“ | I'm ready to tell you guys everything. | ” |
— Alison
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A is for Answers is the twenty-fourth episode of Season 4 of Pretty Little Liars and the 95th episode of the show overall. The episode marks the fourth season finale and aired on March 18, 2014.
Summary[]
The girls have been brought to an apartment by Noel. He leaves and Alison walks in. The girls share quick hugs. The girls ask her why she trusts Noel, and Ali tells them that he has secrets too. They tell her they think her mother is A and she doesn't look shocked. She tells the girls she's ready to tell them everything and if they can't figure things out that night she's going to disappear again and this time it will be for good.
Holbrook interviews CeCe. Holbrook asks her about Wilden’s murder, but she doesn't give him any straight answers. She tells him she knows who killed the girl the police thought was Alison. She says it's the same person who is actively trying to hurt Alison, whom she can prove is alive.
Alison flashes back to being with Ian the morning of the day she supposedly died, when Melissa arrives and confronts him. While Melissa and Ian argue, Alison copies Ian’s hard drive when she finds a video of Jenna and Toby’s sexual relationship. Ian and Melissa get back together and when Ian goes back to the room, Ali is gone. Ali uses the video to intimidate Jenna, but gets a text from A saying she was going to kill her which meant Jenna wasn't A and she cut Jenna off of her A suspect list.
Veronica is seen talking with Ashley and Ella whose girls are also missing. She says that Pam also hasn't seen Emily since the charity event at the DiLaurentis house. Holbrook is having Spencer's home searched. He tells Veronica they have probable cause as they suspect the girls know the whereabouts of a missing person; he shows her a picture of them talking to Alison wearing period piece clothes. Veronica is shocked to see that Ali is alive. Someone opens the door and comes in. Veronica thinks it's Spencer but... Melissa walks in and surprises her mom.
Alison tells the girls when she returned home, she got yet another threat from A written with lipstick on her mirror. That night, Alison and Jessica got in a fight because she didn't want her daughter going to the Hastings barn to party with the girls. She warns Ali about the Hastings family. Alison takes 3 of her mother's sleeping pills while she's tallking with someone on the phone. She meets the girls at the barn and slips some of the pills into their alcoholic drink, hoping to cross them off if another A threat arrived while they slept. She met with Toby that night and said she knew he wasn't A, either as he thanks her for getting him away from Jenna. Ezra pulls up and Alison gets in his car. He won't let her leave.
At the station, Holbrook asks Veronica about Spencer's recent activities. She doesn't like the line of questioning, and wants to contact her husband. Holbrook leaves her to give her privacy. An officer tells Holbrook they have a warrant for the GPS signal on the girls' phones. Melissa is being interviewed in another room, and according to her, Toby went to London to tell her that Spencer was missing her, so she came back to Rosewood. Peter is also being interviewed and doesn't know Veronica is there as well. They're trying to call each other, but the signal is "bad."
Alison tells the girls about meeting Ezra at a pub while hanging out with CeCe. Alison tricks him into thinking she's a literature buff. Alison apologizes to Aria for "everything." The night Alison drugged the girls before meeting Toby. After she finishes talking with Toby, she leaves Ian a message to meet her at the kissing rock. A car arrives and Ali gets in it. The driver is Ezra! He's angry with her because he had just discovered she was actually in high school and wasn't 21 like she told him she was. He says he won't see her anymore.
Alison then met Ian and threatened him with his videos that if she gets another text, she's sending him to jail. He warns her that some of the videos could bring "everybody down, including your family."
In present day, Alison tells Aria that Ezra is trying to save her, thinking it could get her back.
‘That’ night Alison returned to the girls and found an angry Spencer waiting for her.
Holbrook asks Peter about hiring a private investigator that summer and shows him the file with Spencer's name all over it. Holbrook references Spencer's "erratic" behavior and Peter stops talking after saying he's going to call his lawyer. In the hall, Holbrook is told the girls are in Philly. Peter sees Melissa and finds out Veronica is also there. Peter begins to panic and Melissa seems to think her father believes Spencer killed that girl.
