Pretty Little Liars -- Getting Ready For The Summer 2013 Season
A recap of season three
Season three was a tough season for this show. After the revelation that Mona was A; it was like the show had to begin again from the beginning in rebuilding the A mystery. Unfortunately, the show ended on a less than stellar note as the mystery was turned up into a mixed-up mess.
Much like the show originally began one of the girls had gone away, this time it was Emily, and once they were reunited the whole thing started up again. During a sleepover at Spencer’s, Emily disappeared in the middle of the night. She was later found at Allison’s grave with no memory of how she’d gotten there. The grave was empty and Allison’s body had been stolen.
A lot of the action centered around what Emily did while she was drugged and roaming around town. She dropped in to visit Paige and she was also driving around with Jenna in her car. Was it Toby in Jenna’s car who texted Emily, “I bet you remember me?” Was it Jenna who stole Allison’s body and left a drugged Emily by the graveside? Those are questions that have yet to be answered.
Since the night Mona was revealed to be A, Spencer had been going to A’s lair in the motel trying to recreate everything she saw there that night. Shortly after Mona’s reveal, the room had been mysteriously cleared out. Spencer came to the conclusion that Mona had been working with someone, as there was no way it could have been Mona who’d given Emily a massage.
When the girls left the motel they found pictures of them all over their car of them standing by Allison’s empty grave. If the police should see them, they might think the girls had been the ones to dig up the body and steal it. Earlier, when they had discovered a spaced-out Emily at the grave site, they had decided to lie they were up at Spencer’s cabin. Once again their lies had trapped them in A’s web. These pictures would prove they had lied and they wouldn’t be able to convince anyone they hadn’t been the one to dig up Ali’s grave and steal her body. A sent them all a text to gloat that they were once again caught in an A trap with no way out.
This A was a little bit different than Mona’s A. It’s more than likely this A was in fact Toby. This A tricked Spencer into following a breadcrumb trail of clues to evidence that would clear Garrett of Ali’s murder. However, when Noel supposedly sent evidence to Spencer that proved he and Jenna couldn’t have killed Maya, and it also cleared Garrett of Maya’s murder [since Maya had still been alive when Garrett had been placed under arrest] she decided to sit on the evidence, not wanting to help clear Garrett.
This A also forced Aria to confess to her father it wasn’t Meredith that trashed Byron’s office, but her who did it. She didn’t reveal that Ali had been with her and started it then egged her on to do it. It turned out the earrings Ali supposedly found in Byron’s office that had spurred Aria on to trashing his office didn’t belong to Meredith, after all. Was it possible that Ali had planted the earrings and they had belonged to her to get Aria to trash Byron’s office so she’d have something to hold over Aria’s head? The idea didn’t seem to ever occur to Aria.
Hanna was worried when the Ouija board placard showed up. Like the earrings that were used to force Aria to confess to trashing Byron’s office, these were items the girls had placed in Ali’s coffin when she was buried. Hanna was afraid A planned to frame her for Ali’s murder now that Garrett had been cleared of the crime. She also revealed that after Ali’s disappearance she and Mona had held a séance and she had seen a very alive Ali standing outside the window. So convinced Ali was alive, she had told Ali’s mother. When Ali’s body was found, Ali’s father reamed her out for what she did.
Hanna was ready to tell Caleb that A was back, when he revealed that someone had run his mother off the road. A sent pics of the accident to Hanna, convincing her A was behind it. This convinced Hanna to break-up with Caleb, but he eventually figured out the truth and that got back together in secret. Problems arose for the two when Hanna figured out Caleb’s Uncle Jamie was really his father. When A tricked Hanna into accusing Jamie of theft, Hanna and Caleb hit a rough patch, that may be a permanent break-up since Caleb is one of the characters being sent off to the Pretty Little Liar’s spin-off.
Aria discovered she didn’t really know Ezra, after all. She discovered he came from a rich family and learned he had a secret child with his first love. Aria secretly went and met his ex Maggie and discovered the money Maggie had been paid to abort Ezra’s child, she’d never used to get an abortion. Aria kept from Ezra he had a son named Malcolm. A tricked Spencer into revealing to Ezra that Aria knew he had a son and kept it from them. Ezra and Aria’s relationship became strained, especially when Malcolm and Maggie came to town. Aria eventually ended things with Ezra.
