superman1204

I think a big reason that people have differing options on the show is that most of the themes and ideas being discussed are presented in the books, but were muddled when the story made the jump from books to TV. A really good example is william0102's post about society pitting women against one another. In the books, the Lairs are constantly pitted against other women. Hanna fights with other popular girls at school. Spencer fights with Melissa. Hanna and Kate have a rivalry that spans at least half the series. Emily fights with her mom about her sexuality. Aria hates Meredith for breaking up her parents’ marriage. Even Aria and Hanna fight over Sean. These plot lines are such a big part of the books that the Liars seem to be in constant conflict with other characters, nearly all of them women. This leads naturally to the A reveals. Mona is the vindictive mean girl and Ali is the two faced former best friend (technically the Lairs were never friends with Ali in the books only her sister Courtney, but I figured it was meant to be a metaphor of a how people can turn from friends to enemies very dramatically in middle school and high school). Overall, the Lairs seem to almost instinctively fight with other women in the books. This idea was somewhat lost on the show because of the writers trying to make the Lairs likable in every situation. While most of the plot points previously mentioned have appeared in the show in some way, they are nowhere near as central to the story, with possible expect of the Spencer and Melissa rivalry. This lead to at least four main problems. The writers softened Hanna and Spencer. In the books Hanna and Spencer are so driven to be popular and successful that the girls are constantly coming into conflict with other characters. As you would expect neither of the character are the most likeable. On the show, Hanna and Spencer are still driven, but they put more pressure on themselves to be good enough. You still have situations where they come into conflict with other characters because of this, like Spencer and Melissa’s relationship, but it is much less common and has all but disappeared as the show went on. The Lairs are best friends, instead of frenemies. The friendship between the girls is one of the show’s strongest points, but it does undermine the idea that society pits women against each other when your four female leads have some of the healthiest relationships on TV. That’s not to say the show could not have still made the point, but does not help. The fact that on the show, a lot of supporting characters were made into b-list villain. A good example of this is Meredith, Bryan’s girlfriend. In the books, Meredith and Bryan move in together. Aria blames Meredith for her parents splitting up, so while Meredith has nothing against her, Aria sees her relationship with Meredith as adversarial. On the show, the writers felt the need to make the storyline more dramatic, so Meredith drugged Aria and locked the Lairs in a basement. The problem with this is Aria’s resentment is completely justified. She is not unnecessarily viewing another woman as an adversary, she is fighting against someone who is out to get her. Mental illness has been used way too often as a motive, to allow the writers a way around making character truly evil. When a character is mentally ill, at least on this show, it’s depicted as them being completely irresponsible for their actions and the mental illness is to blame, as opposed to society the person was raised in. Mona didn’t want to lose Hanna, Cece was mad the Lairs did not miss Ali, Meredith did not want Brian to break up with her. Most of these motives just do not make sense and since the character is mentally ill, it gets attributed to them being crazy, instead of a hyperbolic version of female rivalries like in the books.

Sorry I am a little late with this comment. It took me a while to get caught up on this whole thread. There is just one more thing that has been bothering me about the Cece reveal... Thanks to all the plot holes everyone pointed out, its probably safe to assume that the writers didn't originally plan to have Cece be A, or at least not have her be transgender. So I can accept mistakes made back in season three, Cece being prom queen and even that she dated Jason. There was not much that could be done about those moments, but what on earth was the logic behind the doll house torture scenes? I assume when they wrote episode 6-1, they knew that they were going to try to redeem Cece in episode 6-10, right? Why did they go out of their way to make A the most sadistic she has been the entire show? Considering the mess that the final was (and they had to know it was going to be a little messy at best), why did they make it impossible for us to feel bad for A, right before they were going to try to make us feel bad for A? I am not trying to rant, but I just really can't comprehend what went on during the meetings with the writers and producers.

