What’s been happening
Season 7 started with Hannah’s abduction and torture at the hands of AD. This helped introduce the audience to AD, the bigger, badder uber A. We were also introduced to Mary Drake, Jessica DiLaurentis’s secret twin sister and Charlotte’s biological mother who has been secretly terrorizing Alison along with Elliot, Alison’s new husband. Mary has been dressing up like Jessica and Elliot like Wilden in order to convince Alison that she’s crazy. She checks herself into Welby where Elliot treats her. Instead of helping her, however, he drugs her in order to make her act crazy. Somehow, this will give him access to her money held in the Carassimi Group and will also avenge Charlotte, Alison’s sister and his former patient who died last season.
For the romantic aspects of the show, Spencer and Caleb got together, but this was interrupted by Hanna, who was engaged to someone else, but broke it off at the the end of the last episode. Emily and Sabrina have been flirting with each other for a while and Aria has broken up with Liam to get back to her abuser during adolescence, Ezra.
What just happened
The episode begins with Hanna wearing a fake engagement ring so the others won’t know that she is no longer getting married. Aria sees that Hanna has cigarette burns on her back, but Hanna refuses to discuss them. Aria realizes that they are from AD and tries to question her further, but Hanna refuses to talk. Eventually, she and Aria join the group again and they finally begin to suspect that Elliot may not be such a good guy after all.
However, this doesn’t matter much, as Ali has taken matters into her own hands. When Elliot goes to check on her, she attacks him and tries to kill him. This plan fails and she is sedated again. Then, Elliot puts a mask on her face that covers her mouth, presumably so she can’t bite him. This doesn’t really matter though because we never see the mask again.
Meanwhile, in the worst romantic subplot, Emily asks out Sabrina, the barista at Ezra’s cafe. She refuses and Emily leaves, frustrated. What’s extraordinary is how easily Emily is able to find ladies who like other ladies in Rosewood. It seems to be nearly everyone, yet we never see any pride things on the show. You’d think a town with such a large lesbian/bisexual community would make their existence more known.
Spencer seeks out Toby’s help in finding more information on Elliot. She does not find Toby, but she does find a newly engaged Yvonne, who seems happy to rub it in Spencer’s face. Spencer, being the most sane Liar, decides that this means his ties and obligations to her are very much cut, and she leaves.
Finally, the Liars go completely unprepared to the chief of medicine to accuse Elliot of abuse. He checks on Alison (whose bruises and puncture wounds seem to have mysteriously disappeared), looks at her charts, looks at Elliot, and decides that Alison is completely safe.
So the logical place to go after this is to fight and break-up with your boyfriend. Spencer and Caleb argue over if he still is in love with Hanna. Spencer believes he is despite his protests. Later in the episode, she admits that “you like me, but I love you.” Caleb doesn’t deny this, and they break up shortly thereafter.
Aria, Hanna, and Spencer go to Elliot and Alison’s house in order to find exactly what he’s hiding in his trunk. Aria sneaks in while Hanna and Spencer stay on look-out. This allows Hanna and Spencer to discuss Caleb. Hanna denies being in love with him even when she admits they kissed after she escaped AD. Spencer, again, doesn’t believe her.
While in the house, Aria takes as much time as possible individually photographing every single item from every angle possible and spreading as much as she can around the room. When Elliot arrives, Hanna and Spencer stall for time by using weak intimidation tactics. Meanwhile, Aria haphazardly puts everything back and sneaks out the window. She then runs to the front of the house where Hanna and Spencer are waiting. Obviously, Elliot sees this and watches them as they drive away.
While all of this is happening, Emily goes to work at Radley, which has since been turned into a luxury hotel. She sees Sabrina and brings her order to her. However, shortly thereafter, another woman shows up to join Sabrina. Emily, dejected leaves.
In typical Liars format, however, this is a red herring. Sabrina reveals that she is not dating this girl, rather, she is her ex, and instead is interested in Emily. They set up a date.
