Turn of the Shoe - Recap

The episode opens at the coffee shop, where the Liars convene to try to make sense of how Hanna's mother's cell phone got into Wilden's coffin. Hanna wonders aloud who the veiled woman at the funeral was, and Emily asks Spencer where her sister Melissa is, wondering if she could have been the woman in black. Spencer shoots the theory down, claiming Melissa is in D.C. for an internship interview, before returning to her food sculpture. With french fries and carrot sticks, Spencer is recreating the overhead view of the cabin to verify the three girls' rescue from the burning building and whether Alison could have been responsible. The girls appear to be split, with Aria and Emily convinced that Allison is dead while Hanna and Spencer note that her body was never recovered. Mona arrives, and Hanna immediately blames her for putting her mother's phone in Wilden's casket. Mona is livid that the girls still don't trust her, and agrees to let them look through the RV themselves if it would put their minds at ease.



At the lockup, Mona and the girls find that the RV has disappeared. The four are skeptical of Mona's story that the RV was stolen, Hanna and Spencer leaving in a huff while Aria and Emily hang back. After Mona gets in her car, she is attacked from the back seat by a mystery person in the Alison-like mask. She chokes her with a belt while Mona reaches for the flashlight to fend the attacker off. Aria and Emily see something is up, and approach just as Mona clubs the attacker and stumbles out of the car. The girls help Mona up as her attacker drives Mona's car, turning around and attempting to run over the three. They dive out of the way and Emily lands hard on her right shoulder.

The next morning, Hanna comes downstairs to see her mother home and setting out food. Ashley recounts her hectic trip while Hanna tells her that she and the girls attended Wilden's funeral. Hanna admits she wanted him gone and probably will go to hell for wishing that on someone, and her mother responds that if she went there she would surely meet Wilden again. Hanna inquires if her mom thought she had anything to do with his death, but Ashley insists the thought hadn't even occurred to her, stating that Wilden had numerous enemies which eventually caught up to her. Hanna reveals her mother's missing phone. Ashley seems shocked to see it, and Hanna lies about finding it in the mailbox. Ashley suggests she must have left it at the hotel, but seems to be less than honest in saying so.

At Spencer's house, she opens her mail from the University of Pennsylvania admissions, and is disappointed to see that her application has been rejected. Elsewhere, Aria and Hanna walk around town as they discuss Emily's condition after the assault the previous night. Hanna jokes that she should have tried to land on Mona, and is more worried about her mother's reaction to her missing phone. They come across Shana sitting outside a coffee shop reading and Hanna decides to confront her about her alleged friendship with Jenna. Aria pulls her aside before the argument gets too heated.

Emily finds Paige at the school computer lab looking at pictures of her Stanford dorm room. Paige is excited about the two's move, but Emily is realistic stating that she isn't even sure if she will be accepted. Paige puts her arm around Emily and touches her shoulder, which was badly injured in the skirmish the night before, and Emily recoils in pain. She blames the pain on sleeping on her arm wrong, and states that she isn't sure she can swim at the upcoming competition.



Back at Spencer's, she decides to hide the university rejection letter on her bookcase when Toby walks in to give her a ride to school. Spencer suggests ditching and the two can go to breakfast, but Toby claims he has to be at a new job site. He seems evasive, checking his phone, as Spencer confronts him about the two not keeping secrets from one another anymore. Toby denies keeping anything from her, and Spencer tells him about Mona's attack the previous night, shocked by Toby's lack of reaction.

At school, Aria and the girls listen to Ezra lecture in class before dismissing them. Spencer is slow to get up, clearly still shaken from her argument with Toby, but agrees to catch up with them. After they leave, Ezra asks if Spencer is okay and she reveals she was rejected from University of Pennsylvania, and she is shaken that she is the first in her family not to attend. Ezra tells her he can help her with admissions essays to other schools.

Emily and Hanna talk on the phone, Emily's shoulder still bothering her as she searches her house for a heating pad while Hanna looks through the cupboards in her kitchen. She finds a dirty bag with Ashley's dress shoes caked in mud along with a toothbrush, wondering why her mother didn't just take them to the cleaners. Emily feels pressured to compete at the upcoming swim meet, and finds some prescription pain killers in the medicine cabinet.

Aria looks for Holden at a local dojo, instead meeting the teacher Jake and signing up for self-defense lessons. Back at Hanna's house, her mother comes into her room to collect dirty laundry while Hanna works on a report. Hanna inquires about the dirty shoes and once again her mother seems perturbed and immediately gets defensive.

The next morning, Hanna sees Mrs. DiLaurentis gardening while she tries to reach Spencer on the phone. As they talk, Hanna thinks she hears something inside the presumably empty house and gets spooked. Mrs. DiLaurentis introduces her to her pet parrot which sounds suspiciously like Alison.

At school, Spencer goes over essay questions with Ezra. While he praises her writing ability, he calls into question whether she should go into the dirty details of her life such as a friend's murder, her mental breakdown, etc, saying that colleges look for more mundane and stable answers. Spencer gets defensive, saying that not speaking about these things is dishonest and denies what she has been through.



