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"#TeamPLL, please excuse me if my recap is a little loopy, but I&amp;#x27;m up pretty late in L.A. because the hotel I&amp;#x27;m staying at has about 27 Japanese channels, but no ABC Family. Yay for progress, but also, come on, Hilton Universal Hotel. This is America&amp;amp;#8212;throw me a bone and some standard-issue basic cable channels. Sadly, no bones were thrown, so I had to wait around like a creeper until last night&amp;#x27;s episode was uploaded online. In short, my life is one big buffet of #WhitePeopleProblems. Anyway, let&amp;#x27;s talk about what went down on Pretty Little Liars. As per usual with this show, &amp;quot;Shadow Play&amp;quot; was ridiculous in several ways, but it was also shot in gorgeous film noir style and the wardrobe and makeup were superb, so I&amp;#x27;m a happy camper...mostly. Let&amp;#x27;s break down this episode and maybe you&amp;#x27;ll agree with me? We open with Emily, Hanna, and Spencer trying to track Aria down so they can tell her that her boo Ezra is two scoops of cray cray. #RealTalk, I would not want to be them right now because when they break the news to Aria, the Liars are going to have to do what my girlfriends and I do after one of them takes Plan B: Seriously, I don&amp;#x27;t think Aria is going to be able to emotionally handle this, and she might lose all her marbles. Thankfully, the Liars head to Rosewood High and start snooping through Ez&amp;#x27;s desk to see if they can find any more proof before they go to Aria. They find Ali&amp;#x27;s journal: ARGH!!!! Why the heck would Ezra just have that chilling in his place of work where it could easily be found? How hard is it for him to take it home with him and hide it in a bag of Chex Mix or something? Apparently, very hard. Ugh, I cannot with this epi of PLL anymore. But there are 58 more mins left and I&amp;#x27;m getting paid to watch it, so yes, I can. Yes. I. Can. We see the Liars leave Ez&amp;#x27;s classroom and moments later, Mona goes in and walks out with a bunch of files. Is she stealing from Ez or helping him? Back at Spencer&amp;#x27;s, the girls&amp;amp;#8212;minus Aria&amp;amp;#8212;ask Em to ask Paige about the summer that she dated Shana to see if that will give them any more clues about Ali. Em takes this about as well as I took my high school calculus tests, which is to say not very well: To which my friends responded, &amp;quot;Uh, the tests were just numbers.&amp;quot; Long story short, I failed. Moving on. The Liars decided to hold off on coming up with a plan until Aria comes back to town. We jump to Aria and Ez driving back to Rosewood. She&amp;#x27;s telling him about a short story she&amp;#x27;s writing for his class and how she&amp;#x27;s been focusing on the villain. He asks if the villain wins in the end, and she says she isn&amp;#x27;t sure, but that sometimes the bad guys do. Of course, Ez repeats this sentiment in a slimy way: Spencer is at home, watching an old black-and-white movie and looking through Ali&amp;#x27;s diary. She takes some more pills, closes her eyes during a violent scene in the film, and opens them to find herself in the a film-noir-style dream. Girl: Toby enters the room and seemingly has taken the following philosophy and applied it to his acting: But in his case, his &amp;quot;when he wants to&amp;quot; turns out to be never because his Humphrey Bogart swag is DOA. It&amp;#x27;s OK though because Toby&amp;#x27;s hot, so... Anyway, he sees the pills on the counter and she tells him that it&amp;#x27;s just to help her focus. He&amp;#x27;s not buying it, and neither am I: Ez sees Spence at the coffee shop and pays for her beverage and apologizes for how he acted the last time they spoke. She accepts, and then he offers to buy her lunch at the Hart and the Huntsman sometime. Spence says maybe: Hanna, Em, and Spence discuss Ez. Hanna says she&amp;#x27;s sick of men and wishes there was another alternative, and Em&amp;#x27;s like Perfection. Anyhoo, Spence tells the two that she suspects Aria and Ez are dating again. Hanna volunteers to keep an eye on Ez. Just then, Aria enters the room: Aria says that she had a good weekend with her dad in Syracuse. #LIES! Later that day, Spence is home, taking more pills. Toby appears again, gives her a hard time about the drugs, and she gets annoyed. Girl, lock your damn doors and this mess wouldn&amp;#x27;t keep happening. He tells her that she&amp;#x27;s close to solving the mystery and then he notices a giant-ass painting of Ali in the living room. He marvels at how lifelike the painting is, and Spence almost spills the beans about Ali being alive: Ez is hanging out...with