Pretty Little Liars - Recap: Welcome to Ravenswood! It's Awful Here.

Episode 6 of Season 4 of Pretty Little Liars, “Under the Gun,” divided up our four leading Liars in an attempt to cover more ground and, essentially, to dig deeper graves. Has there ever been a time when these girls could just sit, well, pretty? At this point, Aria (Lucy Hale) has the entire lacrosse team out to get her, Hanna’s (Ashley Benson) mother might as well have killed Wilden, and that mask Emily (Shay Mitchell) had molded for information is indeed coming back to bite her in the ass. Spencer (Troian Bellisario), with Toby (Keegan Allen) in tow, crossed the border between plain old scary Rosewood into the positively eerie bizarro world known as Ravenswood. Imagine a town where neighbors refused to even greet you in the street. Actually, that sounds kind of amazing to me, all things considered. With our Liars tied up in their own tumultuous affairs, Mona (Janel Parrish) rolled back into town this week. Let me begin the Recap and Review of Pretty Little Liars Season 4 Episode 6, "Under the Gun"!

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Episode 6 opened with the Liars reacting to Hanna’s recent arrest during last week’s sorority nightmare. While Hanna sat silent with Detective Tanner (Roma Maffia) at the police station, the girls attempted to sift through Spencer’s discoveries from the night prior. Who ran the secret room, phone line included, at the “Gamma Zeta Die” sorority house? Emily and Spencer quickly apologized to each other for their shade-laced argument over whether or not Cicero College was indeed “podunk.” Meanwhile, Aria attempted to help a friend of her brother Mike (Cody Allen Christian) by offering to proofread his undoubtedly horrible essay on Faulkner that evening. Just as things appeared to be going quite smoothly, Mona made her presence back in Rosewood known by immediately throwing Spencer under the bus. After a little digging, the original A had discovered that Toby was the one to steal her RV, handing it straight into the new more devious A’s clutches. Spencer refused to confirm or deny, but, of course, silence is deafening.

Burying a gun that seemed to match the one used to kill Wilden was certainly incriminating for Hanna. Detective Tanner intended on running several ballistics tests in order to see whether or not the bullets matched the gun. Hanna’s parents, needless to say, were equal parts furious and panicked. Back at the Marin residence, Hanna was put on absolute lockdown, having everything from her cell to her internet taken away. Ouch, how does a teenage girl survive without food, water, internet, air, and a cell phone? Ugh, Marin would have to use her landline to phone in her woes to the other Liars. What is this, 1996? A, of course, was ready and willing to take advantage of the situation. At this point, it became entirely clear that A had planted the gun in Ashley’s (Laura Leighton) closet, although, Miss M did admit to “borrowing” the weapon from her ex for her own protection. As it turned out, Ashley was desperate for money necessary to pay Wilden to leave Rosewood. During a confrontation the night Wilden was killed, the officer manhandled the gun away from Ashley, and that was the last she saw of it. Hmm… who could've planted that gun on Hanna's mother? I'm going to go with Fitz.

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Caleb’s (Tyler Blackburn) frantic attempts at cracking into the prison known as Hanna’s house were futile. Her parents gave the boy the boot before he could even console his girlfriend. Thankfully, Emily, on the other hand, came prepared. She managed to sneak her way into Hanna’s bedroom under the guise of “delivering physics homework.” I actually muttered out loud to myself, “Hanna doesn’t take physics…” as Marin snapped at Emily, “I don’t take physics.” I know the class schedules of the Pretty Little Liars, folks. I’m A. More importantly, Emily concocted a scheme to buy Hanna’s mom more time and to attempt to peg the murder on two unsuspecting suspects. Remember, Hanna was in possession of Wilden’s police car tape; the footage that contained not only Ashley hitting Wilden and running, but Shana (Aeriel Miranda) and Jenna scraping him off the road. Who could tell whether or not the two were helping or hurting? If Emily could sneak a copy onto Detective Tanner’s desk, she’d have to investigate. Crafty, Emily! That was no sweat for a swim champ! Ooh, wait… too soon?

Speaking of swimming, guess who transferred over to Rosewood in order to join the super Sharks? Shana made sure to announce her maneuver to Emily, yet again, in an awkward and uncomfortable locker room scene. Honestly, though, whatever Jenna told Shana about Emily couldn’t be that awful. I mean, she was a part of the whole “Jenna thing” during Season 1, but Jenna can see now! All’s well that ends well? In any case, maybe Emily could set aside the fact that Shana might have tried to burn her alive in the lodge inferno if it meant feigning friendship. In truth, this girl doesn’t know the Liars. Obsessing over someone you hate is one thing. Obsessing over girls you don’t even know is another.

I’m not going to lie. I completely misread the scene between Aria, Mike, and Connor, her brother’s friend. Aria managed to school the boy pretty quickly on what it means to string a sentence together and to use at least somewhat proper grammar. Mike walked through the room, gave the pair a long and steady side-eye, and immediately, I realized that Mike was in a torrid gay relationship with Connor. When Connor went to leave, pecking Aria on the lips much to her chagrin, I assumed we were in for some weird and twisted love triangle. Of course, I was entirely wrong. The next day, Mike approached Aria at school entirely distraught. The talk inside the locker room wasn’t going in Aria’s favor, if you know what I mean.

