S01:E12 - His Royal A-ness, Noel Kahn of Creepy Smilesville

That’s immortali-TEA, my darlings

As we cross into the halfway point of season one, Yasemin reveals she’s sick. “Speaking of sick people,” Lacey begins the episode entitled ‘Salt Meets Wound’. “Hanna’s returned home from the hospital.”

Confined to a wheelchair, Hanna has to knock down half the contents of the upper kitchen cupboards for some pop tarts. Instead of a sweet treat, however, she is served with cold, hard cash inside a box of lasagne which culminates in a hard discussion between Ashley and Hanna.

Emily is having her own mummy issues as dinner with Maya at the Fields household looms over Pam’s head. Despite her dislike for Emily’s new “friend”, she’s determined to be a good host.

In town, Spencer’s too busy snogging Alex to care for her own mum. Still, she perks up at the mention of Melissa and Ian, who are on their honeymoon in Ohio. Mrs H shrugs it off, making sure Spencer never forgets she’s the reason they’re even a thing. “She will never get away from that,” says Yasemin.

Spencer spies Toby headed to city hall who, despite being bailed out of jail, isn’t getting away from the accusations against him either. But the biggest crime of all is his haircut, which neither of your hosts can get over. “Imagine if it’s just a wig,” Yasemin wonders when Lacey questions how much hairspray kept it in space.

Now that the girls know about Aria’s secret teacher fling, it’s all eyes on them during English class. Lacey reminisces on your hosts’ weekend, where she too got to learn a little more about Yasemin’s own teacher crush thanks to her high school friends. “If only he was my teacher, I think this would have been the exact dynamic we had in our classroom,” Yasemin says.

As usual, Aria is pissing your hosts off with her audacity. She reassures Ezra no one but Noel knows about them and switches seamlessly between promising Noel is going to keep his mouth shut and inviting herself over to Ezra’s apartment.

Naturally Noel uses his knowledge to try and blackmail the dirty teacher. “Poor Ezra,” says Yasemin but Lacey does not share the sentiment. She evilly cackles at Ezra’s misfortune, turning a latter conversation between Atia and Ezra into a BTEC Dickensian play and, despite her initial sympathy for Ezra, even Yasemin is over his dramatics.

At the highly anticipated Maya/Fields Family dinner, Pam Fields has turned her home into a 1950’s housewife’s dream complete with matching outfit. All seems well until Maya does the unthinkable. She turns down Pam’s food. Despite offering to suck up the hives it will bring her, Pam’s evening is ruined. The more Maya speaks, the more Pam despises her. Emily is blissfully unaware of this, lapping up Maya’s every word.

Meanwhile, Mona terrifies Hanna for a brief moment only to surprise her with a party consisting of her nearest and dearest… and Noel. Noel’s presence triggers a flashback for Hanna where we learn Alison once broke up his relationship in favour of Aria, only to gaslight her gang that they were all in on the deed. Hanna only has a brief moment to ponder if this inspired Noel’s A-ness, because she’s got bigger problems to tackle in the form of a very drunk Lucas who’s ready to pick a fight with Sean.

Spencer and Alex kiss, again, only to be interrupted by Noel Khan who, like anyone the girls suspect to be A, has become 10x creepier this episode. While Yasemin can’t get over Noel’s never-ending smile, Lacey can sympathise: “He’s probably so nervous because every time he’s walked in a room, everybody’s looked at him.” Lacey’s love for Noel only grows when he gaslights Aria into doubting Ezra. Yasemin is not so convinced and is quick to point out Lacey’s blossoming crush.

Before Emily joins the rest of the girls at Hanna’s party, she spies Toby desperately trying to rid himself of the Casio Watch strapped to his ankle. Lacey utilises her BTEC drama skills once more when she mocks Emily as she pleads with Toby to believe that she wasn’t the one to turn her in but he refuses to give her the satisfaction.

Aria tries to dip out of the party early and reunite with her geriatric boo only to catch some vitriol from the guest of honour. Instead of taking Hanna’s comments and self-reflecting, Aria throws a pity party for herself. Naturally neither of your hosts have much sympathy for her.

Things aren’t going too well for Spencer, either. Alex accuses her of signing him up to a Tennis Clinic he wanted no part of. She swears it wasn’t her, but when Alex doesn’t believe her what’s can she do, bring up her theories about his royal A-ness?

She later cries about this to Aria who decided to stay after all – the faculty party had packed up, apparently – and for a brief moment, Aria and Lacey agree: #TeamNoelKhan. But Aria no longer cares who A is, only what she and her friends are going to do about them.

Lucas’ tantrum comes to a head and he’s almost pummelled to death by Sean before Hanna asks to see him outside, wheeling herself out the back. Lucas continues his tirade, insulting Hanna now before he alludes to doing something very, very bad to Alison. He confesses to breaking the memorial and although Hanna forgives him for it, he can’t handle her kindness.

Still stuck on his porch, Toby is forced to spend his evening with Jenna. When he relays Emily’s visit to her he expects shock, only to be the shocked one when Jenna reveals it was she who turned him in. Not able to see Toby’s horrified expression, she takes his silence for gratitude and tries to steal a kiss only to be cruelly denied.

Hanna is left cleaning up the aftermath of the party alone, or so she thinks until she’s scared by a shadow. The fear dissipates when Ashley enters only to rise once more when both mother and daughter remember the totally safe lasagna box money storage. Of course, it’s gone.

Also gone is any respect Pam ever had for her daughter, and vice versa. When Emily expresses gratitude to her mother for embracing her newly out status, Pam cuts through her with a scathing remark about it making her “sick to her stomach”.

The verdict is still out with regards to Ian at the Hastings household. While Mrs H seems keen, Mr H and Spencer are over him and all of his boxes that are strewn around their living room. Although Mr H confirms key evidence links Toby to Alison’s murder, Spencer isn’t relieved.

Her mind is still filled with thoughts of Ian, especially when amongst his things is a golf tag that brings Spencer back to the night Ali went missing. A flashback hints that Alison and Ian may have shared more than a conversation at the kissing rock that summer…

Quotes

“Mona’s not the most sympathetic. She’s the selfish friend, she cares about you, but she also doesn’t care about you. Social status is more important.” – Yasemin

“I’m not sure what [Pam’s] most disgusted by: the lesbianism of the girls playing footsies or the fact that Maya St. Jermaine took off her shoe to play footsies.” - Lacey

“This Karen energy coming off of Pam is just too much. I just can’t handle it.” – Yasemin

“Why is Noel Kahn being so creepy? Why do the people they always suspect as A suddenly get really creepy for the rest of the episodes?” - Lacey

“[Hanna] can’t do anything right. If she’s nice, then [Lucas] falls in love with her. If she’s not nice, she’s being accused of being Ali. She can’t win.” - Yasemin

“Hanna stole the bottle of tequila. Ali didn’t drug them. Hanna did! She’s been a thief since day one.” - Lacey

Intro/Outro Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):

https://uppbeat.io/t/soundroll/gossip

License code: 7GXS53X2JECHKWEJ

Follow us on social media:

Instagram: https://instagram.com/immortalitea.podcast

TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@immortalitea.podcast

Youtube: https://youtube.com/@immortalitea.podcast?si=lgO6hGDIJrFCZZcQ