Even though this was a fairly Ezra-heavy episode, it was pretty quiet on the Evil!Ezra front, which is good. I was worried that it was starting to become almost too obvious to be real, so I’m happy that they’re pulling back just a tad. We did however get some clues pointing to another gentleman of Rosewood, but I’ll get to that in a bit. Let’s talk about Ezra first – it turns out that he is kind of sort of using a fake name. Looks like ‘Fitz’ is actually short for ‘Fitzgerald’. Interesting… He claims that he did it because he didn’t want to be a writer who was constantly compared to the great F. Scott, which…fine, I guess. And he hates his family because…they used to keep all their stuff in their boring old house instead of showing it off to the world? Or something? Whatever it was, it was weak. But Aria is Aria, so she had no problem with it. She just made ‘poor you’ faces while Ezra told the heartbreaking tale of how he grew up with servants.

But I will give him one thing, his mom is a supercunt. She’s had Aria’s family investigated and then used the intel to belittle Aria in that way that only uber-wealthy WASPs can. Not only that, but she pulled the classic ‘How much will it take for you to walk away from my son?’ move, which has never worked once in the history of time. This all still doesn’t explain Ezra’s sudden influx of cash though – yes his family is rich, but he claims to not take their money, so how is he affording vintage cameras and why does he have stacks of cash in his sock drawer?

Spencer BAMFed her way into her mom’s briefcase and had Aria photograph every document in Garrett’s file. Good thing she was there, because you know that Aria would have just taken the papers and stuffed a Cosmo in the folder, thinking she’d covered her tracks. I really loved that Spencer had to translate everything that Aria read aloud. Girl looked like she was reading Chaucer the way she dragged out each word as though she was hearing it for the first time. Ugh, those Canterbury Tales were a bitch to get through. I’m so glad that I never had to read Beowulf in University, which is even older and therefore even more indecipherable.

Also hilarious was the little note that Mrs. Hastings left for herself beside a witness’s name in the file: ‘break him and it all falls apart’. As a lawyer, I can tell you that this is something we definitely do. I can’t even tell you the number of criminal files I’ve seen containing a photograph of a murder weapon with a big gold star and ‘It all comes down to this!’ scribbled in Sharpie underneath. We are a very self-motivating bunch. Aria paid a visit to the witness, a movie theater employee, who claims that he saw Maya get in Garrett’s police cruiser the night she was killed. We also learned from the file that Maya was choked out in Emily’s backyard – she wasn’t killed elsewhere and then placed there.

Does anyone else think that we might be in for a Hanna/Spencer boyfriend switcheroo? And I use the term ‘boyfriend’ loosely in Wren’s case, since he was never actually Spencer’s other half, just a fuckbuddy. But Hanna and Wren are doing some serious bonding with some major lingering glance action. And Spencer and Caleb are making sexy eyes at each other over his computer, which had to be hard for Spencer given that Caleb’s hair situation is getting worse. Long and scraggly was one thing, but long and coiffed is quite another:

Perhaps the filming of this season coincided with Tyler Blackburn’s role in an all-male version of ‘Charlie’s Angels’?

There was a moment there when Caleb was explaining his password-deciphering approach that he set himself up so perfectly to say ‘I like to go in the back door’ and I was just WAITING for it, but then they totally bitched out and he said something much more boring instead. I’d like to think that the writers wanted to go there, but Standards & Practices joke-blocked them. I ask you: if you can’t make an anal joke on ABC Family, where can you make one?

Speaking of Caleb, since returning from Cali, he’s driving a new Mercedes, using a new fancy retina display MacBook Pro, and wearing $400 worth of sweater. He claims that is mom gave it all to him after her ‘accident’. He’s sure come a long way from the scraggly foster kid who used to work for a car thief ring in Allentown, right? Now he’s a scraggly rich kid who lives…where exactly? Is he still supposed to be living with Crazy Lucas?

