The theme of this episode was Girl Shit, in all of its various forms.  There was Girl Shit between Hanna and Kate, between Emily and Maya and between the core four.  This last one was the kind of Girl Shit that can only be described as an ultimate betrayal – when a group freezes out one of their own and lies (terribly) to cover their tracks.  Every group did this to every one of its members at least once in junior high school.  But I think that even compared to seventh graders, the Liars of Rosewood are the world’s biggest dumbasses when it comes to doing the thing that they do most – lying.  God, they seriously suck at it.  HARD.

From the previouslies, we could infer two important things: 1) the stolen cash being safely stored in Hanna’s bank account freezer was about to blow up in their faces – just when you thought they got away with it, and 2) Guess who’s back? Back again? Backfat’s back. Tell a friend. Yup, Hanna’s wicked stepsister Kate has finally landed in Rosewood, where she will be attending school with the Liars.  To quote Derek from Happy Endings: Drrrrrrraammmaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!

Spencer and Aria were commiserating about their absent men (except, as we know from last week’s traffic-stopping kiss, Aria and Ezra are fine, unfortunately).  Spencer was so sad about Toby that she took drastic measures and forced herself to listen to…the radio!  With its obnoxiously loud commercials and its love of playing the same ten songs on a loop so that eventually a song you liked turns into a song that makes you want to drive your car into a tree.  You can tell from Spencer’s face that even the memory of it will scar her forever.

Spencer, it's 2012 - where's your Zune?

But why is Aria lying about Ezra?  I might have been too distracted by the fact that he left his car in the middle of a crowded intersection in the rain to spin-kiss her last week – did they decide to lie to her friends about the relationship?  And if so, why?  The girls already knew and were cool with it – what’s the issue?  I guess now that she’s got her beard Holden, nobody else needs to know.

So, Backfat, aka Kate, showed up at school and she looked like this:

Business Barbie

She was also nauseatingly sweet in that way someone only is when you know they’re secretly plotting your death and/or humiliation because nobody is that nice and sickly sweet without an agenda.  It was gross.  Spencer recognized her and Backfat seemed alarmed.  I bet this is going to be GOOD!

But first and most importantly, Spencer’s Stupid Hats™ are back!  In a scene where she interrogated Backfat while trying to figure out where she knew her from, Spencer decided to dress as a character from either Good Times or Fat Albert for some reason.

What's the haps, my man? Slip me some skin!

Oh my god, Backfat’s big secret past is that she had a skin condition on her face while she was at camp.  AWESOMzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…………  Seriously, show?  Unless she caught that condition while hosting a bukkake party with all the male counselors in the woods or something equally scandalous, that shit is boring.

Back in Ezra and Aria land, Weeping Poet Dad has finally responded to the situation in a way that involves neither tears nor poetry.  He pushed the dean of Hollis College to recommend Ezra ‘Not Even on the Short List’ Fitz for the position of Associate Dean at Hollis’ satellite school in, wait for it…New Orleans!

Booyaka, motherfucker!!

It’s totally normal that a small, private, liberal arts college in Pennsylvania would have a satellite school in Louisiana, right?  Right.

Well, holy shit.  Hanna done went and made a good decision!  Welcome back to Sanityville, Han!  She finally decided to just tell Caleb the truth for once instead of acting like a crazy person.  And she was so good in the scene, too – Ashley Benson is really, really fantastic at emoting.  And also, she has successfully created a companion for Dean Winchester’s specialty:

SPLT: Single Perfect Lady Tear

Hanna spilled her guts and told him about her mom stealing the money (oh god, please don’t let Caleb be evil), that Hanna was being stalked by a mystery person (she didn’t get into specifics) and the fact that she received this text from her stalker:

HAHAHAHA

So, I think…is it possible…could it be?  Can we really finally cross someone off the suspect list?  The fact that Caleb was brazen enough to make demands of Jaws Cane Jenna (through Garrett) means that he clearly has no idea how serious Hanna’s predicament is with A.  And that kind of has to mean that he is not in any way involved in the Grand Plan, right?  Unless he’s doing it to make it LOOK like he’s not involved and to further paint Jenna and Garrett as the bad guys?  This show has taught me to never get my hopes up about learning any actual concrete information, so I don’t know how to feel right now.  One thing I do know is that Garrett is a terrible cop and is wasting the town’s money by spending his shifts sitting in his car parked ten feet from Jenna’s house.  Obsess much?

So, Holden and Aria went out again only to realize that they had both been cancelled on, so they played air hockey.  And you know what?  Aria was kind of funny and charming in this scene, no?  Like, she had an actual personality!  Maybe this Holden isn’t so bad after all.  But anyway, Holden had this on his body:

Baby hipster's got an ouchie.

