Pretty Little Liars - Premiere Recap: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Fitz

The Winter Premiere of Pretty Little Liars, Season 4 Episode 14, aired tonight, and I rewound the show so many times that I found myself wondering if I actually did watch the first half of this season. Did anyone else feel like the Liars were carrying on ten different conversations at once for the hour? Ah, teenage girls and their unsolved mysteries… Can’t live with them. Can’t live at all on PLL. While Spencer (Troian Bellisario) and Toby (Keegan Allen) continued their sideshow act of avenging his deceased mother, Caleb (Tyler Blackburn) returned to Rosewood following his supernatural adventures in Ravenswood. Did we get a #PoorHanna this week? Did I miss that? With proof that Ali is alive, Emily (Shay Mitchell) hopped right into her role as a barista scorned. Meanwhile, Ezra (Ian Harding) upped his creep dosage this week. Mona (Janel Parish) pieced together that puzzle fast enough, huh? It's a race to find Alison DiLaurentis! Finders Keepers! Here is the Recap and Review of Season 4 Episode 14 of Pretty Little Liars, the Winter Premiere, “Who’s in the Box?”

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The first ten minutes or so of Episode 14 threw me for a loop. Someone was going on about Wilden. Somebody else threw CeCe’s name back into the mix. After all this searching for Alison, Emily’s true feeling of absolute revulsion were written across her face, and Hanna eventually made the lauded decision to drag a whole new group of young ladies into the mix in an effort to solve the big question of the week… If Ali’s alive, whom did they stick in the wall of that crypt? You see, somebody’s remains were rediscovered and poised to look like Ali’s a while back. I’ve lost track of how many times they’ve found and lost some poor girl’s body at this point, if I’m being honest. Hanna’s theory that a stranger was buried in Ali’s place came coupled with the brilliant idea to start sifting through other cases of girls who’d gone missing around the time Alison first vanished from Rosewood. If they could match up enough clues and connect someone innocent’s murder to Ali’s own case, they would essentially have all the evidence they needed to peg the entire ordeal on a guilty party, freeing Alison from any future harm. By the way, do we believe Ali is living in a cardboard box next to the tracks or holed up in some gorgeous penthouse in Manhattan?

Emily did little to hide her disdain for Alison upon learning of her return. I guess the other three remain caught in some limbo between loving their old bestie and wishing that she’d simply stayed dead. Ali is kind of awful, after all, and nobody had it worse than Emily. Paige (Lindsey Shaw) was the first person to get a taste of Emily’s Ali-induced venom this week when Emily refused to fill her in on any of the happenings she’d promised to help cover up. Emily also ventured over to Mrs. DiLaurentis’ house to snoop for some information regarding the whereabouts of Jason, who hasn’t shown his face in Rosewood since falling down an elevator shaft. Ali’s mom still changes her sheets to keep the air from getting musty. Well, Spencer, what you consider horribly freaky, I consider, well, horribly freaky. Did anyone else like the moment when Emily secretly lifted the framed photo of Ali and the four Liars, only to then squish out Ali’s face with her thumb? Also, it’s important to note that Mrs. D popped up once again in Episode 14. Ali had appeared to her in a dream (So normal!) and suggested that she offer Hanna’s mother, Ashley (Laura Leighton), a job working at her real estate agency. Perhaps more important to question is when Ashley found the time to get her real estate license for kicks.

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Toby rolled back into town after doing some more digging surrounding the twisted case of his mother’s murder. If you recall, the he had managed to uncover, with much help from Spencer, that someone had worked with Wilden to cover up this death and paint it as a suicide. Radley Sanitarium keeps the dirty little secrets of Rosewood’s finest loonies and people who are simply looking to take a vacation from all of this murder mystery nonsense. As in, Ali’s murder rather than Toby’s mom’s murder. Toby managed to connect the dots back to a parent company responsible for controlling Radley, Declodyne, and with some help from Spencer, he finally came to find some closure in this case that has been baffling us all for months now. If Toby’s mother’s death was covered up, then this place most likely housed plenty of failures and backwards situations. With enough evidence to make a stink, either professionally through the law or casually on the Internet, it wasn’t too hard to simply weasel a written apology from the woman in charge. Thus, Toby could sleep easy knowing that his mom’s good name was cleared.

Spencer’s father, Peter (Nolan North), on the other hand, seemed to have something sinister brewing up in his brain. The fathers of Rosewood suck. We know that well enough, but I don’t believe for a second that he’s looking to use Spencer’s exciting lawyer-like victory over this massive corporation to destroy further Radley in her honor. I’m guessing Spencer’s father has some secrets of his own buried in those walls.

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Hanna managed to narrow down the other missing girls from the summer of Ali’s disappearance to one specific case of a blonde, Sarah, who was a decent lookalike with still-mourning friends available for chatting. Hanna and Emily met Claire and her friend to discuss Sarah's disappearance, only to discover that she’d last been seen by another in their group, Avery, riding her bike the day after Labor Day. Meaning, she couldn’t have been the one trapped in the concrete under Ali’s gazebo. Later, Claire surprised Emily as she closed up shop at the café. In truth, she admitted to feeling a never-ending sense of sorrow stressing about whether Sarah lived or not. Sarah was a pretty little snake, like Alison, and not the amazing young lady her friend had made her out to be. Much of the talk surrounding Ali’s secret return to Rosewood revolves around whether or not the Liars even want her back, remember. Emily, perhaps finding some peace of mind from this last encounter, got up the courage to talk to Paige about the truth behind her animosity. Ali had given Emily her first kiss and subsequently broke her heart. Emily doesn’t even believe that Ali cared about anything emotionally real, let alone love.

