Toby Cavanaugh

Toby Cavanaugh is Jenna's older step-brother. Alison and her friends believed that Toby used to spy from his tree house window into Alison's window. One time, Alison and her friends tried to get revenge at Toby, but ended up blinding his stepsister, Jenna Marshall. The girls refer to the incident as "The Jenna Thing". Toby ended up taking the blame because Alison saw him doing something sexual with Jenna (later revealed as forced) and didn't want her telling anyone. Later he becomes Emily's lab partner. Spencer, Hanna and Aria are worried that he will hurt her when he takes her to homecoming. Eventually, they come to believe in his innocence in Alison's murder, and Spencer even dates Toby. Toby has a tattoo commemorating September 1, the day he ended his relationship with Jenna. In earlier episodes, Toby had been one of the suspects to be "A".

Season 1
In To Kill a Mocking Girl, Toby reappears at Rosewood High after a mysterious, yearlong absence – leaving the girls to wonder whether he had anything to do with Alison’s disappearance, or if he is "A."

In the next episode, Toby becomes Emily's lab partner, much to Emily's dismay. Toby notices when Emily slams her lab book shut, though he doesn't know that it is because of the photos planted there.

Eventually, Emily and Toby start becoming friends. Their surprising friendship grows even stronger when Toby decides to make Emily a mix tape, complete with a comic book-like sketch of Emily, much to the dismay of a suspicious Jenna.

Emily and Toby schedule to meet, but when Emily arrives at the cafe, she sees Spencer and Hanna. Too embarrassed to socialize with Toby in front of them, she reluctantly blows him off. Later, the waitress hands Emily the mixed CD Toby has left for her, leaving Hanna to believe Maya made it for her and encourages Emily not to bullied by pursuing a non-conventional relationship. However, Emily takes the hint regarding toby. Later the next day, an upset Toby tries to ignore Emily when she comes to sit with him, but gives in when she presents him with a mixed CD of her own.

In There's No Place Like Homecoming, Toby surprises Emily with tickets to the dance. She’s nervous to accept because of what her friends may think, but is starting to like him.

Later, the PLL's discover Toby’s tattoo – "9/01, Free at Last", presumably memorializing the date Alison disappeared. At the dance, the PLL's are anxious that Emily is not safe with Toby. Then, Toby whisks Emily away to the Chem Lab to confide in her privately about his big secret, which the girls have just uncovered in what turns out to be Toby's file that Hanna retrieved from the psychiatrist, not Jenna’s. They send Emily a text message claiming that Toby killed Alison, making her more and more unsettled. As Toby tries to explain, she pushes him into the cabinet of beakers, injuring him badly before hurting herself as she runs away and trips on the train of her dress, hitting the hard floor and falling unconscious. At the end of the episode, Toby is dropping an unconscious Emily off at the emergency room and driving away.

When Emily gets back from the hospital, Aria, Hanna and Spencer mistake Emily’s wounds for an attack by Toby, and quickly inform her of his sordid past with stepsister Jenna to keep her from contacting him again. Later, Jenna visits Emily asking her to bring her Toby's file. The girls, sans Emily, head toward the shed to hide Toby’s file that Hanna stole, but in a panic, Aria decides to throw it in the river instead, and it seems "A" picks it up instead.

A day later, Emily discovers cops in front of the Cavanaugh house, with a shaken Jenna in tears – just as she receives a text from "A": "Thanks for getting Toby out of my way." She sees a smashed up motorcycle, but is too afraid to ask if Toby is alive. In Keep Your Friends Close, a new piece of evidence (a bloody sweater in Toby's possession that Alison was wearing in the video of the night she got killed) leads the police to officially announce that Toby is wanted for the murder of Alison DiLaurentis, though Emily, Spencer, Aria and Hanna have their doubts that they’ve nabbed the right suspect.

Just as Emily arrives in her car to Mona’s party, Toby pops his head up from the backseat and tells a freaked out Emily he needs to finish telling her what he started at homecoming. With the two alone in the woods, He professes his innocence and claims that he met Alison the night of her death and gave her his sweater when she got cold. Then, apparently, she joined another guy in a car, who Toby did not recognize, and the last time Toby remembers seeing Alison, she was alive. He also explains that the tattoo commemorating September 1 was celebrating his freedom from Jenna, not Alison. Later, Toby is discovered by the police and arrested when they find him hanging around the church.