At the dojo, Aria and Jake spar. She asks how to defend against someone attacking from behind. He senses that she is on edge, inquiring whether she has been threatened recently after she reveals she has recently broken up with her boyfriend. She shoots that down, saying she just feels powerless, and Jake encourages her to keep with training to gain confidence.

Mrs. DiLaurentis and Hanna continue to talk on the front porch, Hanna asking if she saw Alison's body. Mrs. DiLaurentis says she saw her daughter's yellow blouse, and we flash back to her having lunch with Alison. Her daughter asks if she can invite Hanna, Aria, Emily and Spencer to their beach house for a sleepover, and Mrs. DiLaurentis is wary of the girls being on their own. Alison holds her breath, threatening to pass out and her mother eventually caves. Hanna reveals that she and the girls were never invited to the beach house by Alison, and Mrs. DiLaurentis speculates she must have been meeting an older boy.

Back at the dojo, Aria gets better with the self defense tactics. In the spur of the moment, she kisses Jake, but catches herself and runs out of the room apologizing. As she drives off, she spots Mona talking to a police officer outside the courthouse and pulls up to call her away. Later, Mona claims that she was talking to the cop in an effort to overhear a nearby conversation between forensics investigators about Wilden's murder. They found his footprints at the South shore fire, along with footprints from a woman's high heels, and are investigating whether this was the murder scene. Mona states that the heels are the same style that Alison liked to wear.

Meanwhile, Spencer angrily tears up her college essay as Toby arrives at her house. He reveals that he was the one who took the RV at the request of 'A,' and that in exchange he got a transcript from the hospital the night his mother killed herself.

In the school locker room, Emily sneaks pain killers before the swim meet. Just as she takes one, Shana rounds the corner and notes the bruise on Emily's shoulder before inquiring why Hanna thought she was friends with Wilden. Emily tries to back out of the conversation, saying she has to get ready for the race, but Shana continues. She reveals that everyone knows about Paige's scholarship, that there is still one slot open on Stanford's team, and that she wants it just as bad as Emily does.

Back at Spencer's house, Toby is emotional as Spencer reads aloud the doctor's transcript. The information conveys that his mother was in a positive state of mind, and Toby is convinced that there is something more to her apparent suicide. Spencer speculates that his mother could have been feeding the doctor's what they wanted to hear so that they would not prevent her from killing herself, but Toby is convinced there is a cover up. Just then Aria arrives, and Spencer agrees not to tell anyone about what they found out.



At the swim meet, Emily favors her injured shoulder before her leg of the race. After she dives in, she is disoriented from the pain killers and collides head first with the wall at the other end of the pool, knocking herself unconscious. Later, paramedics wheel her out of the building, asking a dazed Emily how she hurt her shoulder. She lies, saying she fell off her bike.

Aria tells Spencer about running into Mona outside the courthouse as the two share a drink. She reveals her ill-advised kiss with her martial arts instructor as Spencer appears confused by these recent developments, her mind elsewhere. Just then, Hanna arrives with Mrs. DeLaurentis' bird in tow. She tells the girls that the bird spent more time with Alison than anyone and could be the key to finding out more about her mysterious death while the other two act like she is crazy. Hanna learns from Aria that Wilden's killer wore high heels, and she worries that her mother is being framed for Wilden's murder. Spencer assures her that her mother wasn't even in town the night Wilden was killed, but Hanna doesn't seem so sure.

That evening, Ashley sends a text as her daughter arrives home. Hanna asks her mother if she was in New York the entire time she was gone, and Ashley claims she was. She tells her daughter flat out that she did not kill Detective Wilden.

At Spencer's house, the bird continues repeating the familiar song while Spencer attempts to look further into Toby's mother's suicide. Spencer suddenly realizes that the bird is actually mimicking the tones of a phone number rather than a song. Meanwhile, at her house, Aria spots a figure moving past her window. She is surprised to see Jake, who is there to talk to her about the kiss and asks her on a date. Their conversation is interrupted by a phone call from Spencer, distracting Aria. As Jake leaves, she agrees to have coffee with him sometime.

Emily is in bed still banged up from earlier. Paige presses her on what exactly happened and Emily admits she was on painkillers and could not keep count during the lap, leading to the collision. She reveals that she had been keeping the incident with 'A' from Paige because she didn't want to drag her into it.

Meanwhile, Hanna, Aria and Spencer try the number which the parrot was mimicking but no one is answering. They wonder whether Spencer dialed properly, going to her room to listen to the bird again only to find that it has vanished from its cage. Someone climbed through Spencer's window and snatched the bird.



Elsewhere, Ashley trashes her mud-caked shoes as someone spies on her from outside. The episode closes as 'A' cuts up a roasted game hen -- she was the one that stole the parrot, and attempts to feed the meat to the bird as the episode fades to black.