The episode starts with the status quo: Aria is confused.  She doesn’t know whether Ian’s note is a confession or a suicide note.  Spencer politely says, ‘it’s both’, but you know she wanted to smack her for constantly making her explain the obvious.  Emily must be holding the Stick of Sanity (I feel like they can only be sane alone, so they must pass around a stick or something), because she’s the only one who seems nervous about the fact that Ian had been dead while supposedly texting Melissa.  This means that A was involved (and likely killed Ian, right?  If he died from the hanging and not from the gunshot wound, that would be pretty obvious to CSI-types you’d think) and that the game had just been stepped up in a major way.  But the other girls are all, ‘oh, yeah, I know, but I really just want to put all of that out of my head and take some me time right now’.

Emily gets an envelope containing a map (was this ever really explained?  One minute she was opening it and the next they were following it.  I felt like an important scene got cut somewhere) and when she picked it up, the guy at the delivery place was the same guy who Ian supposedly hired to deliver the money in the season finale.  Emily freaks.

Someone (MIKE!) approaches the DeLaurentis house with a rock, but got rock-blocked pretty quick by Jason.  Jason had the most zen approach to stopping someone from breaking into his house that I’ve ever seen.  Like, ZERO expression on his face; he just placed a hand on Mike’s arm.  I thought he might say something calm like, ‘not today, friend’, but he didn’t even do that.  Radio silence.  He is possibly even more wooden than Alcide on ‘True Blood’, if that is possible.  But did you notice that Mike was wearing a hoodie and black leather GLOVES when he was about to break in?  Is that a hint or a red herring?  That’s the thing with this show – WE’LL NEVER KNOW.  Add it to the question pile along with ‘what the hell was up with the giant foot in Lost?’ (they never answered that, right?  I stopped watched after season three).

The show definitely wants us to feel a spark between Jason and Aria, which is difficult because he has the same emotive ability as a wad of Silly Putty.  But I can definitely feel that Aria is getting a little tingly for the wad, and it scares her.  He’s a secretive and dangerous wad, and we all know Aria likes to live dangerously when it comes to her men (though something tells me Jason wouldn’t be satisfied with an evening of mask-making, if you know what I mean.  I mean he’d want to actually fuck, in case that was unclear.).  

You seem like bad news - can I sit down?

Emily is going all Beautiful Mind with the confeshicide note and A’s past texts and she’s cracked the code!  But we have to wait to find out what it is because first, Caleb has to explain his home situation to Hanna (us): he’s living with Lucas, but his foster mom still gets support checks for him.  She leaves him alone as long as he pretends to child services that everything’s cool.  The title line for the post comes from him – it’s his explanation of why he chooses to put up with his current situation rather than move to another (potentially worse) one.  This line made me laugh, because it’s terrible.  I know what they were getting at, but it’s ridiculous, and no teenage boy would ever actually say that. 

It turns out “Ian’s” note was comprised entirely of lines from A’s past text messages.  Creepy.  But surprising?  At this point, only Aria would have been surprised to find out that A wrote that letter. 

Well!  Little Mikey Montgomery has been busy the past few weeks/months – he’s been burglarizing half of Rosewood, including Emily and Spencer’s houses.  He bodychecked his own SISTER at that last one.  He promises to stop if Aria keeps her mouth shut, but she can’t possibly, right?  That’s some hardcore shit right there.  There’s no discussion of why, or WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING, so I’m going to assume that he’s collecting parts that he needs to build a rocket ship until I’m presented with something resembling an actual answer.

Emily talks to Logan, the delivery guy for hire, and he tells her that it was a woman who hired him to deliver the money that night.  When she tells Garrett the cop (stupid Emily!), he pays the guy to disappear (how much money does he have exactly?  Is the guy actually LEAVING TOWN?) and calls Jenna to tell her it’s taken care of.  Dun dun dunnnnn.  Speaking of money, I know I brought this up last time, but they continued the thread this week and I need to address it again: the storyline with Spencer and the ring MAKES NO SENSE.  She pawned it to buy the truck, which she bought.  Which would mean she spent her money.  Which begs the question, how did she get the money to go and try to buy the ring back like three days later?  Then last night, we saw her looking at rings online to try to find a replacement for her catatonic sister (seriously – someone needs to check on that fetus because Melissa seems like she’s on enough valium for ten people), and she kept searching for cheaper and cheaper options, finally giving up because she’s broke.  What happened the money she magically found to buy the ring back in the first place?  Seriously, if I’m missing something please tell me because it’s driving me bananas. 

