Pretty Little Liars - Season 3 Episode 10 - Recap and Review - What Lies Beneath
Pretty Little Liars begins its forward march to the upcoming betrayal in the summer finale in two weeks, and “What Lies Beneath” ramps up the tension while downplaying the severity of what's coming by focusing on new potential romances. As the episode opens, Hanna (Ashley Benson) finds a letter addressed to Emily from Maya, asking Emily to meet her. Hanna immediately tells the other girls about it, operating under the theory that Maya (Bianca Lawson) discovered something that implicated Garrett in Ali's murder. This theory is bolstered when Emily (Shay Mitchell) discovers that the note is dated the night Maya was murdered.
It's a tense episode, undercut by the furtherance of several of the more recent romantic developments. Front and center is the business between Hanna and the relentlessly good-looking Dr. Wren Kingston (Julian Morris), who approaches her at The Brew to follow-up on their kiss. Hanna is clearly attracted to him, but is simply in no position to be seeing anyone right now, between the drama with Caleb and Wren's own history with Spencer (Troian Bellisario). The good doctor seems to be understanding, but there's always this undercurrent of menace about him, as though he's more bitter than he's letting on, indicating that maybe his charming persona is a thin veneer, a hollow facade that comes closer to breaking with each rejection. Am I going crazy, or is anyone else getting these weird creeper vibes from the guy? Sure, it's a little less creepy when he's smooth-talking in the Queen's English, but a spiffy accent will only take you so far. Yes, he eventually comes to Hanna's rescue by patching up her wounded leg (more on that later), but I'm not entirely certain he isn't the one who stabbed her in the first place, as a pretense for showing up at her house to make another ill-advised seduction attempt. If you thought Ezra dating a minor was wrong, he's got nothing on Wren, who's going for his second in as many seasons.
Hanna, meanwhile, is more proactive than ever in trying to resolve the “A” mystery, as she feverishly investigates the Maya leads, causing Emily to suspect her motivations. Hanna defuses the tension by explaining that she needs to solve the mystery of “A” so she and Caleb (Tyler Blackburn) can be together again, as they're currently pretending not to see each other in order to keep Caleb safe. It's a solid motivation, completely in line with the character, but it remains somewhat confusing as to why Caleb, a bad boy-type who's more than capable of taking care of himself, would allow his girlfriend to go it alone, especially after his declaration last week that he'd help stop “A” whether he had Hanna's permission or not. Perhaps it's a red herring? I would be fairly devastated if the new “A” turned out to be Caleb, though I have no idea how they'd work around his helping the PLLs break into Maya's website. But my theory persists based on last week's end credits revelation that “A” just rented an apartment in Rosewood. Caleb revealed that he's no longer living with Lucas, so who exactly is he staying with in Rosewood? We saw “A” in another end credits stinger going to pick up money at the bank. My theory is Caleb's ridiculously rich mother wired him money to get himself a new apartment. It makes Caleb “pretending” to be “A” last week all the more vicious a red herring. But that's just my own crazy theory, and I'm kind of hoping I'm not right. Then again, every possibility has to be examined on a mystery-intensive show such as this.
In fact, the main thrust of “What Lies Beneath” is the potential involvement of Noel Kahn (Brant Daugherty) in Maya's death and/or the disappearance of Ali's body. Following the events of last week's party at the cabin, the girls are more suspicious than ever, and so the PLLs begin tracking Noel in order to find an opportunity to snoop around his locker and his family cabin, particularly after Hanna pieces two pictures of Maya side-by-side, revealing that she was at Noel's cabin some time before she died. So while Spencer goes through Noel's locker during football practice, Hanna and Emily sneak off to snoop around the cabin.
In the cabin, Hanna and Emily find Maya's bag which contains, among other things, a card from Emily to Ali for her 14th birthday (which Emily presumes Maya must have found among Ali's things upon moving into her old house – but then, why keep it?) and the ticket to San Francisco she had allegedly purchased. Of course, it's not merely the stub of a ticket – it's the whole thing. Conclusion: Maya never left Rosewood.
As if on cue, the girls are locked in the cabin by “A,” and have to smash their way out, but not before their attacker punctures Hanna's thigh, drawing blood (recalling several episodes back, when “A” remarked on how easy it was to get Hanna's blood). As Emily smashes a way out, smartly tying off Hanna's wounded leg, the girls find a message spray-painted on the side of the cabin. “I'm saving you for later.” This is potentially a more dangerous “A” than the last, a person with no qualms about physically hurting the girls in addition to torturing them emotionally and psychologically.
Speaking of psychological torment, Noel catches Spencer rummaging around the locker room. This leads to an email when Spencer gets home, from a blocked ID, telling her to “stay out of my locker.” Included is a video with the additional message that this was probably “what you were looking for.” Attached is security footage from Noel's cabin. Cross-referencing the date on the footage with the coroner's report on Maya's estimated time of death, Spencer realizes that the video was taken the night Maya died. As the video goes on, a hooded figure on a bike arrives: Maya.
Meanwhile, Aria (Lucy Hale) grows increasingly uncomfortable with her mother's dating, as she goes on a date with The Brew owner Zack and another man on the same day, arguing that she needs to “kiss a few frogs” on her way to finding a prince. It unsettles Aria to see her mom kissing someone other than her dad, but that's hardly the only reason she has to be unsettled. She and Ezra (Ian Harding) still aren't past the revelation that he got a girl pregnant at 18. Aria feels miserable because they're “fighting without actually fighting,” and the silences are driving them farther apart. While watching a movie, Ezra admits to being tired and wanting to just go to bed, which leads Aria to confronting him about the Maggie situation. He reveals that he knows where Maggie is. She's living in Delaware and he knows how to contact her. Aria asks if he's contacted, and Ezra admits that he hasn't...yet. Is it possible Maggie kept the baby? Does Ezra have a kid out there somewhere?
That's hardly all the relationship news either. Nate (Sterling Sulieman) is still bitter about being stood up by Jenna (Tammin Sursok), being completely unaware of Emily's indirect involvement via CeCe Drake. He chews out Jenna at The Brew, and she returns in kind, telling him to get out of her way. This sends Nate into a spiral, realizing that he misses Maya more than he thought. He seeks comfort with Emily, and the two meet on her porch to talk through their shared pain. Of course, it can never be that easy, as Nate kisses Emily and she finds herself kissing him back. Making matters worse, Paige happens upon the scene to meet up with Emily, witnesses the debacle, and storms off in a rage. She doesn't explicitly let on that she knows about the kiss the next day, but Emily could easily make inferences from Paige's icy demeanor.
The fallout, however, will have to wait, as the girls all meet to watch the security cam video. Maya arrives and goes off into the wooded area behind the cabin. Not too long after, a car pulls up. It's Noel and Jenna, who kiss, and then retreat inside the cabin. Almost as soon as the door closes, Maya reappears, going over towards the car. At that moment, a hand grabs her from offscreen and yanks her out of frame. The facts are in evidence now: Neither Noel nor Jenna are Maya's killer. In fact, Spencer claims Garrett couldn't have been either, since he was at her house at the time the video was taken. Maya's killer is someone the PLLs haven't considered, which means it could be just about anyone.
Pretty Little Liars is a lot more densely layered than some audiences are willing to give it credit for, and the richness of its mysteries is part of that layering, as tonight's episode operates in the vein of a police procedural, evoking “Law & Order: SVU” in ways other than in how much Spencer's mom looks like Mariska Hargitay. With any luck, the payoff to the new "A" mystery will live up to the excellent build.
