It's been a month since the Liars variously wrecked a wedding, uncovered Gallic plagiarism at the highest levels of academe, accidentally committed suicide by CO2, and got themselves arrested for murder. They've spent that time on highway garbage detail, slowly going insane from the pressure and turning on each other in a hissing, spitting, hair-pulling group breakdown that has all their boyfriends buzzing.

Just kidding, that's the trick: In reality, Spencer's latest amazing plan is to create the illusion of cutting Emily out of the group, hoping their torturer will try to turn her. Basically what the plan comes down to is them standing around in hallways yelling not so cryptic things at each other, but it's still very stylish to watch.

Aria and Spencer are still pushing their boyfriends Ezra and Toby away, in the hopes that they can keep them clear of the ongoing hash their dead best friend continues to make of their lives. Once Ezra learns about Jackie's blackmailing ways, though, he decides it's finally time to tell the Montgomerys of their forbidden love.

The episode is pwned entirely by Holly Marie Combs at this point, as per usual; Byron throws around a lot of terrifying English Lit threats; Mikey hauls off and hits Ezra in a sweetly dysfunctional attempt to deflect any physical damage. Really, the takeaway is that everybody finally knows about the affair, and everybody -- including Aria and Ezra -- finally has to admit how damn creepy they both are.

Speaking of creepy, poor old Toby gets some kind of abandonment issue going about how Spencer can't break up with him and Emily both, and throws a pretty inappropriate fit about it. For a scene that's intended mainly to delay Spencer from arriving on-time to the big A showdown, it's still pretty uncomfortable and stalkery and weird, which is nice.

Or maybe it's the rocking chair that be carpented for her for her birthday, and spends the episode driving around pissily in that truck she bought him, and seems generally like the kind of wack-ass thing the Cavanaughs probably do all the time.

"I built you this rocking chair. You should rock slowly in it on the porch, with your legs covered by a blanket, drinking out of a jar."

Hanna's spent the month hanging with Lucas while Caleb is off in California visiting his new other family, and of course Lucas and Caleb have to have a big bromance about their whole love triangle, but it seems like Lucas is heading back to creepiness too, what with his looking at secret websites and being not entirely forthright about the complexity of his Hanna situations. Which normally would be pretty interesting, but for the late revelation that Hanna's dad is moving back to Rosewood, with his jug-blowing hick of a wife and psychotic bitch stepdaughter in tow.

In the end, the Liars send Emily alone into a greenhouse with A so that she can taunt the ghost ninja with a crazy manic smile on her face and then pull some kind of psychological move relating to the ghost ninja's self-esteem. As if there are any other options, A responds to this reasonably enough, beating the shit out of her.

Spencer -- finally free of Toby's endlessly needy carpentry -- and Aria -- slipping away from Ezria Apocalypse ground zero -- are running late, but eventually they arrive to pick up what's left of Emily, who cannot seem to go a single episode lately without nearly getting murdered. Just when A is gone and all is lost, a fabulous new clue is uncovered: When Hanna hit A with her car (brilliant) outside the greenhouse, the ghost dropped its magical ghost cell phone. Good thing Hanna's dating like three cyberpunk wolf-hackers, right?

Next week: Mona Vanderwaal purchases a new cell phone, having misplaced hers somewhere; Lucas and Caleb won't shut up about Ryan Gosling; Garrett and Jenna act weird some more, in matching rocking chairs; Ella Montgomery tenderly chases Ezra into the cranberry bog once and for all.