After leaving Elliot’s house, Aria and Hanna drive to Amish country where Elliot claimed his family owned a farm. While they are there, a little Amish girl tells Hanna that she’s very pretty and reminds her of her dolls. Aria finds out that there is no Rollins family farm, and both girls go to see the dolls. These seem to be the same dolls used by A, and the little girl tells them that Charlotte gave them to her. Each doll is named after a liar, including Alison. She also makes a comment that Alison looks like her. She then discloses that she has seen Charlotte and Elliot kiss each other, but that she wasn’t supposed to tell anyone. Eventually, the girls leave.
On the way out, however, Hanna sees a cattle prod. This triggers a flashback to her time with AD. Aria realizes that Hanna’s disappearance was far worse than their time in The Doll House.
Spencer and Emily look over Aria’s photos to see what Elliot was doing with the drugs. Spencer figures out that all of these ingredients together make latex, like the mask that was used on the Hanna doll. Unbeknownst to them, it was also used in the Wilden mask. They also find blue contacts, which makes them start to suspect that Elliot may be the one making the dolls and the masks.
Emily later goes to Toby’s engagement party. Rather than kick her out for crashing and continuing to involve him in nonsense, he agrees to look over the files the girls have.When he does, he finds that Elliot is actually using an assumed identity and is not who he says he is.
At Welby, after figuring out the Liars are onto him and have evidence of whatever he was hiding, decides to move Alison. He drugs her again, and brings her out to his car. Alison steals his phone and texts the Liars their location as well as an SOS. The Liars trail them. Eventually, Alison escapes, and Eliot chases her through the woods. The episode ends with Hanna hitting Elliot with her car while he is in pursuit of Alison. He goes through the windshield and dies.
Predictions and Analysis
The episode title is a huge tip off to what is about to happen. It’s clearly focusing on Elliot (Mr. Rollins), but watchers with a perceptive eye will notice that he’s addressed as “Mr.” not “Dr.” This is also clearly showing a breakthrough in what the Liars know. The viewers have known for a while that Elliot is not who he says he is. They also know that he has been making the masks (and probably made the doll) to make Alison feel like she was going crazy. It’s fitting that Elliot’s last episode would be named after him.
I think that Mary Drake is going to be a red herring. Even though she’s Charlotte’s biological mother, having her be AD or uber A would be messy at the very least. Plus, introducing a new character and then having them be an integral part of the plot is a questionable decision *coughcoughShowerHarveycoughcough*
Ultimately, I think it would be fair to have Mary Drake want money from the Carassimi Group and some vengeance for Charlotte would be fair. She may sympathize with AD, but I think making her a shaky ally to the Liars–specifically Spencer–would be interesting. This may also lead to some development regarding Jessica’s death.
In future episodes, I think we’ll see answers for Jessica’s death and more answers as to who Elliot is. Hopefully it is actually Jessica in the grave and there’s no body switcheroos a la Bethany Young (who we will hopefully also find out more about).
Other than this, everything seems to be going back to the way it was before the time jump: Aria and Ezra are getting back together, Hanna and Caleb seem like they may be getting back together now that they’re both single, and Emily has a new love interest. The only one left out is Spencer. Toby has rejected her and is sleeping with (and marrying) the enemy. Everyone is winning except for Spencer who is now single, jobless, and being chased by another psychopath.
This leads me to my A prediction: Spencer. I want so badly for one of the Liars to be involved at the top. The show has addressed several times that Aria and Ali are very suspicious and may be A, but that seems to obvious. The show loves to go in a crazy direction, and I think that Spencer can be that direction. Nothing in her life happened the way she thought it would. She’s brilliant, driven, and, ultimately unlucky and obsessive. She would be the perfect Mona-type uber A. Mona’s reveal was exciting whereas Charlotte’s was lackluster. Making the one or more of the Liars part of the larger plot would help to make an exciting ending for a show that’s had more than a few missteps.