As for Hanna and Wren, the machinations of the late-night Advisory Board hearing regarding Mona’s placement were pretty freaking sloppy, but I did appreciate that Hanna used the old ‘Mona made me the hottie I am today’ plea to try to prevent them from moving her to an out of state facility. Even better, it fucking WORKED. Never underestimate the powers of a pretty 16-year-old girl over a bunch of middle-aged men. Even better? It made Hanna so happy that she kissed Wren, like you know she’s been wanting to. EVERYBODY wants to. I still don’t trust him, but I’d totally make out with him.

Emily was being all Lil’ Miss Overreaction throughout the episode. First, she made ONE ATTEMPT at guessing Maya’s password and when it didn’t work she got all huffy about how she guessed she hadn’t known Maya as well as she thought she had. Uh, SETTLE DOWN DRAMA QUEEN. And then later, when she discovered that she had made out a little with Paige on the night of the Big Dig, she used her body language to basically accuse Paige of sexual assault. God, Emily, she returned your drunken kiss for a few minutes – she didn’t rape you with the contents of her crisper drawer.

Emily also hung out at the boathouse with Nate, reminiscing about how she and Maya used to make paper boats and sail them on the water filled with candles. Like, on a regular basis. And wouldn’t you know it, Nate and Maya did the same thing, but with paper balloons. That’s an awfully big coincidence considering that this is something that zero 16-year-olds would actually do. Oh, and Nate made a comment to Emily about he wouldn’t want her to be afraid of him so you know what that means. Be afraid, Emily. Be very afraid.

Speaking of Nate (I finally remembered his name!), we must discuss his outfit. We all know that wifebeaters pretty much always read as douchey. Exhibit A:

But there’s just something about a fancy, gussied-up wifebeater that absolutely screams ‘I AM A TOTAL JACKHOLE’, isn’t there?

Speaking of fashion, I just have to point out that Spencer is so cultured and wealthy that even her exposed bra straps come across as classy and moneyed-seeming. A nice chic metallic, color-coordinated with the outfit – it even manages to elevate the aforementioned wifebeater to something almost refined. Nicely done.

BT Dubs, I know what you’ve been thinking, but have been too afraid to say out loud: ‘I’d really like to get Nicole a gift to celebrate the upcoming Canadian Civic Holiday, but I just have no idea what she’d like!’ First of all, aww, you don’t have to do that. But second of all, if you insist, please track down Hanna’s awesome gold earrings and buy them for me. They are perfect, and I think they’d really tie the second-last long weekend of the summer together.

I want, I need.

So, that pretty much covers it. Oh, except for the fact that Byron made a brief, weep-filled appearance to tell Aria that Center Stage got the job at Rosewood High (Ella will be so pleased!), and to assure Aria that she is definitely not ruining Ezra’s life. This is true; Ezra is doing a fine job of that all by himself, but it still didn’t ring true that he was so emphatic about how lucky Ezra was to have her in his life since we all know that he would castrate Fitz himself if he had a chance and also the balls to do it.

The Glovey Shot: A, or someone in a hoodie, withdrawing a large sum of cash from the bank. The clues this season all seem to be based on cash and ice cream. If I was Mrs. Hastings, I’d have a document in my file that looked like this:

Money & Ice Cream – Make the connection and A will go down!!!

So, what did you think of the episode? Did you laugh when you saw that Maya’s site is called ‘Maya Space’, yet another clue that she’s actually 32 because what 16 year old these days even knows what MySpace was? Did Caleb’s money situation make any hairs on your neck stand up or is he telling the truth? Are you excited that Toby finally sacked up and told Spencer that he was going to find out what was going on with her whether she wanted him to or not? (I was!) Hit the comments and talk to me! Also, for real – if anyone happens to stumble across a link to those earrings, I’m counting on you to share the intel with me.

Here’s the preview for next week, which is called ‘The Khan Game’. Are you already excited? Even better, it looks like Noel Khan is throwing a party that turns into a big game of Truth or Dare, and that Jenna is there acting all Jenna-y. All signs point to awesome.