That night in the barn, Spencer and Alison argue. Spencer grabs the shovel to hit Ali, but she trips and falls over. Alison sees Spencer speed pills fall as well, and so she follows after her. Spencer cries and begs her not to tell anybody; Alison promises not to. Later on that night, she sees Byron and threatens him with the tapes -showing his kiss with Meredith.
Alison didn't receive any more texts that night, but returns home to find her mother staring out the window. Alison gets hit in the head with a rock while her mother looks on in horror. This seems to prove Spencer couldn't have hurt the other girl and Jessica saw who did. Jessica is seen shoveling dirt over Alison, who she thought was dead.
In present day, Alison cryies and tells the girls she tried to tell her mother she was alive, but she couldn't speak. Alison heard her mother say, "what have you done?" which means Jessica was trying to protect somebody. That night, Alison left the hospital alone after Mrs. Grunwald dropped her off. Mona found her walking along the road and drove her to The Lostwoods Resort. Per Ali's request, Mona checks her in as Vivian Darkbloom, and Mona thinks that perhaps Alison should let A think she's dead by disappearing.
Mona puts her to sleep and goes next door to her "A headquarters." The next morning, Alison thanks Mona for saving her life. She tells Mona things to do to make her popular and then leaves. Alison tells the girls in present day that Mona, "played me like a fool."
In the police station, Melissa tells Peter that "Spencer didn't kill that girl." She whispers something in his ear and he is shocked.
The girls tell Alison not to leave, even though they still don't know the identity of A. We see Alison was the hooded person who saved Spencer from Ian. She was also at the lodge trying to make sure they were safe. The girls see a strange light outside. Just then a hooded figure begins shooting at them and chasing them.
They flee to the roof and find themselves trapped. Ezra shows up and gets in a fight with the hooded figure. Hanna grabs the gun that fell from the hooded person’s hands when he was fighting with Ezra and asks him to take off his mask. The hooded person ends up jumping to the next rooftop. They think it cannot be Jessica as she couldn't physically have done all that. The girls turn back and see that Ezra was shot during the exchange. We then see the Manhattan skyline. The girls are not in Philadelphia but in Manhattan!
In the final shot, Jessica's dead body is dragged across the ground and is buried by an unknown figure.
RevelAtions[]
- Alison went to visit Jenna and taunt her about the video and warned her to stop threatening her. While leaving, Ali got a text, "Bitch can't see, but I do. Tonight's the night I kill you. -A". She was able to cross Jenna off her A list.
- Alison's mother forbade her to go to the barn. When Mrs. DiLaurentis wasn't looking, as she was talking with someone on the phone about something urgent, Ali stole a few of her sleeping pills and left.
- As soon as she could, Ali drugged the girls so as to eliminate them from being A. She then left the barn to go meet Toby, and then Ian to confront him to tell him he's going to jail. After both encounters, she crossed Toby and Ian off the A list.
- Alison then got into Ezra's car to talk to him about her lying to him about her age. They break up later.
- Ali went back to the barn to find a crazed Spencer, waiting for her. After the fight in the kitchen, Alison walks out. Spencer follows her with a shovel, but Spencer trips and her amphetamine pills fall out of her pocket. Alison pieces two and two together, but Alison swears not to tell. She walks Spencer back to the barn and watches Spencer fall asleep. Believing she is victorious over A, Alison walks home. Her mother sees her through the window and looks angry. But all of a sudden, someone hits Alison over the head with a sharp stone. Ali's mom sees who it is and immediately proceeds to bury the barely conscious Alison (who she thinks is dead). Alison hears her mom talking to someone, but does not know who and she herself can't talk. Mrs. Grunwald pulls her out of the "grave" and takes her to the hospital, but Alison runs away, afraid.
