UnmAsked

UnmAsked is the 25th episode of Season 2 of Pretty Little Liars. This episode marks the Season 2 Finale. It aired on March 19, 2012.

Synopsis
The local news station reports the arrest of Garrett Reynolds for the murder of Alison DiLaurentis. He became a cop in order to destroy evidence, page 5 the girls surmise. Melissa appears and tell the girls she always knew Ian didn't kill Alison, and never believed they did either, though she knows about "The Jenna Thing." If Garrett killed Alison, then he must have had a good reason. She helps herself to Aria's toffee flavored frozen yogurt and leaves the girls feeling more suspicious of her then ever.

They all receive a text from "A" instructing them to return the cell phone as a messenger delievers invitations to a masquerade ball along with a message from "A" that demands their attendance. Spencer is sure they can discover who "A" is before the midnight deadline because hide and seek is her favorite game.

Outside school, the girls discuss how smart and untrustworthy Melissa is. Spencer insists they overlooked a clue in Ali's bag. They change the subject to costume choices when Mona approaches. Mona suggests they all go shopping after school together. They all turn her down one by one, including Hanna, who lies about studying with Caleb.

Aria brings the girls to Ezra's apartment while he is out of town for a safe place to search Ali's bag. The girls look through his book collection and photo albums and plenty of comments. Hanna gets a text from Mona asking where she is since she's not with Caleb. They comb through the contents of Alison’s bag once more and find the clue they were looking for.

That evening, during a thunderstorm, they drive to the Lost Woods Resort. The innkeeper, a dead ringer for Norman Bates, taps on the window, scaring them on top of their already frayed nerves. Spencer asks for Room 1, the number on the postcard they found in Ali’s things. Hanna trips in the mud on the way to the room.

Once inside the room, Hanna and Emily try to warm up while Spencer keeps an eye on the front office waiting for the innkeeper to leave. Aria volunteers to go with Spencer to get a closer look at the guestbook. They climb through the window with flashlights.

Hanna decides to take a shower to wash off the mud. Emily gets a call from Maya and goes outside to try to get a better signal. After she shuts the door behind her, we see "A" sneak past. Meanwhile, Spencer and Aria discover Alison had checked in twice as Vivian Darkbloom. "A" enters the room and gets very close to Hanna, but by the time she gets out of the shower, "A" is gone. Hanna then discovers Emily gone and the door of the room has been left wide open.

The next morning, Spencer and Aria return the guest book while Hanna and Emily discuss their costumes. "A" watches them through a peep hole from the next room while they talk about the dance. When the others return, Spencer suggests they get out of there before anyone notices they broke in.

On the drive home, Spencer sees Toby, who was hired by Jason to clear away debris at the DiLaurentis house after the fire. She tries to talk to him about Jenna, but Toby refuses to acknowledge her. Just after Spencer leaves, Toby receives a call from Dr. Sullivan.

Jenna drives to the park for a mysterious secret meeting with someone at a park. She removes her sunglasses and tells this person she has always thought about what she would say if she ever saw them again. Jenna gives something to the stranger, and says, "They're all going to be at the party; you know what you need to do."

Later, the girls arrive at the masquerade together. They have 3 hours to figure out who "A" is and agree to split up for the next hour to investigate separately. A masked individual sneaks up behind Hanna and whispers in her ear. He corrects Hanna that his name is Romeo, not Caleb. Mona walks up and reveals she helped Caleb pick out his costume.

Caleb and Hanna go off to dance and Spencer witnessed the whole thing. She tells Mona what a great friend she's been to Hanna. Mona seems truly touched by the compliment. Mona brings up the last time Mona saw Ali - at a vintage shop in Brookhaven. She had seen Ali, dressed strangely, spying on someone. Mona tells Alison that in exchange for keeping Ali's secret she wants to be popular, Alison then takes out a postcard and writes a phone number on it, which she tears off and hands to Mona.

Jenna, while texting someone, watches Aria from across the room. Aria receives a text and excuses herself to go look around. She enters a maze and Jenna follows, taking off her mask, revealing her eyes to viewers once again. Waiting at the end of the maze is a masked Ezra and Aria is very happy to see him.

