Pretty Little Liars Recap: “Cabin in the Woods”

This week’s episode of PLL started out with Hanna and her mom awkwardly trying to move a large potted plant for no apparent reason. Hanna’s not being too helpful, but when she eventually gets up she finds a note that was presumably hidden underneath it. It’s from Maya to Emily, saying she has something she needs to tell her, and also that her cellphone has been stolen. It’s dated the day she died – because I know I always date my cryptic notes and leave them under random plants that no one ever touches! 

Meanwhile, over at Ezra’s, there’s still some obvious tension between him and Aria over the revelation of his secret love-child. Ezra and Aria are having some uncomfortable morning banter over jalapeno bagels (which, apparently, are a real thing). Aria is still asking a lot of questions about Maggie, and Ezra tells her he didn’t want to unload all his baggage when they first met. He also points out that it took Aria a while to tell him about Jenna and A. Valid point, Ezra!

As usual, the girls spend almost no time at school, and then they’re back to hanging out at the ever-popular coffeehouse. Hanna is stalking Maya’s videos like her life depends on it at the local coffee shop – very discreet - when Wren pops in since, you know, if you sit in the coffee shop long enough, every person in Rosewood will eventually make an appearance. Wren is obviously smitten with Hanna, but she shoots him down and says another kiss can’t happen. How can she resist that accent?! Is it me, or is Wren always just a little too understanding and polite? I’m starting to think he’s up to something!

Since Spencer is “the smart one,” she spends more time at school than the others, although she rarely seems to be doing actual schoolwork. She has chat with Emily about Maya and Nate. She says Toby is working out in Bucks County for the time being, which is good because it means another week that I don’t have to watch his terrible acting. Yay! The convo ends when Paige arrives and she and Emily make plans for later on. If there’s anything I’ve learned on this show, every time you make “normal” plans, something is going to happen to screw it up.

Meanwhile, Aria’s mom (who also spends most of her time at Rosewood High doing non-school things) is having a romantic lunch in her classroom with her Ryan Gosling-wannabe coffee shop hunk. I’m not making this up. Aria walks in and things get pretty awkward, but Aria is happy for her mom. Too bad for Ryan Gosling II that Aria’s mother is dating about half the town. By the way, does she mention that she has another date scheduled with Pastor Ted? Hanna’s mom is gonna be pissed!

Hanna is getting even creepier about Maya and has now blown up and printed pics from every one of Maya’s videos and is going through them – even Emily is weirded out by her obsession. Hanna reveals that she is dating Caleb in secret until they can catch A, so she needs to do everything possible to find out who A is. They realize some of the pics of Maya – in which she’s wearing her PJs…in the morning – are from Noel Kahn’s cabin. That can’t be good! And I’m a little impressed Hanna actually figured something out for once.

A bunch of random stuff occurs: Nate has a confrontation with Jenna at the coffee shop, Paige is bummed she can’t swim in an upcoming meet, and Spencer sneaks into the boys’ locker room to snoop through Noel’s phone, doesn’t find anything, and gets caught by Noel. Awkward. 

Emily and Hanna get the brilliant idea to sneak around the Kahn cabin to find clues, because there’s no way that can go wrong, right? The Kahn cabin is disgusting and has about 100 mounted deer heads, 1,000 red solo cups, and bras just thrown everywhere. Hanna sneaks into the biggest board game closet ever, and finds a secret door behind the game cabinet – she’s a regular Nancy Drew this week! Inside the secret room is a grimy sleeping bag and a duffel bag that Emily recognizes as Maya’s. Why the heck would Maya hide out here? Maya has a card that Emily made for Ali on her 14^th birthday. Suddenly the door locks and all the windows dramatically shut, because I’m sure this filthy old cabin really comes with a high-tech lockdown mode.

Meanwhile, Spencer gets a blocked email that appears to be from Noel, linking to security footage of the cabin from the night Maya died. Seriously, why do they have so much security for that cabin? Is there a hidden drug lab or something I’m missing, because it definitely seems like overkill? And if the Kahns are so concerned about the darned cabin, you’d think they’d tell their sons to quit having those wild Truth or Dare ragers there on the regular and leaving bras hanging from the ceiling! Oh well.  

Aria is totally useless this episode and is hanging out at the coffee shop and chatting with her mom’s boytoy about how he’s not seeing anyone else. Yawn.

Back at the cabin, Hanna and Emily are totally trapped. They start smashing the glass out of all the boarded-up windows (I hope the Kahns are getting this on their security cameras, ’cause they’re definitely going to want to send a bill for that damage). Hanna stabs herself in the leg with some glass and ruins a cute pair of pink pants. Emily seems to think Hanna’s going to die from blood loss and gets amazing super-strength to finally break through one of the windows. When they get outside there is red spray paint on the side of the cabin that says: “I’M SAVING YOU FOR LATER –A.” Again, I hope those useless security cameras caught A’s graffiti act on film, but I doubt it.

When Emily and Hanna finally make it home, Emily wants Hanna to go to the hospital, but she doesn’t want to explain how she got hurt so they call Wren. He arrives, gives Hanna some Frankenstein-esque stitches while she lies on the kitchen table, and cooks her some dinner. This guy is definitely too good to be true; he’s gotta be a lunatic! Wren tries to get romantic and Hanna shoots him down again, but he doesn’t seem to mind.

Nate shows up at Emily’s while she’s waiting for Paige. In the episodes without Toby, Nate totally replaces him as my least favorite character. Nate is crying again because he is emotional about losing Maya, which seems a little ridiculous, since Maya did not mention Nate once…ever. Do we really even have any proof that this guy is her cousin and not just some nut that reads people’s obits and then pretends to be their family so everyone will feel bad? Then Nate and Emily start kissing just as Paige walks up; I just knew their plans wouldn’t work out!  Paige storms off, kicking over a trash can that no one seems to hear, just before Em puts a stop to the awkward makeout sesh. Paige then texts that she’s not feeling well and won’t be coming.

The next day, Emily and Paige talk in the locker room about the night. Paige is being passive-aggressive, but Emily doesn’t seem to put two and two together and guess that Paige saw her and Nate. She seems like she’s about to ‘fess up, though, but is interrupted by the coach.

Ezra and Aria are still being pointless and awkward at his apartment, and he politely hints that he’d like Aria to leave. Can you really blame him? She thinks he’s still mad at her, but then he blurts out that he’s found Maggie and she’s living in Delaware. I suspect she’ll pop up in next week’s episode, probably at the coffeehouse.

Later, the girls are watching the cabin security camera footage. It shows Maya riding up to the Kahn cabin on a bicycle and going around back. Noel and still-blind Jenna (or was she pretending by that point? I can’t keep track) arrive and start making out as they go in the front door. Then Maya sneaks back out and is violently grabbed by an assailant outside of the footage frame. This proves that Noel, Jenna, and Garrett are all innocent in the murder of Maya. Gasp! By the way, I thought Maya was murdered in Emily’s yard? This makes no sense!

The final scene shows A hanging up a bunch of identical black hoodies and listening to a news story about the court case against Garrett, and then switching to Wheel of Fortune. Whelp, that was a pretty useless clue. I really have no idea what’s going on with this new A!

With only two weeks to the summer finale “BetrayAl” event, what do you think is going to happen? My money is on Wren and/or Nate being up to something, but I’m sure we’ll be left with more questions than answers, as usual! Oh, the suspense!