Caleb also popped back into town this week after starring in his own spinoff series all this time. Ravenswood looks so supernatural, you guys. I’m not familiar with the actual premise, so I was right there with Hanna when the conversation went something along the lines of:

How’s Miranda?

I can’t say.

What spooky mysteries are you solving over there?

I can’t say.

Why do you need to go back to that wretched hellhole?

I can’t say.

I personally would have thrown in:

What’s with the wacky pilgrim ghosts and scary psychics that keep popping up in the super confusing commercials I keep seeing?

In any case, what started as a happy reunion between Hanna and Caleb unraveled into an entirely frustrating and depressing situation for Marin. Had he fallen for the girl she’d asked him to help in the first place? I’m guessing that isn’t the case, but Caleb refused to clue us in to the happenings of the town that exists permanently in the gloomiest of Instagram filters. It seemed this return was nothing more than a goodbye moment for the two, yet a disastrous blowout shouting match at Hanna’s place ended up acting more as a mere lead-in to something much more satisfying later on in Episode 14.

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My favorite scene this week was probably the bitch-off between Mona and Fitz outside of the cupcake shop. Mona, piecing together the puzzle and realizing that Ezra is the ultimate A thanks to his glaringly obvious choice of reading selections for class, seemed to be looking for a “mentor.” Listing Aria (Lucy Hale), Spencer, and Emily as students under his thumb, Mona clearly wanted in on whatever game Fitz has going on. She noticeably left Hanna off the list, which is fitting considering the fact that I truly think she cares about Hanna and realizes the other three will never truly include her in their pack. Fitz, by the way, assigned The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde this week, alerting students to beware of impostors. Like… you, Ezra? Or are you the real one? The Dr. Jekyll? The Mr. Hyde? A self-inflicted dis or a secret warning to Aria? In the end, it seemed like Ezra managed to put the fear of A in Mona, proving that his powers of psychopathic superstardom have no limits. Also, what’s with Ezra’s fascination over history? Is that just some secret dorky obsession that we were never really privy to?

This is not A:

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This is A:

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*Sips Tea*

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Aria and Ezra had two encounters during Episode 14. First, Ezra asked his former flame to stay after class to receive an apology. Ezra had truly treated Aria’s heart like monkey meat during the whole embarrassing Maggie-Malcolm ordeal. I mean, the moment they wrote out Malcolm, I knew we’d be getting the reveal to end all reveals aka #EzrA. #EzrA can't be a parent. Still, Aria is now seeing Jake, so the interaction with Ezra in which he offered the opportunity for a future together post-high school graduation was slightly inappropriate from the get-go. Later, Aria cornered Ezra in his car and asked for a moment to speak her own peace. Risky move, Aria. "Broad daylight in the middle of town" alert! The two headed off to Ezra’s "friend’s" cabin in some secluded location, a cabin with a secret trap door hidden beneath the rustic carpets and all that wood stuff. The two now had a “secret,” a secret that began with a big taboo kiss of reconciliation between the two. Man, Jake didn’t even show up this week. (Highlight for Potential Spoiler Theory: Did Claire’s mention of the fact that Avery, the friend who’d last spotted Sarah the day she went missing, went a bit nuts have anyone questioning our Aria’s sanity? Could Ezra be watching over her?… )

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Hanna caught Caleb off-guard one last time in a final scene staged in front of his car. The two shared a legitimate farewell moment that trumped their awful shouting match from earlier. Caleb drove out of Rosewood and into the abyss while simultaneously bawling his eyes out. Chin up, Rivers. Eyes on the road! Are you related to Joan?

Episode 14 of Season 4 of Pretty Little Liars closed as the Liars reconvened at “Ali’s” tomb. Hanna dropped one more bomb on her buddies this week. Remember when she swiped Alison's diary from Ezra’s lair during the midseason finale? Well, apparently it’s full of nasty secrets and comments about the four Liars. Thank me later. To close this week’s recap, I will transcribe an actual page below!

In truth, this is not so much a diary as it is a record keeper.

I need to keep track of everyone’s dirty little secrets. Secrets I can use to help my day be a little bit more fun and also use everyone's dirt against them in order to get me out of this *Spencer’s knuckle covering* little town.

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She’s a lot of things, but Ali DiLaurentis isn't really a writer, is she? She writes like a wildebeest. Us hacks need to stick together, Alison!

What did you think of the Pretty Little Liars Winter Premiere, Season 4 Episode 14, “Who’s in the Box?” What are Spencer’s father’s motives? What’s up with Toby’s mom? Team Fitz or Team Mona? Will you miss Caleb, or was it time for him to move on for good? Who's in the box? What is Ali's deal?

Thanks for reading my Recap and Review of Pretty Little Liars Winter Premiere, Season 4 Episode 14, “Who’s in the Box?”