After dealing with the death of Maya, Emily fell in love with Paige. Because Spencer refused to do the right thing and give the police the evidence she had that cleared Garrett of Maya’s murder, they decided to feed Spencer a new suspect to blame Maya’s death on: Paige. Cece revealed to Spencer that Allison had been bullying Paige and when Spencer searched Paige’s purse and found the other earring [Aria had only been sent one of Meredith’s earrings to get her to confess to trashing Bryon’s office] she became convinced Paige was A. Emily, however, wasn’t buying into Spencer’s conspiracy theories.
Ultimately, the A’s plan to frame Paige didn’t work. Nate, the guy who really murdered Maya, kidnapped both Paige and Emily. He started stalking Emily after he killed Maya. After Emily figured out that Nate had killed Maya, she had to kill him to save herself. When Caleb got into the act and Nate shot him before he died, this was one crime the liars couldn’t cover up and keep secret. The upshot was Garrett was set free much to the liars’ displeasure.
Garrett didn’t end up enjoying his freedom for long. Garrett said he’d tell Spencer what she wanted to know before he left town. Unfortunately for Garrett, Spencer passed this info on to Garrett and it wasn’t long after that that Garrett ended up dead. Before dying Garrett revealed that he had seen Bryon with Ali the night she disappeared.
Not long after Garrett’s death Mona was released from Radley and she returned to town. At first, she tried to act like she changed, but when she began a campaign of terror against Spencer, Hanna turned on her. That didn’t stop Mona from breaking Spencer. She took over as head of the debate team Spencer was on. Then Spencer discovered that Toby was working with Mona. Finally, Mona made Spencer believe Toby had been killed, and Spencer ended up in Radley, herself. Once there, Mona repeated the offer she made at the end of season two, for Spencer to join the A Team, and this time Spencer agreed. As part of Spencer’s initiation, she kidnapped Malcolm.
When Hanna figured out what Spencer did, Spencer revealed she’s just pretending so she can find out who the head A was.
Byron’s rekindled relationship with Meredith ended up putting Aria in grave danger. The desk clerk from the motel showed up at the school as janitor and he had some business with Mona. Mona claimed he was stalking her and she got him fired. Before that happened, Aria managed to tear out several pages of Ali’s diary that he was keeping that involved Bryon and Ali’s involvement. Meredith was determined to find those pages to protect Byron. First, she revealed that Bryon was being blackmailed by Allison to make Aria believe she shared her suspicions about Byron, she tried to get Aria to hand over the diary pages to her. When that didn’t work, Meredith began drugging her while she searched the house for them. Bryon arrived home just in time to save Aria and revealed that he stood up to Ali’s blackmail demands and just walked away from her the night she vanished.
Meredith was revealed to have mental problems, but was that really the truth? A seemed to help Meredith get Byron back and then A seemed to have been threatening Meredith when she was almost burned alive. So was it A that forced Meredith to do everything she did?
Detective Wilden became another suspect in Ali’s murder. It was discovered he’d been romantically involved with her and it was suspected she might have been pregnant with his baby. It all turned out to be nothing, but when Wilden started harassing Hanna, again, Ashley ended up running his down with her car. Hanna decided to cover up the crime and got Aria to help her push his patrol car in the lake. Unfortunately, Wilden showed up alive demanding his patrol car back, Hanna was in a pickle about how she could give him what he wanted to make him go away.
By the end of the season, Toby like Lucas [and I don’t believe either of them] were claiming they’d been forced to cooperate with A. Mona even started claiming the same thing. Toby was revealed to be Pretty Eyes, the person who bribed Dr. Sullivan into leaving town. While Mona claimed the person in a Red Coat blackmailed her, but she never saw their face because they were wearing a mask. As Mona and the girls awaited the arrival of Red Coat, the house they were in was set on fire. Afterwards, Mona claimed it was Alison who saved them.
Jenna showed up and she was in cahoots with Melissa and the Costume Rental Girl. Jenna revealed her eyesight had only been restored temporarily and she was going to go blind, again. They talked about making the bitches pay. So did they set the house on fire?
In the final moments the patrol car showed up again looking like it had never been shoved into the lake. This time the video playing showed Jenna helping an injured Wilden away from the scene of his hit-and-run and there was a body in the trunk.
As season four begins on Tuesday, will the writers be able to untangle the convoluted mess they made in the finale? Was the body in the trunk anyone we know? And is Allison really alive and behind everything?