Pretty Little Liars: “Crazy”

I’ll admit that I felt like the last week episodes of PLL dragged a bit, but last night’s episode was chock full of Ouija boards, secret codes, creepy scenes at  the sanitarium, and even a few evil-looking baby dolls – now we’re talkin’!  With a title like “Crazy,” you know this episode was bound to be entertaining. 

The episode starts with Hanna talking on the phone to her mom, who’s away at a conference (if I were these girls’ parents, I would never let them out of my sight!). Suddenly, everyone’s least favorite detective, Wilden (groan), comes tapping at the back door. This guy always gives me the creeps, and he’s clearly pretty incompetent, since basically nothing in Rosewood has ever been solved! He tells Hanna they’ll need a blood sample from her once her mom gets back, because the mystery blood on the anklet Spencer and Jason found matches her type: O-negative. At this point her eyes basically bug out of her head and, despite her trademark sass, she manages to look completely guilty and terrified.

Later, Hanna is on Rosewood’s only block telling the girls about Wilden and they tell her not to worry (easy for them to say!). Hanna, clearly super-stressed, storms off to school for what seems like the first time in weeks (seriously, do they only show up for school once a week?). Aria, Spencer, and Emily stay behind and hit up The Brew, where they hear a voice that sounds a lot like Ali's. She turns around and, though she has the blonde hair-blue eyes-bitchy head tilt thing going on, it's clearly not Ali. Hmmm, could this mysterious stranger be the person we saw looking for apartments last week ,or is she just another red herring?

Turns out, she's Ali’s old friend (whom none of them ever heard of), Cece. Her family rented a summer home in Cape May near Ali's family's house and she even dated Jason before moving to L.A. Though Aria, Spencer, and Emily have never heard of Cece, she knows all about them. Apparently, Ali talked about them a lot. Cece says Ali was going through a rough time when they were friends, comparing her to "a broken doll." But before she can give too much info, Cece has to go back to work at the boutique across the street.

Aria, who’s rocking some fierce fork earrings, finally decides to make an appearance at school to drop off some mail to her mom who, of course, is sitting alone in her classroom. Aria notices the sexy dress conveniently hanging up for all to see, at which point her mom fesses up to having a date tonight with someone she met on the dating website that Aria signed her up for. At this point, I assume the date will be with Pastor Ted since he seems to be the (only) sort of-eligible bachelor in town lately (spoiler alert: it is).

Outside of school, Spencer is looking for Cece in an old yearbook and making some sort of weird map of Ali’s life. Toby pops up to whine about why she and Hanna lied to him to get him to go to the church dance. Get over it, dude. Is it me, or does Toby only exist to be a pain in the butt when they’re trying to uncover clues? At least he urges Spencer to go to class; somebody had to say it.

Maya’s cousin, Nate, is still hanging around Rosewood and brings Emily a candle to sniff ... for Jenna. Apparently they have a date coming up. Emily’s not too pleased for obvious reasons and simply says Jenna will like it because "she has a highly developed sense of smell." Zing!

When Hanna and Aria get home from school, there's a Ouija board sitting on Hanna's kitchen counter with the letter “A” circled in red. Hanna goes to pick up the planchette – a word they all seem to know but I’ve always called it “the hand thingy” – and gets pricked by pins on the bottom. There's a typed note saying: "See how easy it is for me to get your blood?"

Hanna reluctantly admits that the planchette is the item she left in Ali’s casket at her funeral and says her and Mona played with it just days before Ali's body was discovered. Cue flashback: Mona insists they play with the Ouija board and asks if the spirits know what happened to Ali, despite Hanna's objections. The planchette starts to move and it spells out A-L-I-V-E. Cue thunder and lightning as Hanna looks up and sees a vision of Ali standing outside the patio door. Spooky!

Back in the present, suddenly a potted plant slams against the same patio door.

Meanwhile, Spencer runs into sweaty, greasy Jason outside of school, and he’s pissed their detective work cleared Garrett instead of putting him away for good. He says he's done looking for answers, but he does have to look for his dad at the airport later, since he's coming into town. Spencer asks about the "intense" summer Cece mentioned. Jason says everything with Cece is intense. "Did it end on a bad note?" Spencer wonders. "You could say that," he says, before running off (hopefully to shower).

Emily is helping Nate shop for more gifts for Jenna; what a pal. Of course they go to Rosewood’s one boutique, where Cece is working. Cece pulls Emily aside and asks what's going on between them. Soon, she realizes Emily's "the one with the giant crush on Ali." Em tells Cece she's upset Nate wants to go out with Jenna.

Later that day, Ella’s at The Brew in her way-too-formal-for-coffee new dress waiting for her blind date to show up. In the meantime, she’s flirting with a barista who appears to be about 22 – maybe they can double date with Ezria? Pastor Ted walks in (big surprise. Double groan; this guy just bugs me) and says he’d rather get ice cream from a cart outside instead of coffee, making Ella even more overdressed for the occasion.

Aria goes to visit Mona at the sanitarium and, magically, she can have visitors again (we saw A change her visitor status earlier this season), but they need to be supervised by the nurse, who looks like a stereotypical high school lunch lady (you know what I’m talking about).

