Salt Meets Wound

Salt Meets Wound is the 12th episode in the series. This episode aired on January 10, 2011.

Synopsis


The girls wheel their helpless friend Hanna back into her home, where she‘ll be on bed rest for a few more days before returning to school. They leave to get the rest of her belongings. While attempting to reach something on a high shelf, she knocks some boxes down and discovers the wads of cash in a lasagna box that Ashley's been hiding from her mini-heist. The girls return, and Hanna gets rid of them so she can be alone with her stack of money. She's not too alone though, because she gets a text from "A"! A little while later, Hanna confronts her mom about the money, which she plays off as a "loan.” Ashley insists that it's her problem and that Hanna should just worry about getting better.

Over at Emily's house, an awkward family breakfast is underway. Emily convinces her parents to have Maya over for dinner and meet the girl who‘s won her heart in the hopes of melting Pam's. Pam gives in and checks if Maya has any allergies.

Spencer makes out with her blue collar beau, Alex, until her mom shows up with coffee. Spencer expresses her surprise by the fact that her parents aren't more upset about Melissa’s elopement, but her mom says "what's done is done" and reminds Spencer that she was a big part of making her sister's life difficult the past few months.

Emily tells Maya to wear a dress to dinner and informs her how weird her parents have been since she came out. Hilariously, she cites "changing the channel when Ellen comes on" as an example.

English class ends, but Aria stays for a bit of extra help. She tells Ezra that Noel left the message on his car, but claims he might have known about them for a while and would have said something by now if he was going to. Ezra doesn't want to discuss it here, so Aria invites herself over to his place later.



Mona, feeling guilty for dumping Hanna the night she was hit, decides to throw her a surprise welcome home party. At school, Mona stops Emily and Spencer in the hallway to invite them to Hanna's place for the party that night. They're a bit skeptical, but Mona has decided that Hanna is up for it. Meanwhile, Noel approaches Mr. Fitz with his harshly graded paper and gives him a bunch of pointed stares and veiled threats. Noel happens to think his paper deserves an "A"!

Ezra stares wistfully out his classroom window when Aria approaches. Ezra tells her about Noel's request earlier, and Aria grabs his hand until they're interrupted by Jenna. She just needs his signature, and she's sorry to interrupt.

Meanwhile, Spencer‘s relationship with Alex is going well. Alex has been invited to a tennis summit in Sweden that could lead to a professional tennis career, but it turns out he promised his uncle he would work for him that summer. Spencer doesn't understand how he could possibly prefer hard labor to playing tennis, but ultimately accepts his decision.

Over at Emily's coming out dinner, Maya reveals that she can't eat the seafood Pam has so lovingly prepared, because she is allergic to seafood. Pam is surprised to learn this since she had "specifically asked" Emily, who says she "forgot". Emily's father is won over, but Pam finds Maya's story about her mother's tattoo crass and doesn't fail to mention to Emily that she sees their whole relationship as crude, ruining an otherwise lovely time for Emily. To make matters worse, when Pam sees Emily playing footsie, she quietly runs off to cry in the pantry.

Unfortunately, Hanna is clueless about the homecoming party Mona is throwing for her, and it doesn’t turn out well. Not only does Noel show up, but Lucas drinks too much. Just the sight of Noel prompts Hanna to have a flashback about him at a different party, when Alison had manipulated a girl to dump Noel, so Aria could have him. Hanna tries to talk to Lucas, but he's too busy pounding alcohol to put up with her niceties. Back at Emily's, she and Maya kiss goodbye on the porch when Pam awkwardly interrupts with leftovers.

Noel sees Aria enter and tries to make small talk when Aria accuses him of blackmailing Ezra for a higher grade. Noel denies it and tells Aria it's all in Mr. Fitz's head.

Elsewhere in Rosewood, Toby has been released from jail due to insufficient evidence, but with one caveat: an ankle monitor, keeping him all too close to step-sister Jenna. Emily sees Toby sitting on his stoop wearing his house arrest anklet and heads over to tell him that she wasn't the one who turned him into the cops.

