Ashley Marin

Ashley Marin is the mother of Hanna Marin. She works full-time in bank. Before the series started, Ashley had been left by her husband, Tom Marin (Hanna's father). She struggles with the demands of being a single parent and especially the financial burden. She is very protective of her daughter to the point that Darren calls her "Mama Bear." It seems that Ashley had a difficult upbringing. She was estranged from her father for some time for unknown reasons and was not sorry when he passed.

Season 1
After Hanna is caught shoplifting, Ashley starts a relationship with a police officer Darren Wilden to help her drop the charges. She tolerates him staying in the house and his walking about shirtless as she cooks and picks up after him. She is not happy about it, but she wants to protect Hanna. When she sees Darren completely overstepping his boundaries by rifling through Hanna's thing, she finally kicks him out as she realizes he was just using her to get close to Hanna and the girls (the way she was using him to keep Hanna out of trouble).

After Hanna crashes Sean's car, Tom returns to Rosewood to deal with his daughter. He invites her to dinner, and both Hanna and Ashley assume that he intends to take both mother and daughter with him. Ashley dolls up for the occassion and hides her disappointment when Tom arrives and pointedly clarifies that he had only intended to dine with Hanna. Ashley sets her earrings on the counter of her empty house.

Ashley helps Byron cope with the adjustment to being a single parent to Aria and Mike. The two bond over their shared experience with separation from their respective spouses and the never-ending responsibilities of parenting. Byron does point out a major difference, however: he is separated, not divorced from Ella. Byron comes over the night of the storm to use Ashley's fax machine to send the overdue permission slip he forgot to send earlier. The electricity blows, and the two spend time alone together as the storm passes.

At some point, the Marins' financial woes pile up. Ashley discreetly calls a mortgage agency when she thinks Hanna can't hear her and tries to hide the extent of the problems from Hanna. When she hears Hanna tell Mona that she can't accompany her on a shopping spree, Ashley cuts in and firmly hands Hanna a $100 bill - the only money in her wallet. Hanna tries to help out by finding a job, but her job hunt only leads her to discover that her mother has unpaid loans and is in serious debt to the prospective employers. Hanna decides to sell some of her older accessories online to pitch in, but Ashley proudly (vainly) tells Hanna never to sell her things again, as she can handle it. Ashley handles things by stealing the money of a dying old woman from her safe deposit box.

On her way home from the bank, Ashley passes Byron with his car. Expecting her to be amicable as she had been previously, he asks for a ride. But, Ashley is curt and tells Byron that she is in a rush. She doesn't want him to discover the wads and wads of cash pouring over the sides of her handbag in the passenger's seat.

Ashley does not make it straight home, despite her plan. A police car stops her from behind, and Ashley has only enough time to zip up her bulging handbag. Officer Barry Maple pulls Ashley over, leading her to fret that the police have detected her crime. She tries to speak smoothly to Barry, addressing him by his first name, as they are clearly friends. But, Officer Barry has other concerns. He shares the news of Hanna's condition due to the hit-and-run by the SUV. Ashley rushes to the hospital, hugging her handbag close to her side. There, she gets Hanna a private room for recovery, despite their financial situation. Ashley notes Lucas, who comes to visit Hanna in the hospital. She turns him and Sean away until Hanna is up to receiving them.

Later, Hanna returns home from the hospital and discovers her mother's newly-acquired money in a lasagna box. Ashley passes off the money as a loan. Then, Mona throws Hanna a surprise party in her home, and Hanna cannot do much to protect her mother's secret stash from her wheelchair. There are too many people at the party, and Ashley comes home to find the house in disarray and the money gone. Hanna tries to apologize, but Ashley asks for silence as the reality of the problem dawns on her. Hanna slips her one of her sleeping pills as penance.

