Recap of “Hot for Teacher” PLL Episode 4x18

This week on Pretty Little Liars, Ali is back.  Ali’s on a pay phone talking to Shana.  She says that there is no other choice, I know I told you to avoid her, but you have to get in touch.  She can’t know yet.  Can you get it?  Shana agrees to get this mysterious object.  She hangs up when she sees the pretty little liars come into the café. 

The girls are split on the whole Shana situation.  Emily thinks that they should trust Shana because Ali trusts her.  Hanna and Aria don’t think they should trust Shana.

The girls sit down with their coffee.  Aria asks Emily if her dad is going to be okay.  Emily says that he should be fine.  Hanna points out that Shana gave Emily’s dad a heart attack.  Emily doesn’t believe that it was Shauna.  She reminds the group that “A” is a guy.  Hanna still thinks Shana could be helping “A”.  After all, there was that time Shana was shipping boxes to Melissa.  Spencer is acting weird and jittery.  Hanna takes away Spencer’s cup, thinking Spencer’s had too much coffee.  Spencer claims it’s just herbal tea.  She asks if it could have been someone helping Ezra, but Emily says that there was no one else helping out at school that night.  Spencer pushes Aria to talk to Ezra, but Aria doesn’t want to.  She tells Spencer that she’s not back together with Ezra and she doesn’t see what they could learn from talking to him, anyway.  After all, Emily said Ezra wasn’t there that night.  Hanna doesn’t want anyone to get involved in the search for “A” after “A” played post office between her teeth.  Emily and Aria want to help Ali.  Hanna doesn’t want to do anything until Ali reaches out to them.  Hanna makes everyone agree to leave things alone so that “A” doesn’t come after them again.

Spencer pulls an Adderall fueled all-nighter, searching the web for all things related to Ezra.  Before she knows it, it’s already morning.  Spencer needs some more pills, so she sends a text to Andrew, asking to meet him before class because she needs help studying.  He responds that he’s all out.  Spencer calls Dr. Grayson, impersonating her mother.

At school, Ezra tells Aria about the cabin break-in.  He says that nothing was stolen, so it was probably a vagrant looking for a place to stay or maybe some kids looking to party.  He needs to go up to the cabin for the weekend and wants Aria to come with him.  Aria can’t go because her dad will be in Syracuse and she can’t leave Mike alone.  Ezra pushes her to come and Aria finally agrees, saying that she’ll figure something out with Mike.

Hanna finally gets her stuff back that the police took during the Wilden murder investigation.  Hanna is ecstatic to get her shoes back.  Hanna is done with reading mystery books.  She was going to sell the books back to the store, but she offers to give them to Officer Holbrook.  He says that he’s busy.  The search for CeCe Drake leaves him with a lot of paperwork. He says that you learn a lot by looking at a person’s habits and routine.  Little things are the most important.

Emily goes up to Shana and asks if Ali was the one Shana was talking to the other night.  Shauna says that Ali reached out and Emily screwed it up.  Emily asks Shana to tell Ali that she’s sorry.

At school, Hanna tells Aria that she’s certain Spencer is still investigating.  She lets it slip that she talked to Gabe.  Aria is surprised that Hanna is referring to Officer Holbrook by his first name.  Hanna says they are not friends, but sort of book club buddies without the monthly meetings. 

Hanna brings the conversation back to the topic of Spencer’s investigation.  She knows Spencer is lying.  She wants Aria to help her talk to Spencer this weekend, before Spencer pisses “A” off.  Aria, who already made secret plans with Ezra, lies and says that she’s visiting her dad for the weekend.  Hanna asks her to blow it off and see him another weekend.  Aria says that she wants to get away from Rosewood for the weekend because she needs a break from the Mike and Mona slow jams and lip balm.  After Hanna walks off, Aria sees Jesse talking to a crying girl down the hall.

Spencer, all out of Adderall pills, is on the hunt for a new supplier.  She watches as a student, Brenda, takes a pill.  Spencer pulls her aside.  She comes up with a lie, saying that her dad is out of town and he has her prescription.  Brenda agrees to give her five pills, but it’ll cost Spencer fifty dollars.  Repeat customers get a discount, so Spencer should come to see her next week if she needs more.

Ezra runs into Spencer in the hall and wants to have a word with her.  He finished reading her essay and it is much lower quality work than what she normal turns in.  She lifted an entire paragraph from Wikipedia.  He asks what is going on with her.  She says that she’s been swamped.  Ezra asks if she thought that he wouldn’t figure out what she’s been up to.  He wants to see her after school.  Spencer says that she’ll take the grade.  Ezra tells her that sloppy work leads to consequences and he’d hate to see her suffer.

