Spencer Hastings

Spencer Jill Hastings is one of the main characters in the Pretty Little Liars series. She is portrayed by Troian Bellisario.

Biography
Spencer Hastings is an extremely wealthy, smart, an overachiever, and competitive girl. She is running for valedictorian, is on the field hockey team, and plays tennis at a country club. She lives with her father, mother, and "perfect" older sister, Melissa. Spencer is jealous because Melissa is always being praised by her parents, leaving Spencer in the shadows. This leads to a huge rivalry between the two. Spencer had been best friends with Alison DiLaurentis, although they sometimes had conflicts. She had been the only one who could ever stand up to Alison (which shows her spunky attitude), and they had gotten into huge fights though always made up, except for the last time they spoke. During the summer that she disappeared, Alison had told Spencer she had a secret boyfriend, but wouldn't tell her who it was. Spencer has always been known for her logical thinking during this extremely enduring mystery.

Season 1
The series begins with a flashback in a barn where Aria, Spencer and Emily are having a sleepover. They are startled by their best friend and queen bee, Alison, who frightens them by causing creaking noises outside the barn as a practical joke. The five girls gossip and share secrets before falling asleep. When they awake they realize that two of the girls are gone, Spencer comes back telling them Alison is missing and that she heard a scream.

One year later, Spencer goes shopping at Rosewood Mall and runs in Hanna Marin. They had drifted apart over the past year, but are still on friendly terms, keeping up with each others' lives via social networking sites. At school, Spencer goes to English class and picks up on the weirdness between Mr. Fitz and Aria.

Spencer's newly-engaged and condescending sister, Melissa, compliments her sister on her renovations of the barn that she has been working on for the past couple of months and then matter-of-factly informs Spencer that she is moving into the barn that Spencer had planned to move into, as promised by their parents. Her fiancé, Wren Kim, is sensitive and concerned, whereas Melissa is smirking and glib. They move in as planned, anyway. That night, while reading the book assigned for English class, Spencer catches Wren sneaking out for a smoke and promises not to tell her sister. Quite unlike Melissa, he apologizes for moving into the loft. Spencer remarks that Wren is not like Melissa's usual boyfriends -- in that she actually likes him.

Spencer finds herself increasingly attracted to her sister's fiancé, Wren Kim. The two behave flirtatiously towards one another, with Wren going as far as to massage a bikini clad Spencer's back the next day when she displays signs of muscle aches. The two immediately disengage when Melissa enters the room, though.

Later that night, while Spencer watches Melissa and Wren kiss from her bedroom window, she receives an anonymous email from "A" letting Spencer know that she/he is on to Spencer's jealous feelings, and this wouldn't be the first time. Spencer flashes back to the summer when Melissa was dating then-boyfriend Ian Thomas. She had been standing with Alison and Hanna in her kitchen, when Ian and Melissa had walked in. Suddenly, Alison announced that Spencer had something to reveal, but Spencer denied it, annoyed and angry by her so-called friend's blunt betrayal. Spencer had counters Ali's vague threat with a threat to expose Ali's involvement in " The Jenna Thing ."

Back in real time, Spencer looks timidly out the window, with the paranoid feeling of being stalked. She then catches sight of a wavy-blonde haired girl through the window in the former DiLaurentis home across the street and gasps "Alison."

Later that night, Spencer stands in a crowd surrounding Alison DiLaurentis' old house. Aria and Hanna find her and look on as a body bag rolls past on a stretcher. At the funeral, Spencer sits in the front pew with Hanna, Emily and Aria, the four friends reunited under such grim circumstances. Hanna sips from a flask and Aria receives a text message. The other three tense up waiting to hear who the text is from and they all realize the mysterious A has been contacting all four of them. Spencer turns and gasps when she spots Jenna Cavanaugh being escorted down the aisle. No one expected Jenna to come to Alison's funeral.

Outside the church, Detective Wilden approaches the girls to tell them he will be reviewing their statements and watching them during this murder investigation. All four girls get a text that A will also be watching.

The Pretty Little Liars sit at the Apple Rose Grille that night, discussing the new messages from " A" that they are receiving as well as Alison's disappearance. They also discuss their fears that " The Jenna Thing" will be revealed, but Spencer believes that no one knows the truth about their carefully guarded secret. Hanna pours some liquid from her hip flask into her beverage to her friends' disapproval. Spencer reveals that Alison had confided in her that she had been dating someone that summer, an older boy who had a girlfriend, but Alison never told her who. Just then, the girls cringe as they hear a tapping sound, instinctively knowing that blind Jenna Marshall has entered with her walking stick. They silently get up and leave.

