Samara Cook

"She always wore her hair up, and I used to stare at the back of her neck... One day we had a study date, and she let her hair down."

- Samara

Samara Cook is a character in Pretty Little Liars. She is portrayed by Claire Holt. She dated Emily Fields for a short time in Season 2, they broke up after an interference by A.

Biography
Samara is a friend of Emily Fields who tried to help Paige with her coming out to her father. She works for an LGBTQ+ Pride group as one of her extracurricular activities. She first appeared in the second half of Season 1 and dated Emily during the first half of Season 2 until it ended because of A's interferrence. She hasn't appeared in the show since then.

Series
Monsters in the End Paige contacts Samara to enlist her help in coming out to her father. Emily volunteers to come and support her, but Paige changes her mind, standing up Samara and instead leaving Emily with her.
 * -|Season 1=

When Paige catches Samara and Emily flirting at the Founder's Day Festival, she gets jealous, causing Emily to thank Samara and to tell Paige it's not worth it, now that she insists on keeping their relationship hidden from everyone. Paige gets angry at Emily for revealing her secret to Samara, even though that was the plan. Paige is rude to Samara, even though she was the one to blow off their meeting, and Samara had come only to help her.

In "The Goodbye Look," Samara manages to convince Emily to go see a movie with her, despite Emily's hesitation that she's moving to Texas, and maybe shouldn't start something new. Emily is then scouted by a college representative. Samara is encouraging and very excited for her. Once they are at the movies the next day, Emily fills Samara in on how getting a letter from the college might mean she won't have to move. This makes Samara very happy. Emily then has a thought about the time when she was at that same theater with Maya and opens herself up to Samara, when she picks up on it. Samara returns the favor, opening up to Emily about her first girlfriend; saying that she was a conservative girl who always wore her hair up, and Samara used to stare at the back of her neck, until one day they had a study date, and she "Let her hair down!" The movie then starts, and they seem very comfortable together.
 * -|Season 2=

In "Blind Dates," Samara congratulates Emily's acceptance to Danby. Emily is immediately honest with Samara, letting her know that she authored the letter. Just then, Pam sees the two together and invites Samara to celebrate at dinner, especially since Emily won't be celebrating with her usual friends. Samara accepts, and this dinner seems like it will be very different than the last one, when a girlfriend of Emily's came over. Surprisingly, Pam is impressed by Samara, especially her appreciation of Pam's craftiness and her sweet, polite demeanor. The subject changes to Danby, and Samara takes advantage to make things better for Emily, to take the guilt off of her. Before Emily confesses, Samara convinces Pam that there are other schools out there that would love Emily, given her swimming stats. She dissuades Pam from contacting the Danby coach right away, as that would make them seem to eager and focused on only one school. In this way, she has released Emily from the pressure of this one college. Back at school, Samara reiterates what she said to Emily's mom the other night, and Emily happily reports that her mother has started to look at other colleges. They plan for a second date.

In "Never Letting Go," Samara helps adjust Ali's dress to fit Emily for the fashion show; she also gets to watch Emily change into the dress... Emily asks her to come and see her handiwork, but Samara tells Emily that she is supposed to meet up with a friend the night of Emily's fashion show, so Emily invites Samara to come and bring her friend, without having met this friend. When Samara shows up with Quinn at the fashion show, the two share a joke about sitting in each other's lap, and Emily catches a touchy-feely vibe from the two. When questioned about it by Emily later, Samara claims that Quinn is just a friend, but uses the opportunity to clarify that she feels that they (Emily and Samara) should be able to see other people, as Emily has made it clear that she wants to take things slowly when Samara first asked her out and since they have only gone on two dates.

In "Picture This," Samara plans a girls' night, wherein Emily can get to know her other friends, Bianca, Quinn and Zoey. Things go very well until the next day, when Quinn tells her that Emily slipped Zoey her number. Samara is distressed and tells Emily that she no longer wants to see her, until Emily gives her the real reason for practically asking her friend out.

Appearances(5/120)
Season 1 (1/22) Season 2 (4/25)
 * Monsters in the End
 * The Goodbye Look
 * Blind Dates
 * Never Letting Go
 * Picture This

Emily Fields

 * Started: The Goodbye Look (2x02)
 * Ended: Picture This (2x09)
 * Reason: Emily couldn't tell Samara the real reason for giving Zoey her number.

Trivia

 * Samara is the second of Emily's girlfriends to simply disappear from the show after breaking up with Emily. The first (although she returned) was Maya.
 * Samara's actress is also known for the part of Rebekah Mikelson in the CW series The Vampire Diaries, and, as of 2012, it's spinoff The Originals.
 * She is the third actress from PLL to also have a role in TVD, the others being Nathaniel Buzolic (Dean Stavros on PLL/Kol Mikaelson on TVD), Torrey DeVitto (Meredith Fell on TVD/Melissa Hastings on PLL), and Bianca Lawson (Maya St. Germain on PLL/Emily Bennett on TVD).
 * She's also one of two of Emily's significant others to have a part on The Originals, the other being Steven Kruger (Ben)