Pretty Little Liars Recap: Hanna In Handcuffs; Emily And Spencer Check Out Colleges

The Pretty Little Liars girls continue to fall apart in last night’s episode, "Gamma Zeta Die," with Spencer (Troian Bellisario) becoming more consumed by her quest to discover the truth about Allison (Sasha Pieterse), Emily (Shay Mitchell) struggling to find a path to college without swimming, and Hanna (Ashley Benson) growing desperate to protect her mother’s secrets. As for Aria (Lucy Hale), she caught a bit of a break this week with a car of bees being her biggest problem – beats murder and arrest!

Hanna, unable to stop wondering about her mother’s involvement in the murder of Detective Wilden (Bryce Johnson), becomes increasingly reckless. Spencer, Emily, and Aria try to convince her to leave it alone, but Hanna doesn’t listen, and, without Caleb (Tyler Blackburn) to reason with her, she ends up putting herself and her mother in more danger.

First, it’s time for a college-info session at school, although Emily is the only one who’s really interested. After hurting her shoulder, she can no longer count on a swimming scholarship to get her into college and knows her parents cannot afford to pay for college themselves. So when Spencer, having received a stern speech from her mother, Veronica (Lesley Fera), says she has an appointment with a private college guidance counselor, Emily decides to crash it. And, just like that, cracks start to form in the bond between Spencer and Emily. While Spencer’s family has the money to pay for private counseling, Emily’s doesn’t, and she finds Spencer’s lack of interest in the college counselor ungrateful.

Hanna declares she wants to go to the Fashion Institute, even though her mother suggests it might be good to have other options, and Aria doesn’t seem preoccupied with college at all. Instead, Aria’s main focus this week was to protect her mother, Ella (Holly Marie Combs) from ‘A’. As if to give her extra motivation, ‘A’ pulls one of her grossest pranks yet, filling Ella’s car with bees, landing Ella in the hospital. (Fear not, save from being ‘puffy,’ Ella is fine.) To get her mother off the continent and across the Atlantic — to Austria for a few months with her boyfriend — Aria must convince her younger brother, Mike (Cody Christian), that he’s being selfish asking her to stay home. The two come to blows, with Mike accusing Aria of wanting their mother to leave so she could go back to having a relationship with Ezra (Ian Harding). Byron (Chad Lowe), Aria’s father, manages to convince Mike that his mother deserves to go to Europe, and the whole Montgomery family comes together for a peaceful family game night.

After the meeting with the young (and cute) college advisor, Emily and Spencer head off to Cicero College for a weekend visit. Spencer, preoccupied with her search to find the person Allison was calling on the mysterious phone number, doesn’t realize that Emily actually wants to visit the college to try to get a sorority scholarship, not to look for they guy Allison was calling the summer she went missing. And, that night, when they show up to the sorority party, Spencer completely dismisses the school, earning herself a well-deserved scolding from Emily. So, while Emily socializes with preppy sorority girls, Spencer goes around the party, asking frat guys if they recognize Allison.

As Emily gets the official sorority tour, a set of creepy masks and Greek paddles catches her eye. Noticing her curious glances, Emily’s tour guide tells her that the masks represent an old house mother who, legend had it, would paddle the girls into submission, and had a sixth sense when it came to girls breaking the rules. (Fans will note that masks have been a huge recurring symbol/theme this season – could this be the origin?)

At home, Hanna overhears a phone conversation between her mother, Ashley (Laura Leighton), and Veronica, who Ashley went to for legal advice about her potential arrest for Wilden’s murder, and freaks out. Hanna goes through her mother’s closet and finds her father’s gun, allegedly stolen by her mother the night of Wilden’s death, hidden in her things. Unable to get a hold of any of her friends (except for Spencer, who hangs up on her), Hanna takes the gun and goes to the sorority party to look for Spencer and Emily.

At the party, Emily is being hit on by the college advisor who is also in attendance, and Spencer is still trying to interrogate drunken frat boys when Hanna arrives. When Hanna shows Spencer the gun, Spencer finally realizes that Hanna needs her, and goes to find Emily. Looking through the sorority house, she finds a false wall that hides a super creepy, abandoned, secret room. Old timey music (an ‘A’ signature) begins to play when she hits the light switch – the only things in the room are a boom box, some furniture, and a pink phone. Zeroing in on the phone, Spencer plugs it in and calls Aria.

Aria is equal parts freaked out and frustrated. Spencer found the phone – but who’s is it? It certainly wasn’t a boy who was seeing Allison (the phone is in a sorority house, after all). Leaving that mystery for another time, Spencer leaves to rejoin Hanna and Emily.

Ah, if only Spencer had left the creepy phone room a few minutes sooner! Left alone with the gun at the party, Hanna impulsively grabs an empty beer mug (curiously out of place considering everybody else at the party is drinking from plastic cups) and runs outside. Emily spots her from afar and follows, but loses her in the woods, and finds Spencer instead.

Unfortunately for Hanna, before Emily and Spencer can find her and talk her out of whatever her horrible plan is, Hanna is caught trying to bury the gun, using the beer mug as a shovel, by the police.

While Hanna gets taken away by the police in handcuffs, Spencer and Emily receive a taunting text from ‘A.'

Finally, the episode ended with the traditional peek at ‘A,’ who is making tea. ‘A’ reaches for a dusty frame, and brushes off just enough dust to reveal that it is a photo of the legendary den mother of the sorority the girls visited.

Pretty Little Liars airs Tuesdays at 8 P.M. on ABC Family.