But "A," sends a text saying "If you kiss, I tell. -A." Spencer and Wren do kiss and are caught by Melissa, who insists that Wren move out. Spencer feels bad and apologizes and tries to get Melissa back together with her ex-boyfriend, Ian Thomas. Spencer starts dating an employee of the country club to which her family belongs, Alex Santiago. She finds out her mother had breast cancer, and keeps it a secret from her friends.

Spencer, Aria, and Emily visit Hanna in the hospital after she is hit by "A." Hanna says Noel (Aria's former boyfriend) is "A." Spencer believes Hanna, and is shocked when she finds out Melissa eloped with Ian. She gets in an argument with her boyfriend, Alex, because he turned down the opportunity to be part of a tennis clinic in Sweden. The two go to Hanna's surprise "Welcome Back!" party where Alex gets an email confirmation that his application for the tennis clinic has been received. Since he only told Spencer about it, Alex leaves, furious because he thinks Spencer went behind his back. After he leaves, Spencer gets a text saying, ''"Point! Set! Match! -A." ''

Spencer becomes suspicious of Ian when she learns that he was at Hilton Head the same weekend Alison was right before she was killed. When "A" sends Spencer a video that shows that Ian was with Ali at the kissing rock the night she died, Spencer's suspicions are confirmed. However, the video was removed from Spencer's laptop before the four could bring it to the police, after he laptop was stolen temporarily. She later learns that Melissa is pregnant with Ian's child. Spencer, Aria, Emily and Hanna discover a golf trophy with Ian's name on it covered in blood, which they assume he used on Alison. They bring the trophy to the police, but the police discover rat's blood on the trophy, not Ian's. The police believe this was a hoax fabricated by the girls with Spencer as their ring leader. This, and her continued instance on blaming Ian for Alison's death, make Spencer a person of interest in the murder. The police search her room and her neighbor, Officer Garrett Reynolds, follows Spencer.

Spencer begins to spend time with Toby Cavanaugh at first to seek out information, but they soon bond over their shared feelings of persecution. Despite the disapproval of her mother and sister, their relationship grows and she is in a serious relationship with him by the end of the first season.

In "Monsters in the End," Emily learns that Alison had left her a key to discover videos that had been taken of all of the young girls who live on their street, which had been taken over the course of years. Spencer believes Ian was the one taking the videos and that Alison's discovering them was the motive for killing her.

In "For Whom the Bell Tolls," the four girls plan to trap Ian by anonymously blackmailing him with the videos. They plan to turn him into the police when he shows up with the agreed upon sum, thereby confirming his guilt. However, another man is sent in Ian's place to drop off the money and pick up the videos. At the same time, Ian corners Spencer in a church. He plans to kill her and make it look like a suicide. Before he is able to hurt Spencer, a figure dressed in black pushes him off the bell tower, apparently killing him. Emily, Aria, and Hanna meet Spencer in the church and see what appears to be Ian's dead body. Minutes later, as they are exiting the church, the police inform them that there is no body. As the first season ends, the four girls, especially Spencer, look guilty for telling another lie.

Season 2
In "It's Alive," Spencer's family does not believe her claim that Ian is dead. They call Spencer’s accusations an "obsession to pin Alison’s death on Ian." The girls are deny this and their parents insist on them seeking therapy.

In addition, Spencer's parents disapprove of her budding relationship with Toby; they think associating with him with further destroy her reputation. So, Spencer is banned from hanging out with her friends and her boyfriend.

Spencer's relationship with Melissa is at another all-time low, being told that Melissa doesn't want Spencer anywhere near her future baby. Ironically, later in "It's Alive", she seems to be the only Hastings family member willing to entertain Spencer's version of things in what befell Ian. After that, when it seems that Ian is alive and Melissa is abetting him, Spencer feels abandoned by her sister, and her sister is aloof as usual.

Then, Spencer finds her sister's ring after Melissa misplaces it, and Spencer pawns it to pay for a truck for Toby. She hopes to make the barter temporary, but "A" sees to it that Spencer never gets it back.

At the end of "Blind Dates," "A" puts Ian's cellphone into Spencer's backpack. "A" calls the phone in the "The Devil You Know" while she is talking with her sister causing Melissa to believe Spencer was pretending to be Ian while he was dead. Their relationship deteriorates further. In "Never Letting Go," Melissa goes on vacation. Her father mentions it to Spencer that she could have gone as well which probably means Melissa didn't tell her parents about what happened between the two of them.

In the same episode, Spencer finds her father arguing with Jessica DiLaurentis on several occasions - on the phone and at the fashion show. When confronted, he makes up lies and tells her to stay away from Jason DiLaurentis.

Spencer's father then seems to believe the broken field hockey stick Toby found was planted by Spencer in Surface Tension. Spencer then witnesses her dad burn the piece of possible evidence after she tries to stop him from throwing it in the fireplace, but fails.