After some time, in "If At First You Don't Succeed, Lie, Lie Again," Ashley is informed that Mrs. Potter would like to visit her deposit box - months sooner than Ashley had anticipated. Ashley panics, though she insincerely tries to convince Hanna that it will be okay. After school, Hanna returns home to find her pajama-clad mother asleep on a kitchen chair. When Hanna enters, Ashley stirs quickly and acts on a whim to make pancakes. While she's cracking eggs, she reminisces how she had saved Hanna at the hospital, when the doctors were stitching up her ear. They had wanted to shave the hair there, but Ashley had insisted that the effect could be detrimental to Hanna's state of mind when she woke up. Ashley then tears up and assures Hanna that she will always take care of her.

Hanna visits her mother at work, wanting to be there to support her when the bomb goes off. But, a different bomb is dropped when Denise, Ashley's coworker, interrupts the Marins' conversation to inform Ashley that Mrs. Potter has had a heart-attack and could not be revived. The law-evading women hug at the bittersweet news.

Hanna tries to do her own part in retrieving the money by taking "A" up on her money-commissioned dares. Ashley is shocked to see the wads of bills Hanna inserts in the popsicle box in the freezer and is skeptical of her daughter's story that she "found" the bills at Lucky Leon's. But, Ashley doesn't question the blessing too much and insists that she can read Hanna's body language to know with full certainty that she isn't lying. Hanna is amazed at her mother's power, but Ashley doesn't surrender her secret.

Initially, she does not trust Caleb and thinks that Hanna should stay away from him. She feels uneasy about Caleb being in the house alone with Hanna unlike the way she felt about Sean. She had always been warm to the minister's son, sending his father regards.

Then, a new development in Mrs. Potter's safe deposit box arises. A man claiming to be the late woman's nephew comes to claim the rights to the deposit box. He says his name is "James Leland." Once again afraid of being busted, Ashley is vulnerable to the man's date invitation, and she accepts. When he arrives, Caleb answers the door. Suspicious, Caleb does some research later and reports to Hanna that the man is a fraud, as the real James Leland is dead. Hanna shares the information with Ashley, but she is loathe to believe anything Caleb has to say. However, when the man is shocked to see the paltry contents of the safe deposit box, Ashley asks him in a moment of inspiration where he banks, insisting that encouraging customers to keep small sums in their deposit boxes is universal bank policy. He staggers over the question, not giving a direct answer about his personal information. Ashley thus calls his bluff, and the man leaves disappointed, never to be heard from again.

Shortly after this excitement, Hanna tries in vain to get her mother's permission for Caleb to live in the guest room (when he is secretly already living in the basement). So, Hanna houses Caleb without Ashley realizing. Hiding him from her proves to be a job, though. One morning, Hanna serves Caleb breakfast after she thinks that Ashley has already left, but Ashley returns as Caleb's hat sits on the kitchen counter. Hanna quickly throws it in the sink and pretends to be washing the dishes, avoiding her mother's notice. Another time, Ashley leaves her phone on the charger in the bathroom and goes in to get it, just as Caleb is taking a shower and Hanna is grabbing something of her own. This prompts Hanna to jump in the shower with Caleb to avoid her mother's detection. However, Ashley notices other clues of Caleb's presence, such as the rapidly depleting groceries and the toilet seat left up. She eventually puts them together to realize Caleb has been crashing there and confirms her suspicion when she finds Caleb's briefcase in the basement and sees Hanna kissing Caleb at home when she thinks her mother isn't there. Ashley ousts Caleb from the house, disappointed that Hanna lied to her.

However, after Hanna spends the night away without informing her mother as to her whereabouts, a scared Ashley considers the impact of her decision. When Hanna brings up Ashley's past, she changes her mind. Therefore, when Hanna's phone rings, she picks up to speak to Caleb in her stead - but to invite him to dinner. After dinner, she lets Caleb know that he can stay in the guest room. She is initally hard with him, but she softens and lets him know that he can call her "Ashley" instead of "Mrs. Marin."

When Hanna learns that Caleb had been set up by Jenna to get close to her, Caleb makes a decision to leave Rosewood for Arizona. He drops by the Marins' home to deliver a letter to Hanna, but she isn't home. He speaks to Ashley instead, who is concerned about the state of her daughter's broken heart, but not cold towards Caleb. She hears him out as he thanks her for being the positive parental figure he never had. He intends to give Ashley the letter for Hanna, but she lets him know that it would be best if he said goodbye in person and hand-deliverred the letter. Caleb tries to take Ashley's advice, but Hanna flees at the sight of him. Later, when Hanna moans to her mother that Caleb left so abruptly, Ashley is puzzled, sure that Caleb had agreed with her advice. Nonetheless, she shrugs and comforts Hanna that guys can be that way.

