The Inevitable Downfall of Pretty Little Liars 

PLL was the Riverdale before Riverdale

It annoyed me how Emily had a permanent worried expression on her face

Friendly reminder in the OG books Aria and Ezra's relationship lasted for five seconds and she ended up with someone her age long-term. There was literally no reason for this creepfeast

In my opinion, the most wasted character of the entire series was Melissa, it always seemed that she was hiding something that was plotting something and in the end it was nothing

I feel like Ezra being the main villian in the end would been good plot twist. That he secretly controlling Aria, which explains why she was so shady all the time/why she also being torture alone with the other girls. When they hinted he might have been A, I really hoped they followed through with it, but nah they threw that away.

"It's still better than Emily In Paris though." Footage of rats dying are better than Emily In Paris.

i am SO MAD they turned alison into a regular suburb nice lady mom and wasted her opportunity to be a villain with aria LIKE IMAGINE THE TWO CLOSEST FRIENDS BEING A THE WHOLE TIME IMAGINE

There’s a scene where Hanna gets groped by Aria’s mums fiancé, and Hanna tells Aria and Aria basically tells Hanna that she asked for it. It’s really bad

If they had told us there was a fake Spencer the entire season, and we watched her interact with the characters all season without them knowing, it would have been SO. MUCH. BETTER.

And they somehow went from Allison using Emily’s sexuality to toy with her to Allison marrying Emily and getting pregnant with her stolen eggs. WTF

The fact that they wanted to make us believe that by season 5 they were still in highschool is almost insulting.

I think the fans figured out exactly what was originally planned for the ending and she had to scramble to fix it. It was absolutely supposed to be Aria. Lucy’s “shock” is because she took the role knowing what was going to happen and that’s why she was playing Aria the way she was.

I've never seen the show, but I know Allison is A in the books, so here's my take: I feel like it would have been more interesting if the person who attempted to kill Allison didn't matter, because the entire town of Rosewood refused to turn them in. She terrorized everyone so much that when she was "killed" everyone agreed that it was for the good of the town, so when she turned out to be alive, she used A to bully the people in the town into admitting who attempted to kill her. And the writers could have played around with who the killer was, maybe by planting it on different people or making it a team effort.

In the books Ezra is completely a predator. He gets arrested pretty quickly and when he briefly returns later on, he hits on another teenager and is viewed as gross

They got greedy. They could’ve had a great show on their hands if they had ended the show by season 4 or even 5, but they wanted to make more money. Further proof: Ravenswood.

The creepiest thing about the entire show is that Ezra went out of his way to have a sexual relationship with 16-year-old Aria. And the show NEVER talks about this. The only reason Aria gets angry and they break up is because he was writing a book about them, not because he is a predatory pedophile. Everybody else, including Aria's parents, thinks that Ezra and Aria started out as a one-night stand without realizing the age difference but in reality, he sought her out and groomed her.

Honestly, the end that writters gave to Allison snd Emily disturbs me a lot. Pregnancy by forced artificial insemination makes me so repulsed and scared, and made them look so happy about it after all just is too much for me

The best thing about Alison is, that she didn't even go to school and becomes a teacher.

When you invest 7 years of your life into this show, and realize on the last episode the writers were just winging it the entire time. Such a disappointment.

Lucy probably was right, but Marlene wanted to "gotcha" the viewers so bad that she changed things per season after seeing people were on to her. She gave us Cece (which wasn't actually possible) so that she could say "haha! I outsmarted and shocked everyone". Like yeah, Noone would have guessed that because it literally makes no sense.

I really like the "Aria is A" theory, and I think that if the show hinted MORE of Alisson and Aria being the closest in the whole friend group bc they are "evil" or "manipulative" the same and that's why they gravitated towards each other and also why Aria is the one Alisson "picked". I would love for the both of them to have ended up being A or Aria assuming the position of A after Alisson died bc she wants to manipulate the girls into becoming friend again after they split up with Allison's disappearance (it would also explain why none of the girls ended up dead and why Aria would often be the one to "be around" after something traumatic happened to them all bc she wants the girls to trust her the most and to maintain the group together).

The fallout from Hannas shoplifting had more of an emotion impact on her than her killing someone. 😂😂😂

Aria was a teenager girl going to bars during the day, drinking and hooking up with her teacher in the bathroom. Sooooo relatable

The most shocking thing rewatching the first episodes was Ezria. The fact that he knew her age and still kissed her and than again when she was in a vulnerable state at Alis funeral makes me sick to my stomach. And the actors actually being close in age and therefore being seemingly fine as a couple is just so 🚩🚩🚩 for whoever thought it was OK to write that and show that to a teen audience.

