'Pretty Little Liars' Recap: 'Close Encounters'

In this week's episode of Pretty Little Liars, Spencer alienated herself from everyone she loved, Aria broke up with Jake, Emily pinned after Ali and Hanna had a meltdown.

This episode began where the previous episode ended. The girls were rushing to the Busy Bee Inn to find Ali. But, when they got there, they we shocked to find that the Inn was completely torn apart. On the door, 'You're too late -A' was scratched in. Devastated, the girls went back home.

Emily stopped by the church the next morning to drop off a pie. When she was in the church, she was talking to Hanna on the phone. Hanna said that she thought that the struggle was fake. Emily disagreed.

For being known as "the dumb one," Hanna is actually really smart. She has been figuring things out before all of the other girls. Maybe it is the heartbreak that is pushing her but that girl is on her A-game. Pun intended.

While Emily was at the church, she ran into Shana. Shana said that she knew where Ali was and that Ali wanted to talk to Emily. Emily told Shana to prove it.

Turns out that Shana and Ali were super close and she was in charge of trying to find out who was after Ali. Never mind the fact that Mona told the girls that Shana was in love with Jenna. Turns out that Jenna was on the list of people Ali expected to be A. So Shana has been her inside man. Whatever.

Aria is still dating Ezra and Jake at the same time. After Ezra invites Aria to murder-cabin, she declines because Jake is back in town. When Jake texts her, Ezra gets jealous but Aria says she's going to end things. Ezra tells her that he is spending the day in Philadelphia with a friend.

Hanna, meanwhile, is on a complete mental breakdown. She plays pool with Travis and kisses him. She is hateful to Spencer when they clean out their closet. Hanna is hurting and lashing out.

After her mother sees her kissing Travis, she takes her to throw plates at a wall. This wasteful activity helps Hanna with her anger. She finishes the episode leaving Caleb a message, telling him that he gave her the best year ever.

Hopefully hateful Hanna's reign has ended.

Spencer, meanwhile, is alienating herself from all of her friends. After Emily tells her about Ali wanting to meet with her, Spencer discounts it and says that it isn’t Ali that is trying to contact her; it is A. Emily gets mad and leaves, saying that she is going to meet Ali.

Spencer spent most of the episode caught up in the never-ending saga of Toby’s mother and Radley. I mean, seriously, how long do I have to suffer through this? I love Pretty Little Liars but seriously, this story sucks. We have only seen Toby’s mother once and we’re expected to sympathize with all of this Radley drama. Everybody knows that Radley sucks. Can we wrap this up already?

Spencer’s dad tells Toby that Radley is settling and that he needs to sign some papers. But, as Spencer discovers, the papers include a gag order (not shocking) and, if Toby signs, he can never tell anyone about what happened with his mother.

Spencer argues with her dad more. Which is also getting old. Then, she shifts through his brief case and finds that the reason he isn’t pursuing the case further is because Mrs. DiLaurentis is on the board.

Spencer’s father had fed her some line about Jason being in rehab previously in the episode so Spencer questions his credibility in the Radley case and whether or not her half-brother is actually in rehab.

Meanwhile, Aria dumps Jake. He guesses that she left him for Ezra and she tells him that they have a history. But, let’s hold on a second. A high school student dumped her high school aged boyfriend for her teacher. Am I the only one who thinks this is wrong?

As Jake is leaving the gym, he sees Ezra yelling at a woman in a car. Ezra is really angry. I think it was Cece in the car. But, wait! Wasn’t Ezra supposed to be in Philly with his friend?

At this point, every PLL episode includes me yelling at Aria, "He's going to murder you!" But, after Ezra's outburst with the lady in the car, for the first time, I actually think he might murder someone. Not Aria, of course, but someone. (He’d probably murder them in that cabin too.)

Aria finds a gift from Jake at her house and goes back to return it. Jake tells her that he saw angry Ezra. Jake commented that he always assumed that Ezra was the person that she was afraid of. She denies it and stands up for Ezra.

But, when Aria meets Ezra at his apartment, she confronts him. She wonders why he lied to her and why he didn’t go to Philly. Also, why he was so angry. He says that he was meeting with Maggie’s lawyer.

Ezra said he lied because Maggie had already torn them apart once and that he didn’t want to do it again. He said that he wanted to be able to see Malcolm and that Maggie wouldn’t let him. He then said that Jake was trying to make him look bad.

I seriously hope the writers aren’t bringing Maggie back. With Toby’s mother drama, I can’t handle another side plot that only kind of relates to the pretty little liars. I hope that “talking to Maggie’s lawyers” was just a (really, really good) lie that Ezra made up on a whim.

The real victim of the episode was Jake. All he ever did was teach Aria to fight and love her. When he told her about Ezra he wasn’t doing it to be hateful. He cared about her. But, when Jake was practicing, he kicked his lucky punching bag and pulled back to a huge cut in his foot. Someone had stuck knives in it! Ouch.

Emily decided to meet with Ali. And, it actually was Ali! She said that she was so happy to see her. She said that Emily was the only one that she trusted. She wasn’t even sure if she could trust Hanna, Spencer or Aria.

As she was starting to open up about the fact that she thought A was following her, she heard a noise and ran away. Spencer had followed Emily. She ran away.

So, Emily and Spencer get in a catfight. Spencer says that Ali is trying to rip them apart. Emily disagrees and says that Spencer is responsible for pushing her away. Emily walks over, leaving Spencer friendless.

After her run-in with Emily, Spencer goes to Toby to make sure that he didn’t sign the gag order papers. She said that there is so much more to the story and that he can’t just give up. He tells her (forcefully) to stop talking about it. And she cries.