Pretty Little Liars Part 1 (TV)
(Contains spoilers)
Pretty Little Liars is an American mystery and teen drama series that premiered in 2010 and got it’s last season in 2017. The show was developed by I. Marline King and was loosely based on the Pretty Little Liars book series by Sara Shepard. The series gained a lot of popularity during and after the first season, and grew a large fandom because of it. Pretty Little Liars surely ensured it’s place among the iconic teen dramas in the 2000’s, but received a lot of mixed reviews, and rightfully so.
This review is distinguishable from others I’ve done, because of the deep-dive it offers. I’m going to divide it into two parts where the first one explains the main plot of the show and introduces the five main characters that I consider to the most relevant in terms of the plot. I’m also going to concentrate on the A-Team and all the A reveals, as well as the A.D. (Uber A) reveal in the final season. In the second part, I’m going to talk about the main problems of the show and the missed opportunities it had. And finally concluding the review, and presenting some recommendations on video essays and theories on Pretty Little Liars.
“Buckle up, bitches. Nothing is as it seems.” — A
Main Plot
Pretty Little Liars follows four high-school girls, later known as the liars: Aria Montgomery, Emily Fields, Hanna Marin and Spencer Hastings, who grew apart from each other after their group leader, Alison DiLaurentis, disappeared the previous year. Aria and her family moved to Iceland briefly after the disappearance, and the first season starts as Aria returns to Rosewood. The liars haven’t kept in touch with each other, but when they start getting messages in which someone called “A” threatens to expose their deepest secrets, they have to reunite.
Characters
Pretty Little Liars has four protagonists that are most significant to the plot. It also includes a lot of side characters, like the love interests of the liars, or parents of the liars that had bigger roles in some seasons than others. The A-Team that I’m going to talk about later, hired multiple employees whose motivations were not clear, and after their reveal, they left the show as suddenly as they entered.
Also most of the romantic interests of the main characters didn’t serve any purpose, because the show runners clearly had all the intentions to bring together the initial couples of the first or second season.
Next I’m going to focus on each of the main character more in-depth, which I also included Alison, even though she appeared in around 50 episodes less than the other girls, and a lot of the scenes that she was in were flashbacks or hallucinations.
Aria Montgomery — The Mysterious One
Aria Montgomery is the first child to Ella and Byron Montgomery and an older sister to few years younger Mike. She’s one of the main characters of the show, and arguably the main character of the first seasons. The first season starts as she gets back to Rosewood from Iceland. Aria is also the one who gets the first A message about Ezra, and the one who gets zoomed in during the intro while shushing to the camera. Aria is characterized as a person who feels and cares deeply about her family and friends, and takes notice on things that others might ignore. These traits relate tremendously to the plot of the first season as she finds out her dad is having an affair, and is convinced not to tell her mother about this in order to keep the family together. Aria’s care for others can also be detected from all the charity work that she does, which is sometimes combined with another interest she has, arts. She also likes to draw, write, read books, watch black and white films, and photograph.
While caring deeply about her loved ones, Aria still has the courage and confidence to be herself, and stand her ground, and not be considered a pushover.
In the pilot, Aria meets Ezra, a recent English graduate, at a bar and ends up hooking up with him. She later finds out that he’s her English teacher at Rosewood High, but they nevertheless continue their relationship (which I will talk more in the part 2). This might be due to the maturity that Aria feels she has accomplished during her stay in Iceland, although, keep in mind that she’s only 15–16 years old. Needless to say, Ezra and Aria’s relationship becomes the triumph for A. Aria does date other people during the show but none of them lead anywhere, because the writers tried to push the narrative that Ezra was “the one” for her. All the other partners were either characterized as dull or creepy or somewhat possessive. The relationships didn’t get any change to grow or become steady, which didn’t provide any reference points to Ezra — and this was on purpose.