The sad thing is that the books were really good! Part of what made Allison so evil was the lasting damage she did to her friends. In the first book, we learn that Hannah has Bulimia that effects everything she did, even in later books. Emily was a bisexual who was shipped off to her incredibly conservative aunt and uncle to 'straighten her out' and then ran away from them because of it, she also gets pregnant and has to give up the baby with no support from her family. Aria is a nice person who genuinely cared about others but was a little weird, she had to hold onto the secret of her fathers affair for years and Allison held it over her head. IMO Spencers relationship with her sisters fiancé felt a lot more predatory in the books, she tried to support her sister but her future brother in law kept making advances. Mona dies and stays dead. I couldn't watch the tv show because they ruined the characters and made them so shallow

The fact that Spencer was accused of murder when she was the only liar who didn't kill anyone 😶

Damn what's with writers trying to outsmart the audience, you should be proud the audience is able to follow along and piece things together, a little predictably isn't a sin.

I’m genuinely convinced if they had sat down before it even aired and said “this person is A.” Instead of hop skipping and jumping it wouldn’t have been so awful, after a bit it became clear even the writers didn’t know who they were pinning as the real A.

So, from what I understand, Allison got hit with a rock by Cece; Mrs. Dilaurentis buried Allison's body; the old lady pulled Alison out of the dirt; Mrs. Dilaurentis went back to unbury Allison's body and found an empty grave (it explains why later in season 6 girls found the basement with all the files and investigation Mrs. D kept on everyone); then Mona hit Bethany with a shovel; and Melissa found the body, thought Spencer killed this girl and buried her alive.

Abandoned plot lines- check countless plot holes- check Characters introduced out of the blue- check Fillers- check Wasted characters- check bad writing-check Engaging premise- check wayy too many baits and switches- check So Pretty Little Liars was basically Riverdale of the early 2010s

pretty little liars is the biggest waste of potential in a teen series ever, it could've been an iconic classic masterpiece and it was just...disappointing

I rewatched the show and I definitely feel that Aria was supposed to be A. In one episode when she is watching those old black/white films, it includes the movie audio saying "Even his son", and a few episodes later it's revealed that Ezra has a son. In another scene of her watching a movie, it says something about a person having someone's head inside of a box; so it made me think that she hid Allison's head in a box (before they brought her back to life). Aaand, just before Mona was killed, she tells Aria "You know just where to plunge the knife and twist it", then she is killed in that exact way afterwards. I wish we weren't robbed of the Aria is A ending, it would have made the show much better.

lets be real if you were working at rosewood high why on earth would u hire Alison??? she was extremely well known for being a terrible terrible person in her teens, then disappeared, came back with a very iffy explanation that eventually broke down. maybe it’s sympathy, but too many people in the town were happy to see her dead for this to make sense to me. how tf were they like ‘yeah :) she can guide the next generation’

I agree with the Allison part. She was so mysterious and alluring the in first 2-3 seasons, but by the end, she was really annoying

It’s infuriating that 15 yr old girls in the fandom were writing the show for Marlene and she ignored it because it was too “predictable” 🙄

I still want to know how Eddie Lamb recognises Aria when according to Aria, they've never met. I honestly have so many questions.

In my opinion, the golden lesson that we an learn from this show and Gossip Girl is that when you’re writing a serialized TV show - or any story, for that matter - you need to at least have an idea as to how it’s going to end.

Even though everyone was suspicious of Aria being A. If they made her A in the end it would have blown everyones mind.

13yo me was reading theories about aria being a narcissist with multiple personalities and that was why she was always looking on the mirror. i feel robbed.

it just goes to show that making your audience go "i knew it!" can be just as powerful as "i didn't see that one coming!"

There's no way spencer was supposed to the smart one of the group but still managed to Falsely accuse so many people of murder and getting off Scott free lmfao. One of my only issues with her.

When Spencer says "You know what they say about hope. It breeds eternal misery", that was an easter egg left by Marlene to fans who expected the show to make sense and have a coherent plot.

Underage relationships are one of the reasons why it makes me so angry that teenage girls are too often portrayed by women in their 20s. It doesn't seem really wrong because those teenagers look like full adults, so you don't realise they're supposed to be 16.

The fact that writers have the audacity to go ahead with shows and actually ending them without having story plans 💀

killing Emily off in S4 would’ve done what killing Prue in s3 did for Charmed… they cheated death for so long but losing Prue made them take things more seriously so losing Emily would’ve made them see things more

I feel so bad for people who were devoted fans of the show since 2010 and spent so much time creating theories about who A was, only for A to be a random evil twin that no one could have possibly known existed before the last episode.

