Detective Tanner finally made her move on the liars, and Mike was attacked by ‘A’ in Pretty Little Liars’ “I’m A Good Girl, I Am” – this season’s explosive penultimate episode.

Pretty Little Liars 5×24 Recap

Everything is falling apart for Spencer (Troian Bellisario), Aria (Lucy Hale), Emily (Shay Mitchell) and Hanna (Ashley Benson). The episode began in the court room, where the state has called Mona’s mysterious friend Lesli Stone (Elizabeth McLaughlin) to the stand. Lesli shocked the girls, and everyone else, when she brought out a new piece of evidence: a letter she claims Mona wrote to her a few weeks before she died on Thanksgiving. In the letter, Mona detailed a threat from Ali (Sasha Pieterse), who allegedly told her to keep her mouth shut about her fake kidnapping story or she’d end up food for the worms. Not only does Lesli incriminate Ali, she also throws all the girls under the bus, claiming that Spencer, Aria, Emily and Hanna all seemed to be protecting Ali – mentioning how Hanna barely ever left Lesli alone during her visit to Rosewood and recalling how Mike snapped at her when he found out she had been in Mona’s room.

Toby Chooses Spencer

As soon as Lesli mentions Hanna and her “stalking,” Spencer skips out of the courtroom to call Caleb (Tyler Blackburn) and tell him about this recent development. In the hallways, she runs into Toby (Keegan Allen). The two share an awkward exchange, and Spencer hints at her disappointment that Toby never called her after Hanna was arrested and mentions her sort of date with Melissa’s male roommate. Later in the day, when Emily suggested she and Spencer reach out to Toby to help interrogate a potential alibi witness for Ali, Spencer tells Emily that nothing has been the same since Toby took up the Rosewood PD uniform. It’s like he’s choosing the badge over her.

But, Toby isn’t doing too well on the job. Detective Tanner (Roma Maffia) is up to something and has all officers working on it except for Toby, and he suspects it’s because of his personal relationship with Spencer. While Spencer and Emily run around Rosewood trying to get a girl who might have seen Ali on Thanksgiving – it ends up nowhere – Toby makes a decision to confront Detective Tanner. If she asks him to choose between the badge and Spencer, he’s going to choose Spencer, and he goes to visit Spencer and tell her that. (Spoby lives!)

A Goes After Mike

Meanwhile, Hanna and Ali are reaching their emotional breaking points in prison. Caleb asks Hanna to tell the truth to somebody, anybody, and doesn’t agree with her when she says she wants to try to keep Mike (Cody Christian) out of the trial. She doesn’t want his testimony about Mona to make him a target for A. Aria is thinking the same thing, and she convinces Ezra (Ian Harding) to get Mike out of Rosewood and take him up to his cabin. She hopes that Ezra will be able to talk some sense into him because Ezra understands the very real and nearly fatal threat A poses to their lives. Andrew (Brandon Jones) is jealous of how Aria relies on Ezra throughout the trial, and swears to her that he’s there for her “24/7.”

Caleb crashes Ezra and Mike’s getaway and convinces Mike that he needs to testify in Ali’s trial. While Ezra and Caleb bicker back and forth, Mike takes Ezra’s car and heads back to Rosewood, but is stopped by what appears to be one of A’s soldiers. Caleb and Ezra find Ezra’s car pulled over on the side of the road, doors open and an arrow through the windshield. They run into the woods to look for Mike, and find themselves acting as moving targets for an A archer. They manage to escape unharmed, and find Mike tied up on a tether ball pole – the cord and ball wrapped around his neck. Ezra and Caleb cut him down, but not before Caleb takes a photo for proof. They take him straight to Rosewood PD to speak to Detective Tanner, who questions their motives. She doesn’t want to help them, and doesn’t buy their theory that someone wanted to stop Mike from testifying at Ali’s trial.

Ali Is Found Guilty, The Girls Are Arrested

It’s too late anyways: Ali took the stand for a last ditch effort to prove her innocence. Her lawyer tried to prove that she couldn’t exert the force necessary to kill Mona due to a break in her arm that never properly healed. The prosecution conveniently dismisses that idea with an old archery award Ali won at camp post-injury. Ali later tells her lawyer that she sweet talked her bunkmate into winning the medal for her, but nobody will believe her now. While the jury deliberates, Andrew appears to keep Aria company. Andrew is looking more suspicious by the second: the night before, when Aria realized Mike and Ezra weren’t answering her calls, she called Andrew in a panic but was unable to get ahold of him, and he casually mentions to her that he was a kind of boyscout when he was young – the kind who would learn archery and know about the camp grounds in the woods where Mike was beaten by A.

When the jury has reached a verdict, the girls gather in the court room, along with Detective Tanner and a duo of intimidating cops. The jury finds Ali guilty of killing Mona, and the judge doesn’t even have time to conclude the trial when Tanner and her men move in and arrest Aria, Emily and Spencer!

Next week, Pretty Little Liars season 5 concludes with an explosive season finale that has promised fans the big reveal: we’ll finally learn A’s identity! The PLL season finale airs Tuesday at 8 p.m. on ABC Family.

Article by Olivia Truffaut-Wong

Olivia Truffaut-Wong was born and raised in Berkeley, California, where she developed her love of all things entertainment. After moving to New York City to earn her degree in Film Studies, she stayed on the East Coast to follow her passion and become an entertainment writer. She lives on a diet of television, movies and food.