“Lucky you, Aria! Other girls have to do their homework. You get to do the teacher…” — A
Spencer Hastings — The Star of The Show
Spencer Hastings is the second child to Veronica and Peter Hastings and a younger sister to Melissa. Spencer’s family ties become much more blurred throughout the show, when it turns out that her birth mother is actually Alison’s aunt, Mary Drake, whom Peter slept with, because he was having an affair with Alison’s mother, Jessica, who Mary posed as due to they being identical twins. Peter also got Jessica pregnant with Alison’s older brother, Jason. This makes Alison and Jason Spencer’s cousins, as well as Jason her step-brother. Before Spencer, Mary had another child, Charlotte (previously known as Charles), at Radley’s Sanitarium, who was later adopted by Jessica, which makes Charlotte Spencer’s step-sister. In addition, when Mary had Spencer, she was pregnant with twins, the other one being Spencer’s twin sister, Alex. Complicated, I know.
Spencer uses her intelligence and common sense in favor of others, and while having her good girl reputation, doesn’t expect the same kind of behavior from others.
Spencer is one of the main characters on the show, and similarly to Aria, can be argued to be the main character, contrarywise, on the last seasons, because a lot of plot lines relate strictly to her and her family. Spencer is characterized as the smart and responsible one. Her interests are academics and politics. She’s from a wealthy, ambitious family, where even the events of the day are seen as objects for competition. Spencer continually tries to match, or rather, outdo Melissa’s accomplishments, which often leads to harmful behavior and impairs her reputation and mental health. For instance, she kisses two of Melissa’s boyfriends, and steals her old essay answers, because she’s too exhausted when balancing school work, extracurricular activities, and her personal life. She’s a perfectionist, who’s motivated to study and work hard for the ambitious future she graves.
“Poor Spencer. Always wants Melissa’s boyfriends. But remember, if you kiss I tell.” — A
As for her love life, she dates a few people but ends up together with her most long-term boyfriend, Toby Cavanaugh, from the first seasons, similarly to Aria. After the time jump in season 6, Spencer and Hanna’s ex-boyfriend, Caleb, are dating, but it leads to nowhere as both of the girls return to their previous relationships. Like Dan and Blair’s relationship in Gossip Girl, this feels like a cheap attempt to make the show interesting by shipping the other main characters with each other.
Hanna Marin — The Non-Judgmental One
Hanna Marin is one of the main characters of the show, and the only child to Ashley and Tom Marin. Hanna is characterized as the gullible, funny one, and later the friend who’s loyal and not to be messed with. She was mostly raised by her mother as her father had an affair with a woman named Isabel, and left to be with her and her daughter, Kate. Before Alison disappeared, she used to make comments about Hanna’s weight, because she was heavier than the rest of the girls, calling her “Hefty Hanna”. Comparing herself to the thin, beautiful and perfect Kate, she felt like she had to change everything about herself in order to be accepted by her father. With the encouragement of Ali, Hanna developed an eating disorder, and typical of teen dramas, with the thinness became the popularity. Hanna became one of the most envied girls in Rosewood High, she begin to date a boy, Sean, she had been crushing on for a long time, and she found a passion for beauty and fashion, which ultimately determined her future job.
Even if Hanna’s makeover made her resemble Ali a lot, she still stays supportive and friendly towards everyone, and most importantly, actively tries to avoid being judgmental.
Hanna seemed to had it all, until she didn’t. She started to shoplift and got addicted to the adrenalin rush of it, even though her mom promised to buy her everything she could have dreamed of. Finally she got involved with the police, but didn’t face any consequences because her mom “handled it” by sleeping with the detective Darren. Hanna started to have problems with her boyfriend, pressuring him to have sex with her even though he wanted to wait. Similarly to Spencer, her carefully thought out exterior begin to tumble down at a fast pace. Eventually Hanna and Sean broke up and she started to date Caleb, who she ends up with at the end of the series. The cycle continues as the other romantic interests, besides the most long-term partners, are meaningless to the plot.