The problem is, they decided to start mysteries before they even answered them theirselves. So when they realized they didn’t have a good reveal, they just abandoned it.

I think the evil twin thing could've worked if they were actually planning for it. If they had decided when they started deviating from the the plot, the exact way they'd change the ended, and actually foreshadowed it. Like imagine if some of the scenes had been Spencer's twin, and we could look back on the seasons and pick out where were seeing Spencer, or Alex. It still would've been tropey, but it could've worked, but it was obvious they just pulled that out of their ass and tried to make it fit.

This is so masterfully put together. I'll never forget watching the end of season for like... HOW IS IT THANKSGIVING?!?

Also the fact that aria dad is a bad person cause he dosent want his teenage daughter to be with her full grown teacher ooo how despise that storyline it’s a really bad message Edit: thanks for the likes and I lowkey started a war let me say it again arias dad is a bad person I know that but he is allowed to be angry at extra for dating his 16 year old child Yh he’s a hypocrite but his still right to be angry Ezra is CREEP

Pretty Little Liars is one of a number of shows that, honestly, I think should have been set in university/college. The student/teacher relationships would still be taboo, but like, not underage. Being in college would explain the ridic amount of freedom (and money??) they seem to have, and I mean, look, none of the actors really looked 15/16.

I have always wondered if the artists got cocky and decided because everyone was suspicious of Aria that they were just gonna change the direction entirely. All signs pointed to her and never were tied up. I think they just wanted to surprise/shock us so badly that they did it in the worst way possible.

I read all 16 books or whatever that went to this series (they are very fast reads), and I have to say they are pretty good. There's very little artistic value and are more like the junk food of literature, but they are very entertaining and I genuinely didn't expect the plot twists. The author either had the ending planned from the very beginning, or she was really good at building an ending on loose threads she'd placed throughout the books. There was literally a clue to the final books in the prologue chapter of the second or third book that I had missed entirely.

How did allison become a teacher when she missed like 90% of school, nor did she care about it

How many shows were ruined because writers were trying to outsmart the audience? 🤦🏻‍♀️

Personally, I think Alison should have been the second A like in the books. I think one of the main reasons Marlene changed it because she wanted Sasha Pieterse to come back and play Alison in the present, but you can still do that with the A theory. You could even make her good if that’s what you wanted. You could make her pretend to be good while she’s “helping” the girls find out who A is, while making her draw them further from the truth. You could add some clues to this too, have the girls slowly pick up on the fact that Alison is constantly ruining their plan. It could clear up other storylines too. Noel Kahn’s motive could be his love for Alison like in the books. Noel could’ve been in love with Alison. Alison was also the only one not in the dollhouse, this could’ve been because she was A. If you wanted Cece to fit into the plot, she could be the one helping Alison stay hidden. She could be the one being A as Alison is in jail. This could also help the Red Coat storylines too. That was why Cece put Emily in the box, to keep the liars away from Alison. If the writers had taken more storylines from the books, Mona’s reveal could’ve been better as well. Mona wanted revenge for Jenna in the books, this would’ve worked for the show because we _literally_ see Mona *befriending* Jenna during the Halloween episode in season two. The Alison is a twin thing would be good for the same reason. Alison told a story about a girl who murdered her twin sister, just like Alison and Courtney. I think the main reason Alison shouldn’t have been in the liars on the show was because she doesn’t *care* about them. She’s not _supposed_ to. They’re just _dolls_ to her. She doesn’t care about them, they’re there for her to play with. She views everyone as her dolls and that’s how she’s so manipulative. She killed people in the books because they didn’t _mean_ anything to her. They were not on her level, for lack of better words, she was better than everyone. When we found out she killed Ian, like she did in the books but in a different way, I thought later we were gonna find out that Alison was just pretending to be back. Bethany Young was such a dumb plot point because Courtney was already there. The layout was there, but Marlene ignored it. You could’ve had a better mystery if it wasn’t for the shock value. The audience is _supposed_ to figure out who it is. It’s not supposed to be so hard that it’s literally impossible to figure out. TLDR; Ali would’ve made a better A.

I wanted Aria to be A so badly. It had so much potential. But no. 😢

I think we can all agree on at least 1 thing about the show: Ezra is a predator. Like, seriously. Also, because of the weird writting he can't even use the excuse that Aria lied about her age when they first met, because it's revealed that he actually knew how old she was the whole time. So yeah Ezra is creepy as fuck, and I don't appreciate the writers trying to make him a sympathetic good boi UwU for no reason other than them wanting to drive the show with his and Aria's "romance."

