‘Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin’ Season 1 Episode 9 Recap: “Dead and Buried”

By
Alison Helms
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Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin Season 1 Episode 9
A scene from ‘Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin season 1 episode 9 (Photograph by Karolina Wojtasik/HBO Max)

We’re down to just two new episodes left of HBO Max’s Pretty Little Liars Original Sin’s first season and it seems as though the girls have figured out who’s A. Episode nine begins on Sunday, December 11 with Imogen (Bailee Madison) declaring, “So that’s it.” Sidney (Sharon Leal) asks if Karen was pushed and if Tyler’s dead. Tabby (Chandler Kinney) confirms they were murdered by A.

The camera pans out to show all the moms and their daughters gathered to discuss what’s happening. The girls explain who they think A is and that the moms went to school with Joe. He’s the one who sent the creepy gifts and all the cryptic texts.

After Tabby delivers the CliffsNotes version of why they think Joe did it, Imogen says, “The sins of the mothers visited upon their daughters.”

Sidney asks why they didn’t tell them about any of this and Imogen explains that A threatened them. Marjorie (Elena Goode) wonders why he killed himself and Tabby thinks it could be because Imogen busted him and because he did what he set out to do.

Noa (Maia Reficco) chimes in, “Punish the guilty.”

Imogen demands the truth from the moms about what they did to Angela Waters. Sidney admits they were horrible bullies and they each describe their actions. Imogen asks why they were so cruel to Angela and Elodie (Lea Salonga) offers a poor excuse, saying it was a different time then. Girls were meaner in the ‘90s.

Imogen wants to know what her mom did, and Sidney describes Davie driving off and leaving Angela alone on Halloween after she threw poop at a house.

Corey (Zakiya Young) warns that everything they just said must stay in this room.

Back home, Marjorie tells Noa that considering everything going on, she wants to try to get clean. Marjorie believes she can do it at home because she’s a nurse and knows how to detox. Marjorie suggests that Noa stay at Shawn’s for a few days and asks her daughter to cover her Pinball Pizza shifts. Noa agrees.

Noa shows up at Shawn’s (Alex Aiono) and lies that her mom has the flu. Noa doesn’t want to get sick and miss track.

Sidney tells Tabby they still need to talk about what happened to her. Sidney doesn’t want to make the same mistake she made with Angela with her own daughter. Tabby confirms she really doesn’t know who did it and Sidney wonders if they should go to the police together. Tabby’s forced to reveal it’s not just about her; Imogen was raped, too, and it might be the same guy.

Tabby assures her mom they’ll be okay and just need more time.

Noa wakes at 4am to the sound of Shawn doing sit-ups. She decides to confront him about the pills she found in his bag. Shawn calls them supplements and admits half the football team is taking them.

Noa knows the pills are performance enhancers and wonders why he thinks he needs them since football season is over. Shawn gets defensive, claiming he’s not an addict and that it’s basketball season now. Noa thinks he’s just coming up with excuses and she’s all too familiar with all that.

Noa pleads with him to stop, saying, “I can’t handle two addicts in my life.” Shawn agrees but says he’ll wean himself off.

Imogen has a nightmare about finding her mom dead, but this time A’s in the bathroom with a knife and comes toward her. She wakes up screaming.

Monday, December 15: Faran (Zaria) decides to let her hair down and go with her natural hair.

As Tabby and Imogen walk to school, Tabby confesses she hates lying to her mom. That should end when they get the DNA test back from the blood drive. Imogen is still fixated on A and questions whether Crazy Joe was really A. Maybe A killed him and staged it to look like a suicide to throw them off the trail.

Imogen suggests that maybe A killed her mom too. She’s having a difficult time believing her mom was an evil bully because that’s not the mom she knew. Tabby sympathizes but wonders at this point how they can find out what happened in the bathroom. Imogen has a plan and is going to go talk to the coroner after school.

Kelly (Mallory Bechtel) and her mom, Martha (Jennifer Ferrin), argue over Kelly skipping helping at church to work on a dance piece with one of the girls who Martha thinks hurt Karen. Kelly insists Faran didn’t hurt Karen and Kelly’s dad insults her dance skills. “Let’s face facts – you never were the dancer your sister was.”

Kelly reminds him they all miss Karen but no one else is lashing out like a drunk bully. He tosses out another insult, saying if there were any justice in the world it would have been her that slipped and not Karen. Kelly screams, “F**k you!” at him before leaving the room.

