I Must Confess

I Must Confess is the 11th episode in Season 2. It aired on August 23, 2011.

Synopsis
Emily cannot sleep at night, tormented by thoughts of "A." At the first sign of light, she leaves to get into her car and leave, waking Hanna. When Hanna calls Emily, she discovers Em left her phone in her bag. The Liars gather in Hanna's room and discuss where Emily could have gone. Looking through Emily's phone, Spencer finds a picture of Ezra and Aria kissing sent by "A," along with the caption "Clue Ella in, and I'll let you out." Emily is then seen running through the woods.

After her run, she goes to Dr. Sullivan's office and surprisingly, the three other Liars are there waiting for her. As the girls talk about how they are being threatened, Dr. Sullivan can't help but ask who is threatening them. The Liars decide to tell her about "A." Emily tells Dr. Sullivan that the threats began even before Alison’s funeral. At first they thought it was Alison, but then they found her body. They also mention that "A" is an expert at making other people look guilty. They have clues about who he/she/they might be, but they’ve been wrong before. Dr. Sullivan, in turn, is astounded that the girls have not told anybody else about "A" and that she is only person they have ever told.

Toby is working on the Hastings' property when he hears loud music from a car nearby. He walks over to see Jenna sitting inside, eating cherries and lining up the pits on the dashboard. The DiLaurentis' door slams, and Garrett walks back to his car. Toby runs behind a tree, unseen by Garrett, then sees Garrett kissing his stepsister.

At school, the Liars debate whether or not they should have mentioned Jenna in their talk with Dr. Sullivan. Hanna then changes the subject by asking Spencer if she's brought the horse books. Hanna is gifting these to her new stepsister, Kate. Aria finds it weird that Hanna is being so nice to her mean stepsister, but Hanna insists she's doing this for her dad. The topic shifts back to Jenna when the Liars see her talking on the phone. Emily thinks it was Jenna who sent the Ezria picture. Just then, Hanna's grandma comes over and says hello to the girls. She's in town early for the rehearsal dinner the next night.

At home, Ella and Byron argue about the proper treatment for Mike. Apparently, the psychologist recommended meds, which Byron favors due to his family history of depression, but Ella would rather try verbal therapy. Just then, Aria walks in, noting that her father is late for his own class.

At the Marins,' Hanna flirts with Caleb on the phone, who seems to be enjoying California and his new family. Hanna gets off the phone to face Regina, who bluntly tells Hanna that she disapproves of Tom marrying Isabel. Then Ashley enters, and to her annoyance, realizes that Regina is rearranging the kitchen. Unabashed, Regina boldly tells Ashley that she should try to win Tom back, as Isabel is not the one for him. Ashely brushes off her request and tries to convince her to revert the kitchen to its earlier state, which she does not.

While Byron is at Hollis, Aria goes into Mike's room to tell him to go downstairs. Mike gets annoyed and tries to shoo her away, but she refuses to leave, trying to reason with Mike to open up to his family. Then Ella comes in to insist that Mike turn off his computer and make dinner. She firmly shuts the computer, but Mike gets violent, tries to get the computer back, and leaves his mother with a bruise from the squirmish before angrily walking away. Ella insists that Aria keep the shocking incident a secret from her father.

Toby gives Spencer a ride to school in his truck. From their conversation, it seems that Jenna and Garrett have gotten into a fight. Spencer is afraid of what external pressures such as Jenna can do to weaken their relationship, but Toby insists that they are immune and plants a kiss on Spencer.

In a school assembly, Dr. Sullivan makes a speech that addresses technology’s role in school bullying. The school bullies behave typically, with bored and snide expressions on their faces. The girls wear uncomfortable expressions, as Dr. Sullivan encourages the students being bullied to speak out if they don't feel safe. Mona files her nails, and Jenna looks snide. Right after the assembly, the girls congregate outside the building, discussing their feelings of vulnerability. Hanna questions whether confiding in Dr. Sullivan was a good idea in the first place. Just then, Jenna walks over and reminds the girls that Alison could have benefitted from such an assembly. She looks smug, and Emily rebuts her by calling Jenna a bully and asking her to move her handicapped equipment. (Who's the bully, now?)

At the dinner toast for Tom’s wedding, Hanna makes one last effort to bond with her stepsister, Kate. At first, Kate follows Hanna's suit when she apologizes for her earlier behavior and claims that she didn't mean her threats in their last phone conversation. Chipper, Kate offers Hanna some vodka disguised in water bottles from her purse. Hanna accepts, none too thrilled to be asked to make a speech.

All the while, Emily bonds with Ashley, who is rather quiet, as she prepares herself a microwave dinner alone in the kitchen. When Emily offers to join her, she is grateful for the company and tries not to think about her ex-husband moving on.

