Unless you’ve always wondered what an “ape index” is, this episode provided few answers. Below, the current tally of questions, closed and outstanding, a.k.a. your recap.
Question: whom did Mrs. D email, “I can’t protect you anymore” to?
Answer: the liars rule out Jason, when they go back to see that weird homeless-looking guy, who appears far less rabid in the daylight. In fact, Emily and Hanna determine — based on the huge numbers of pizza he routinely orders without beer — that he’s running some kind of halfway house, where Jason would’ve been staying, and therefore unable to receive emails.
Question: wait, so the homeless-looking guy wasn’t drunk in the last episode?
Answer: irrelevant.
Question: did Jason kill his mother anyway?
Answer: Spencer is sure he didn’t because she saw his face when they discovered Mrs D’s body (and, you know, it’s a very handsome face). She trusts him, so she shows him the “I can’t protect you anymore” email. He says, “My mother had a lot of secrets, that’s what really killed her.”
Question: does Jason understand how the human body works?
Question: Will Melissa finally tell the secret she whispered to her Dad in the premiere?
Answer: almost. Spencer also shows Mrs. D’s email to her dad, in spite of Jason warning her that he’s dangerous (and the writers leading us to agree). Melissa interrupts, and wants to spill the beans. But their dad won’t let her involve Spencer, saying, “You can’t lie about something you don’t know anything about.”
Question: why did Mona try to turn Hanna into Ali?
Answer: unclear. Maybe Mona needs to go back to Radley? Through a series of flashbacks to the time just after Ali’s disappearance, we see newly-attractive Mona single-white-femaling Hanna into dressing and acting like Ali had. But now Hanna questions this identity. And she reaches out to Emily about the experience of coming out, asking, “What was it like to be one thing and then become something else?” Emily’s reply, basically: Um, that’s not how gay works.
The episode ends with Hanna changing her hair color while Mona watches through a window just hazy enough to keep us from seeing who’s standing next to her.
Question: Who’s standing next to her?
Answer: I already said I don’t know!
Question: Will Aria tell Ezra she whacked a girl?
Answer: not at first. Ezra is back in Rosewood and tells Aria to stay alert since Shana is still on the loose. Aria doesn’t say that’s impossible, since she killed Shana. Maybe because she’s ashamed. Or maybe because Ezra has “post-surgical mind-body dysphoria.”
Question: what is “post-surgical mind-body disphoria”?
Answer: according to Ezra, it means parts of his body feel like they’re in different places, or not attached.
Question: like a zombie?
Answer: don’t worry about it. More important, Aria eventually drops the bomb.
Question: did she forget Ezra is writing a book about her?
What else?
Question: why did Melissa lie about seeing Toby in London?
Answer: she didn’t want her parents to know Wren was there too.
Real Answer: unknown.
Question: who’s the creepy waif staring at Emily?
Answer: a new swimmer who idolizes Emily’s record.
Real answer: new character!
Real question: is she part of Mona’s loser army?
Unanswered questions:
• Speaking of, what’s happening with Mona’s loser army?
•Also, why did Alison wear, to her mother’s funeral, the dress her mom wore to her funeral?
•And, why did Hanna go to the funeral dressed like a hooker?
•Oh, and an “ape index” is the ratio of a swimmer’s arm span to her height…or, to me, the degree to which, in any given shot, Caleb’s hair is flat ironed or allowed to dry naturally.
