Episode 'Pretty Little Liars' Season 2, Episode 3 - 'My Name is Trouble' Recap

All in all I thought this was an uneven episode without a lot of forward movement.  Show, I know you can do better.

Our little liars are watching a vintage black and white horror movie and talking about their 99 problems.  As they are analyzing Jason’s friendship status with Ian and whether or not he might be hiding zombie Ian in his house, things get all indoor windy and spooky-like.

The film gets stuck and blisters across the screen revealing the hoody ninja from Ian’s belltower murder.  Freaking out commences.  But! It’s! All! A dream!

Spencer’s dream to be exact from which she is woken by her flashlight wielding sister. Melissa’s tearing up the house looking for her wedding ring.  Personally I find middle-of-the-night scavenger Melissa the scariest of them all.

Emily went ahead and forged a scholarship offer from Danby University.  At the last minute after a great heart to heart where her mom owns her past homophobia and dishes out some unconditional love Emily reconsiders and tears it up. Good ole A steps in and delivers the letter anyway. Emily should know better than to tell the truth within Rosewood city limits by now.

Hannah makes up with Lucas and does her level best to get him in good with a cute new girl.  Hannah’s mom and dad continue to support their daughter by drinking a lot of wine and flirting inappropriately. Seeing her family in tact drives Hannah to start meddling and she deletes a potentially important text from her father’s fiancée.

Meanwhile Toby is still filling out that GED paperwork at the high school. Just like he was last week. All the better to bump in to Spencer and break the news that the only job he can get in Rosewood is working for Jason DiLaurentis, helping him drag his trashbags full of mysterious bloody rags out of the house.

Spencer flips out and then finds Melissa’s missing ring and pawns it posthaste to buy Toby a truck so that he can take on construction work one town over where nobody thinks he’s a mass murderer and he doesn’t have to be employed by one either. Spencer knows how to get shit done. I would totally hire her to be my life coach.

Aria is taking an after school pottery class at the local university where she and Mr. Fitz are free to PDA it up all over campus. His ex-fiancee Jackie spies them making out and does a classic bit of smell-the-fart acting about it. And then nothing happens. For now.

It’s such an interesting choice on the part of the writers to legitimize this relationship.  Now that he’s not her teacher they seem feel that there are no obstacles to them being together. It’s clearly magical thinking on their part but I’m interested to see what comes of it in the next few weeks.

Finally, our little liars get together to pull a Scooby Doo and follow Melissa in order to find. The girls are literally running around about 10 whole feet behind her, diving into shrubbery to avoid being seen. She doesn’t meet up with Ian but with her ex-boyfriend Ren who sells her a whole mess of prescription drugs from the back of his car. Just the kind of thing you need to care for your demon spawn baby daddy who is back from the dead, on the lam, and all bruised from his belltower fall.