“Heads up, hon. Hefty Hanna never gets the guy.” — A
When Hanna experienced her makeover, she became best friends with Mona who was a former victim of Ali. Mona is clearly one of the fan favorites, and people wished that she could’ve been accepted among the liars later. Honestly, I didn’t care for her that much. I think that she worked better as Hanna’s friend, and sometimes not even as that, because their friendship seemed to be on the way of the liars to become more close with each other. After returning from Radley Sanitarium, she didn’t have a clear place in the plotline, and she became extremely annoying to me. She tried to beat Spencer at something that was meaningful to her, and almost necessary accomplishment considering her family, becoming the class president. Ironically, sounds a lot of something that Ali would do.
Emily Fields — The One Who Deserved Better
Emily Field is one of the main characters of the show, and some people would describe her to be “the boring one”. For me, Emily is the sweet, more quieter one of the friend group, and in home, the obedient, perfect daughter to her parents Pam and Wayne Fields. She has the best storyline in the first season, in my opinion, when she struggles with her sexuality, and can’t come out because of her parents prejudices. She’s a talented swimmer, dating her teammate, Ben, and strictly following the routine of an high school athlete. When she realizes that the reason she continues to swim comes more from the external factors, her parents, she starts to rebel against it. Emily’s problems are more relatable to people, which might make them feel insignificant in a tv-show. For example, at times she struggles with school work and keeping her grades up, which results in cheating.
Out of all the girls, Emily forms the most meaningful relationships with the other characters, whether she’s herself considered to be a boring character or not.
Emily is a character that appears to be the most genuine in her (platonic) relationships. She’s really close with her parents, which makes it even more unfair that the only decent dad in the show, Wayne, gets killed off. I love the scenes that Emily and Hanna share, because I can see that the actors get along very well and have a great chemistry with each other, which reflects to the screen. It was also sweet how Emily decided to look past the rumors, and get to know Toby herself before judging him. What a shame that they didn’t concentrate on their friendship more towards the end.
What comes to Emily’s love life, it was in many ways ruined by the writing. I earlier mentioned how all the liars suffered from the evident pairing of the initial couples, but it has nothing on Emily’s romantic interests. Her “could-have-been-the-end-game” -girlfriend, Maya, was killed for no apparent reason, and her other plausible love interests were either villains or characters that decided to leave the show. She was hastily putted together with Alison in the last season, which seemed very forced considering their unromantic relations beside the flashbacks and some isolated incidents which ultimately lead to nowhere. During the flashbacks, Ali manipulated Emily into thinking that she was just imagining the tension between them, or when they shared a kiss, it was just “practice for the real thing”. She knew about Emily’s feelings, but decided to use it in her own favor.
“Hey Em! I’ve been replaced. You’ve found another friend to kiss!” — A
Many people have the opinion that Ali behaved the way she did, because she also was unsure how to handle her (assumed) bisexuality, but that’s not an excuse to shame someone to “stay in the closet”. The worst factor of Alison and Emily’s relationship was that they started to grew closer after Emily’s eggs were stolen and used to impregnate Ali. As a show that’s supposed to focus on female friendships and overall relationships, awful lot of them stay continuous because of some occurring traumatic incident.
Alison DiLaurentis — The One with Most Potential
Alison DiLaurentis is the first child to Kenneth and Jessica DiLaurentis, since it turned out that Peter Hastings is the biological father of her older (step-)brother, Jason. In addition, Charlotte is her adoptive sister, and Spencer and Alex her cousins. Ali was introduced as one of the main characters in the first season, but after her disappearance, she only appeared through flashbacks and hallucinations before her returning in season 4. After her poorly done redemption arc, the writers tried to make her a part of the team, the fifth liar, but it was clear that they didn’t know what to do with her character anymore, and it just didn’t work out. She stayed distant to the other girls, and was frequently absent from important events.
Alison can be characterized as a manipulative, charismatic, and charming person, who has the skills to make her appear wonderful and awful at the same time. She’s the it-girl of Rosewood High, and the group leader of the girls. She’s not afraid to say what’s on her mind, because she’s used to getting her way, and never faces any consequences on her actions. The liars considered Ali to be their best friend, and they would tell her secrets that she would then use against them — “Friends share secrets, that’s what keeps us close”. She was the only one from their friend group who knew about Byron’s affair, and that Spencer liked to flirt with her sister’s boyfriend, Ian. She knew about their deepest insecurities, and made mean comments about Hanna’s weight and Emily’s sexuality. Ali’s targets were not only people of her age, but her villainous deeds also reached to the adult population of Rosewood when she, for instance, blackmailed Byron.