Am I the only one who doesn't have a problem with the number of girls Emily has dated, at least for the first four seasons? Seasons 1 and 2 was Emily coming out and exploring her sexuality by dating various girls, which the other three girls presumably did, just earlier in life. Season 3 and 4, Emily was together with Paige and they had a stable (if somewhat boring) relationship, like the rest of the girls. Even seasons 5 and 6A can be explained less by a double standard and more by poor writing. Don't get me wrong, I hate that the writers have had Emily jump from Paige to Alison back to Paige to Talia to Sara. It makes Emily seem like a hugely insecure character, which makes no sense with the rest of Emily's character. That being said, do we actually know if the writers wanted to get rid of Paige or if Lindsey Shaw just wanted out? I mean Lindsey never struck me as a future academy award winner, but Toby and Ezra had both gotten not-A story arcs and Caleb had a (failed) spinoff. Maybe Lindsey just felt if the writers weren't going to do anything with her character she might as well move on to other project. If the writers simply needed something to do with Emily's love life (because none of the Lairs can be single for two seconds), I can completely see the writers thinking Talia and Sara were good love interests. In fact all of the girls have thrown themselves at random love interests since season 4, the only difference is Emily didn't have a significant other to run back to afterwards.

The worst part is that would still make me sad. I am just hoping after the shit show that was this final, the writers will keep the new mystery less convoluted and just focus on the relationships between the liars. That's the only thing that has gotten people to this point in the show anyway.

Actually I think PLL was worse. If I am remembering right, Hannibal has a monologue were he mentions that the killer isn't actually trans-gendered, he just thinks he is because of all the abuse he suffered as a child and he assumes that the hatred he feels for his sexuality is gender dysphoria. Also I believe the killer was repeatedly turned down for sex change operations, because the doctors recognized that he was psychologically damaged. Silence of the Lambs at least attempts to make a distinction between the killer and transgender individuals (not that it make it completely ok, but at least an attempt is made), where PLL is just like "Cece is A...and transgendered!".

The sad this I feel they could have made Cece being Alison's long lost transgender sister work as a plot thread, if Alison had found out about Cece and the two teamed up for all of Alison's schemes. Something along the lines of, Cece is just happy to be accepted, so she helps Alison with whatever crazy plan Alison can think of. Alison finally has a friend who is loyal even beyond the PLL's and together the two go nuts until they final get in too deep and piss off A who is Wren or Wilden who is really a crime lord or something. At that point Ali turns into the super-villain-in-training we saw in the flashbacks and tries to blackmail and bribe their way out, because she is trying to protect Cece. There you go. Nothing transphobic (if anything they get points for having a transgender character), it explains why Alison did a 180 after she came back, and you could cram all of the other answers into my reveal just as awkwardly as you did with this final. Someone give me Marlene Kings job!

Also I would just like to add, I can't figure out how I feel about Cece as A, even without the mess it makes of transgender issues. I feel like Cece was so sympathetic during the flashbacks and A was so sadistic during the present, that Cece being A just has no impact because there just seems to be no connection between the two parts of the show, if that makes any sense.

Honestly even the five years in the future looked bad. I feel like everyone already looks like a college student so they jump to making the girls look like thirty somethings.

So did anyone else notice that Hanna and Alison, the two blondes, where wearing the same shade of blue in the opening scene? Does anyone else think this was intend to set up Hanna and Ali as the two competing mindsets for the Lairs, i.e. "poor mentally ill Charles" verses "we need to stop that bastard"? Just a thought. As for the rest of the episode I agree with everyone up thread who liked this episode better than normal. The mystery is still a mess but at least we got some nice scenes with the Lairs. Spencer and Hanna's detective agency is still as awesome and barely functional as ever. Also Aria and Emily might be the two least favorite Lairs, but they are good together when they are behaving like actually teenage girls (and away from pointless/gross love interests). Plus Lucy Hale did a really good job with the monologue about being trapped in the doll house. Lastly I really liked Alison this episode. She wasn't amazing, but at least we got to see some of the old Alison. I particularly liked that when she got caught, Alison said why she is trying to find Charles but not that she is sorry, because we have seen way to many scenes of Alison feeling bad about stuff she did.

Now that the Sara/Emily story line seems to be over, I am putting my money on us never seeing Sara again. Not A killing her, just that the writers will forget she is a thing and we will never see her again, that's what seems to be happening to the passing love interests lately.

Did I miss the plan to return Leslie's car or did Hanna really just steal a car and then dump it in a back ally somewhere? Also I loved the scene with Hanna releasing all of the lab animals. Like I get her doing that because of what happened in the doll house, but how was Spencer feeding them Cheetos going to fix anything?

