‘Pretty Little Liars’ season 4, episode 3 review: Melissa Hastings and her many masks
Every week on “Pretty Little Liars,” Marlene King accomplishes what we like to consider to be a pretty rare feat: Freaking the you-know-what out of us time and time again. This time around, there was everything from mysterious rooms, drug use allegations, a nice cop who is probably not as nice as he seems, and also the world’s weirdest mask-maker.
We’ll start with that, given it was one of the stranger parts of the episode: Having to sit there and watch some awful man sculpt a mask onto Emily’s face in return for information on Alison. What we know is that the man received an order of masks that all looked like her face, simply so that she would be able to have her own little bizarro army of stooges.
Just in case it was not bad enough for Emily that there are a group of people out there potentially wearing her face, her mom is also in trouble with family services (only on this show, right?), simply because of an incident in front of the school and so oh-so-crazy coincidences.
Hanna’s story – In moving over to the wacky world of Ms. Marin, she still has the issue of mom. Ashley is clearly under some suspicion for whatever it was that happened to Wilden. Since her “New York Trip” is about as real as the idea of Toby with a beard, we knew she had to be somewhere else … but around Hanna’s dad?
Yep, we had a visit from good ol’ Mr. Marin this week, who had a heart-to-heart with Caleb and encouraged him that there was an opportunity for him to actually get out and escape the madness if he really wanted to. He refused, and thus, we learned of a missing gun.
Spencer and Toby – Did “A” actually give Toby something valuable? It’s starting to look like that story about her mom “going away” is hardly what happened.
Away from Toby, there is also the other family problem known as Melissa, who apparently joined Ali at some point in the habit of getting your face immortalized forever. (The only person we can see in real life willing to actually do this is Kanye West.) Whenever Melissa tries to wax poetic with Spencer, we really have no idea as to what she really wants.
Is Ella Montgomery gone? – Sure looks like it for the time being, and this one came completely out of nowhere. Seeing that she had an opportunity to leave the country with her new coffee-man boyfriend, Aria was quick to encourage her to go … while possibly wishing her hunky karate master was more like him.
She’s not going yet, but expect some sort of dramatic exit soon for mommy dearest, at least so long as “A” doesn’t get in the way.
We can’t sit here and say that this was the craziest or even the best “Pretty Little Liars” episode ever. It was an appetizer like those crab cakes you have while waiting for the steak to arrive. It should keep you creeped-out and satisfied, but in about five days you’ll be screaming “more!” at your friends while they have nothing to tell you other than “be patient.”
For those of you anxious to now more right now, have no fear: There are some very creepy events coming up very soon for the show. Click here if you want to know more.
Photo: ABC Family