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Connor, burnt by Aria’s cold shoulder, spread rumors about Mike’s sister, the “slut” who did more than “play scrabble” with Mr. Fitz (Ian Harding). To add insult to injury, Aria’s tirade in her own defense was cut short by Fitz, who’d stepped into the locker room to ask Aria, as a school official, to leave. The rest of the littlest Liar’s day would be filled with anonymous (Can you really do that if you’re not A?) inappropriate texts that drove her not only to explode at Ezra for flip-flopping between “shoulder to cry on” and “frigid teacher,” but to cry her eyes out as soon as she got back to her cozy attic-like bedroom. Mike, upset that he hadn’t backed his sister sooner, promised to set things straight in her honor.

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Spencer had just found herself out of the “lying dog house” when she landed herself in hot water with her buddies yet again. Covering up Toby’s RV theft put them all in jeopardy, especially the Marin family who now faced the very real possibility of incarceration for Wilden’s murder, not to mention the fact that Hanna’s decision to steal the gun could land her seven years in jail all on its own. In an attempt to earn back her friend’s trust, Spencer enlisted Toby’s help to track down the elusive Ms. Grunwald, the evil house mother of the sorority who previously seemed to exist merely as some terrible myth to scare sisters into being in bed for curfew. Spencer did some digging, eventually stumbling upon an address… in Ravenswood.
Let me paint the Ravenswood scene for you. When the couple passed over the border into the town, the entire color scheme of our television screens was washed out and faded with a tint of dead grey. Ravenswood is a scene straight out of a Hitchcock film, and its townsfolk are surely harboring some awful secret. Who would ever move to this town? Have fun, Caleb! The civilians were of little assistance to Toby and Spencer. Even The Grunwald’s gardener refused to squawk a bit of information. Luckily, the pair ran into the woman at a local salon. Although, Spencer’s pleas for help failed to spark any sort of help from Grunwald. The woman denied ever knowing Alison, and it seemed as though Spencer had come up short. All in all, though, the woman’s freakiness was certainly offset by politeness. I was expecting a raging monster of a woman. Oh, well… there’s always Episode 7 and the entire series of Ravenswood (Coming this Halloween)! While Toby attempted to scrounge up some grub, Spencer heard what I would best describe as a call to prayer, as a speaker system lead what seemed like the entire town to gather around the statue of an angel. Ravenswood seemed litter with tombstones, but this spot was special. Even more importantly, Shana showed up in a striking red coat (No, not that one.), alerting Spencer to a possible clue as to why The Grunwald kept her mouth shut. She and Toby would have tailed both Shana and Jenna as they sped away, but a raven on a suicide mission collided with their windshield. Appropriately turned off, Spoby simply headed back to Rosewood.

At The Brew, Spencer attempted to apologize for keeping Toby’s secret, and Aria and Emily were willing to hear her out. Unfortunately for Em, Detective Tanner showed up to her open mic night with the intention of raining on her parade. Down at the station, Emily’s plan to feed Tanner information seemed to backfire. A had replaced her footage with a piece of evidence incriminating her. Wearing the Emily mask, A stood in front of the Rosewood town sign holding her own welcome message… “Guilty.” Detective Tanner was not amused, and now it seems as though A is attempting to drag Emily into Hanna’s family drama. While a bat-wielding hooded figure, whom I’m assuming was Mike and not A, destroyed Brew employee Connor’s car outside, Shana shocked the audience of the cafe with a rousing violin performance.

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Ashley’s number seemed to have finally come up during Episode 6, “Under the Gun.” The ballistics test matched the bullets used to kill Wilden to Mr. Marin’s gun, and Tanner swung by the Marin residence to promptly arrest Hanna’s mother. Hanna had two stirring emotional scenes with her parents this week. First, we witnessed what is the closest thing we’ll most likely ever get to a heart-to-heart between Hanna and her father. Come to think of it, it was more so heartbreak-to-heart, as Hanna admitted to not feeling as though her dad wanted to help save the day. Lastly, Pretty Little Liars closed this week with Ashley’s tearful goodbye to her daughter and one final plea to her ex-husband to watch over Hanna.

A’s final scene-stealing moment involved hot-wiring a car. A, you speed demon, you. Don’t crash! (Not, we’ve all seen next episode’s preview by now.)

What did you think of Pretty Little Liars Season 4 Episode 6, “Under the Gun”? How will the Marins get out of this mess? Is The Grunwald truly not who Spencer thinks she is? Could this be Alison’s mother’s attempt at getting even with the Liars by taking their own mothers away from them? (It could also be a sibling of Alison’s…) If you were to unmask the hooligan posing as Emily, whom would you find?

Thanks for reading my Recap and Review of Pretty Little Liars Season 4 Episode 6, “Under the Gun”!