Pretty Little Liars – Farewell, My Lovely

By: Michelle Lopez

We open on Detective Tanner (Roma Maffia) looking over the mugshots of the liars while arguing with someone about waking a judge to sign her arrest warrants. She can’t wait until morning heaven forbids they find some pretty little lie that’ll get them off another murder rap.

Aria (Lucy Hale) is in a tough spot after discovering Dunhill’s body in her trunk and locking her keys in the trunk when a cop stopped to check on her. Aria explains the situation sans dead body and claims her friend is on the way with spare keys hoping that the cop will leave. The cop insists on shaking the trunk loose to save her friend some time. He gets the trunk unlocked but before he can open it he gets a call over the radio. While he’s responding Aria grabs her keys and shuts the trunk. The cop is satisfied with a job well done and Aria’s escaped arrest.

At the Hastings house, Hanna (Ashley Benson) doesn’t want to believe that Mona (Janel Parrish) is AD, but Caleb (Tyler Blackburn) has some pretty damning evidence. Since Tanner is getting ready to make a move on them Spencer (Troian Bellisario) is glad they finally have leverage. Hanna and Caleb are going to try to get Mona to admit to being AD so the cops will lay off the liars. Ezra (Ian Harding) walks into the room after another failed attempt to contact Aria. He’s pissed that the other liars cut her off after she turned on them to save him from going to jail. He points out that AD is dangerous because they can’t forgive and the liars just dropped to AD’s level. Ezra storms out and Caleb follows to offer his services in helping locate Aria.

While driving back to town, Aria decides to have a conversation with Dunhill’s corpse. She blames it for making so much noise and almost getting her arrested. Then she realizes if it hadn’t made so much noise she’d have gotten to her friends and AD would have called in an anonymous tip getting them all arrested. Deciding to alleviate her guilt by taking the fall, Aria heads to the police station.

Mona returns home and finds that AD has stolen the board game. They left behind a note to meet at the Two Crows Diner so Mona heads to the meeting. Hanna and Caleb get to her building just as Mona’s leaving. Instead of confronting her they decide to follow and see what she’s up to.

After receiving another message in a bottle from Mary during the earlier liar meetup, Spencer’s at the Lost Woods with her. Mary (Andrea Parker) decided to help Spencer and Alison as much as possible before leaving. She put the deed to the Lost Woods in their names as a way for them to pay for lawyers. Spencer accepts the gift and then they part ways telling each other to be careful.

At home, Alison (Sasha Pieterse) and Emily (Shay Mitchell) ponder what’s going to happen to their baby when they go to jail. Alison’s terrified the baby will grow up just like Charlotte (Vanessa Ray) had. Emily tells Alison to snap out of it because it’s taken her seven years to finally the girl and she’s going to do whatever it takes to protect her and their baby. They kiss and settle in for a long night of worrying while AD pumps gas into the house via a hose near their fireplace.

In the town square, Ezra catches Aria as she’s working up the courage to go turn herself in. Aria’s confused how Ezra found her since she’s been radio silent but Caleb tracked her car. Ezra wants to get out of town, but Aria is set on turning herself to save her friends. Ezra knows her admitting to murder when she has a solid alibi wouldn’t work until he learns about Dunhill’s body.

Hanna and Caleb have followed Mona to the Two Crows Diner where she appears to be nervously waiting for someone. Spencer arrives and finds the two bickering like the married couple they are. Hanna believes that Mona stole the game from AD to protect them from the cops while Caleb refuses to entertain the idea that she might not be AD. Spencer tells Hanna that she had just met with Mary and was gifted the Lost Woods. Before they can get too far into a Mary discussion, they notice that Caleb’s gone. He decided to head into the diner and confront Mona himself.

Inside the diner, Caleb sits down at Mona’s table and takes a bite of her pie while asking who she’s waiting for. Mona claims to not be waiting for anyone so Caleb invites her to go for a ride. He wants to go pick up the game board from her apartment and then have Mona turn herself into the cops and explain being AD. The only problem with that play is that Mona’s not AD and someone has once again stolen the game from her. She’s a little unhinged and falling back into her A persona. Mona excuses herself to the bathroom as Hanna and Spencer walk in and distract Caleb. They follow her into the bathroom, but Mona’s gone. Caleb knocks on some walls and finds a secret passage. Hanna’s prepared to follow it, but Caleb tells her to drive back to the town and let everyone know that he and Spencer are following the passage.

At the police station, an officer lays out five signed arrest warrants for the liars on Tanner’s desk. Tanner tells the officer to contact the watch commander and sits down to admire her handiwork.