- Soon after, Mona sees Alison and takes her to the Lost Woods Resort, pretending to be a helping friend by getting her to get a wig and car, and telling her to sleep. In the next room, there Mona's is in her lair and she's brushing the Alison doll's hair. "Such a pretty, pretty girl."
- Alison pushed Ian from the bell tower, but she tells the girls he was still alive when she left.
- Alison pulled Hanna out of the lodge the night of the fire, and when she arrived, Mona, Aria and Emily were already pulled out by someone else.
Notes[]
- Jessica DiLaurentis saw Alison get hit, then proceded to bury her believing she was dead.
- Ezra Fitz claims he knows who "A" is before being shot in the stomach by A.
- Jessica is assumed to have died since she is seen being buried at the end of the episode.
- Alison used Ian's tapes to try and figure out who "A" was.
- Melissa Hastings knows who killed the girl in Alison's grave, and she tells what she knows to her father.
- Alison was knocked unconscious with a stone, not a shovel. The one who was hit with a shovel was Bethany Young who is in Ali's grave.
- Who Jessica was on the phone with after Ali came down the stairs and after she left might have been someone from Radley or the Police considering the fact that Cece escaped that night and she was "very worried"
- A flashback scene from the episode “For Whom The Bell Tolls” was shown.
Title and Background[]
- Alison tells the girls what happened the night she disappeared and provides answers to some questions that have been asked since Season 1.
Main Cast[]
- Troian Bellisario as Spencer Hastings
- Ashley Benson as Hanna Marin
- Shay Mitchell as Emily Fields
- Lucy Hale as Aria Montgomery
- Sasha Pieterse as Alison DiLaurentis
- Janel Parrish as Mona Vanderwaal (flashback)
Guest Cast[]
- Ian Harding as Ezra Fitz
- Sean Faris as Gabriel Holbrook
- Andrea Parker as Jessica DiLaurentis
- Vanessa Ray as CeCe Drake
- Torrey DeVitto as Melissa Hastings
- Lesley Fera as Veronica Hastings
- Nolan North as Peter Hastings
- Brant Daugherty as Noel Kahn
- Jim Titus as Barry Maple
- Ryan Merriman as Ian Thomas (flashback)
- Tammin Sursok as Jenna Marshall (flashback)
- Chad Lowe as Byron Montgomery (flashback)
Trivia[]
- The table-read was on October 21, 2013.
- Filming began on October 22, 2013.
- The PLLs wrapped on November 1, 2013, but there are still some juicy scenes to be shot.
- Sasha and Andrea's last day on set was on November 2, 2013.
- The name of the café in which Ali and the girls were is “The MockingBird Sing” The Mockingbird was a crucial part in season one. The book was read in Ezra’s class and an episode is also named after this book, the episode is “To Kill a Mocking Girl”
- This episode was watched by 3.12 million viewers which is a huge rise from the last episode which was watched by 1.96 million viewers only.
- The location the Liars were in was The MockingBird Sings but it is not a real place in New York.
- This episode is a continuation of the previous episode.
- In and interview, Marlene answered to two questions that a lot of the fans had after watching this episode. Who shot Ezra? And who killed and buried Mrs. D? Though she only answered to who buried her and not killed her. Her killer will be revealed in further seasons.She did respond to who shot Ezra.
- Noel Khan returns in this episode.
- Cece Drake returns in this episode.
- Melissa returns in this episode.
- The song that Spencer started playing in the piano was Für Elise.
- Marlene King wrote and directed this episode.
- All of the flashback scenes were shot after the Pilot, hence the reason why Sasha Pieterse looks older than what she looked like on the Pilot. The two scenes that were not shot again were: the scene when Ali scares the girls at the barn and the conversation between Byron and Ali.
- This episode aired after a 84-day hiatus. (2 months and 23 days)
Gallery[]
A is for Answers has a photo gallery. |
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