Pretty Little Liars - Recap: Suzy Clueless

Episode 15 of Season 4 of Pretty Little Liars, “Love ShAck, Baby,” picked up where last week’s episode left off. The girls weren’t having any of Hanna’s (Ashley Benson) excuses after discovering that she’d kept the diary she’d swiped from Ezra’s (Ian Harding) lair a secret. Fitz, meanwhile, wasted no time attempting to steal it back, even going as far as to rummage through Hanna’s cootie-covered girly stuff in order to find it. Emily (Shay Mitchell) bounced back and forth between wanting alone time with Ali (Sasha Pieterse) and wishing her dead… again. Meanwhile, Spencer (Troian Bellisario) dealt with more of her dad’s (Nolan North) nonsense and eventually laid into Mrs. DiLaurentis (Andrea Parker) in a public lash-out that will most likely go viral on YouTube or Vine. Jake who? Right, Aria? Here is the Recap and Review of Season 4 Episode 15 of Pretty Little Liars, “Love ShAck, Baby”!

To kick off the recap, Episode 15 opened where the previous episode left off. Hanna attempted to explain why she kept the book of Ali’s dirty little secrets from the rest of the Liars, while the other three couldn’t understand her incessant need to protect their feelings from some scathing stories. Seriously, Season 4b Emily is aggressive! Also, nobody else thought to steal anything from A’s lair, so why are we faulting Hanna for this? In the end, the foursome decided to pass the book around in order to decode the cryptic stories scribbled down by Alison. With false names to figure out, they’d each need to take a turn weeding through the secrets and lies.

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At home that evening, Emily shared a dream sequence with Alison in which her internal struggle revealed a new sense of disenchantment with her former flame. Emily was, well, kind of over it, yet the next day she remained fixated on her old name bracelet that Alison had gifted her. Ugh, not those bracelets again, PLL. Later at the coffee shop, Emily received a cryptic note from Ali to meet alone at their special spot, the kissing rock. Ali was, allegedly, finally ready to come home.

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Aria and Ezra continued their blatant flirting this week from within the walls of Rosewood High. Seriously, if you went to that school, wouldn’t you always be on the lookout for proof of this affair? When the liars convened in the courtyard to discuss Emily’s process of cataloguing each of their stories from Ali’s diary, Ezra gawked from afar, glaring straight at Aria and her friends as though they were gigantic first edition copies of Faulkner novels. Meaning, how is he not fired yet? Basically, while I wasted much of my time during Episode 15 wondering about such things, much of this week’s hour focused on Ezra attempting to snatch back the diary. Also, the courtyard conversation between the girls was also the scene in which Hanna decided to reveal that Caleb had flown the coop back to smelly Ravenswood for good, though the nature of their breakup had yet to be revealed. The most important piece of information revealed during this meeting was that of a location. Aria managed to piece together the words of a poem to pinpoint one of her family’s favorite hot spots, the Busy Bee Inn, Alison’s alleged safe house.

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Toby (Keegan Allen) popped in for just a bit during Episode 15, as his continued efforts to destroy Radley alongside Spencer’s father were supposed to pick up steam. Of course, Spencer’s dad spent most of his time instead “lending legal advice” to Alison’s mother as she carried on with her divorce. Spencer was fuming mad to discover Mrs. DiLaurentis chatting in her living room with her father. Seriously, who invites the woman with whom they had an affair that produced a love child to sit around the family kitchen in any case? What we were meant to take away from this situation is that something fishy is going on here. We know Mrs. DiLaurentis has strange ties to Radley, as does Spencer’s father. We also know that Jason is probably somehow caught up in all of this nonsense. In addition, surprise, Spencer!.. Your boyfriend’s mother wasn’t murdered, she simply slipped off of a freakin’ roof. How does one go about telling their significant other that their parent died tragically of clumsiness? This doesn’t matter, of course, because someone is clearly lying to cover up a murder, we just don’t really know who or why.

This lead to my second favorite moment during Episode 15. If Spencer was banned from ever acknowledging the existence of Mrs. DiLaurentis, why should her awful father be allowed to hang out with her? Spencer, in an epic moment at the coffee shop, publicly scolded the woman for daring to come to her father for legal advice. I’m certain the young lady who sat by staring in shock secretly recorded that chastisement and is uploading it to the Internet as we speak.