Mona and Aria kill time in the usual way, by building an elaborate house of cards. Doesn’t everyone pass the time like that? No? Finally Mona asks the clearly not-too-bright nurse to get her meds so she can ask Aria why she's really there. Aria is quick to tell Mona about the Ouija board on Hanna's kitchen table. She tells Mona to think about Hanna and begs her to tell her who's trying to hurt her. Unfortunately, the nurse inconveniently returns and announces that visiting hours are over. Mona only says: "It's not me. Tell Hanna I'm sorry."

Mr. DeLaurentis shows up in town and seems like a total pompous jerk. Hanna goes over and apologizes for something we’re not clear about but he doesn't accept her apology (what a meanie!). Hanna decides to pop over to Radley to see if Aria having any luck with Mona and, when she finds out she didn’t learn anything, they decide to break in because, ya know, institutions for the insane don’t have much security.

Emily's leaving The Brew when she runs into Cece, who asks what happened with Nate. Cece then takes Em’s phone and calls Jenna, threatening to claw her eyes out if she goes near “her boyfriend,” Nate. Ouch, a little too soon for the blindness jokes, isn’t it? Emily is appalled, but Cece says she was just doing what had to be done. Looks like there’s a new Queen B in town.

Ella’s not feeling her date with Pastor Ted and his Reverend-Camden-wannabe attitude (yup, a Seventh Heaven reference)…actually, she just doesn’t like the way he spoons his ice cream, so she ditches him to return to flirting with the young barista (good choice). I have a feeling we’ll be seeing more of him.

Back at Radley, Hanna, and Aria sneak into Mona's room pretty easily. Mona plays dumb with Hanna, who's not buying it. Hanna tells her that Alison's dad is back and says Mona is the only one who knows about the night she saw Ali.

We flashback to Hanna and Mona walking around Rosewood. Mona tells Hanna about a new code they’ll use in which the first letter of each word spells out the word they actually mean to say. Suddenly, a car pulls up and Ali's dad rushes towards them, screaming at Hanna for giving Ali's mom hope. He warns her to stay from his family. Hanna confesses to Aria in the present that the night with the Ouija board, when she saw Ali on the patio, she called Ali's mom and told her Ali was alive, only to learn her body was discovered just three days later. When she's done with the story, they realize Mona is gone – way to be observant, girls. 

In the meantime, Spencer helps Jason cover up the fact that he was driving drunk and hit a parked car. When she gets home (whilst her car is still somewhere in the middle of the road running and with the door wide open), Toby whines some more. Before she can return to her car, Detective Wilden shows up with some questions about why she abandoned it (don’t most people just frequently wander away from their vehicles while driving?). Toby covers for her by saying it most have been stolen since they were together in the house all night. Just when Toby seemed a little cooler, he starts whining again the second the door closes.

Back at Radley, things are getting scary. Hanna and Aria are looking for Mona when they notice the door to the old Children’s Ward is partly ajar. Then they see a lock on the door that's been picked open with the tweezers Hanna used on Mona during her makeover session. They sneak in and hear humming, which they follow; apparently they've never seen a horror movie! Aria and Hanna walk through the creepy abandoned basement with giant cribs until they reach Mona. She’s brushing the porcelain hair of a doll that would probably give Chucky nightmares. Then she starts repeating partially nonsensical phrases over and over.

"Miss Aria, you're a killer, not Ezra's Wife."

"Where were we? Maya's away sleeping sweet. Until Garrett's all rosy, count on me."

The nurse comes to take Mona back to her room.

"No one to save Ali from evil," she says repeatedly before the nurses reach her.

"I missed my dolls," Mona says as the nurses take her upstairs, still repeating the non-sentence sentences.

I felt pretty clever about whipping out my pad and pen and cracking the code (duh, it’s the same code about using the first letter of each word that Mona explained to Hanna in the flashback scene) – but what the heck is www.masssugar.com? 

Hanna’s sleeping over at Aria’s and sees  another creepy-looking doll next to the bed that’s apparently Aria’s (seriously, doesn’t anyone in Rosewood have a plain old Cabbage Patch Doll?) and suddenly realizes Mona was using the code. Of course, she can’t figure it out alone, so all the girls gather, even though it’s nearly midnight and probably a school night. Hanna fills them in on how the code worked and Spencer's quick to realize "No one to save Ali from evil" spells out "Not safe."

The other phrase -- about Maya and Garrett -- spells out a website: www.masssugar.com (M.A.S. being Maya's initials, Emily explains.) I felt momentarily smug that I already figured this out, but then remembered I’m about ten years older than the show’s primary demographic.

When they go to the site, they see a picture of Maya with the text, "What's the magic word?" beneath the photo. Then, a pop up box comes up asking for the password, which no one knows. Aria wonders aloud: "Did she mean Maya wasn't safe, or we're not?"

The only phrase they didn't decode yet was "Miss Aria, you're a killer, not Ezra's Wife," which translates to: "Maya knew."

In the usual black-gloved epilogue, we see A moving through the Children's Ward at Radley until s/he reaches the dolls Mona was playing with. The gloved hands pops off one doll's head to reveal a recorder that has the entire Aria, Spencer, and Hanna convo in the basement on tape. Was A working with Mona or spying on her?