‘Pretty Little Liars’ 3.15 Recap And Review: Mona-Mania!

It seems that old habits really do die hard on Pretty Little Liars. Mona is back to her old tricks again (if she even stopped in the first place), and there’s no wonder why this episode was strategically titled ‘Mona Mania’. While Spencer tries to outwit Mona, Aria desperately tries to figure out if her father really had anything to do with Ali’s death. Talk about tension.

Mona (Janel Parrish):

If you look up fabulous, psychotic, and/or manipulative in the dictionary… Mona would be right there. We already knew what she was capable of, but during Mona-Mania, it was truly brought to a new light. First off, it is revealed that the creepy janitor/innkeeper turned out to be stalking Mona. She believed that he set up the fire that ended up wounding Meredith, but it turns out that Lucas was the guilty party. His motive? Mona has been blackmailing him for months, and he took matters into his own hands. He aired concerns to Hanna (Ashley Benson), which forced her to blow up at Mona… To be honest, Mona is still vulnerable, and maybe that wasn’t the best approach. I feel like it’s going to come back and bite Hanna in the ass. Spencer (Troian Bellisario), on the other hand, was forced to compete with Mona over a Team Captain spot that she’s been pining for. Despite Spencer’s preparations, she ended up losing to Mona. This kind of goes to show that no one really knows what she’s capable of. You can never tell when she’s lying, or when she’s trying to trick you. But towards the end of the episode, we saw Mona spying on Aria’s dad (looking very much like ‘A’.) This isn’t really a surprise, but it seems as if Mona’s intentions aren’t as sincere as she wants everyone to believe.

The Little Liars:

Besides the epic battle of wits between Mona and Spencer, and Hanna’s massive confrontation with Miss Crazy, a lot of unpleasant things happened to the liars, especially Aria (Lucy Hale). Still trying to tie together her father’s sketchy past, Aria enlists the support of an unlikely individual. After a weird conversation with her father, Aria decides to chat with her mom to try to figure out where her father was the night of Ali’s death. According to Ella (Holly Marie Combs), Byron (Chad Lowe) was with her the entire time, or so she thought. Soon, Aria finds out that her father went snooping through her stuff, and happened to take the diary entries that she had hidden in her boot. As if chance would have it, Aria overheard her father having a pretty heated row with Meredith (Amanda Schull), pushing Aria to follow her to get some answers. It turns out that on the night of Ali’s death, Byron snuck out to see Meredith, and later went to find Ali. Talk about dramatic! And after bonding over Byron’s secrets, Aria and Meredith shared some tea, and things got weird and awkward.

Emily (Shay Mitchell) didn’t really have an interesting story this episode. She tried to convince Paige (Lindsey Shaw) to go to a swim team party, Paige freaks out and reveals that she’s afraid of everything now, they go for a walk in the woods at night (which doesn’t make any sense, I mean it’s like they’re asking to be killed.), their tires get slashed, Emily sees ‘A,’ but loses him, and Toby (Keegan Allen) almost lost his cover.

I really think this episode was a massive indication of what’s to come. Toby almost being caught by Emily, Mona cracking, Byron’s anger issues… It’s evident that during the rest of this season, everyone’s true identities will come to light. Honestly, there’s only a question of when it’s going to happen. So far, the second half of season 3 is stellar! Although some of the actions seem out of character, it ultimately adds to the ever nerve-wrecking plot. There’s no doubt that I, along with pretty much everyone who watches this show, is curious to see how everything turns out.

Rating:
A-

Questions:

• Thoughts on Aria and Meredith bonding?
• What is Mona up to?
• Toby: Why did he slash Emily’s tires? And what did the masks at the end mean?