Season 2
Ashley is concerned about Hanna's recent behavior. She goes along with the other liars' parents in enforcing Hanna's separation from her friends. She also forces her to go to therapy. Tom returns to Rosewood at this point on cue to Hanna's getting in trouble (after appearing on the cover of The Rosewood Observer). Tom helps Ashley enforce the therapist despite Hanna's wishes. Hanna goes against her will, but after earnestly opening up to the therapist, her office gets trashed, leading Ashley to demand from Hanna details about the session, though Hanna had been promised everything would be confidential. Ashley is very concerned that the police will come to the wrong conclusions, even though her daughter has done nothing wrong. In response, Hanna leaves the house to meet up with her forbidden friends.

After Ian's body is found, Ashley comes home frazzled that Hanna hasn't answered her phone, revealing how much stress Alison's death has placed on her, leading her to worry for her daughter's safety every time she leaves the house.. She reveals to Hanna that she worries about her whenever she leaves, imagining that the dreadful fate that befell Alison could befall her own daughter.

Before Ian's funeral in "The Devil You Know," Ashley makes Hanna change into something besides for the red party dress that she has picked out for the occassion. They get to talking about when Ashley's father had passed. Ashley had paid for the funeral, despite her apparent dislike of her father for unknown reasons.

After Ian's funeral, Ashley stops by Hanna's school as Hanna retrieves things from her locker. When Hanna sees Janet, Hanna threatens her that her "lawyer mother" working for the firm "Dolce, Gabbana, & Leibowitz" will sue Janet for not financially supporting her foster son as is due; she gestures towards Ashley who waves absent-mindedly while chatting on the phone. The checks follow shortly thereafter.

After the fashion show, Ella visits Ashley to share her concern for their daughters. They find it extreme that someone trashed Alison's memorial and worry that the girls are in danger. They reflect on Peter Hastings and accuse him of pushing therapy on the girls in an attempt to insensitively use money to fix a problem.

In "Surface Tension," Ashley welcomes Emily into her home and does her best to make her feel comfortable. She is touched by Emily's gesture to cook breakfast for her and Hanna, but wants her to feel less like a guest and more like family. She sets down some rules with Emily in terms of girlfriends, similar to her rules for Hanna's boyfriends. She proves to be much more accepting of Emily's sexual orientation than Pam and allows Emily to use their home to host her girls' night cardgame. Later, when Ashley sees that Emily is stressed out after her ulcer and not being able to swim, she gifts her with a complimentary massage, and Hanna looks on enviously, but appreciatively.

All the while, Ashley grows closer to her ex-husband Tom after his return to Rosewood. While she is distant with him at first, only sharing drinks of wine with him and not their old pastime martini, they eventually rekindle their friendship. The attraction grows, while Tom deals with problems in his relationship wiht Isabel. Ashley and Tom even dance together at the fashion show reception and end up sleeping together after a date one night. However, the next day the "Save the Date" for Tom's upcoming wedding to Isabel arrives in the mail, and all hopes of permanent reuniting are dashed. Ashley firmly puts an end to Tom's advances and stops their relationship despite Tom's protests. When the girls are gone, she asks Tom to leave, and he complies, leaving Ashley standing in the foyer alone.

Later, Ashley is content with her decision, though she struggles with her feelings of loneliness the night of Tom's rehearsal dinner. Emily sits in the kitchen with her, and the two share intimate conversation, distracting Ashley from her momentary despair. Regina is disapproving that Ashley has given up on her son so quickly, as she likes her more than she does Isabel. But, Ashley encourages Hanna to be there for her father and not to feel that she is betraying her mother by feeling happy for him.

Ashley goes to the Rosewood Police Station with the other parents after Hanna and the other Pretty Little Liars are arrested.