Yay! My prediction in the first post of the season that we’d see some fascinator action in homage to Royal Wedding Fever happened!  My dreams came true right on top of Hanna’s head!  When better to try out some fun, festive bereavement gear than when the funeral you’re attending is for someone that you hate?  Speaking of the funeral though, I call shenanigans that the liars would be the ones throwing dirt onto Ian’s casket.  Hello, his fiancé was sitting right there and was the only person feeling anything resembling sadness.  But, it made for a dramatic image, so realism shmealism I guess.

We're the stars of this town, so we're doing this.

Aria’s sad because Ezra didn’t choose the funeral of a local (supposed) murderer to tell her parents the good news that he’s all up in their daughter (love-wise – I don’t think he’s physically been all up in anything other than his paper bag mask yet).  So she decides to go flirt with Jason instead, who tells her that he blacked out the night of Allie’s murder and woke up with a note in his pocket that said “I know what you did last summer’ or something.  Until Ian’s confession, he’d thought he might have been the one who killed her.  Looking back, you could really sense that he had been tormented by a deep sense of self-hatred and pain – just kidding, he’s a terrible actor.

A has GOT to have these girls bugged or something, because s/he knew exactly when to call and interrupt some big confession that Melissa was about to make to Spencer.  Of course, A called Ian’s phone, which had been placed in Spencer’s purse when they found Ian.  Now Melissa thinks that Spencer’s been fucking with her all week by sending fake texts, but for some reason didn’t also assume that meant that Spencer had something to do with his death.  That would have been my first thought.

Hanna’s white lie to Caleb’s evil foster mother involving the prestigious law firm of Dolce, Gabbana and Liebowitz worked, and Caleb got paid.  He brought her ice (why, exactly? did I miss something there?) and Chinese food, and they kissed.  It was cute.  But, he made fun of ‘Goonies’, which counts as a strike against him, no matter how slacker-sexy he may be.

The map that Emily got from A led the girls to Alison’s grave, where they were treated to the creepiest outdoor film fest ever – an extended version of the video of Alison and Ian in the woods projected onto the side of a tomb.  This version of the video went longer than the previous one, and showed that she was very much alive when Ian left that night, meaning that he definitely did not kill her.  While the girls hunted for the projector, we got a shot of Glovsey and/or A leaning against a tree with the projector under his/her arm.  With all of Mike’s skullduggery in the episode, I assume we’re meant to think that it was him, but like I said before, we’ll never know because this story will never end.  Randi, who’s been catching up on the show along with Patty (hi guys!) made a suggestion that they wrap up this mystery and start a new one for next season, a la Veronica Mars.  I am 100% behind this idea because you can’t drag this out forever without completely pissing everyone off.  Unfortunately, I don’t think that the showrunners feel the same way, so I hope you guys like metaphorical blue balls!  This guy knows exactly how you feel:

Just a quck handy? PLEASE????

 I’m starting a new feature in the recaps, because the clothes and accessories on this show are awesome/terrible, I thought I’d pick a winner/loser of the week.  My inaugural picks:

Object of lust: Hanna’s black leather jacket from the beginning of the episode – love it. SO MUCH.

Object of mockery: Aria’s entire outfit in Ezra’s office – she took one of Blanche Devereaux’s spangly, big-shouldered blouses and crammed it underneath a short, tight 90’s flygirl spandex dress.  The worst of two different decades – points for ambition.

Here are the promos for next week, where Rosewood takes a cue from every other teen soap and has an EVENT – in this case a fashion horror show!  In the meantime, hit the comments with your thoughts, theories, frustrations, and objects of lust/mockery!      

Canadian Promo:

US Promo: