls keep coming back to: a frat party Alison helped them crash years ago in which a drunk girl innocently tumbled down a flight of stairs just before being shipped off in an ambulance. Everything about that party seems completely normal, minus the tragic accident, until the girls start to dig deeper... Was it an accident? Emily remembers seeing Ian at the top of the stairs moments after the girl fell. Did he push her? And just as she was carted off to the hospital Alison checks in with her girlfriends and asks what's up with all the commotion? "You missed it?" they asked. Where was she, anyway?
As each of the girls carefully comb over the details of that night, reflecting back on their interactions with Ian, Alison's temporary disappearance and the odd coincidence that Ian was standing there at the top of the stairs when the girl fell, each of them contemplates the 1 million what ifs of that night. But only Spencer wonders what if Alison was stalking Ian? What if Alison wasn't nearly as innocent as they thought?
Spencer considers it carefully. Toby confessed to her earlier that he never peeped into Alison's room like she had once claimed he did. Ian seems to be holding back a fit of rage and instead coughed up an attitude at the mere mention of her name. What if Alison got what was coming to her like Ian said? Regardless, there is still a stalker/killer out there, assuming A is both. Otherwise, there could be two suspects out there...
But of course that's not all! The girls stumble upon a trophy from a golf tournament in Hilton Head with blood on it. Suspecting it could have been an accessory in Alison's murder, the girls take it straight to the cops. Their theory is that it's Ian's trophy and Alison's blood, since they suspect the two secretly vacationed together before Alison's death. Of course, this isn't the case. The police show up at school to bring in the girls for questioning. One of them tells the girls they should have done some research because the blood on the trophy is hardly human (in fact, it's that of a rat), never mind Alison's. What's worse is the trophy is a phony: The date on it is false, there was no golf tournament at the club that weekend.
And just as we think they've bagged the evidence to get Toby in the clear and Ian convicted, the girls receive a mass text from A that reads "Rat me out, your blood's next."
What do you think, Crushers? Has Ian teamed up with Jenna? Is Toby safe for good? Did A plant a phony trophy to get the girls talking? Tell us in the comments and on Twitter.
** Hollywood Crush Twitter