In Salt Meets Wound, Toby is released from jail due to insufficient evidence that he in fact killed Alison, but with one caveat: an ankle monitor, keeping him all too close to step-sister Jenna, who confesses that she turned him into the cops, not the girls.

return to school in Know Your Frenemies is met with nasty remarks from students in the hallways, and he is flanked by police officers in the building. And things get even worse for him later when the town reacts to the accusations against him.

In Je Suis Une Amie, Spencer takes a sudden interest in helping tutor Toby, who is still under house arrest. She goes to Toby's home, who is surprised to her of all people standing on his proch. Spencer gives Toby a French translation of "Catcher in the Rye," having seen him reading the book once before. She explains that the best way to learn another language is to read a book you have already written, but in that other language. She has even devised a schedule for him to catch up. Toby is reluctant at first to accept the offer, but eventually he accepts.

However, when Spencer comes by for their session with Toby as scheduled, Toby hands her a book and tells her to leave. Spencer is affronted until she finds a note from Toby inside, written in Braille.

In The New Normal, Spencer informs Toby that she figured out the Braille message he left her: "214," but they are both at a loss. She tells Toby to steal Jenna's cell phone so that they can decipher her messages, but since it is a blind phone, they have to give it to Caleb to crack, which he can't.

Spencer and Toby form an unlikely alliance as the two grow increasingly suspicious of Jenna and her ties to a mysterious room at a local motel. Toby is staying at the motel to escape Jenna's wrath, who knows he stole her cell phone and touched her snow globe (actually Spencer's fault). While dropping Toby off, Spencer hears flute music coming from room 214 - the braille numbers. When she peaks through the window into the room, she sees a bag from "Neufelds," the same exact bag Ian mysteriously gave Jenna. The housekeeper lets them into the room for a $20, and they find Jenna's glasses on the floor, and the shopping bag in the closet, but empty. Sure that Jenna's staying there, they stake the room out while staying in the room next door, a room whose bathroom door doesn't quite shut all the way.

Being that Spencer's staying overnight was unexpected, she has no pajamas, only the leather jacket and tie get-up she'd been wearing all day, so Toby gives her the shirt he planned to wear, while settling for the bottoms himself. They fall asleep, and Spencer wakes up first, finding herself wrapped around Toby. She disengages herself and leaves the bed before Toby wakes up, leaving him thinking that they slept far apart from each other. They then hear flute music coming from 214, but when they open the door, they see it was only an audio recording, and they soon realize it‘s just another set-up by the nefarious "A". The notorious Neufeld's shopping bag is filled with ice, with a note from A telling them they're ice cold on the chase. It may be a set up, but it definitely brings these two closer. They then share a first kiss.

After Spencer becomes a person of interest in Alison’s murder, she continues to form an unlikely friendship with Toby, who is all too familiar with the feeling of being suspected by the police and coaches Spencer accordingly, urging her to serve the cops coffee in a bold move acknowledging their presence, yet not being afraid.

Later, Toby and Spencer spend comforting time alone, sitting alone in his house discussing running away and what that feels like In "Monsters in the End", Spencer and Toby engage in a kiss in front of her mother and her sister.

Season 2
In "It's Alive," Spencer's father keeps Toby from seeing Spencer, but Toby later returns at her house at night, scaring Spencer by not knocking on the door to the point of her brandishing a buthcher's knife, but Toby had only been trying to avoid alerting the rest of her family to his presence. He stays, and the two talk for a while. When he leaves he tells Spencer to lock the doors, and Spencer watches him leave.

In "The Goodbye Look," Toby shows up at school and tells Spencer he is going to get a GED and that he has a job at a construction company. Spencer sits in her car and watches what appears to be Toby being laid-off. He walks over and says the customer saw him and told them they'd fire the company if he wasn't removed. The construction boss did pay Toby the week's salary anyway. That night, Toby comes to Spencer's house asking to hang out.

In "My Name Is Trouble," Toby comes to the school to drop off his GED paperwork and he tells Spencer he has another construction job with Jason. Spencer doesn't really like that, but she makes him promise he won't go inside Jason's house because she doesn't trust Jason. He promises and kisses her. Spencer comes to visit Toby at work and tries to get him to quit when Jason goes in the house to get a drink, but he tells her he needs the money. Spencer finds the engagement ring that Melissa had been looking for and she sells it to a pawn shop. She uses the money from the pawn shop to get Toby the truck he wanted. They confess their love to each other and kiss.