Aria goes to Jesse’s office, but at the last minute she turns away before knocking.  Jesse happens to come out of his office at that moment.  Aria admits that she’s angry, but not at her brother.  She’s angry at herself.  She asks to talk to him.  In his office, Aria says that she understands that Mike has different experiences with Mona than she does.  Jesse is confused because he thought Aria was going to talk about her anger at herself.  Aria admits that she doesn’t know who she can talk to anymore.  She’s been lying to her boyfriend and lying to her friends about her boyfriend.  Jesse notes that it sounds lonely.  Does she want to start talking about her boyfriend?  Aria tells him that she has a long history with her boyfriend, so her friends might not be supportive if they knew she was back together with him.  Jesse asks why they would disapprove.  At that question, Aria bolts out of the room, making an excuse about having to pick up Mike.  Ezra notices Aria leaving Jesse’s office.

Hanna, on a mission to find out what Spencer is up to, has recruited Emily to help her.  Hanna calls Spencer, telling her that they are outside her house and want to talk.  Spencer lies and says that she is at the library.  Hanna and Emily are continuing their stakeout outside Spencer’s house when they see Shana coming out of the DiLaurentis house.  They wonder if Ms. DiLaurentis knows that Ali is still alive.    Emily demands that they follow Shana, but Hanna refuses.  She doesn’t care about Shana, she cares about Emily.  She doesn’t want any of them to get hurt, so she drives away.

At school, Ezra pulls Spencer’s records and sees that she is on medication for ADHD.  It says that there is a doctor’s note on file.  While Ezra is looking at the file, Jesse comes in, mistaking the room for the teacher’s lounge.  Ezra explains that he is having an academic issue with a senior.  Jesse told him that he should get the student talking.  Jesse says that Ezra would be surprised how much students talk, especially when they feel like they don’t have anyone to talk to.  Ezra leaves, taking the file with him.

Shana shows up at Emily’s door, needing her help.  Unnoticed by the girls, someone is taking pictures of them from a parked car.  Shana comes inside and they talk in Emily’s bedroom.  Emily has a lot of questions for Shana.  Did Shana date Paige to get to her?  Shana claims that she didn’t know about Paige and Emily until she got to Rosewood.  She tried to come between them to find out more about Emily.  She found out that Emily is loyal, fiercely protective and not a fool.  Shana was at Wren’s apartment because she answered an ad to ship and pack boxes in a hurry.  When Wren found out she was from Rosewood, he asked her to be discreet.  She was at the DiLaurentis house to get something for Ali.  She never got a chance to get the item because Ms. DiLaurentis was so excited to see her.  Ali doesn’t trust anyone but Emily.  Shana needs Emily to retrieve the item, which is behind a poster (a French thing with twins) in Ali’s room.

Spencer has been researching Ezra nonstop.  She searches the web for “Ezra Fitzgerald Ravenswood”.  Spencer finds a listing for a Ravenswood apartment.  She calls Aria, whose phone goes to voicemail.  Spencer starts to leave a heartbreaking message.  She says that something has been going on and she really needs to talk to Aria about it.  If she’s right, then that would break Aria’s heart and if she’s wrong, then Aria will hate her forever and that would break her heart.  The tape asks if she wants to rerecord her message and Spencer does not leave the message after all.  Spencer prints out the info on the Ravenswood apartment and leaves.

Meanwhile, Aria is at the cabin with Ezra.  Aria’s already awake when Ezra gets up.  She didn’t sleep well and doesn’t want coffee.  She’s already got her suitcase packed and blindsides Ezra when she asks him to take her home.  Aria admits that she is tired of lying to her family and friends.  If Ezra can’t take her home, then she’ll just take the bus.  Ezra stops her, telling her that being torn between him and her friends isn’t such a bad thing.  Maybe the feeling of growing away from her friends is just because she’s growing closer to him.  He agrees that she shouldn’t have to hide things from her closest friends.  He wants Aria to think of him as the person she’s closest to and the person that she wants to share everything with.  He knows that he also has to do the same thing.  He didn’t mean to put pressure on her and maybe it was a bad idea for him to bring her.  He tells her to think about it while he showers.  If she still wants to leave, then he’ll drive her.  Aria tells him to wait.  She does want this and she really does want to make their relationship work.

Hanna runs into Spencer and tells her that she knows Spencer was lying when she claimed she was at the library.  Spencer tries to brush her off, but Hanna blocks her path and keeps calling her out on her lies.  Spencer loses it and yells at Hanna to back off, then storms off.  Officer Holbrook, standing nearby, comes over and asks if they always fight like that.

