'Pretty Little Liars' Recap: Spencer Is Under House Arrest, Ezra Thinks Mrs. Dilaurentis Is 'A'

by UInterviewMarch 5, 2014, 12:00 amNews >

Spencer becomes convinced she attacked Alison before her disappearance and Ezra shares his theory that Mrs. Dilaurentis is A in Pretty Little Liars’ “Cover for Me.” After last week saw not one, but two liar breakdowns, this week’s episode found both Spencer (Troian Bellisario) and Aria (Lucy Hale) struggling to pick up the pieces while Hanna (Ashley Benson) and Emily (Shay Mitchell) get proactive.

Since finding out that Ezra (Ian Harding) has been spying on her and her friends, Aria is drowning herself in college frat parties at a prospective students week at Syracuse University, where her father is teaching. She drinks and makes out with a new guy, Riley (Nick Roux), another prospective student. The two of them indulge in a short fling, but actually form a sweet bond. Riley is a musician who is struggling to convince his parents that he wants to study music and he gives Aria a safe escape from her dangerous life in Rosewood. In the end, he returns home to talk to his parents and Aria heads back to Rosewood. It doesn’t look like Riley will reappear anytime soon, though Aria did tell him to look her up if he was ever in Rosewood.

Spencer Thinks She Attacked Alison

Like Aria, Spencer is also MIA after being sent off for a quick three-day stint in rehab for detox. Upon her return, her mother informs her that she will not be returning to school right away. Instead, she will have her assignments brought to her at home, where she will have no access to her phone or laptop and will be monitored by a live-in sober coach, Dean (Nathaniel Buzolic). The worst part: no friends – Spencer has effectively been cut off from the world and is not even allowed visitors.

Spencer is also still suffering from withdrawal and begins to have hallucinations about the night Ali disappeared. At least, they might be hallucinations. They may also be flashbacks, pieces of memories that Spencer had forgotten now rushing back to her. On the night Ali disappeared, Spencer was drunk and high, so she doesn’t remember what happened when she ran out of the barn after Ali, but her hallucinations are making her think she attacked Ali with a shovel, something both Cece and Mrs. Dilaurentis (Andrea Parker) may have seen. Her suspicions are fueled when she goes to bed one night to find dirt piled at the foot of her bed with a note from A that says, “I know you dug her grave. Now I’m digging yours.”

The next day, Mrs. Dilaurentis stops by and appears to taunt Spencer, making cryptic comments about her daughter’s death and commenting on Spencer’s freshly cleaned sheets.

While Spencer is forced to bond with Dean over grass shots and long runs, Emily and Hanna are having a hard time sitting in Mr. Ezra Fitz’s class in school. Emily, fueled by anger and her realization that Ezra told Mona to date Mike so that he could get more information on them, confronts Mr. Fitz about what an awful person and teacher he is.

Later, Emily talks to Mona (Janel Parrish) who says that she and Ezra had a deal: she would help him spy on the girls if he took out anything incriminating about her in the book. She hasn’t read the whole thing, she says, only pages that mentioned her, but she thinks that Ezra knows who A is.

Hanna doesn’t even want to be in the same room as him, so she skips last period and heads to the coffee shop to apologize to Detective Holbrook (Sean Faris) for trying to kiss him. Holbrook accepts her apology and uses the opportunity to confront Hanna about the note Paige slipped into his car that said that Alison was still alive. Hanna freaks out when she reads it, but manages to keep her cool and insists that she has no idea what the note is about and definitely did not write it. Holbrook tells her he doesn’t really believe that Ali is alive, but he has something else up his sleeve. The next day, Hanna bumps into both Detective Holbrook and his partner and they try to get her to confess to writing the note by playing good cop/bad cop. Hanna tells them she did not write the note, again, but Holbrook thinks that there’s more to the story. That night, Hanna spots Holbrook and his partner taking Mrs. Dilaurentis aside, and she is positive they must be telling her about the note.

When Hanna’s not running into Holbrook, she’s going out with Travis (Luke Kleintank), who finally asks her out on a date. The two go to dinner, but Hanna is hopelessly distracted and spends the entire night texting Emily. Travis, ever the sweet gentleman, assures Hanna that it’s ok when she has to leave early after getting an SOS text from Aria, and Hanna gives him a short kiss for his troubles before running off.

Could Mrs. Dilaurentis Be 'A'?

After Aria’s week away, she returns to Rosewood a woman on a mission and storms into Ezra’s apartment. She tells him that he has to leave town and never come back. She doesn’t want to see him, talk to him, or have to think about him ever again. He tries to convince her that they can move past this, but Aria isn’t interested. At first, she doesn’t even want to take the copy of his manuscript he offers, but she takes it when he tells her that he has uncovered some things that might help her and her friends. He also tells Aria that he went to New York to return the advance he got for his book, but Aria says it’s too late.

Aria grabs the manuscript and texts her friends for an SOS and the girls all meet up at Emily’s house. Spencer, after receiving a letter from Toby (Keegan Allen) postmarked from London (is Wren involved?), stole her cell phone back from her parents and snuck out of the house to meet them. Once gathered, Aria tells her friends that, according to Ezra’s manuscript, Mrs. Dilaurentis could be A. Emily and Hanna admit that Mrs. D could be creepy, but they didn’t really think she could be A. Spencer, on the other hand, realizes that Ezra may have gotten it right. She tells Emily, Hanna and Aria about Mrs. Dilaurentis’ creepy visit to her house that day and breaks down and tells them that she thinks she hurt Alison that night. Maybe Mrs. Dilaurentis, as A, wants to stop the girls from bringing Ali home because she wants to protect her daughter from Spencer and is now targeting her. The girls tell her that they don’t believe she hurt Ali, not for a second, but Spencer isn’t all that reassured.

Finally, when Spencer gets home, she tries to confront her mother about what really happened the night Ali went missing. Her mother says that they ‘covered for her,’ but refuses to say anything else, which doesn’t do anything but strengthen Spencer’s belief that she hurt Alison. As Spencer gets ready for bed, she is startled by the light being turned on in Ali’s room next door. She goes to the window to look out, and Mrs. Dilaurentis is seen creeping out behind her.