In "Save the Date," Wren returns, seemingly interested in seeing Spencer again. She turns him down, stating she has a boyfriend now. Spencer wants to know the details of Alison's murder, so she and Aria break into the morgue at Rosewood Community Hospital to find her file. They discover Ali suffered from blunt-force trauma and was subsequently buried alive. Spencer suspects Jason.

In "Touched by an 'A'-ngel," Spencer and Toby blow off the school college fair to sort through Ian's leftover belongings. (Typical Hastings, Spencer had gone to the college fair the previous year.) Toby spots Ian's yearbook among a crate of his books and calls Spencer over to read it. They open up to Ian's page; the caption under his picture reads: "Captain Lacrosse Team, Honors Society, Drama Club, N.A.T. Club." Spencer, who's sure that she is familiar with every single club on campus, is befuddled by the unfamiliar N.A.T. Club. They flip through the yearbook index of clubs to check for a description of the club, but there is none, leading them to believe that it was some sort of prank. They do find two other members with similar captions, though: Garrett Reynolds and Jason DiLaurentis.

In "I Must Confess," 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 voyeuristic-ally 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 stands in the middle of them, shielding Toby from her father. Spencer ignores her father's order to return home and gets in Toby's car before he drives away from her irate father.

In "Over My Dead Body," Spencer receives a message from A telling her to "keep Toby safe." She takes this to mean she must break up with him. A has threatened and hurt people she loves, she doesn't want to give A the chance to hurt Toby. His brake line was severed earlier in the episode. Spencer knows what A is capable of. She breaks up with him later by letting him believe she doesn't trust him. She runs away and collapses crying by a tree where Wren finds her and drives her home. Spencer thanks Wren for the ride and being a shoulder to cry on. He tells her he is desperate to kiss her and even though it is "bad timing", they kiss.

Spencer attends Tom and Isabel's wedding with Aria. When Hanna stops the wedding, the girls all leave in search of Emily. They find Emily passed out by the barn A gave them directions to. A shovel nearby has coordinates pasted on it which Spencer plugs into her phone and they head to the location. The girls believe Dr. Sullivan is buried alive there with only a straw sticking out of the ground as her only source of air. They begin digging her up when helicopters shine lights down on them and cops come running over the hill to arrest them. No one was buried there. It was a mannequin. At the police station, Spencer stares intently into the two-way mirror, seemingly directly into Detective Wilden's eyes. The girls are being held on suspicion of murder having been found with the murder weapon (the shovel).

In "The First Secret," Spencer is dressed as Mary Queen of Scots at Noel Kahn's Halloween party, where she, Emily, Hanna and Aria fall into yet another Alison trap.

Relationships
Ian Thomas: They kissed and briefly dated. It began and ended "early in the summer."
 * Started: Before "Pilot"
 * Ended: Before "Pilot"
 * Reason: Alison threatened to tell Melissa

Wren Kim
 * Started: "The Jenna Thing"
 * Ended: "Can You Hear Me Now?"
 * Reason: Spencer told him nothing could happen between them because of her sister

Alexander "Alex" Santiago
 * Started: "There's No Place Like Homecoming"
 * Ended: "Salt Meets Wound"


 * Reason: They broke up because of "A." "A" posed as Alex and accepted him into a tennis clinic that Alex only told Spencer about.

Toby Cavanaugh:
 * First Relationship
 * Started: "A Person of Interest"
 * Ended: "Over My Dead Body"
 * Reason: "A" threatened to kill Anne Sullivan if Spencer didn't "keep Toby safe" (by ending the relationship).
 * Second Relationship:
 * Started:  " A Hot Piece Of A"

Trivia

 * Spencer has kissed more guys in the series than the other Liars.
 * Spencer has the most secrets out of the four Liars.
 * Spencer is the main target of "A" being the one he or she has tried the most times to frame or even kill. This is most likely since Spencer is the only one who could ever stand up to Alison
 * Out of the other three girls, she is closest to Emily.
 * She is the most determined and hardworking one of the four.
 * Spencer was the closest to Alison, even though they fought constantly because Spencer was the only one able to stand up to her. Alison told only Spencer she had a secret boyfriend (later revealed as Ian Thomas) the summer she died.
 * Janel Parrish, the actress who plays Mona Vanderwaal, also auditioned for the role of Spencer Hastings.

TV Series - Book Series Comparison

 * Spencer lost her virginity to Wren Kim in the books, in the TV show they never slept together.
 * In the books, Spencer has dark blonde hair and green eyes, while in the series she has brown hair and brown eyes.
 * In the books, Spencer is a popular overachiever whilst in the series this aspect of her personality is not given much light.