Emma gets into Ali’s room by telling Ms. DiLaurentis that she lost a diamond earring there.  She needs it back because she borrowed it without asking her mom.  Ms. DiLaurentis doesn’t think it’s in the room, since she dusts it weekly and didn’t see an earring.  She offers to check the bathroom.  While she’s gone, Emily takes the poster off the wall and cuts open the paper backing.  She takes out an envelope that contains five thousand dollars in cash.  She gets the poster back on the wall before Ms. DiLaurentis comes back in.  She quickly pulls the earring out of her pocket and says that she found it.

Ezra is busy cooking when Aria comes back in after taking some photographs outside.  When Ezra says that he doesn’t have chickpeas, Aria offers to drive to get some.  It will take Aria a couple hours to get back, but she doesn’t mind going.  She wants to take more photographs, anyway.  After she leaves, we see that there are chickpeas in the cabinet.  Ezra grabs the can and takes it to the basement.  We see his lair set up down there.  There are three computers on the desk.  He has a new message attachment.  He opens it and looks at the pictures of Officer Holbrook and Hanna talking, Shana at Emily’s house, and Emily with the envelope containing Ali’s cash.

At work, Emily calls Shana.  Shana’s at a meet, so she’ll stop by to get the cash afterwards.  She tells Emily to hide it somewhere.  Emily hides Alison’s stash in a coffee bean bag.  After Shana’s swim meet, she gets in her car.  She looks in the rearview mirror and screams.

Hanna, still trying to find out what’s up with Spencer, calls Veronica Hastings and asks if Spencer is home.  She asks if she can stop by and get some nail polish that Spencer borrowed.

Hanna goes into Spencer’s room and looks at her computer.  She sees all the web pages Spencer looked at related to Ezra Fitz.  She sees a new message regarding the Ravenswood apartment.  It says sorry that he can’t help.  Tenant information is confidential.

Spencer goes to Ezra’s apartment.  She gets in by pushing all the intercom buttons until someone answers.  She pretends she is delivering flowers in order to be buzzed in.  As she goes in, Hanna grabs her.  She asks if Spencer is on drugs, since she must be on crack if she thinks that Ezra is “A”.  Spencer explains that Ezra matches the guy described in Ali’s journal.  He was at the same bar, eating boysenberry pie and drinking Board Shorts Ale.  Hanna reminds Spencer that Ali’s journal is jumbled.  What if she is connecting the wrong dots? 

Ezra, dressed in all black, sits in his car looking at his surveillance videos.  He has a video in the cabin, which allows him to watch Aria sleeping inside.  He can also see Spencer and Hanna outside his apartment door.  Spencer finds the key and opens the door.  Hanna says that even if Spencer is right about the Ravenswood apartment, Ezra wouldn’t be keeping anything tying him to it in his apartment.  Out of the corner of her eye, Spencer sees a camera in the hallway.  She pretends to rethink her Ezra theory and leaves without going inside the apartment.

Aria wakes up and sees that Ezra is not in bed.  She calls for him, but he doesn’t answer.  She goes to the door and looks outside.  When she turns around, Ezra is there (no longer dressed in all black).  He says that he was up because he forgot to lock the back door.  Aria asks if he was up late reading.  She’s concerned that he couldn’t sleep.  Is he worried about their relationship?  Ezra says that Aria was right about the relationship not working unless they tell the truth.  He says that he’s just really glad that she stayed.

Spencer tells Hanna and Emily about the surveillance camera that she saw at Ezra’s place.  Hanna feels like her head is full of hot ice.  Emily and Hanna can’t believe that Ezra is “A”.  He was so nice to them in the past.  Spencer thinks he was only nice to them so that they would let their guard down.  Spencer doesn’t want them to tell Aria about the Ezra is “A” theory until they know for sure.  Emily shows the girls Alison’s stash of cash.  She says Shana never showed up at the Brew.  There is contact information with the money. If the girls can’t get the money to Ali, then Ali can’t stay on the move and she will be vulnerable.  The girls think that Ezra has Shana, so that she can lead him to Ali and he can finish what he started.

Ali calls Shana again from a pay phone.  Shana, unconscious in her car, wakes when her cell phone rings.  Ali asks her if she has the money.  Shana is not sure where she is.  She turns on the car’s headlights and sees that she is at the border of Rosewood.  There is a sign that says “You are leaving the city of Rosewood.”  Someone has painted the sign so that it reads “Don’t come back”.  Shana tells Ali that she doesn’t have the money and she has to go.  Ali asks what she is supposed to do.  Shana hangs up and speeds out of Rosewood.

Ali counts the little cash that she has left in her wallet.  She pulls out a picture of herself, Aria and Emily.  Ali gets on a bus.  She looks out the window and cries.

Back in Ezra’s lair, a black and white movie is playing on the monitors.  There are pictures of Aria’s face on the wall.  He opens an envelope and takes out a stack of Dr. Wren Kingston’s prescription pads.