For a while I really thought there was going to be a reveal about Kenneth being abusive. When he was first introduced, he screamed at Hanna in public and Jason had to calm him down, so clearly the man has anger issues, that the writers wanted us to know about. Also there was a flashback where Alison came over Spencer's house with a black eye. At the time they wanted us to think it was from Jason because he was the A suspect of the season, but that never panned out, like twice, so Kenneth would make sense. The only problem is now that Alison is home, Kenneth and her seem to have shitty but not abusive relationship, so it would be weird that haven't at least been hints in their scenes together.

I think this sums up the problem with Ali perfectly. To some extent we expected Ali to have changed after being on the run for years. The writers had to make her somewhat repentant, traumatized, or something. The problem is the writers seem to love disregarding previous story lines and character develop in favor of whatever new direction they want to go in. If they wanted Alison to be a weak, emotional wreck, they could have included scenes where her bitchy or controlling personality came out, or if they could have kept Alison as a mean, evil manipulative bitch, but little by little shown us how she had been affect by everything that happened. Basically, anything that showed us that both sides of Alison's personality would have worked, but instead they flipped a switch, changed Ali's personality 180 degrees, and expected us to feel bad for her. Speaking of disregarding story lines what happened with Ali and Emily? In the course of a week, they went from friends, to dating, to enemies, to Emily helping send Ali to jail. I am not saying I want to see them get back together, but shouldn't they at least discussed what happened? Instead Emily is with Sara and Ali is with that cop (also way to show healthy relationships, writers). I know this this show was never going to win anything other than a Kid's Choice Award, but they really wasted a lot of potential the way they brought Alison back.

Am I the only one who laughed at Spencer waving Hanna's head in front of a metal detector?

Ok so did I miss something? How do the police know Mona faked her death? I mean Mona is alive, so obviously her death was faked, but she was kidnapped so doesn't it make more sense for the cops to assume that Mona's death was faked by the guy with secret underground base and military grade spy equipment? I get that the Liars figured out that Mona faked her death because they talked to Mike, but did the girls explain all of that to police? Even then couldn't Mona just claim that A black mailed her into faking her death? Also how does Leslie know that Mona faked her death? Again Mona is alive, but did the police announce that they believe Mona faked her death? I get that I am probably over thinking things but I am seriously asking how does everyone know, with complete certainty that Mona faked her death?

Haha you just reminded me of something I wanted to comment on. Did anyone else catch the #OMGSpencer during the scene when Spencer was going through the trash looking for drugs? Personally, I thought it seemed a little wrong. Isn't the phrase OMG used in less serious situations? You know phrases like "OMG what is Aria wearing?" or "OMG I can't believe she just kissed him." instead of "OMG you relapsed on drugs and you've been forced to going through people's trash to get high." I know the hashtags normally suck on this show but this one felt particularly bad.

But this is Rosewood and more importantly ABC Family so no instance of drug use can exist without providing a cautionary tale about the dangers of drugs. By the end of the season Spencer will probably have to detox off pot, even though that's not really a thing (from what I have heard the worst that happens is you feel a little down for a week or two while your brain comes back to normal and that is if you smoke everyday for an extend period of time). But seriously I am not really looking forward to substance abuse story line number four. We have seen it before and the timeline on this show is so compressed that it really doesn't make a lot of sense when one of the girls goes through all the phases of addiction and recovery in the course of like eight episodes. Even with Spencer, her recovery alone should have taken a few weeks if not longer, which is like a season and a half on this show, not a couple of episodes.

Seriously do we know what happened to Talia, or did she just disappear without explanation? I mean at least when Jason disappeared from the hospital they added a throw away line about how he ran off to hideout with his grandmother or some other relative. Talia just got lost in Emily's closet or something.

I definitely agree, though I do love the conversations between Caputo and the new "not warden". They do a pretty good job of mocking corporate and bureaucratic bullshit, IMHO.

In the real world, I would have the same thought about Aria's shirt, but that is probably the closest thing to normal I have seen Aria wear (at least that I can remember). Yeah, I think Alison now has grounds for a restraining order if she wanted one. I mean, there are dick-pics more subtle than that guy.

I could be wrong, but I took the line to mean Hanna was forced to choose between herself and one of the other Lairs for some punishment or reward, or that two of the Liars had to beg a third Liar for something (food, water, not being shocked).