Mouse rehashes her night with Ash (Jordan Gonzalez), explaining she had a come to Jesus moment with one mom while the other one asked her to set her up on lesbian dating apps. After Mouse confirms her moms are Disney fanatics, Ash suggests they should Parent Trap her moms. Mouse thinks that is a brilliant idea.

Chip (Carson Rowland) wants to be supportive and accompanies Imogen for her normal checkup with the school nurse, Nurse Simmons. The nurse confirms she’s on track at 38 weeks of pregnancy, but she’s concerned about Imogen’s high blood pressure. She should try not to get stressed. (Yeah, that’s not an option.)

Faran shows off her new hairstyle at lunch and the girls love it. Faran reveals she also took on a new project: the choreography of a retelling of Adam and Eve. She credits Tabby with inspiring her when they did her vision of Psycho.

Kelly comes strutting into the lunchroom wearing Karen’s clothes and no longer hiding she’s with Karen’s boyfriend, Greg.

Tabby shows Wes sketches of her storyline for her film and he thinks they’re awesome. He offers to lend her some of his equipment for the shoot. (Chip’s watching this and doesn’t look happy.)

Imogen asks the coroner if it’s possible someone could have murdered her mother. She doesn’t believe her mom would do that to herself. He offers to exhume her mom’s body, but she needs to file a petition with Sheriff Beasley.

Mouse’s moms can’t believe they’ve been Parent Trap-ped, but Elodie wastes no time and dives in with the questions, including whether as a young trans man in Millwood he’s ever felt scared.

Later, Mouse lies to Ash while facetiming and says she reconnected with her dad on Thanksgiving. Ash suggests they go bowling together.

Tuesday, December 16: Imogen manages to convince Sheriff Beasley to allow her mom’s body to be exhumed. She’s sure her mom was murdered but she doesn’t know by who. Sheriff Beasley needs an adult relative’s consent to begin the exhumation. She asks if her father would count.

Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin Season 1 Episode 9
Mallory Bechtel and Zaria in ‘Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin season 1 episode 9 (Photograph by Karolina Wojtasik/HBO Max)

Henry confesses Kelly kissed him and Faran confronts Kelly about what happened. Kelly claims it was a mistake and that she’s sorry, confessing it’s been really intense at home. Faran sees blood on Kelly’s thigh and Kelly squirms and makes excuses. Faran urges her to talk.

Kelly admits it’s her dad. He’s always been bad, but it’s recently gotten worse for her and her mom. Her dad resents the fact that Karen is dead while she’s alive. In fact, he said that out loud. Faran points out he’s a lunatic but warns Kelly that hurting herself isn’t the answer.

Faran makes her promise she will talk to someone if she feels like hurting herself again. Kelly asks why, given their history, Faran’s being so nice to her. Faran says she wants to break that cycle.

Shawn and his teammates show up at Pinball Pizza and he’s shocked to see Noa working there. She admits she’s covering her mom’s shifts while she’s at detoxing at home. Shawn takes a jab at her mom and Noa points out he shouldn’t judge. He’s offended that she compared him to her mom since he’s not using drugs recreationally. Noa reveals her mom started off with painkillers and Shawn feels bad because he didn’t know that.

Noa suggests that if he means that, he should throw away his pills. He claims he did and offers to let her check his bag.

Sidney receives a text from Tabby that she’s working late. Sidney offers to pick her up, but Tabby doesn’t need a ride; Wes is taking her home.

Sidney is suspicious of Wes and shows up at the theater demanding Wes get away from her daughter. Sidney accuses him of making Tabby work late so he can groom her. He admits he made a move on her one time and Sidney tells him she’s calling the police, adding that she’s protecting Tabby from this rapist.

Tabby’s had enough and drags her mom away. But as they leave Sidney’s parting words are, “If I see you within 10 feet of my daughter, I will cut your f**king dick off.”

Chip appears to have witnessed this all go down.

Outside the theater, Tabby assures her mom Wes didn’t rape her. Tabby thinks it was someone from school and fills her mom in on what they did to figure out who the rapist is. Sidney volunteers to talk to Corey and see if she knows anyone in the DA’s office who can help them navigate the investigation.

