‘Pretty Little Liars’ season 4, episode 4 review: Did Melissa Hastings kill Detective Wilden?

Last week on “Pretty Little Liars,” there were some pretty troubling storylines that were thrown into motion. The police started to put the cross-hairs firmly on Hanna’s mother Ashley in their investigation, Aria and her karate-master boyfriend started to grow closer, and Emily’s mother was accused of injuring her, leading to the arrival of CPS on the scene to determine whether or not she needed to be removed from the home.

In starting off with the Emily storyline, we have to say that this is the weakest since she is mostly just doing more of the same thing: Refusing to tell her parents anything, and rebelling from this. It’s starting to get a little old.

What was far more interesting was seeing Aria and her two-tone pants (is that actually a fashion thing now?) starting to keep close watch on Melissa Hastings with the help of Spencer. They knew that something freaky was going on there, but what? Using the bait of a mask, they went up to that same creepy store from last week and found that Emily’s masks were still there. They also found out that Alison once visited there in a mad dash looking for money, but what was far more interesting was the conversation that took place between Spencer and Melissa. Here, they learned that Spencer was being protected by her sister this whole time, and that she tried to send Jenna and Shana to keep something from happening to the Liars in the fire … but it was not them who pulled them out from the flames.

So what we learned through all of this is that Melissa may have actually killed Wilden, that the detective was supposedly working for a higher power, and that Spencer’s sister was never trying to hurt her. That’s nice, right? It also turns out, via a message from “A,” that Melissa was not the guilty party behind the killings. The real guilty part does seem to be Ashley for now, at least based on the evidence that we have seen (and these news cops do not mess around).

Now, a Toby update! His storyline was brief, but important: He learned that Alison DiLaurentis was spending some time with his mother before her apparent suicide. And this horrible plot thickens.

This was easily the strongest episode of “Pretty Little Liars” this season: There were major updates, we learned about the characters, and the questions moving into next week are more maddening than they ever were before.

What was your take on this week’s “Pretty Little Liars” episode? In addition to sharing your thoughts below, you can also click here if you want to read some more scoop on what is coming up for Ashley on the show.

Photo: ABC Family