Later, Dr. Sullivan is walking down a street at night near her office, when she receives a phone call. On the other end is a repeat recording of a her own voice incredulously (and fearfully) asking the girls: "And I'm the first person you've told about this?" When she hangs up, the person calls again to replay the looped recording. As the camera cuts away from this scene, the look at Dr. Sullivan's face is one of agitation.

She returns to her office and tries to enlist the Rosewood Police Force's help, and two officers, one of which is Garrett Reynolds appear. Dr. Sullivan is sure that her office is being bugged and wants to figures that the perpetrator must be the same person who trashed her office. She wants action, but Garrett insist that they cannot be of much help without her revealing her pateints' names. However, as she is sworn to confidentiality, she reveals nothing.

Back at Tom's dinner party, Hanna is getting drunk by the minute, while Kate pens cheesy words for a toast. She notices Hanna checking out the picture of Caleb on her phone and declares him cute after Hanna shows her the screen. Suddenly, Kate's Uncle Roy passes by, and Kate becomes agitated. Not wanting him to see them, she asks Hanna to drink up quickly. The two sip from their drinks as he passes, and makes no notice of them. But, Kate doesn't explain her strange behavior and instead asks a waiter for more drinks before they enter the dining room.

Back at the Marins,' Ashley tries to locate her culinary equipment and finds that Regina has taken it upon herself to stick a spatula in the same drawer as a glue gun. Ashley confides in Emily about her feelings about Tom and his mother, while Emily confides in Ashley about her failed relationship with Samara. Ashley encourages Emily to have direct conversations with the people she cares about, or risk having to invent what they would say in their absence. Afterwards, Ashely heads for bed, and Emily picks up her cell phone to call someone.

Byron returns home from Hollis to find Aria at the table doing her homework. Ella comes in and downplays her injury, while Byron tells Aria to go easy on her brother.

Later Emily is seated at the Apple Rose Grille at a table for two. She is by herself, but when the busboy tries to remove the second setting, she stops him. Just then, Maya shows up.

Toby and Spencer make out in Toby's truck near Spencer's house until Toby catches sight of someone in Jason's house. Spencer then sees two figures and assumes it's Jason and his friends voyeuristically spying on the two lovers' make out session. Spencer gets out of the car to storm up to the house, while Toby buttons up his shirt and tries to stop her. She is stopped in her tracks when her father comes out. When Spencer questions him, he deflects her questions, and when Toby steps in to defend his girlfriend, he gets yelled at and threatened by Peter. Spencer ignores her father's order to return home and gets in Toby's car before he drives away from her irate father.

Next, Dr. Sullivan is shown in her office, determinedly looking through the files she had about Aria, Emily, Spencer and Hanna. A black shadowy figure watches from outside the window.

Maya and Emily share an intimate candle lit dinner for two. Apparently, Maya is out of rehab and is now living some forty-five minutes away from Rosewood with her parents. Emily and Maya catch up over dinner, and Maya is happy to hear that Pam has eased up on Emily, trusts her again, and is more accepting of who she is.

At the same time, Mike sits alone in his room again. Aria passes and sees that her brother is teary-eyed. She reaches out to him, and he confesses to being worried about his mother and later goes downstairs to face the family, outwardly apologetic for the first time in a while. She hugs her confused brother close.

Back at the dinner party, Kate leads Hanna into the bridal suite, rather than the dining room, where they have yet to make their joint speech. By now, Hanna is totally wasted and plops down on the bed. However, Kate is somehow mostly or completely in control of her senses and carries her mother's wedding dress into the room. She brings the dress to Hanna's attention once more, parading it in front of her and commenting on how beautiful it looks. Hanna agrees, but is more interested in getting something to eat. Kate leaves to get such a thing, and Hanna suddenly obeys her urge to play with Isabel's gown for the next night. She holds it to her body and spins around the room with it, but the motion makes her dizzy, and she collapses on the bed before vomitting on the dress. While she is throwing up, Kate returns with a plate of food. When she sees what Hanna is doing, she smirks and turns back around.

Spencer returns home to face her father on the living room couch. But they exchange words in a much more calm fashion than before, and Peter confesses that the DiLaurentis family forced him to change the will of Alison's grandmother in the south back to an early version that included two grandchildren. The will originally left everything to Alison, excluding Jason. Because of the disappearance and the presumed death of Ali, Jessica DiLaurentis had ordered him to change the will to include Jason, so that it wouldn't seem like Jason is a murder suspect.

Spencer suddenly flashbacks to the summer Alison disappeared, when the girls had all been hanging out in Hanna's kitchen with Regina. Alison had mysteriously questioned Hanna's grandmother. She had been talking about her two sons, Tom and Patrick, when Alison had suddenly asked what it would take to have one of them removed from her will. Regina had been taken aback by the question, but Alison had pressed on with: if one of her sons sold an expensive family heirloom to buy drugs, would that constitute dismissal from the family tree? Regina had gone along with it, saying that anyone that messed up would constitute a truncated family tree.