Ali has the ability to make people feel special and inspired, but as soon as they don’t provide her anything, she can tear that person down as fast as she lifted them up.
Alison is one of my favorite villains in the whole TV history, and it was a real shame when they changed her entire personality after she got back. She stopped being the independent, unapologetic leader of the group, and became codependent in a way, always playing the victim. Ali was truly terrifying, because I can imagine that people like her exist, and I know they exist, because I was friends with a person who shared similar tendencies to her. These kind of people have the abilities to make you seem important to them, and when you get their approval, nothing else matters to a 14-year-old teenager. I understand why the other girls stayed close to her even though they knew how horrible of a person she was — the minor moments of her being nice to you, would’ve, considering the young age, made most of us risk it all. Her charisma made me question if I wanted to be her or be with her, and that’s why the younger Ali is the first thing that comes to mind when I think about Pretty Little Liars.
The A-Team
The A-Team is a group of individuals who all work for “Big A” or later after the reveal of A’s identity, for “Uber A”. Some of the A-Team members have also had the role of employer (A, A.D.). Each team member seemingly had motivations for their actions, but more often than not, the reasonings stayed hidden. Majority of the characters were at some point suspected of being a part of the A-Team, but the list below shows all the A-reveals we had:
- Mona Vanderwaal — Mona was the first person to be revealed as A in season 2, and she was one of the two founders and leaders of the A-Team alongside Redcoat, who has revealed to be CeCe in season 4. However, when Mona was a patient in Radley, CeCe begin the “A game” on her own, and Mona became just a regular member of the team. Later she worked for Uber A and, for example, knocked Spencer out in order to Mary to kidnap her. Her motivation was that she felt like the liars had stolen Hanna away from her, and ruined their friendship. She definitely had reasons to turn against Ali due to the years of her bullying, and maybe against the liars for not stopping it, but as far as “stealing” Hanna away from her, people are not objects, it doesn’t work like that.
- Toby Cavanaugh — Toby was recruited as a member of the A-Team by Mona in season 3. He was also assisting Redcoat. Later it was revealed that Toby was working as a double-agent to gather information about A and Spencer, in order to protect her, and possibly reveal A’s identity. When Toby tells this to Spencer, she doesn’t question him or ask him any evidence, but just accepts this as the truth. Toby’s A-reveal doesn’t change the main plot at all.
- Spencer Hastings — Spencer joins The A-Team after Toby gets revealed as being a part of the team. She also works as a double-agent, but does some questionable things in order to appear trustworthy to A. She, for example, kidnaps Ezra’s then-believed son, Malcolm, by using Aria’s name when picking him up from his karate class. It’s also believed that she drugged him with her sleeping pills by putting them on his ice cream.
- Lucas Gottesman — Lucas is a minor helper for the A-Team, and Mona’s personal assistant due to blackmailing. He was, for example, the A who gave Emily a massage in season 2, and left an A message while also leaving behind Alison’s diary in season 3. Although Lucas was fairly innocent in the show, nothing explains his weird, aggressive behavior in “A Hot Piece of A” (S2 E15).
- Melissa Hastings — Melissa was another minor helper for the A-Team who was forced to do things by blackmail. She was instructed by A to disguise as The Black Swan in season 2, and again as The Queen of Hearts in season 3. Her actions as The Black Swan were fairly mild comparing to the evening when she was The Queen of Hearts. She drugged Aria and put her in a box where Garrett’s dead body was already lying. Melissa also tried to convince Wilden to push Aria off the train, but Wilden hesitated, which eventually leaded to Aria’s escape.
- Darren Wilden — Darren was the police officer and later the homicide detective of Rosewood Police Department. He was possibly a major helper for the A-Team, due to Charlotte’s blackmailing. He was the first Queen of Hearts in season 3 (but presumably followed someone else’s orders), and the one responsible of Garrett’s murder. Before he was reveled to be part of the A-Team, he also harassed the liars during the investigation of Ali’s murder.