Emily’s meeting with Alison was a total bummer. After getting ditched in the middle of the woods, Emily left her name bracelet behind for Ali. EF + AD =

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My favorite moment during Episode 15 was, of course, Ezra’s casual nighttime visit over to the Marin household. While Hanna and the other Liars attempted to road-trip it up to the Busy Bee Inn, Fitz, under the guise of concern over Hanna’s dipping grades, spoke with Ashley (Laura Leighton) briefly before she was forced to take a work call. In the riskiest move that A has made in a long time, Ezra rushed up to Hanna’s bedroom and began digging through her personal belongings before typing away on her laptop. Ashley, not even one question as to why Fitz felt the need to make a house call? Fitz got away scot-free.

I love how Alison’s codename for Aria in the diary was “Suzy Clueless,” girl with the freakish pink hair. Perhaps most important about the car ride up to the inn was that Spencer noticed a page had been torn from the diary around some story about a “cradle robber” in their midst. Hanna, who’d been noticeably irritable and off-putting since her breakup, was most likely to blame. Of course, all attention was inevitably turned to the broken engine in Emily’s car and the fact that the Liars were about to find themselves in a torrential downpour. As they stood around frantically arguing about what to do and where to find shelter before the rainstorm could begin, I know I couldn’t have been the only one who thought that they should simply go back in the car. Like, sit in the car. Is that so extremely uncomfortable? Two hours to decode the diary with the added bonuses of heat and radio? Luckily for the Liars, Hanna had previously reconnected with Travis (Luke Kleintank) at, you guessed it, the coffee shop. Well, Pretty Little Liars wasted no time beginning to set Hanna up with this tow truck driver, huh? And how convenient! I can just imagine the writers' meeting:

So what do we have him do? What's his purpose?

Eh, just make a him a tow truck driver. These girls suck at driving.

By the way, props to Travis for cluing us in to the fact that CeCe Drake is on the run and was most likely paid a large amount of money to murder Wilden. Hmm… Ezra's super rich!

Luckily, a random cabin in the area belonging to Aria’s “uncle” aka her secret love shAck provided a sense of luxury with which to weather the storm, so long as nobody touched anything. What a fun artistic “uncle” you must have, Aria! No… touching… anything, but lighting a fire is okay, apparently. Also, I guess Hanna had an epiphany while on the toilet because she came back from her bathroom break ready to confess all. In truth, she was this “cradle robber” Ali referred to, and the embarrassing secret relationship was shared with none other than Mike Montgomery, Aria’s little brother. A flashback sequence revealed Ali’s disgust with Hefty Hanna, who dared to hook up with someone a whopping two years younger than her out of sheer desperation. In the present, Aria couldn’t care less because, well, has anyone been paying attention for the last three seasons of Pretty Little Liars? They have actual problems. More importantly, Hanna also finally confessed her misconstrued belief that Caleb left her for another girl. Are Ravenswood fans frustrated over this?

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While Hanna and Emily went out in search of cell service in order to get in touch with Travis, Aria and Spencer attempted to gather some towels. Again, I’m not quite sure why they were gathering towels as blankets. None of them looked particularly cold or anything. Luckliy for us, amidst the talk of fresh linens, Ezra managed to sneak his way back into his own cabin before quickly locking the pair in the back room. The two panicked and shouted for help through a tiny barred window, alerting Emily and Hanna to the situation as visions of A paced back and forth through the storage room keyhole. Hanna and Emily shattered another bigger window and released Sparia from their holding chamber just as Travis made his way to the front door, having most likely scared Fitz off of his own property. Unfortunately, Ezra had already made off with the diary, leaving Emily’s bracelet in its place. Thus, we can safely assume that he probably set Emily up. If that’s the case, Ezra has gotten really good at writing like a teenage girl.

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To close the recap, Episode 15 of Season 4 ended with Hanna and Travis sharing a moment in her dimly lit kitchen. He refused to take any compensation for towing the girls home, but did eventually end up lending Hanna a shoulder to cry on over Caleb. Spencer confronted her father once more about his lies and the secret relationship with Mrs. DiLaurentis, but he refused to budge. Spencer, refusing to play by his rules, packed a suitcase and decide to shack up with Toby. Ezra checked in with Aria from a gas station out in the woods. I realize now that “Fitz in black cap” means “scary A Fitz.” In her bedroom, Emily confided the truth about her missed encounter with Alison, but the pair’s attention eventually turned to the latest text from A. In decoding the story of Ali’s hiding place, the Busy Bee Inn, the Liars had essentially handed him the prize.

What did you think of Season 4 Episode 15 of Pretty Little Liars, “Love ShAck, Baby”? What’s going on with Spencer’s dad? Do you like Hanna with Travis? Who was behind Emily’s failed secret date? Seriously, what is the deal with Ezra Fitz? Will the police catch CeCe Drake, and do we think Ezra paid her off?

Thanks for reading my Recap and Review of Season 4 Episode 15 of Pretty Little Liars, “Love ShAck, Baby”!