Another episode of Pretty Little Liars is behind us…and things are just continuing to get more and more unrealistic around Rosewood. That being said, Episode 7 did (kind of, sort of) answer a few questions — or at least made us rethink some of the answers we thought we already had.
Let’s recap:
Hanna (Ashley Benson) didn’t play a major role in this episode because she was busy (rightfully) freaking out about the fact that her mom, Ashley, has been arrested for Wilden’s murder. Spencer (Troian Bellisario) informs Hanna that she overheard her mom (Ashley’s lawyer) saying there may only be two plausible scenarios for Ashley: 20 years in prison, with the defense that she killed Wilden in self defense, or life in prison for first degree murder.
When Hanna visits her mom in jail, she begs her to plead self defense, but Ashley refuses to admit to a crime she did not commit. There’s lots of crying. More to come…
Meanwhile, Aria (Lucy Hale) has her little brother, Mike, to worry about. She grows concerned when she realizes Mike never showed up to last week’s open mic night, which conveniently occurred at the same time his friend Connor’s car was smashed. After Connor started rumors about Aria, Mike promised he’d stick up for his sister, so naturally, Aria is convinced that ruining his car was Mike’s way of doing just that. But, her little bro insists that he had nothing to do with it.
She’s not the only one accusing Mike, either — the school’s Principal confronts Aria about her brother’s whereabouts during the incident (she lies to cover up for him, just in case. During the conversation, the Principal brings up Mike’s history of theft and violence, mentioning his medical condition (considering Mike hasn’t been on the show in two seasons, I’m just a tad shady on what exactly that is). The Principal threatens that Mike could be expelled.
Of course, Aria believes that “A” is setting her brother up, and when Ezra sees how upset she is over the situation, he takes matters into his own hands. Ezra confronts the principal and blackmails him with the fact that he made assumptions based on Mike’s medical history, which is apparently a major no-no. When Aria finds out it was Ezra who saved the day, she goes to leave him a Thank You note and bumps into him by his apartment — they share an emotional conversation, during which he promises to always be there for her, and a look of longing, but no reunion kiss….yet?
Emily (Shay Mitchell) put her detective work to the test in this episode. While visiting her mom, Pam, at the police station (where she works) she notices her mom lock up a key to Wilden’s apartment. Conveniently, mom leaves the room with the key to the lock box right on the table…so Emily sneaks in and has instant access to a dead guy’s house.
Emily, Aria and Spencer head over to Wilden’s, where they find nothing of importance. Until — oh wait look! An unopened package! Let’s open it in the dark! Inside are rotten steaks with a message from “A” reading, “Can’t wait to see you at our little barbecue. Kisses.” This is presumably referring to the night the lodge was set on fire with the girls inside. Spencer’s sister, Melissa, told her that Wilden set the fire, but if he never got the package…could it have actually been someone else?
Naturally, Emily wasn’t thinking too far ahead when she took a key from the POLICE STATION, and it’s her mom, Pam, who gets questioned when it’s discovered that it’s missing. Pam gets suspended indefinitely, and considering the family is already worried about money, this is obviously not a good situation. Things are made even worse at the end of the episode, when a car crashes right into Emily’s house. At the end, we see “A” purchasing the Fields’ a $50 home-repair gift card…which clearly won’t be near enough to cover the cost of an entire side of the home being damaged.
Hanna’s boyfriend, Caleb, and Spencer’s boyfriend, Toby, team up in this week’s episode to help the girls figure out what happened the night of the fire. They’ve got the tail number of the plane, but even using his expert hacking skills, Caleb can’t seem to find anything except the airport it took off from. The guys head there and talk to a man, Nigel Wright, at the front desk. In case you didn’t realize — this is the same guy who escorted Jenna to Wilden’s funeral. Connections, connections…
After some bribing, Nigel pulls up the flight info, but all it says is that the plane was flown by a “John Smith,” (clearly the guys realize this is fake) and that it landed in Delaware. When Caleb and Toby question whether or not the plane could’ve made another stop (the lodge) without reporting it, Nigel conveniently remembers that it was foggy that night, so there’s a slim chance the plane would’ve stopped anywhere else. Thinking that they’ve found nothing, the guys leave, and we see Nigel making a phone call right after (of course, we don’t hear any of it).
When the guys are discussing the confrontation later on, thankfully, Toby realizes something’s up with this guy Nigel. He pulls out the lighter he found after the fire and notices that on the pictured compass, the letters NW are bigger than the rest. NW — Nigel’s initials. He and Caleb head back for another confrontation, during which Nigel informs them that a woman named CeCe Drake told him to flub the flight report. He gets away before revealing anything else, but Caleb is able to snatch his cell phone before that.
They inform Spencer of the information they received, and she’s convinced that CeCe is the one who actually killed Wilden and started the fire, and now she’s framing Ashley for it to cover up for herself. So, does this mean she’s on the “A” team…or just trying to cover up for herself? So many questions left unanswered in this storyline…
We’ll just have to see what happens next week — only 5 more summer episodes to go!
