Pretty Little Liars -- The Black And White Of It

Aria was still out of town with Ezra, while Spencer, Hanna and Emily snuck into Fitz's office to look from proof that he's A. They seem to find it when they find Ali's stolen diary there. They also see Mona coming into Fitz's office and leaving with a stack of papers, making them believe she's working with Fitz. Emily questioned how easily they found the diary and thought it was fishy, but Hanna and Spencer tut-tutted her concerns away. As it would turn out Emily was right and it was too easy.

Back home Emily was mixing pills and booze and suddenly she found herself trapped in a film noir movie. Toby was there as a Wilden-ish clone who was like an AA sponsor trying to tell Spencer the pills weren't helping her focus better and it wasn't too smart mixing the pills and the booze.

Before her adventure in Film Noir Land, Spencer asked Emily to question Paige about her relationship with Shauna. The girls realized all they knew about Shauna was she was missing. And in Film Noir Land Emily asked Paige what she knew and she basically told her nothing but that all the time she was with Shauna she was thinking of Emily.

Film Noir Spencer wasn't as in love and devoted to Ali as Real Life Spencer is. When a portrait of Ali shows up on the wall, Ali also pops up. Film Noir Spencer starts cross examining Ali wanting to know if she'd been watching all the time and wondering how she could just let Aria become involved with Ezra. At one point Ali says maybe it should be Spencer that she's afraid of. That's the first of many insinuations that perhaps Spencer had something to do with what happened to Ali. Spencer even says when the girls track Ali down the same thing she said to Ali the night she disappeared about Ali being nothing without them. She said that to Ali that night right before Ali left and she started following her.

I couldn't help notice that the picture of Ali seemed similar to the picture of Laura in the movie, Laura. And Toby seemed to resemble the detective in the movie that fell in love with Laura from looking at her picture. There are some similar elements. Laura is initially thought dead because someone is found dead in her apartment wearing her clothes and everyone assumes the body is Laura. And Laura was a polarizing character similar to Ali. The person that tried to kill Laura in the movie was a man that felt he made Laura what she was and he was obsessed with her. He was someone who wanted Laura but who she never gave a tumble to.

Ezra was in creepy teen stalker mode. He was with Aria telling her that some times the villain wins. Then it seemed he was trying to vamp Spencer and threaten her at the same time. And when Spencer had Hanna follow Mona, Hanna was taken to Ezra's apartment and Ezra called up Spencer to get her to come over by making threats on Hanna's life.

Then things kind of took a 180 turn and Ezra told Toby that Ali was alive and Spencer could lead Toby to Ali like Toby was the one looking for Ali. And Hanna discovered that Ali left a message at the Fitzgerald Art Gallery and if Ali is running from Ezra why would she leave a message at a place his family is connected to?

There seemed to be a lot of stuff that suggested perhaps Toby is the real villain. In one scene Spencer has her hand down a garbage compactor and a shadow is lurking around the switch to just flip it on and grind up Spencer's hand. That shadow turns into Toby. And when the girls track Ali down to the strip club she's working in [really loved that twist and so deserving a fate for Miss Ali] a shot was fired and Ezra called out for Aria to come to him. As she approached the creepy sinister silhouette it turned out it was Toby standing there and not Ezra. It was almost like the message was is they think Ezra is the bad guy but it's really Toby. Toby claimed he'd knocked out Ezra and got the girls to go off in a car with him. Horror Movie 101 is the guy you think is the killer gets knocked out and it turns out he's not the killer, after all. The guy you think you can trust who knocked out who you thought the killer was is the real killer.

Spencer comes out of Film Noir Land with a clue about the diary, to look closely at the pages. That's when she discovers the pages have been cleverly altered so the girls won't be able to figure out what they mean. At this point, Emily could have crowed, "I told you so." Luckily Spencer has a copy of the real diary pages so they can read what Ali really wrote.

The girls head over to Aria's to track her down and tell her the truth about Ezra. That's when Hanna looks in the window and sees that Aria is kissing Ezra. Do they really have enough evidence to convince Aria her beloved Ezra is A? Stay tuned for the answer, next week, when it all hits the fan.

This episode did leave you with a lot of questions. Was Spencer right when she suggested Ali has been in hiding and the liars take the hit for her with A, while Ali stays safely unscathed in the shadows? Is it possible the show is going to go back to Toby being A? I never bought for two seconds his lame excuse that he was supposedly protecting Spencer. Finally, is it possible Spencer had something to do with what happened to Ali that night she disappeared. In her fantasy she was told repeatedly she had all the pieces of the puzzles, but maybe she didn't really want to know the truth. Could Spencer have been on the pills that night and did they affect what she remembers of what happened that night? That's one that may take a lot longer than the next episode to answer.

This was kind of the real Halloween episode, this year. It offered a lot of intriguing possibilities and had none of the Ravenswood junk that the real Halloween special had this year. Of all the liars, I thought Film Noir Aria looked better in black and white than she does normally. Good episode.