Pretty Little Liars - Season 3 Episode 6 - Recap and Review - The Remains of the 'A'

If you're going to attempt to breakup a high school girl and her boyfriend, A #2, you should probably expect a week of moping (last episode) followed by about a month of absolute hellfire. Hanna (Ashley Benson) was a heavy hitter this week. As she put it, she traded in her sweats for fatigues. Pretty Little Liars'  sixth episode this season, "The Remains of the 'A'," cleared up one big issue, the Garrett Reynolds Case, but dug the girls into an even deeper grave.

The episode began with Hanna and Spencer (Troian Bellisario) stomping through the hospital. Last week they were sneaky about breaking into Garrett's mother's room, but this is the second time they're doing this so finesse goes out the window. Hanna's ready to rumble. She carries out Spencer's plan to replace the post-it from last week with new information. Apparently, a comatose parent is nothing more than a carrier pigeon for these characters. Hanna comes up with a meeting location, the church pews in the evening, as a replacement for the note. As soon as Hanna sets the trap into motion, Garrett's mom goes into critical condition. The bells and whistles fire off around the hospital, and She and Spencer hightail it out of there.

"OMG! Did she die?" Texted by Aria (Lucy Hale). No, but we don't really care about her anyway. Aria has basically moved into Fitz' (Ian Harding) bachelor pad. Cool pajama pants, Fitz. She's also thinking about skipping her first day of work as a photo assistant. Does she really believe she could get away with that? She has a lot on her plate and is somewhat unconfident in her abilities. It's a dinky town photoshop, Aria. Fitz decides to lighten the mood and restore her confidence with a silly photo shoot. This is how it went down:

ABC Family "Pretty Little Liars"

ABC Family "Pretty Little Liars"

ABC Family "Pretty Little Liars"

ABC Family "Pretty Little Liars"

Apparently, this worked! Fitz, you sly dog, you! Ezra went to take a shower. He must have some kind of germophobia because the guy always has to take a shower, and right there in the middle of the episode! At least wait until Jane By Design comes on. In truth, this is the show's way of letting Aria snoop around his apartment whenever she must. This time, she finds a boatload of cash stashed away in Ezra's sock drawer. She went right for that drawer and found exactly what she was looking for in a flash. Fitz is ballin'!

Spencer and Toby (Keegan Allen) have made it a tradition to have their Spoby make-out session around this time every episode this season. Spencer continued researching this April Rose while Toby babbled on about construction, or apartments, or something. April Rose was most likely a stripper friend of Ali's, right? Spencer's father (Nolan North) interrupted, and Toby flew out of there before I could even notice. He informed Spencer that her mother was working on getting evidence thrown out of Garrett's case. Spencer, of course, went into panic mode. It looks like the evidence is gone, and the case will be thrown out altogether.

ABC Family "Pretty Little Liars"

Hanna hates old people, and old people hate Hanna. Emily (Shay Mitchell) is filled in on what went down at the hospital, and the plans for she and Hanna's confrontation with A #2 at the church. Hanna also handed Emily the pickup location for her jacket that was donated on the previous episode, the same jacket she was wearing the night of the grave robbery. Later in the episode, Emily took it upon herself to check out the area of the drop box. There, she had another flashback from the night she was drugged, while having coffee at a diner. Also, did anyone catch what she was eating? It was like a chocolate bombe and fries. According to the flashback, she had time to chill at a diner and do an incredibly complicated looking menu maze that night. Something like "I'm sorry I left you" was scribbled on the top, and we see a distorted image of a boy and a tattoo. It looked like Holden to me.

Spencer made arrangements to meet with Jason (Drew Van Acker). I really like this duo working together. Jason seems like the only guy who really has his act together on this show. The other guys are always getting too emotional when they are quite aware that these girls are in the middle of a murder mystery. Jason doesn't know April Rose. Spencer gets honest with Jason about this pervert club from high school, the one were he, Ian, and Garrett video taped girls getting changed. He's embarrassed by it and barely remembers doing it at all. He was drugged up all through high school. Jason confessed to coming up with the idea, while Ian and Garrett carried it out. He also alluded to the club paying girls to sell out their friends. Would Ali do this? He is sure Ian had outside help doing the filming.

At the grill, Hanna and Spencer get their own cheese fries. Do it up, girls. Aria moped about finding Ezra's loot. Is A working for Garrett, or is Garrett working for A? That's a no brainer if you ask me.

