Pretty Little Liars 4×03: "Cat’s Cradle" and 4×04: "Face Time" Recap

Larianny Perez ’17/ Emertainment Monthly Writer
The past two weeks have been a whirlwind of drama, suspense, and mystery for the girls.  It seems like they as time goes on, they are piecing more and more tidbits of information together.  However, they still have a long, long way to go in terms of solving the mystery behind “A”.  With so much going on, it can be hard to keep track of every single thing that happens on the show.  So, here is a recap of everything that went down in both “Cat’s Cradle” and “Face Time”.
Aria’s mom’s boyfriend is going to live in Austria for roughly a year. He asked if she wanted to go with him but she said she can’t. However, Aria talked with her mom about the situation and gave her mom permission to go with him.
Spencer told her mother that she got a rejection letter from UPenn and her mother doesn’t believe it is true. Melissa believes Spencer and is willing to help her by assuring her that there is still more time, and that she still has a chance.
In 4×03 Melissa told Spencer, “If we know what’s good for us, it might be good for both of us to get out of this little town.” Is Melissa trying to help Spencer? Is she trying to warm Spencer? At this point, we do not know.
Emily has a box of Ali’s belongings and inside is a mask. What is that mask? Why does Ali have one? The four girls have always been attacked or watched over by someone in a mask. Could Ali still be alive and using that mask to watch over the girls? Who knows. They definitely were suspicious and did their research.
Aria started peeling the mask and saw that it resembled Ali. On the inside of the mask there was a company of where the mask was made. Hanna, Emily, and Aria went to the warehouse to ask about it. Why didn’t Spencer go? Well that’s because Hanna said, “Not waiting for Spencer because A isn’t waiting for anyone.”
Wow, Hanna in these past few episodes has been gaining a tough skin. She just wants everything to be over and for her mom to be in the clear because her mom is seeming more and more guilty of killing Detective Wilden.
Back to the mask–once they found the place a man came to the door. He recognized he mask that they were asking about and he escorted them in. He told them that he will tell them what he knows if he gets to mold Emily’s face! They did the trade and were able to ask him the questions that they wanted to. He said that once he made the mask for Ali she told him to break all of the molding. He said he did, but in episode 4×04 we find out that he lied. He had a whole row of Ali’s moldings.
While the man was molding Emily’s face, Hanna went snooping around. She found a mask that resembled Melissa. What? How is Melissa’s face there? Did she follow Ali to that warehouse or did Ali follow her? Hanna took the mask and in episode 4×04 Spencer and Aria planted a trap on Melissa. They put the mask in a suitcase which Melissa then opened and saw it. They waited until she remembered where it came from and followed her back to the warehouse. Spencer caught Melissa carrying a bag out of the warehouse and then saw her breaking all of the face moldings which she then threw in a lake.
Spencer confronted Melissa and a lot was revealed. We learned that Wilden was the one who started the fire that all of the girls, including Mona, were in. Melissa sent Jenna and Shawna to look out for Wilden. Melissa went to the warehouse looking for answers just like the girls, and so she traded her face for answers. She wanted to know if the masks of Ali’s face were made before or after she died. Therefore we see that Melissa has a feeling that Ali might not actually be dead. Melissa tells Spencer that she has been protecting her this whole time. We also find out the Melissa killed Wilden!!
Wow! Talk about juicy information! No one suspected this, at least I didn’t! Now Hanna has nothing to worry about because this whole time she was suspecting that her mom could have been the one who killed Wilden. And her suspicions are understandable considering all of the harassment her and her mom have received from Wilden.
Hanna caught her mom in a lie. Mrs. Marin said that she went to a musical the last night of her trip on a Friday, the night Wilden was murdered, but a Thank You card helped to prove that she did not in fact go and see the musical. Mrs. Marin does not like Hanna spying on her. She told Hanna that if anyone asks, not to say anything!
Caleb was worried about Hanna and talked to Mr. Marin, who has been separated from Mrs. Marin for quite some time now. Caleb told him that Detective Wilden has been harassing his family. When Caleb and Mr. Marin met up again, Mr. Marin said that after their last talk he went looking for the gun he has locked in his desk and the gun was gone. He said that Mrs. Marin went to him asking for money. Hmm, this seems suspicious. Did Mrs. Marin take the gun since Mr. Marin did not give her money? Why would Mrs. Marin take the gun? Did she use that gun to kill Wilden? Did she give the gun to someone else to kill Wilden for her? Since we found out in episode 4×04 that it was Melissa who killed Wilden, is it possible that she took the gun from Mr. Marin’s desk? Or is his gun’s disappearance irrelevant?! Well, to be honest, nothing in this show is irrelevant.  Everything is important in understanding what happened and what will happen next.