Aria was DEFINITELY supposed to be A. But that theory absolutely blew up with fans and I fully think the writers changed it to “outsmart” the fans. PISSES ME OFF!!

27:20 This is exactly why I got hooked! Every episode gave the promise of answers but then only delivered more questions. I would end up bingeing episodes because I thought if I just watched ONE more, I would get an answer. I tapped out around season 4/5. Thank you for the recap because I definitely wasn't going to dive back in.

Writers trying to be unpredictable really is what ruins all shows that have any kind of mystery to them. People just want a story that makes sense😭

the POWER that Alison held during the first seasons. It’s so infuriating how they just threw that all away

Once they revealed that Ezra knew who Aria was before they met, that should have been the end of it. When they got back together, I couldn’t believe how many fans were on board with it, it literally made me sick.

Emily's character is basically dating/falling for the broken/evil characters after meeting them for seconds and cry over them till they die or someone else comes along.

Sometimes I'll randomly start to get the itch to rewatch the show but then I just rewatch this video instead and that itch is scratched for a long while. So basically, thank you for saving me from spending even more hours of my life on this show and from being extraordinarily frustrated all over again!

Fuck if aria was A that shit would have been so crazy. I'm upset she wasn't now lol

I hate the concept of outsmarting the audiences The surprise element isn’t necessarily the only driving reason for us to watch Anticipation, character admiration, nostalgia and many more can keep the audience

I still stand by the simple fact that if they had made Aria turn around in the very last scene of the show and made her do the shushh with an somewhat menacing expression, it would have probably made the ending so much better. but thats just me.

It’s very fitting that Hanna’s mom was played by Sydney from melrose place, because melrose was kind of the original show to start sort of normal and completely fly off the handle. Plus my iconic girl Hanna should have an equally iconic mom 💖

im so angry at the waste of Alison, they did Sasha Pieterse so dirty she was so great as Alison

In the book A was Allison. She had a twin that was bat-shit who spent most of her life in a mental hospital since she was a child. The twin liked to pretend she was Allison so that she didn't have to go back to the institute. She finally succeeded once and Allison was sent to the institute in her place cause her parents didn't believe that she wasn't her twin. When she finally broke out at sixteen she had become even more mentally crazy than her twin ever was thus the A reveal.

The reveal of Spencer’s twin was very much a “wtf” moment in the worst way. They can’t recover from that bull.

i like how they made every boyfriend/husband/male fling is evil or rlly bad lmao. toby = being an A minion. Caleb = only getting with Hannah bc he was getting paid by Jenna. Ezra = yk the whole book situation... Wren = cheating on Malissa with minor. Ian = cheating on Malissa with minor than trying to kill her to silence her after she found the videos of him filming other minors. Aria's dad = cheated on Arias mum. Jason = being creepy. Nate = being a murderer. the list really goes on forever

Do y’all remember that Halloween episode where Hanna’s mom encounters a little ghost girl and it’s definitely a ghost and then we were all expected to act like that just never happened?

Ezra is so much worse once you realize he knew Aria was underage before they hooked up. We’re led to believe, along with Aria, that he only knew she was in high school when he saw her in his class during the first episode, but he was already doing research on Alison and the other girls for his book about Alison, once she went missing...a whole year BEFORE they met at the bar for the first time. The fact that the show wants us to root for them is so disturbing!!!

It’s embarrassing for Marlene but also embarrassing for us. I feel like this was just a social experiment. We were led to believe that we had to decipher the storyline when we really should have been deciphering the creators and discovering the true villain: Marlene.

I batted an eye. I think I only made it one season. Ezra/aria was always creepy to me. The fact that the actress for Alison was actually a teenager made those scenes between her and ezra SUUUPER icky for me. I remember the moment that annoyed the hell out of me was when they investigated a remote barn, knew they were being watched and threatened and yet LEFT THE CAR UNLOCKED!!! That’s when I went “nope this is too ridiculous”

I seriously don't understand this impulse to outsmart the audience. That feeling of "Yes I figured it out!" can be just as satisfying as "Wow I didn't see that coming!"

The most important lesson I learned from this show is that you absolutely cannot base a story on a mystery unless you already know the answer to the main question.