ABC Family "Pretty Little Liars"

Hanna is almost done volunteering, but for the second week, she's stuck dealing with Goober Pastor Ted. Hanna decided to organize the clothing by Summer, Winter, Fall, Spring, and Resort. Maybe she is good at charity work! Ted invited her to a "Thank You Dance" that is thrown by the church to, you guessed it, say "thank you!" You haven't partied until you party in a church rec room! Hanna doesn't want to go, but she has to. She's meeting her date, A, there! Hanna gets incredibly uncomfortable because her mother (Laura Leighton) is going, too. She has a thing for Ted but she doesn't know he's a pastor. Ashley's a catch, but she's a bit of a vixen. Hanna lies. She lies badly. She says she can't carpool with her mom because she's taking Toby as a date to ward off the nerdy church guys.

Why would Hanna take Toby to the dance? It doesn't make any sense, but now, Spencer needs to convince him to go. Spencer's exhausted from researching April Rose at the library. She's become best friends with the homeless guy who sleeps next to the microfiche. Is the homeless guy A #2? Probably. Who isn't an A? Spencer wonders what her life would be like if she hadn't met Alison, but she thinks it was all worth it when she considers her friendships with the girls that resulted.

Jason found April Rose! It's not a woman, it's an antique store. He and Spencer made there way over there, and the old couple running the place were of no use. I'll argue, the vegetative grandma rocking away to her iPod was a bigger help than the frustrating old husband who could barely manage his own store. Like a homing missile, Spencer found Ali's ankle bracelet on a mannequin. Spencer got a flashback, too. Jealous, Emily? She remember Ali (Sasha Pieterse) putting it on and questioning where it came from. Not a boyfriend, claimed Ali, just another friend. I was also impressed that Spencer knew to grab the bracelet with her scarf. I'm thinking of doing a separate recap each week just for Spencer. She's earned it.

The "Thank You Dance" was a total bust. Ashley embarrassed herself by showing too much cleavage and searching for wine. The only wine at church is the blood of Christ, apparently. Is this really mortifying? To ask a man you don't know is a pastor if they're serving wine? Who wouldn't be upset that there was no alcohol served at that bogus shindig? Hanna snapped her out of it; however, just as Ashley mustered up the confidence to dance, that Officer Wilden (Bryce Johnson) showed up to make her uncomfortable, and she left.

Toby figured out pretty quickly that Hanna and Spencer were using him as part of a plan. Those church dorks were afraid of Hanna's shadow. Forget their reaction to the actual Hanna. Emily was really slow in getting there, but when she did arrive, she bumped into Holden (Shane Coffey), who has been missing all season. Guess what Holden has? A tattoo on his wrist that matches the boy's from her flashback! Sorry, Emily, but the tattoo is temporary. It's actually a pass to a party that constantly changes location. Well, that sounds exhausting as hell. Also, Maya was a member of this party club. Before Emily could milk Holden for more information, he disappeared.

Emily's fixation with Holden forced Hanna to confront A in the dark church pews alone. Only, A didn't show up. Wilden showed up instead. The hospital staff intercepted Hanna's note and passed it off to the police before A could read it. Wilden gets way too aggressive with a couple of high school girls. He thinks they're protecting Garrett and framing Ian. Wrong. So wrong. He's always so wrong! I'm sure Hanna would have much rather ran into A because that Wilden is a wreck.

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Poor Aria did a crappy job on her first day. She blames the fact that she was distracted over Ezra's buried treasure. She confesses to snooping Ezra claims he sold his grandpa's classic car, a car he was looking forward to restoring some day, to pay his bills. Doesn't Jenna drive a fancy old car now that she can see? He was embarrassed to go from being a professor to being broke. Aria cheered him up. Just before the scene ended, Ezra shot a suspicious look back at the dresser. Ezra is probably A, right?

Spencer and Jason have really bonded. Jason turned the anklet into the police as an anonymous tip. Spencer then asked to see the letters that led Jason to discover that her father was his father. Jason, however, didn't want her to get hurt. Spencer appreciates that Jason isn't like Ali. Ali would want her to see the letters. Just when it seemed like these two had done their job well, it turns out the blood samples on Ali's bracelet cleared Garrett. Someone else killed them, said A #2. For a moment, I thought Spencer was going to puke all over her bedroom when her father told her the police had been looking for that bracelet for years. Oh, and Toby's really mad at you.

The episode closed with A eating rainbow sherbet and looking for a roommate in Rosewood.

What did you think of the episode? Do you believe Ezra's car story? Were you impressed by Hanna's new attitude? Who killed Alison Dilaurentis? Do you like the Jason/ Spencer dynamic? Does Spencer deserve her own weekly recap? Which of these characters would like rainbow sherbet enough to be A #2?