Pretty Little Liars — "Thrown from the Ride" Review. Keep Your Friends Close, and Your Enemies Closer.

Season 5, Episode 4

Air Date: Tuesday, July 1, 2014, 8/7c on ABC Family.

Rating: ★★★★★

“Once you know something, you can’t ‘unknow’ it.” ― Alison DiLaurentis

“Thrown from the Ride” is not too different from the past two episodes, “Whirly Girly” and “Surfing the Aftershocks,” of Pretty Little Liars (PLL), to say the least. We are still looking into the girls’ lives after Alison’s (Sasha Pieterse) return home. Where is all the mystery, you may ask. I’m not quite sure. What I do know is “Thrown from the Ride” is emotionally complicated.

The girls sitting outside the school getting endless stares from people.

Alison’s dad, Kenneth DiLaurentis (Jim Adele), thinks it’s best if they move away from Rosewood to get a fresh start. Umm, move away from Rosewood? Yeah…I doubt Alison would want to do that and leave her friends behind when she needs them the most. Despite all the cruel things Alison has said and done to many people, I can’t help but feel sympathetic toward her now. I understand she’s had a very unpleasant past while here, but you can tell everything’s that happened to her has affected her both mentally and emotionally. She won’t even tell Hanna (Ashley Benson) what or who caused her scar. For Alison, I guess some things are better left unsaid. Although Alison seems to be very vulnerable, there is something that makes me all the more suspicious about her. Does she have ulterior motives to do something crazy, again? If Alison were to go back to her old vicious ways, I think it would definitely spice things up again at Rosewood High School.

Speaking of vicious ways, it looks like Mona (Janel Parrish) and her ‘Alison must pay for all she’s done’ army are cooking up something big when Alison returns to school. It’s also interesting to see more of Paige’s (Lindsey Shaw) loyalties taking a toll on her. Paige has a huge dilemma—we know she still loves Emily (Shay Mitchell) but we also know how afraid she is of Mona and her snarky remarks. We also know Paige has more reasons to despise Alison than the rest of Mona’s army. We do get a sense of her backing out of destroying Alison as she slowly starts to feel sympathetic toward her. It looks pretty complicated to me; I’m just waiting for Paige to make up her mind about all of this.

I am really enjoying the dynamic circling around the Hastings’ household. Somebody get that family their own TV show because the amount of secrets they keep is enough for me to pile up a lot of questions. The fact that Alison’s mother, Jessica DiLaurentis (Andrea Parker), was found buried in the Hastings’ backyard already creeps me out as is. The father and daughter relationship between Spencer (Troian Bellisario) and Peter Hastings (Nolan North) feels like a game of cat and mouse now that Spencer doesn’t think she can trust him, let alone feel safe around him anymore. I think everyone is as curious as I am about who actually killed Alison’s mother, but I have a feeling Spencer might already know who the murderer is.

Aria, give yourself a break.

For Aria (Lucy Hale), “Thrown from the Ride” really ‘throws Aria off her game’ as she continues to struggle with Shana’s (Aeriel Miranda) death. She’s only making it harder on herself than it already is. Dear Aria, repetitively playing Shana’s funeral service online isn’t going to help you. Maybe that’s Aria’s way of coping with what happened, but I prefer her coping with her guilt with Ezra (Ian Harding) by her side. I adore how they are still talking to each other normally, given what he’s done to her and all. I think Aria should be a little more wary of him, which I think she is given her hesitation to warm up to him like she did before. I’m sure Ezra hopes her hesitation won’t last long. He knows he doesn’t have the right to seek Aria’s forgiveness but if they are to continue being a couple, something’s got to give.

Overall,“Thrown from the Ride” isn’t rich on the usual mysteriousness PLL is known to bring, but it really digs into the emotional aspect of the girls. But, now that Lucas (Brendan Robinson) is back in town, hopefully we will see more of him like we used to. On that note, next week’s episode will be *drumroll* PLL’s 100^th episode! Usually the 100^th episode of most TV shows turns out to be very special, and sometimes filled with many surprises so I’m already eager to find out what’s in store for us. The episode is called “Miss Me” and you don’t want to miss it!

What did you think of “Thrown from the Ride?” Leave me a comment below or chat with me on twitter @shadiawashere so we can discuss! I’d love to hear from you!