One last, but significant, important piece of information about Mrs. Marin was that she admitted to being in Rosewood the night of Wilden’s murder! So, why was it important to include the fact that Mrs. Marin was in Rosewood the night of his murder? Did she see Melissa kill him? Was she the one who provided Melissa with a weapon to kill Wilden? Are Mrs. Marin and Melissa even connected in any way?
Remember how in episode 4×02 Emily took pills to help with the pain she had? Well, her mother found out that she took her pills. Her mother confronted her about it when she picked her up from school. Family Services then called Emily’s mom, Mrs. Fields. The social worker even talked to their doctor. They suspect that there is abuse going on in their household. Family services even called Mr. Fields, who was deployed, and told him to come home. They wanted everyone home.
Emily went to see her doctor to tell him that nothing was wrong but when she was about to leave he told her he needed to talk to her. He told her that her x-ray exams came back and that she has a partial tear in the rotator cuff. She is going to have to rest and there will be a possibility of surgery. If she swims now she will completely tear the cuff and surgery will be the only option. When she asked about after the surgery her doctor told her that the results are unpredictable.
Mr. Fields sat everyone down in the living room to have a family meeting and at a point where Emily couldn’t handle it anymore, she ran out of the house. Poor Emily, she has been through so much.  As an athlete, being told that she might not be able to swim again crushed her. That is her passion and she even said that she can’t just find another dream. A really got her now; she took her most prized possession away from her; her chance to swim!
Remember when Spencer did not go with the girls to the warehouse where the mask was made? Well that was because she was with Toby; they snuck into Radley to find out more about his mother’s death. He saw the window where she killed herself. Toby still couldn’t believe that his mother killed herself without saying good-bye to him. Toby decided to visit the doctor. During their conversation they talked about the possibility of a greater force pushing her out of the window. The doctor said he is studying air and how it is heavy and possibly the air was too heavy for his mother and caused her to fall. Who knows? Maybe this could have been a possibility? Maybe she fell by accident? But, as Toby was about to leave, the doctor told Toby to tell his mother to stay away from “that girl” with blonde hair. Could he have been talking about Ali? Did Ali visit Toby’s mother? What would Ali be doing visiting Toby’s mother? If Ali was around, is it possible that Ali pushed Toby’s mother? There are so many unanswered questions!!
When Aria and Jake went for a walk, she saw Ezra’s son and he asked why she has not stopped by their house lately. She said that she was busy and when people become busy that can’t do the things that they’d love to do. Once he went back into the book store Jake asked who he was and she said he was the son of a teacher. Later on that night Aria told Jake the whole story and he told her that they, being Aria and Ezra, are not over yet. Aria asked Jake as he was leaving if she could call him and he said she could. Maybe Aria won’t get a new boyfriend, but at least she has someone to talk to.
There are a few more things that are important to mention about the last two episodes. For one, Hanna found a board at the police station with everyone’s face on it with strings connecting all of them. Her mother is on there and that is why she is worried that A is trying to make her mom guilty. The police officer running the case escorted Hanna out of the room and Melissa was there. She started talking to him. I wonder what they were talking about?! Hanna didn’t forget to mention this detail when she was talking to Lieutenant Tanner, a new officer on the case, in the park.
The new Lieutenant Tanner and Officer Holbrook opened the safe deposit box of Wilden in Mrs. Marin’s office and saw that he had two passports (One American and one Canadian), a gun, and a lot of cash.
A has Emily’s X-Ray and A glued Melissa’s molded face back together!! Hmm, I wonder what A is going to use that for?!
“Melissa’s guilty of plenty but she’s not “A” material –Kisses” This was a text message Spencer received after having a talk with her sister who revealed a lot of information to us, the audience. I do not know whether that text message calms me down about Melissa not being apart of the bad side or if it means A is much worse than how Melissa has been this whole time?!?!
These two episodes answered questions the audience had but they also sparked questions as well; that is one thing you can definitely expect to see when watching a Pretty Little Liars episode. I am a diehard fan of Pretty Little Liars and can honestly say it is one of my favorite shows on TV, but I want to know, how much longer are they going to keep this up? How many more episodes will be shown before we finally figure out who A and red coat are? Will they try and keep the show going for another season after we find out who A and red coat are?
I am kind of worried about their plot and where they are trying to go with it, but as long as they keep providing new information about Ali’s death and A I will be satisfied. But I believe that soon, as in the next few episodes, they should reveal BIG news or else they might lose a few viewers. The show is not bad at all, they do an amazing job keeping people on their toes guessing until the very end.  But, if you keep people at the edge of their seat for too long without giving them a reward (in this case insight), they will give up and not want to watch it anymore.

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