At The Brew Ezra tries to convince Aria to skip town with him, but she’s not going to abandon her friends. Yeah, they turned on her, but only after she let her fear send her into self-preservation mode. Ezra realizes he’s not leaving without all the liars so he suggests they all get out of Tanner’s jurisdiction. The only issue left is Dunhill’s body which anyone with a Masters in American literature can handle. They head to Aria’s car, but there’s nothing inside the trunk.

In a gas-fueled fever dream, the flash-forward teaser scene comes to fruition. The liars all charge into Alison’s classroom telling her it’s time to go as she writes every name she’s ever had/used. Spencer lets them know it’s too late so the liars stack up all the student desks against the door as a figure slams against the door trying to get in. Alison backs away until she’s resting on the farthest wall and the zombie hand of Dunhill crashes through and grabs her. At this point in the dream, Emily wakes up as she’s fallen off the couch she and Ali were napping on. Emily wakes Ali up as the game board comes to life and a video of Alison telling Ian “we don’t have a lot of time” starts playing on repeat. They decide it’s time to run, but someone starts knocking on the door. They assume it is the police but it’s just Aria.

In the passageway, Caleb tells Spencer that he doesn’t think Mona’s AD anymore. He actually feels sorry for her because all she’s ever wanted to be was in charge and always ended up a pawn in someone else’s game. Then he drops the “Haleb” marriage bomb on Spencer, expecting some negativity; however, she’s happy for them. He wants to apologize to Spencer, but she doesn’t see anything apology-worthy. They were together and it didn’t work out. The only thing that would be apology worth is if he forgot about his time with Spencer.

Ezra, Aria, Alison and Emily drive around trying to get ahold of Spencer, Hanna and Caleb. Alison decides to apologize on behalf of the liars to Aria for shunning her. Aria doesn’t hold it against them as she’s just glad to be back in the fold. They get stuck in traffic because the cops are checking cars. Ezra decides the best move is to pull a U-turn and avoid any police interaction.

Hanna’s returned to Rosewood and is walking past the church when she notices flower petals raining down. She heads up to the belfry and finds Nerdy Mona. Mona calls Hanna by Charlotte and after a few questions flashes back to the night Charlotte died. Mona told Charlotte to meet her there and when she arrived Mona told Charlotte she wasn’t fooled by her act. She accuses her of wanting to start the game up again and Charlotte doesn’t deny it. In order to protect her friends, Mona drags Charlotte to the window and tells her to jump. She’s snapped out of her flashback by Spencer and Caleb rushing up the stairs. The tunnel lets out in the church and they heard noise in the belfry. Mona goes to push Hanna thinking she’s Charlotte but they stop her. Hanna tells them that Mona killed Charlotte and they will not be taking her to the cops in the mental state she’s currently in. They head to the car where they find the last two puzzle pieces.

At the Lost Woods, everyone but Hanna and Spencer want to hand Mona over to Tanner but with the mental state she’s in they could get her to confess to anything. She’s regressed to the last place she felt safe, high school – when Alison was the biggest monster around. They decide to call Dr. Sullivan to help Mona out and handle the police. The liars place the last two pieces in the puzzle and the phone lets them know the grand prize is Dunhill’s body. An augmented reality black hoody wanders across the game to the mystery location spot on the board which morphs into Aunt Carol’s house.

At Aunt Carol’s house armed with shovels, the liars stand in front of the symbolic grave of Charles. They prepare to start digging when Aria stops them and questions if this is their best move. They’ve been in this position before and the only thing that they ever dug up are their own graves. They decide to finally stop playing games, walk away and take control of their lives. As they walk away Tanner shows up with a bulldozer and army of police. The liars are arrested and Dunhill’s body is found.

At the police station, the liars decide that they’re going to tell the truth for once. There’s no getting out of this unscathed so the truth is all they’ve got. Tanner walks in to let me know the body has been identified as Dunhill and that she’ll be with them in a minute. She goes next door, which the liars can see, to interview Mary who has confessed to killing Dunhill. Mary goes over the night Dunhill died with all the details of the liars’ night but adds him holding Jessica’s murder over her head as the reason she helped him at first. Tanner asks about finding the liars near the body, which Mary explains away as them trying to prove she’d killed him since Tanner was closing in on them. Tanner returns to the liars to release them. She doesn’t believe Mary killed Dunhill, but she’s got enough evidence to get a conviction. She reminds the liars they’re not criminals and tells them to go home.

At the Lost Woods, the liars tell Mona that Dr. Sullivan is coming to help her and Hanna apologizes for sucking Mona back into the game. Mona flashes back to the rest of the night Charlotte died. She didn’t throw Charlotte off the belfry. She scared her to prove a point, but Charlotte didn’t back down and attacked Mona. Mona defended herself and Charlotte hit her head on a pipe sticking out of the wall killing her.

The liars watch as the board game powers down. AD has no leverage against them anymore and they’re finally free.