Snapping back to the present, Spencer shares with her father the conclusion to which she thinks this information points: Jason had murdered Alison after she went to Georgia to see her grandmother. She wants to go the police, but Peter won't have it, for fear that he'll lose his job as an attorney. Spencer asks her father why he even did it in the first place, and Peter gets all dark. Apparently, the DiLaurentis family knows something that Peter desperately wants to forget, and they had hung the fact over his head, forcing him to change the will. When Spencer asks what is it, Peter gets all gruff and leaves the room, telling his daughter he answered enough questions for one night. Spencer is left bewildered and confused.

Back in her office, Dr. Sullivan glances at a picture and promptly goes to a file, the file of "A". The identity of "A" is covered up by a sticky note, but as Dr. Sullivan reads on, she sees her notes from sessions with "A." Apparently, "A" always refers to a group of girls he/she does not mention by name as "nosey bitches." Dr. Sullivan has a picture of her vandalized office and the message "A" painted on her office wall with the same words; Dr. Sullivan soon deciphers the identity of "A."

Back in the bridal suite, Hanna tries against all odds to rid the wedding dress of her vomit stains. But, she is busted when Tom enters the ladies' room, having heard that Hanna is ill. Luckily, Hanna’s grandmother is there to support Hanna. Realizing what Hanna has done, he becomes livid with her. He accuses her of trying to sabotage his wedding and ignores her defense that Kate had been drinking as well. He simultaneously ejects his mother and daughter from the party and leaves the room in a huff.

At home, Aria informes her parents that Mike's break-in had not been an isolated incident. Having revealed her one secret, she looks pointedly at her mother, expecting her to do the same, reminding her how secrets threatened to split their family up once before. Just then, Mike descends the stairs to join the rest of his family, his guard down, ready to talk openly for the first time in a while.

In the bridal suite, Grandma Marin helps Hanna recover with some tea. The dress seems hopeless. Kate enters and offers Hanna some ginger ale, under the guise of being sympathetic. Regina grabs her purse and reveals that Kate had water bottles full of Vodka for Hanna and unspiked water bottles for herself, exposing Kate for tripping Hanna and trying to win over her in the eyes of Tom. Angry, Hanna vows her revenge, but Kate just shrugs and leaves.

While Emily is still at dinner, Dr. Sullivan calls her with the request to round up the others and meet at her office; she claims to know "A's" identity. However, when the girls arrive, the office is empty. They receive a message from "A" stating: "The doctor is out!"

At the end of the episode, the black-gloved figure is seen removing a sound device, which had been planted under the bobble head Freud in Dr. Sullivan's office.

Featured Music

 * "Truth Been Told" by Band of Thieves (when Jenna and Garrett meet in his car)
 * "Critical Emotional" by Middle Class Rut (when Mike shoves his mother)
 * "Wrap My Mind Around You" by Trent Dabbs (when Toby & Spencer kiss in his truck in front of school)
 * "Poison and Wine" by The Civil Wars (when Emily and Maya are out and when Spencer and Toby make out)
 * "No More Wishing" by Hayley Taylor (when Emily and Maya talk over dinner)
 * "Best Day of Your Life" by Katie Herzig (when Hanna throws up on Isabel's wedding dress)
 * "Where the Lonely Ones Roam" by Digital Daggers (when Liars are in Dr. Sullivan's office getting texted by "A")

Continuity

 * Kate gets the revenge on Hanna she promised in the previous episode by manipulating Hanna to get drunk. She had vowed revenge after overhearing Hanna's comment about her and her mother.
 * Spencer's comment on Ella thinking she's seeing Mr. Fitz comes from "Touched by an 'A'-ngel" after Aria informs Ella saw her in his car and thinks Spencer is the one seeing him.

Main Cast
Lucy Hale as Aria Montgomery

Ashley Benson as Hanna Marin

Shay Mitchell as Emily Fields

Troian Bellisario as Spencer Hastings

Sasha Pieterse as Alison DiLaurentis

Guest Stars
Bianca Lawson as Maya St. Germain

Brant Daugherty as Noel Kahn

Janel Parrish as Mona Vanderwaal

Holly Marie Combs as Ella Montgomery

Chad Lowe as Byron Montgomery

Cody Allen Christian as Mike Montgomery

Tammin Sursok as Jenna Marshall

Annabeth Gish as Dr. Anne Sullivan

Roark Critchlow as Tom Marin

Heather Mazur as Isabel Randall

Betty Buckley as Regina Marin

Laura Leighton as Ashley Marin

Keegan Allen as Toby Cavanaugh

Yani Gellman as Garrett Reynolds

Carlos Arellano as Officer Tulio