Aria tells Hanna she wants to leave, and Hanna makes jokes about hot faculty parties. Hanna says Aria should have told them a lot sooner, because they tell each other everything.

Spencer finds Alex outside, and he's all upset. Apparently, someone submitted his application for the tennis summit. He accuses Spencer of lying when she denies that she wasn't okay with Alex's decision to work instead. Since she was the only one he told about the summit, he assumes it could not have been anyone else's doing. He then walks outs on her at Hanna's homecoming party. After he leaves, our suspicions are confirmed when Spencer gets a text from "A" taking credit for their breakup.



Hanna and Sean are telling a story about skiing when Lucas interrupts to pick a fight with Sean by calling him a Saint Bernard. Lucas is clearly still upset about Hanna rejecting him and makes a big scene. When Sean finally gets mad, Noel hilariously stops him by declaring, "It's like fighting a kid that needs a telethon!" Hanna requests an audience with Lucas outside. She tells him not to pick a fight with Sean when he's really mad at her. Lucas says not everything is about her. He goes off on a rant that ends with him revealing that he destroyed Alison's memorial since she was such a bitch to him for so long. Hanna tells him she'll keep it between them, but that just makes him sadder because when she's nice to him, it makes him like her more.

Hanna brings up her suspicious feelings about Noel to Sean, who just wants to party. Hanna's not really in the party mood, though.



Later, Jenna joins Toby on the stoop to reveal that, in a controlling mood, she was the person who turned him into the cops in order to keep him close. He rejects her, so she angrily slaps him.

Hanna is alone at her house cleaning up after the party that she didn't even throw when she hears creepy noises from upstairs. She wheels around with one of her crutches and then hides in the kitchen in the dark. Just when she's starting to freak the out, her mom comes home and asks what happened. When she hears that people were over, she promptly heads to the pasta box to find that their money has been stolen.

Emily gets home and is sad to hear from Pam that Wayne has to leave sooner than expected. She is, however, grateful that Pam is okay with her sexual orientation, until she reveals that she is not okay with it. In fact, it makes her sick to her stomach.

Over at their house, Spencer and her dad make small talk about how sketchy Ian is and how the cops are ready to put Toby away. Spencer sees a "Hilton Head" tag for a country club on Ian's stuff and has a flashback to Alison returning from an alleged summer with her grandma in Georgia and with the same tag on her luggage from South Carolina. Spencer questions Ali about it, but she evades the questions, turning it around on Spencer like she always does.

Hanna and her mom are saddened by the fact that their stolen money has been stolen, so Hanna shares her sleeping pills with her mom as a condolence prize. Once she's alone, Hanna finds a note from "A" in one of her pill boxes promising to give the money back if she does what A says. We then watch "A" slipping the hundred dollar bills into a creepy clown piggy bank.

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

Cast
Janel Parrish as Mona Vanderwaal

Tammin Sursok as Jenna Cavanaugh

Keegan Allen as Toby Cavanaugh

Chuck Hittinger as Sean Ackard

Ian Harding as Ezra Fitz

Bianca Lawson as Maya St. Germain

Guest Stars
Brant Daugherty as Noel Kahn

Brendan Robinson as Lucas Gottesman

Diego Boneta as Alexander Santiago

Eric Steinberg as Wayne Fields

Lesley Fera as Veronica Hastings

Nolan North as Peter Hastings

Featured Music

 * "Big Baby" by Love Grenades (Spencer and Alex make out)
 * "How Do You?" by The Fast Romantics (Mona throws a surprise party for Hanna)
 * "Timebomb" by Pigeon John (flashback when Ali gets Noel's girlfriend to break up with him)
 * "Marathon" by Tennis (Aria confronts Noel about blackmailing Ezra)
 * "Darken Me" by Electric Owls (confrontation between Sean and Lucas)
 * "God Knows" by Fay Wolf (Ashley scolds Hanna for throwing a party)

Continuity

 * In the flashback to the day of Ali's murder, Hanna mentions she got a bottle of tequila for the sleepover. Could that be what Alison brings them in the "Pilot?"

Memorable Quotes
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