Summary of Pretty Little Liars Season One

----UPDATE---
A summary of seasons 1-3 can now be found here. We updated it AND made it more thorough.

Some people don't have time to catch up on shows and just want to jump right in. Lots of people have heard that Pretty Little Liars is good, but they heard it too late. Hey, we were surprised at how good this show turned out to be as well.

Pretty Little Liars is a convoluted show with lots of characters, subplots, clues, mysteries, and cliffhangers. So we probably didn't mention EVERYTHING that happened or will be touched upon again. But we did try to mention everything you would reasonably need to know to start watching season two when it airs this coming Tuesday.

The premise: There were five friends. One of them, Alison DiLaurentis, was a real jerk, but the other four worshipped her anyway. One night, Alison disappeared. The rest of the girls lost touch, but one year later, the four remaining friends came together on the day Alison’s dead body was found. That was also the day the mysterious “A” started sending them text messages, taunting them. The text messages included secrets about the girls that each girl had only revealed to Alison. So the show has two mysteries: Who killed Alison and who is A?

The four main girls:

Spencer Hastings - Ern’s favorite. She’s tough and smart, but she has a weakness for her sister’s guys.

Hanna Marin - Leeard’s favorite. The girl has a slick mouth that she probably got back when she used to be chubby (because when you aren’t gorgeous, you have to develop other strengths). But now, Alison is dead and Hanna lost weight, so she is the towns new most popular girl. She’s cool and hilarious, but she struggles with things like shoplifting and the occasional purging session.

Emily Fields - Probably the nicest of the girls, and the best person, Emily discovered that she was gay over the course of season one when she started a relationship with a new neighbor, Maya. Emily is on the school’s swim team, and she’s very good. Emily’s mother is having trouble accepting her daughter’s sexual orientation. Emily’s mom told Maya’s parents that Maya was smoking pot (which was true), so Maya was sent away to some sort of boot camp/boarding school. Emily spoke with her over the phone and it sounded like Maya had changed, so the relationship is over, for now. She’s currently digging a girl named Samara, even though she has kind of been dating a girl named Paige from her school. The trouble is that Paige is still in the closet, and Emily is over that.

Aria Montgomery - No one’s favorite, unless she is confronting her dad and his mistresses. That was the only time she was remotely cool. (Mr. Montgomery cheated on Aria’s mom and Aria knew. There was drama with Aria keeping the secret and then Mrs. Montgomery finding out and leaving Mr. Montgomery. They are getting cozy again though, so they might get back together.) Aria spent most of season one secretly dating her English teacher (and potential statutory rapist), Ezra Fitz, who she met in a bar before they knew she would be his student. Aria has a brother.

Other characters:

Jenna - She’s the blind girl. You can tell because of the cane and the eyeglasses. She is one creepy mofo. She forced her stepbrother, Toby, to have sex with her. Jenna is blind because Alison decided to set fire to a garage to play a prank on Toby. The four main girls were there, and the whole incident is one of their secrets.

Toby - Jenna’s stepbrother, who used to be the main suspect for Alison’s death, but only because he comes across as creepy at first. He’s really not. He’s dating Spencer right now. Spencer used to be dating a guy named Alex, but he’s not in her life anymore, due to a misunderstanding. We only mention this in case Alex ever comes back and starts some triangle business. And because we really liked Alex.

Melissa - Spencer’s sister. She is pregnant with Ian’s baby.

Ian - Suspect number one for the death of Alison, with whom he had a secret relationship. He made out with Spencer a long time ago.

Wren Kim - Melissa’s fiancé. That ended when Melissa caught Wren and Spencer making out. He’s gone now. Plenty of guys just disappear from this show. We disapprove.

Noel Kahn - An actual age-appropriate guy who likes Aria and knows about her relationship with her English teacher. He tried to leverage that knowledge into a better English grade, but apparently that is the one thing Ezra feels is morally wrong. We thought he was gone from the show too, but if the split-second shot of him in the finale is correct, he's coming back.

Garrett - A cop snooping into all the show’s incidents. He pretends to be a friend to the four main girls, but we know better. He's dating Jenna.

Mona - Hanna’s popular-girl friend who is kind of a jerk but entirely hilarious.

Lucas - A nerd who loves Hanna, but she’s not into him. Leeard loves him for a multitude of reasons.

Caleb - A guy Hanna was crushing on who had no place to live. She let him live in her house, until she found out that Jenna was paying him to spy on Hanna. He swore he quit spying once he got to know Hanna though. Caleb tried to tell Hanna that he loved her, but Mona intercepted the love note. Lucas found out about Mona’s bad deed and went to get Caleb and drive him back to town.

How we left it: English teacher Ezra Fitz took a job at Hollis College with Aria’s dad…and his ex- fiancée. Noel Kahn still likes Aria. We found out that Ian has been taping all the girls in town, creepily. We found out that Alison got a hold of one of Ian’s videotapes (when she was with him vacationing at Hilton Head) that included a nice scene of Jenna telling Toby that she will say he raped her if he doesn’t sleep with her. Alison had the video on USB and Jenna has been trying to get it. We found out that Jenna is dating Garrett. She’s still up to something, and we don’t know what. Emily might have to move to Texas with her family. Ian chased Spencer through a church bell tower and tried to kill her, but he was pushed off a high perch by…someone. His body was not found. He is the presumed killer of Alison at this point, but you can never be sure with this show. So A is still out there, sending clues and taunts.

Anything else you can just pick up as you go or get from the "Previously on Pretty Little Liars" recaps at the beginning of each episode. We also have a few recaps of episodes that we've done, if you click on "Pretty Little Liars" at the top of this page. This really should be enough to give you the overview you would need to jump in. If anyone else can think of something important to add, put it in the comments!

Pretty Little Liars season two will be on Tuesdays on ABC Family. It starts on June 14th. We can't wait.