‘Pretty Little Liars’ season 5, episode 4 review: The ‘who killed Mrs. DiLaurentis’ mystery spreads
We like it for the most part when “Pretty Little Liars” starts to become more and more akin to a murder mystery, largely because you have a whole town of people who theoretically could be guilty of something. Just look at the resumes for people like Ezra, Lucas, Paige, Byron, and many more. All of them have acted shady at one point or another, so they cannot be written off even for crimes that they seemingly have no attachment at all to.
This is where we arrive to the new episode of the show that aired on Tuesday night, where Spencer’s father started to emerge as a real contender for both what happened to Ali in the first place, as well as what happened to Jessica DiLaurentis. You have the rat poison, the suspicious behavior, and of course the secrets.
However, you also have something else here that is very important to consider: Spencer’s dad at this point also seems incredibly obvious as the suspect. This show is never going to be one to wave it in your face who is the responsible killer. They like to take their time a little bit and savor the moment, only to then throw you in an unexpected direction. So this mystery to us is still juicy, as is the story of Hanna’s slow descent into madness after realizing that she had become Ali 2.0 during her absence in Rosewood. With that being said, we still would have preferred to not see her shoplift again, mostly because it’s the most ridiculous thing ever when she knows already that the cops are looking at her every move along with her fellow Liars. Nobody trusts you anymore!
So while we rolled our ideas at Hanna and feel like the Emily story is a little too slow, we loved the subtle power and emotion of Lucy Hale as she struggled to deal with Shana’s death. While her trying to give money to the family anonymously was probably a bad decision for her in regards to the case, this is a mistake that we can believe since it comes out of a genuine feeling of guilt rather than greed.
In the end, “Thrown from the Ride” was more of a foundation episode than one we were meant to remember, but we still enjoyed most of the journey that it happened to take us on. Grade: C+.
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Photo: ABC Family