Theory Time: Everyone is atwitter with visions of Fight Club dancing in their heads, but is it not possible that this bruise is an injury suffered after being hit by a car being driven by a panicky blonde outside of a greenhouse?  Since, apparently, Lucas was hiding nothing more than a gambling problem, we know he wasn’t the one who dropped the phone that night (probably).  And Holden showed up in town right around the same time.  Joincidence?  (That’s ‘COincidence’, with a ‘J’!)

Caleb successfully cracked some more code on the Phone of Mystery (before Hanna came clean) and they discovered a fake ID of Alison’s in the video – one where she had BROWN HAIR.  So, either she has an evil twin or she was stripping on the DL, right?  I’m guessing it has to be one or the other.  Later when Spencer told Hanna about it, Hanna remembered a time when she saw Allie at a salon with a brown wig, going by the name Vivian Darkbloom.  Fake Google tells them that the name is an anagram of Vladimir Nabokov, author of the famed book, ‘Lolita’, favored by literary pedos the world over. This whole scene played out like a Rube-Goldberg machine, triggering Hanna’s salon memory which triggered the Fake Google search which triggered Hanna remembering that she stole the book from Allie which triggered the girls finding an old pawn shop ticket in the book.  Which will no doubt lead to a bunch of nothing.  We still have seven episodes to go this season, so don’t get excited about anything major happening in the next five or so.

Maya and Emily were…weird this week.  Things started out supercute, with the girls making out on Emily’s bed and talking about the fact that Em’s mom was coming to visit.  Things got weird when Maya lost her damn mind and acted like a total asshat at dinner, embarrassing Emily and making her mom uncomfortable.  Something didn’t sit right in this scene – Maya seemed like more was going on than just being a pouty teenager (ha! Teenager…)

Maya felt badly for being a passive-aggressive nightmare at dinner, so she copied the movie Mermaids and made her room look like an aquarium for Emily.  And you know how she knew about that scene in Mermaids?  Because like all girls in their thirties, she loved Jake Ryan so much that she later became obsessed with Mermaids, the movie in which Cher was awesome and made lots of gross appetizers and Jake Ryan popped Winona Ryder’s cherry in a convent bell tower.  Because Maya is 32.  #NeverForget

Revisiting the Saga of Backfat, A somehow took a naked photo of Kate in the locker room before gym, and man, Hanna’s camera phone must be amazing, because check out the quality of this candid, not-at-all-posed and professionally lit photo:

Remember in gym class when you totally walked around like this all the time?

A then sent the photo out to the entire school from Hanna’s phone, which means that somebody’s in deep shit.  Also, the students of Rosewood high reacted exactly how you’d think a school full of bitchy girls and horny guys would react to receiving this photo: shock and disappointment:

So, I think that’s it from me, other than the fact that I have to tell you guys about this since I know most readers of this site are SANE and NORMAL and NOT CRAZY SHIPPER NUTJOBS and I thought you’d appreciate this totally batshit anecdote.  Okay, so, you know how some fans (very young fans I assume) love Aria and Ezra so, so, so much and call them Ezria?  And you know how bitches be crazy?  Well, apparently Lucy Hale (Aria) is currently ‘dating’ Chris Zylka (Jake from The Secret Circle, and those quotes are around the word dating because…well, I’m sure you know why they’re there).  And apparently these psycho freaks are VERY UPSET about it.  To the point where they are tweeting both of them and issuing death threats because Lucy isn’t dating Ian Harding, who plays Ezra the Perfect.  I mean…WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE WHO I HAVE TO ASSUME ARE ALL CHILDREN BECAUSE IF THEY AREN’T THE WORLD SHOULD JUST BLOW UP NOW?   I discovered all of this while searching something about the show last night and apparently it all got so crazy that Marlene King herself had to issue a cease and desist to her followers on Monday.  It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so pathetic.  Can we not organize some kind of event where all people like this are rounded up and thrown into a volcano or something?  I don’t want to hang out with them, you don’t want to hang out with them, and they certainly should not be breeding, you know?  I say just kill off the virus before it affects new generations.  And we definitely have to include the Twilight freaks as well – those people who analyze photos to see if Rob and Kristen are still holding hands or if she didn’t look supportive enough of him at a movie premiere or something.  It’s time for all of them to go. /End rant.

Okay, I’ve got both the US and Canadian promos below, so check ‘em out then hit the comments with your thoughts, theories and comments!  (Someone else is back after a long absence next week, and he’s looking pretty hot – any guesses?)  And if you are one of these people who tweets people you don’t know to attempt to threaten them into dating someone you deem appropriate for them, please introduce yourself and explain what the fuck you could possibly be thinking.  I promise not to use your IP address to hunt you down for Volcano Fest 2012!

US Promo:

Canadian Promo (ends with a HILARE exchange b/w Noel Kahn and Jenna):