Mona?! So they&amp;#x27;re working together. Cut to my reaction, which is the same one that I have when I&amp;#x27;m hanging out with a friend and they turn on American Horror Story: Coven: While Spence is delving deeper into Ali&amp;#x27;s journal, Em meets up with Paige and asks about her summer fling with Shana. Paige says that she was thinking of Em the whole time she was with Shana. That didn&amp;#x27;t really answer the question, but: That&amp;#x27;s right, that is a panty-dropper of an answer. They almost make out, but this is back in the day and they&amp;#x27;re at a restaurant, so Paige just leaves. Mona leaves Ez&amp;#x27;s and Hanna follows her. Mona catches onto this and confronts Hanna. Mo then calls Spence and tells her there is a blond package at Apt. 3B and to hurry while &amp;quot;she&amp;quot; is still breathing. Is it Hanna? Is it Ali? I&amp;#x27;m scared, y&amp;#x27;all: Spence arrives at the apartment. Ez, Mo, and Hanna are there. Spence tells Ez to leave Aria alone. Ez counters her threat by saying that the reason she hasn&amp;#x27;t told Aria about Ez being &amp;quot;A&amp;quot; is that Spence knows she&amp;#x27;s in over her head. Hanna and Spence leave, and Spence tells her that she traced the number on Ali&amp;#x27;s list and it belongs to the Fitzgerald Art Foundation, as in Ezra Fitzgerald. They are going to try and figure out if Ali called the number: Sorry, it&amp;#x27;s just that the film noir stuff was kind of fun at first, but I feel like it&amp;#x27;s getting in the way of the episode right now. I mean, nothing&amp;#x27;s really happened. Moving on. Ez tells Toby that Ali is alive and Spence knows how to find her. Finally! Maybe this will cause Toby to take action, but before we can get to that, we&amp;#x27;re back at Spence&amp;#x27;s home. Ali is there, and Spence demands answers. Of course, Ali provides none and is, like, you can figure it out. UH, NO, just tell her, so Spence (and I) can move on with our lives! Spence goes to to grab more pills, but knocks them down the sink drain. She tries to pull them out, and Toby enters and gets her to knock it off. Ali has disappeared*: *For the innocent readers, look up what that hand signal means. Ez and Aria are hanging out, and she says she wants to tell the Liars that she&amp;#x27;s dating Ez again. This somehow turns into talking about Ali, and he tells her that he knows Ali is alive: We jump to Em and Paige. They&amp;#x27;re making out. #NoComplaints Toby is questioning Spence about Ali. He&amp;#x27;s trying to convince her that she can solve the mystery. They kiss. #NoComplaintsTheSequel Spence then meets up with Aria. Aria admits that she and Ez are dating again. Spence is getting ready to tell her that Ez is &amp;quot;A&amp;quot; when Hanna arrives and says she found Ali: All the Liars show up at a club to find Ali. Ali is livid and orders them to leave. Some verbal sparring happens, and just as Spence is about to tell Aria who &amp;quot;A&amp;quot; really is, a bullet is fired into the dressing room: The Liars and Ali run out of the room and into a corner. They hear Ez call out for them. The Liars are trying to decide if they should tell Aria the truth. They wimp out and Aria goes to Ez: As Aria gets closer to Ez, we actually see that it&amp;#x27;s Toby and that he knocked out Ez and Ez is now lying on the ground. The Liars all get into Toby&amp;#x27;s car, and Ali disappears. Again. As they are driving away, Toby tells Spence to look at the pages of Ali&amp;#x27;s journal and just then, Spence wakes up and we&amp;#x27;re back in present day with Spencer standing in the kitchen. Hold up. So Spence fell asleep standing up and remained standing until she woke up. What. Da. Faq: Ha! This show is so ludicrous. I love it. The girls meet up and figure out that Ez knew that they know he&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;A&amp;quot; and that&amp;#x27;s why he planted the journal there for them to find because he made subtle changes to it, not realizing that Spence took pictures of the pages in the journal before the Liars lost it at the cabin: The Liars then go to wait at Aria&amp;#x27;s house, but they see she&amp;#x27;s already there with Ez and see them kiss. Damn. Final Thoughts: Watching Aria&amp;#x27;s cry face made me wish I could scoop out my eyeballs the way people do seeds in a melon when preparing a fresh summer salad. Alas, I cannot, so instead, I&amp;#x27;m forcing you to relive this moment with. Hate me later: Alrighty, what did you think of this episode? Did you like the film noir twist? "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/entertainment/blogs/obsessed/2014/02/pretty-little-liars-recap-spen>