While Caleb and Hanna dance, Spencer calls Emily. Something Mona said made Spencer realize that no one had checked into Room 2 since before Ali went missing. With 2 hours 'til midnight, she and Mona drive back to the motel to look for more clues. Spencer sits for tea with the innkeeper to distract him while Mona steals the key to Room 2 from behind the desk. They stare in stunned silence when they open the door.

Aria and Ezra have their first official dance. They remove their masks and even kiss in public, not caring who might see. Elsewhere, a masked Paige dressed in a suit approaches Emily.

Spencer and Mona take in the room, which is plastered with photos of all the girls, newspaper clippings, dolls, maps and blueprints, and many familiar items belonging to A; it’s "A's" lair.

Paige and Emily sit down and have a conversation about their relationship. Paige wishes she hadn't let Emily go the first time around. In the end, they decide to be friends. Back at the motel, Spencer and Mona get a closer look at the items in "A's" lair. Mona discovers some sketches of a masquerade costume. They assume "A" must be dressing as the Black Swan and Mona calls Hanna to warn her. Back at the party, Hanna happens to notice the Black Swan make an entrance.

While at "A's" lair, Spencer begins to notice the pieces of the puzzle falling into place. Mona offers Spencer a piece of gum. She declines, then notices that there is a gum wrapper inside of Ali's stolen diary. When Mona momentarily leaves the room, Spencer finds more clues pointing to "A" being Mona, including a bag of cashmere sweaters. And when Mona returns, she is wearing "A's" black hoodie and knocks Spencer unconscious with a flashlight.

The other girls reunite with Hanna and all 3 are curious about the identity of the Black Swan. They see her talking to Jenna and Lucas. When they try to get a closer look, the mystery woman runs away, escaping out the back door which locks behind her. All she leaves behind is a feather from her dress.

Spencer wakes up in the car terrified with Mona driving recklessly. At the party, Hanna tries to call Spencer, but her phone isn't working. Aria makes the call instead as they realize Hanna's phone has been set to record every time it is turned on. Spencer covertly answers Aria's video call so that her friends can see and hear her conversation with Mona. The girls come to the realization that Mona is in fact "A," leaving Hanna in a state of disbelief that her so-called friend is "A." A quick-thinking Spencer drops the hint that they are headed to Look Out Point. Aria knows a shortcut and they race to get there first.

Mona tells Spencer that she admires her and asks if she'd like to join The "A-Team". Spencer asks if the reason Mona became A was her anger at them for letting Alison bully her. Mona laughs and says that she got over that a long time ago. Mona reveals that she became A because she hated them for stealing Hanna's friendship from her. Spencer pleads with Mona to stop, encouraging her that Hanna is still her friend.

Realizing it is now or never, Spencer pulls the emergency break, causing the car to skid to a stop long enough to escape. Mona jumps out of the car after her just as the other girls drive up, and Hanna careens towards Mona but at the girls' screams, slams on the brakes just before she strikes her down. Mona screams, runs and tackles Spencer and tries to push her off Look Out Point. They struggle and Mona slips and falls off the edge. The girls run to Spencer's side and stare in horror down at Mona.

Shortly after, the authorities and an ambulance arrive, surprisingly, along with Dr. Sullivan, and they discover Mona survived the fall. Dr. Sullivan comforts the girls, who are all visibly shaken by what has happened. Dr. Sullivan reveals that "A" blackmailed her by threatening her son, which is why she disappeared.

Dr. Sullivan diagnoses Mona with a personality disorder which caused her to experience a sense of hyper-reality and omnipresence. We learn from Mona's thoughts that everything is working out just as she planned. Mona is found to be criminally insane and sent to an asylum for treatment. Dr. Sullivan is confident that Mona can be helped with treatment. Outside, Dr. Sullivan reveals it was Toby who convinced her to come back to Rosewood. Toby, waiting by his truck parked out front, tells Spencer he had to pretend not to love her, and the couple makes up with a passionate kiss.