Faran confronts Sheriff Beasley and informs him his daughter is cutting herself because he’s abusing her verbally and emotionally. Faran is there to hold him accountable, and she admits to knowing all about his thing for boys. Of course, Sheriff Beasley assumes Noa said something, but Faran claims she didn’t. However, now she can’t wait to ask Noa questions.

Chip asks Tabby what that thing was between her mom and Wes. Was Wes inappropriate? Tabby wonders where this is coming from since he’s into Imogen, and Chip admits he’s only into her friend because she wouldn’t give him a shot. Tabby doesn’t want Imogen to get hurt but Chip claims that now he actually likes her. Chip also claims Wes is a creep and she shouldn’t trust him and needs to be careful.

The way Chip is acting alarms Tabby.

Imogen has a heart-to-heart with her dad and he explains when they first got together, her mom suffered from depression. She saw a therapist and took medication. He thinks something happened in high school because she wouldn’t talk about that time in her life much.

Imogen’s having difficulty dealing with this because the mom she knew loved life. Her dad reveals that Davie emerged from depression because of Imogen. Her outlook on life changed and stopped taking pills. He also explains that he couldn’t take care of his daughter the way she needed to be taken care of. The reason he’s not taking care of her now is that her mom put it in her will that she wanted Imogen to go to Sidney.

He signs the paperwork to exhume Davie’s body.

Tabby thinks about what her mom said – “nine times out of 10 it’s someone you know.” She thinks about Wes making a move on her but then remembers he wasn’t at the parties.

Tabby has a flashback to the party and recalls Chip was drunk. He kissed her and she pushed him away while telling him she doesn’t think of him that way. He left after saying he wanted to be alone. That was the night Imogen was raped.

The girls meet up and Noa reveals her mom received the results of the DNA test. To everyone’s shock, the DNA match isn’t to a jock. They narrowed it down to 66 boys and Faran, Noa, and Mouse say it wasn’t Henry, Shawn, or Ash. Imogen includes Chip, but Tabby isn’t so sure about that.

Tabby finds Greg and asks if Chip was at the bonfire party. He’s not sure.

Mouse receives a call from a very distraught Steve. They found his daughter Rachel’s body. He begs to see her and says he needs someone to talk to. She agrees.

Steve’s acting erratic and says he was too busy playing with Mouse when he should have been there for Rachel. When Mouse gets a text from Ash and reaches for her phone, Steve tells her not to answer it. She asks what she can do, and he gives her clothes to put on…Rachel’s clothes.

Sheriff Beasley calls Imogen and demands to know what kind of game she’s playing. He told her it would take time, but she just couldn’t wait. Imogen’s confused and asks what he’s talking about. Beasley’s at the cemetery and her mother’s grave has been dug up. Her body is missing. Imogen responds by passing out.

Faran comes home and her mom’s frantic. Faran’s dad was arrested for his taillight being out, and supposedly he resisted arrest. Faran says that doesn’t sound like her dad and Corey agrees. It’s more like some racist Millwood cop is abusing his powers.

Ash is worried and tells Mouse’s moms that Mouse left school early and hasn’t been answering his calls or texts. He then reveals they had a crazy night at the bowling alley with her dad. Elodie doesn’t think Mouse has been in touch with her father and Ash explains they met Steve several times. Elodie’s alarmed; Steve isn’t Mouse’s father’s name.

Elodie tracks Mouse’s phone and finds her at a motel.

Ash and Mouse’s moms locate her, but they have no idea what she’s wearing and why she’s dressed that way. Elodie recognizes Steve, and Mouse says they were playing a game but now it’s over.

Faran tells Kelly and her mom what’s going on with Sheriff Beasley. Kelly had no idea that was happening, and Faran claims he’s gone off the deep end and went after her dad. It’s going to get worse.

Imogen’s asleep when her dad calls because he remembered something. Her mom mentioned a high school boyfriend a couple of times, and he recalls the boy’s name was Tom or Tommy. Imogen asks if it was Tom Beasley, and her dad says it might have been.

Season one episode nine ends with a shocking twist. Kelly asks her mom, Martha, if she knew about her dad and her mom confesses that she did. “He always had his demons. Even in high school when he forced himself on that poor girl.”

Faran’s eyes go wide with shock. The scene switches to Imogen looking at her mom’s senior yearbook and spotting a photo of her mom and Tom Beasley.

Faran asks Martha what “poor girl,” and she answers, “Her name was Angela.”




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