In "Never Letting Go," Toby walks Spencer home. The two can't keep their hands off each other. The two even make out in the Hastings doorway. The two kiss again, then say goodnight. Later, at the fashion show, Spencer goes backstage to talk to Toby while he builds the makeup tables. She expresses her frustration with Mona, and he comforts her, making her giggle, and they kiss. Later on, while Spencer is giving out swag bags, Toby comes talk to her and compliment her. Out of nowhere in comes Mona, who starts barking orders at Spencer, and Toby cools her off.

In "Surface Tension," Toby makes a major find- a broken field hockey stick. After he tells Spencer about finding it and the way her father reacts to it, Spencer thinks that the hockey stick may have been what killed Alison. Toby comforts Spencer when they meet on the outskirts of Rosewood, and she says that her father believes the possible murder weapon was a prop set up by her much like Ian's trophy in "The Badass Seed."

Toby comes back again in "Touched by an 'A'-ngel" to help Spencer go through Ian's things. He discovers that Ian was part of the N.A.T Club. Spencer, who never heard of the club looks through the yearbook to find that Jason and Garrett were part of the same club. Later, Toby and Spencer see Aria and Jason at The Grille. Toby suggests she go inside to talk to Aria, but Spencer knows Aria won't want to listen to what she has to say.

In "I Must Confess", Toby drops Spencer off at school, where she is nervous that Jenna has joined the N.A.T Club. Toby says he can try to find information about it from Jenna, but Spencer says he shouldn't and that it would give Jenna an even stronger motive to break the two up. Toby assures her that it would never happen. Later in the episode, the two are making out in Toby's truck, when Toby sees a shadow in Jason's house, thus killing the mood. Spencer is fed up, and storms up to the door, but is in shock when her dad comes out of Jason's house. When her dad says that he doesn't have to answer to her, Toby steps in an says that he owes Spencer answers. Spencer acts as a barrier between the two when her dad goes at Toby, and she runs away, making her dad charge at Toby's truck.

In "Over My Dead Body", Toby is at Spencer's house. Apparently, his truck was at the mechanic after the brakes stopped working, which alarms Spencer, considering he treats it like his baby. He says that the brake line was cut, and that it probably happened at work. Spencer then gets annoyed when she sees Jason peering through Alison's window, taking down his window treatments and looking at them, and pulls her curtains together. Toby then asks Spencer if her dad gave her an answer to why he was there that day. She says that he wouldn't tell her, and that she left it at that. Toby then says that she's not the type of person who would easily leave things alone, which leads her to say that he doesn't know her father as well, and to give it a rest. Later, the two are sitting in Toby's truck, and Spencer admits she lied earlier. He says that he thought they trusted each other. Spencer then says that she can never tell him everything that really happened, which pushes her to tears, as she says that he deserves someone who can be completely honest with him. Before he can say anything, she runs away. Then, as the liars are at the police station, Toby, while being restrained by police officers, says "I love you" multiple times to a passing Spencer, who has a look of sadness on her face.

Emily Fields
Toby and Emily appear to have feelings for each other at the beginning of season one. At first Emily is unhappy that Toby is chosen to be her chemistry lab partner, but then she warms up to him, eventually accepting his request to attend homecoming together. When Toby realizes Emily is gay and in love with Maya, he backs off, and the two remain close friends.

Spencer Hastings
Toby and Spencer look like they may be moving beyond friends in the next few episodes to come. Toby is helping Spencer catch Alison's killer so he won't be framed again. Toby and Spencer kissed at the end of "A Person of Interest" after she leaves the motel bedroom. They also engage in flirtation throughout the night in the motel room including sharing a bed while Toby is shirtless. They are in a serious relationship by the end of the first season. Spencer even claims that he is her safe place to land in the season finale, "For Whom The Bell Tolls", and that she wants him to stay safe. As Season 2 progresses, the two seem to be growing closer. In Over My Dead Body, Spencer feels forced to end the relationship due to A's message "keep Toby safe". She believes A is capable of murder based on the lack of hesitation when Ian was pushed and the kidnapping of Dr. Sullivan. She reluctantly breaks up with him in the same episode and ignores him when he calls out "I love you!" at the police station.

Trivia

 * Credited as Toby Marshall in the "Pilot".
 * In the TV series, Toby is sexually abused by Jenna, while in the book series, he sexually abuses her.
 * (Spoilers) Toby is alive in the TV show and commits suicide by overdose in Book 2 of the Pretty Little Liars series, "Flawless".