Pretty Little Liars - S5E12 - Taking This One to the Grave

Previously on Pretty Little Liars, ‘No One Here Can Love or Understand Me’

The episode begins with a bloody death, but we don’t see who the victim is. All we know is that it’s Thanksgiving Day and it’s not Ezra, Aria, Hanna, or Emily.

Rewind 36 hours and Ali has volunteered to take a lie detector test. The Liars turn to Mona to find out what Alison is up to for no other reason than she’s Mona and Mona knows how to do shady shit. She’s all too happy to help since Alison has effectively isolated her from her army. Not sure when Ali had the time to do this. She spent all of last week’s episode out of town with her father and before that she was still the school’s pariah.

Anyway, Mona manages to hack into the police records (with some help from Lucas) and downloads everything Ali has told the cops. This plus the fact that Toby graduated from the police academy in about two weeks totally explains why the cops in Rosewood are so damn awful at solving crimes. The girls are convinced Ali is A and that her interrogation was all about setting up Spencer for Bethany’s murder. They believe she has told the cops that to stay in Ali’s good favor and keep her drug use a secret, Spencer killed Bethany. But why would Ali want Bethany dead? Did they know each other? Off to Radley they go, dressed as nurses, and they steal files including recordings of Bethany’s sessions. Bethany’s father was having an affair with Ali’s mother and now the Liars believe that this was Alison’s motive.

They rush to Mona’s house to hear this evidence for themselves, but Mona has already been attacked by a blonde woman in a hoodie. By the time they arrive they find the house has been ransacked, there is blood on the walls, and there’s enough blood in Mona’s room that the police determine she must be dead, even though they didn’t find a body.

Ali watches from the shadows and then walks away.

What Worked: 

• The show is definitely a lot more fun when the Liars are suspicious of Ali. I’m positive she’s not A and I have a theory on A’s identity (see the spoiler box below), but I love that they suspect her. They really are at their best when they’re scrambling to keep one step ahead of someone who is clearly much better at the game.
• I was sad to see Mona go, but it had to happen and probably should have been sooner. I was positive she wasn’t really dead when they said they hadn’t found a body, but the final moments of the episode showed Mona’s dead body (looking completely drained of blood with her eyes open) in the trunk of A’s car. There were several reminders in this episode that Mona was actually a very bright girl who, though she’d made mistakes, started out as another of Ali’s victims.

What Didn’t Work:

• The cops in Rosewood really are the worst. Where the hell was Tanner?
• I am not here for this Emily and Paige bullshit.
• Spencer being arrested for Bethany’s murder. *yawn*
• Paige follows Ali to a farmhouse with a bunch of cars parked out front. The Liars surmise that Ali has gathered her own army. Enough with the dumb armies already! They’re always made up of a bunch of random students we don’t care about.
• The psych out in which they tried to make us think that rookie cop Toby was the one who would die when he got into a car accident.

I’m looking forward to the Christmas special PLL is doing in lieu of their usual Halloween episode.