- Noel Kahn — Noel was a minor helper for A, but unlike the most of the helpers, he appeared to act on his own free will. He helped Charlotte torture the liars in the Doll House, teamed up with Jenna Marshall and Sara Harvey in season 7, murdered Sara, blackmailed Jenna Marshall, and tried to kill her and the liars in season 4.
- Sara Harvey — Sara was a member of the A-Team and CeCe’s ally. She was reveled to be the real Red Coat, and The Black Widow who attended Darren’s funeral in season 4 to make sure that he was really dead. She, for example, spied on Ashley Marin and Ella Montgomery, and tried to set off a bomb in Radley’s Sanitarium in season 6. Her motivations for working with A are unclear, and generally there’s a lot we don’t know about her.
- CeCe Drake/ Charlotte DiLaurentis — Cece, later known as Charlotte, was the other Red Coat and the leader of the A-Team from season 3 to season 6. She continued the “A game” when she visited Mona in Radley, because she thought that the liars were happy that Ali, her adoptive sister, was gone. She, for example, hit Ali with a rock thinking that she was Bethany Young, which resulted to Jessica burying her own daughter alive. She also murdered Darren, attacked Mona and staged the crime scene to look like she died, and kidnapped the liars and tortured them in the Doll House with the help of Noel. When she was murdered by Mona in season 6, her death caused the “Uber A” to be born.
- Jenna Marshall — Jenna was a minor help to A as well as Uber A. She convinced various people, like Garrett Reynolds, to work against the liars, formed an alliance with Melissa Hastings and Shana Fring, and after Shana’s death, brought a new ally, Sydney Driscoll, to Rosewood to take Ali down. Before Ali’s disappearance, Ali and the liars jokingly set a firework loose on the Cavanaugh’s garage, which hit Jenna and blinded her. She was a part of the A-Team, because she was promised funding for a surgery in order to regain her eye sight.
- Sydney Driscoll — Sydney was a member of the A-Team, and a blackmailed helper to Uber A. She tried to convince Aria that she’s actually the Uber A and responsible for the revival of the “A game”, but actually she worked just as a recruiter.
- Aria Montgomery — Aria was recruited by Uber A with the help of the A-Team member, Sydney. She was blackmailed by the fake police report that Aria wrote in the earlier seasons on Ezra, accusing him of sexual assault (which he definitely was guilty of, and I will discuss this in the part 2). She joined the team in order to protect Ezra, and as usual, put her boyfriend’s reputation before her friend’s safety. Aria trashed Emily and Ali’s nursery and stole Lucas and Charlotte’s comic book for Uber A.
- Mary Drake — Mary was a member of the A-Team and an assistant for Uber A. She’s the biological mother of Charlotte, and after Charlotte was released from Radley, she made a plan with Elliot Rollins, Charlotte’s doctor and a secret lover, to steal some of Ali’s money. After Charlotte got murdered by Mona, Mary assisted Uber A out of revenge. She murdered her sister, Jessica, and kidnapped Spencer in the final episode. However, she also took the blame on Rollin’s murder, protecting Spencer and the rest of the girls.
- Wren Kingston — Wren was a major helper for Uber A, because he was in love with her (Uber A), and wanted to help her retrieve Charlotte’s money from the DiLaurentis. He was the one who introduced Alex to Charlotte and Spencer, and who donated the sperm that was used to impregnate Ali in season 7. He was killed by Alex when he was unable to treat her as Spencer, whom Alex desperately wanted to be seen as.
- Alex Drake — She’s revealed to be Uber A (A.D.) in the final episode, which I will discuss more on the next section.
Some characters of the show can also been seen as the enemies of the liars even though they didn’t actually join the A-Team. One of these characters was Shana Fring, who had an alliance with Jenna and Melissa, spied on the girls, shot Ezra, and tried to kill the liars and Ali. It says a lot when I say that one of the best reasonings for working with A has to be Jenna’s. Most of the members joined the team due to blackmailing, or some hastily thought of excuse. For example, Charlotte (CeCe) being A and keeping the “A game” alive, because the girls were happy that Ali was not around anymore, was just simply untrue. In many scenes the liars were visibly sad when thinking and talking about Ali and her disappearance.