Later, the girls head to Emily's house to spend the night when an ambulance rushes past them. The police are waiting, and Emily runs up to her mom, who tells her that the police found a body… and they think it is Maya's. Emily is distraught. She falls into Spencer's arms and screams and sobs at the sight of the stretcher taking the body away while the girls try to comfort her.

Meanwhile, Mona is hospitalized -- and at the end of the episode, someone wearing a red coat visits Mona in her cell. Mona tells the visitor, "I did everything you asked me to."

Continuity

 * Spencer finds a bag of cashmere blend sweater sets inside "A's" lair, the same sweaters Mona offered Spencer after her post-Noel shopping frenzy in "Let the Water Hold Me Down."


 * The last few seconds of the episode parallel the scene in the "Pilot" when Alison's body is discovered, down to the song playing in the background.


 * Hanna almost hits "A" with her car--again. She stops short as Mona stands momentarily frozen in the headlights, whereas in "Through Many Dangers, Toils, and Snares," Hanna actually hit "A."


 * Many of the elements that we have seen "A" playing with before are now contextualized in "A's" lair, including the many glossy photographs of the group, as well as dolls, a clown mask, the clown bank, the burlap Halloween costume, blonde wigs, the voodoo doll, and a Danby mug.


 * According to "What Lies Beneath," the events of this episode took place on April 12, 2011

Goofs

 * Mona is found criminally insane after Dr. Sullivan diagnoses her with a personality disorder. Generally, people with personality disorders don't qualify as criminally insane under the legal definition, since they still know the difference between right and wrong. This could mean that because Sullivan knew of what Mona had been doing to the girls, she categorized her as criminally insane regardless.

Title

 * The definition of 'unmasked' could mean:


 * (verb with object)
 * stripped a mask or disguise from.
 * revealed the true character of; disclosed; exposed.
 * (verb without object)


 * with one's mask put off; appeared in true nature.


 * In this episode, the Liars unmasked "A's" true identity. In addition, before admitting her identity to Spencer, Mona unmasked herself from her masquerade costume. The effect of the title is augmented thanks to the capital 'A' in the centre of the word.

Trivia

 * The scenes in the hotel relate the the horror flick Psycho:
 * When Hanna is taking a shower and 'A' walks in, 'A' doesn't do anything due to the fact that her phone rings. In Psycho, the woman taking a shower get killed.
 * When Harold says to Spencer that he finds himself talking to the stuff creatures. Spencer says that he only has to worry if they start to talk back. Harold, almost defensively asks what she means. Spencer tells him that she was joking. In Psycho, the hotel manager talks to his deceased mother skeleton and says that he hears his mother's voice and she tells him to kill the woman in the shower.
 * Aria and Mona have both nominated the word "toffee". Aria in the first scene, when she gave the frozen yoghurt to Melissa; Mona when she spoke to herself at the police's station, saying that she loves "this lipstick. How is it called? Toffee Tango".

Main Cast
Troian Bellisario as Spencer Hastings

Ashley Benson as Hanna Marin

Lucy Hale as Aria Montgomery

Shay Mitchell as Emily Fields

Sasha Pieterse as Alison DiLaurentis/Vivian Darkbloom

Guest Stars
Lindsey Shaw as Paige McCullers

Tyler Blackburn as Caleb Rivers

Torrey DeVitto as Melissa Hastings

Ian Harding as Ezra Fitz

Janel Parrish as Mona Vanderwall/"A"

Tammin Sursok as Jenna Marshall

Keegan Allen as Toby Cavanaugh

Annabeth Gish as Anne Sullivan

Nia Peeples as Pam Fields

Brendan Robinson as Lucas Gottesman

Featured Music

 * "Better In Time" by Leona Lewis (at the masquerade ball)
 * "Always" by Peter Bradley Adams (Aria meets Ezra)
 * "Just a Kiss" by Lady Antebellum (Ezria dance)
 * "Suggestions" by Orelia Has Orchestra (The body is discovered}