While I agree that PPL definitely has a lot of feminist themes and well developed female characters, I don't think A is metaphor for the patriarchy, at least not originally. The constant harassing text messages and exploiting of the girls insecurities I think was meant more as a metaphor for cyber bullying and mean girl behavior. Also I agree that the male characters have never been the heroes or the show's main focus, but I think the writers would probably make them more central to the show if they were better developed. The writers expect us to like Toby and Ezra, and Paige and Shana are probably just as badly written as the average male character. Personally I think PPL has a lot of positive aspects, both feminist and otherwise, but I think looking at the show as a feminist allegory is reading a bit too much into things.

Sorry for continuing this conversation but I just wanted to get rid of these thoughts. I think Sasha looks great but I hope she gets her hormone problems cleared up. I am going to give the producers the benefit of the doubt and assume the reason they are trying to cover up Sasha's weight gain is because the timeline stupidly compressed, meaning Alison technically gained twenty pounds in like thirty-six hours. I know it is probably has more to do with ridiculous industry standards, but whatever this show gives me enough to be pissed off about already. If they insists on hiding Sasha's weight gain, why can't they just be smart about it. Have Alison wear sweatshirts most of the time and work it into the show by having Alison explain that she feels safe when she dresses plain/scrubby/whatever because of the two years she spent trying to hide from A and the police. It would give Alison an emotional scene with the Lairs, it would draw a parallel between the Lairs current PTSD and Alison's own experiences, and Alison wouldn't be dress like someones mother. Its not that hard! Speaking of actors who don't look their parts anymore, some tell Andrew to switch to cardio, he looks nothing like a nerdy high school valedictorian. Also stop putting him in such tight fitting shirts. I get that most male characters exist primarily as eye candy, but seriously he is supposed to be A, I think sexy isn't what they are going for right now. Between Andrew and Mike, sometimes I start thinking I am watching WWE instead of PPL.

I have to agree with everyone else, the main storyline's for all of the girls were really good. It's nice to see everyone have something emotional to deal with, instead of the normal routine where half the girls have family/relationship bs to pad out the episode. Also it good to see effects of A's actions on the girls, instead of just moving on to the next plot point. Lastly the mom daughter relationship have been missing recently, so all of those scenes were good too. The only thing that bothers me is that A forcing the girls to torture one another will probably keep the girls mostly apart for the next couple of episodes and this show is always at its best when the Lairs are together. Also the side stuff with Toby and/or Alison was okay. Toby was at least tolerable and they stop having Sasha overact every damn scene she is in, so no complainants. Actually one last thing, Emily's dad was stationed in Texas and Aria's dad was around just off camera (I think), but what the fuck were Hanna and Spencer's dads excuses.

I think its pointless to try and compare the talent of the lead actresses, at least based on their work on the show, because it seems like the quality of everyone's performances fluctuates wildly depending on whether they are given generic filler material or something with actual potential for them to work with. Also I feel like every time I have seen one of the actresses in something else, their acting better than on PPL. I honestly blame the writers and maybe the directors for this. I would only be mildly surprised if in five years I found out Shay did some art house film and was nominated for the Oscar for best actress (okay may that's a bit of the stretch but I really don't think we see anyone's best performances on this show). Just a side note, I don't mean to say anyone is wrong with this point, I probably compare everyone's acting as much as anyone. It's the quality of the show that frustrates me not anyone on this site. I can't decide if Troian is my hero or if she pisses me off. Troian always seems to be annoyed with the writing and shipping and all of the other bs that we hate about this show too. So this makes me want to really like Troian but at the same time, I feel like this show was a big break for her (and probably a nice steady income) so sometimes I feel like she should suck it up about going to the Teen Choice Awards or having to spend so much screen time with Keegan. I liked Maya and I am mad they killed her off. There isn't really any logic behind this one. It's really more just a huge personal bias. I have had a string of emotionally unsupportive significant others, so Maya endeared herself to me for giving Emily time to figure everything out, despite the fact Bianca Lawson was much to old for the role and Shay really needs a stronger actor/actress to play off during her scenes. I don't know if this last one is an unpopular opinion but I am including it anyway. I wish the show had done more with Paige. Her initial coming out storyline was good, but after that she just became Emily's clingy girlfriend. I wish they would have let her interact with the other liars more, maybe butt heads with Spencer or have a friendship with Hanna.