The final A-reveal in season 6 was supposed to be the end of the series, but the show runners, Warner Brothers, and ABC Family still showed the green light — the series was cast to continue for one more season.
The A.D. Reveal
Imagine this:
You have watched a mystery series, where the writers and show runners have emphasized the importance of details, for seven years. Being a part of the fandom feels exciting, because all the theories you have on the characters. Finally, when the Uber A, main villain of the show, gets reveled, it’s a totally new character that appeared just in the few last episodes on the seven seasons. You couldn’t have guessed it, because you didn’t know about their existent. All the details and clues you gathered during these years were useless because (obviously) none of them pointed to the character that wasn’t even created yet.
Alex Drake is the biological daughter of Mary Drake and Peter Hastings, and the twin sister of Spencer Hastings. Her older step-siblings are Melissa Hastings, Jason DiLaurentis, and Charlotte DiLaurentis. Alex and Spencer were born in Radley’s Sanitarium, but unlike Spencer, who was secretly adopted by the family of Hastings, Alex was adopted by a wealthy British family in exchange for half a million. As Alex begin to show signs of mental illness, her family left her to an orphanage, which led to her bouncing between different foster homes. When Alex was 10 years old, she ran away and managed on her own. Later she found a bartender job at a bar where she met Wren, who then told her about her biological family, and eventually introduced her to Charlotte.
After Alex and Charlotte met, they realized that they were very similar to one another and became close. Charlotte told Alex about her share on the DiLaurentis’ property, and after Charlotte was murdered, Alex took over the “A game” and became Uber A to retrieve the money. Wren previously worked with Charlotte when she was A, and continued to help Alex because of their romantic relationship. After Wren noticed that Alex’s motivations were not only based on money, but that she wanted avenge on her sister’s murder and thought that the liars knew who the murdered was, he tried to talk some sense to her. What ultimately got Wren killed, was that he didn’t understand how badly Alex wanted to be Spencer. She wanted to have a home, and a family and friends who would sacrifice anything for them — and Spencer had it all.
“If you find out who I am before I find out who killed Charlotte, YOU DIE.” — A.D.
During the final season, she’s in 6 episodes out of 20, and in total out of 160. She pretended to be Spencer when Hanna was kidnapped in the abandoned barn, and when she kissed and had sex with (raped) Toby. In the last episode she convinces Mary to kidnap Spencer, and kidnaps Ezra herself (because he blew Alex’s cover?), and later tries to kill them. Alex gets caught because a HORSE doesn’t recognize her, and because A BLIND GIRL, Jenna, smells a different perfume on her, which leads to Toby questioning “Spencer’s” identity, because she gave him a book that didn’t have her usual notes in it. Why does his mind automatically go to “Yep, it must be her evil twin”? Isn’t it possible that she had another copy of the book, or that she bought a new perfume? Not to mention the cliché of an evil twin, which is a recurring troupe for Pretty Little Liars:
- Jessica and Mary were twins,
- Spencer and Alex are twins,
- Emily and Ali’s daughters, Lily and Grace, are twins.
Alex as an A.D. was a whole mess and obviously just a way for the writers to outsmart the audience (which I’m going to discuss more in the next part). Her British accent and bubbly personality brought humor to the final episode, which should’ve been the opposite reaction that the show runners were aiming at for their final villain. I think that the evil twin troupe might’ve worked, if they would’ve put more effort to it. They stuffed all the last twist in the final episode, on top of Aria and Ezra’s wedding, and maybe if the liars and Spencer’s family would’ve gradually started to notice the differences on Spencer’s behavior, it would’ve made sense. If Alex had actually killed Spencer in the end of season 6, or even earlier, no one would’ve known about Spencer’s disappearance because of their identical looks, the ending might’ve worked. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case.
“It’s not over until I say it is. Sleep tight while you still can, bitches.” — A
Part 2 coming soon..