Spencer was my favorite character but the best performance came from Janel Parrish as Mona. I think she saw the other actresses checking out and decided to camp it out. They could've killed off Emily or Hanna but not Mona - she was the one character that had any life to her.

i haven't watched the whole video so this might have been mentioned, but for me the thing i hate most is alison's 'death' being an accident (charlotte meaning to kill bethany). when we found out alison was burried alive i was amazed, like that was the perfect death for her- so terrifying, messed up and just felt like it fit the story so perfectly. even when we find out jessica thought she was burying the dead alison, it was still interesting and 'messed up' to me. and i love the theme of secrets, and the iconic "two can keep a secret if one of us is dead". alison's 'death' was fascinating, i was so invested in what secret got her killed (at least, attempted). to decide that her murder was an accident completely undos the whole build up around secrets, and so anticlimatic after you've tried to figure out why she was murdered

Watching this now I realize PLL is probably the reason Riverdale exist

They were just obsessed with preventing the audience from working out the twists so every time we got close they changed it up which created an absolute mess lmao

just to quickly add on what was presented in Chapter 2: the beach hottie was Wilden; he was relevant to the story because that's how we find out more about Ali's connection with Cece, and what could've been a reason for Wilden to be so obsessed with finding Alison's killer. Shana was not working for A, she was working for Jenna who was affiliated with A

Character wise the Aria/Ezra thing is creepy. In real life the creepiest thing as far as age inappropriate goes is that they hired a 12 year old to play Allison when the character was so sexualized.

Alison should’ve stayed the way she was in season 1-3. She was mysterious, in control and still had her wit. But 4-7 they made her a softie and dressed her like a grandma

The fact that the Rosewood police didn't do a freaking DNA test on "Allison" corpse

Troyan really is an awesome actress and she deserves the recognition.

The main issue with shows like Pretty Little Liars, Gossip Girl and The Vampire Diaries is that since they're inspired by books the moment they start to get away from the original story they made a problem. The original author set up the story to get to the ending. Once you change a part of it, you have to change the entire story to make it fit your new plan. In most cases they just don't fix things and let the show go downhill.

I feel like the show was never the same when Allison became one of the liars. The main plot of the show was the mystery surrounding her and how unattainable she was, her character lost its appeal when she just became a normal, kinda pathetic girl. The strength of her character was gone

God Aria and Alison working together as A would have been phenomenal

Alison WAS the best character in teen show history, and I stand by that. However, as you said, when she was 'alive again' she became one of the worst characters. Sad

There were so many amazing plot points they could've used to make this show absolutely unforgettable. First of all, season 7 felt like a huge cameo fest - we really didn't need to see forgotten characters like Holden, Wren, Nicole, Noel, Sydney, etc. make a comeback - they contributed nothing to the plot. I also think they used up all their great mystery reveals in the first two seasons. For example, I think the whole Jenna thing reveal happened too quickly. If they waited until the end of the first season or all the way until the third season to show what really happened, it would have really thrown the readers for a loop. Plus, they could've waited to justify Toby's involvement and Jenna abusing Toby after the "Toby might be A" storyline, because until that reveal, Toby seems to have enough potential to be A, and no one would expect that kind of curveball, so letting the tension build would've been amazing. Finally, I think they really had an amazing trio with Jenna, Mona, and Alison - with them, you truly never knew what was the truth or where their loyalties lied, so honestly the three of them should've been A at different points. I think PLL also really suffered by throwing in way too many unnecessary characters and then not knowing what to do with them. I remember loving seasons 4 and 5 because the whole buildup, with Ravenswood etc., was filmed beautifully. But at some point, the writers kept alluding to literally every random character being A, which is ultimately what made it boring. They already alluded to Ezra, Toby, Jenna, Ian, Melissa, Mrs. DiLaurentis, and more being A. They had even hinted to Cece being A multiple times, with the liars exploring that theory. So it's not a good A reveal if it's already been discussed multiple times. The reason the Mona is A reveal worked is because the buildup to it was subtle - there were hints for her having a motive, but we never saw the liars even entertain the idea that it could be her, which is why it was a good reveal. Alison especially had such wasted potential - she was absolutely lethal in the flashbacks, tbh I think she should've been dead the entire time and just seen through flashbacks - the whole point of the allure of PLL was the fact that Alison is gone but she's everywhere.

The way Alison had beef with every single person in Rosewood and they all feared her will FOREVER be iconic

Spencer was iconic, hanna was funny, aria was annoying, emily was boring and allison was wasted

I think it's so funny that the show ultimately opted for the secret twin sister reveal as a way of outsmarting the audience, because when i was watching the show at the time and was very present in the fandom culture, i remember reading A LOT of theories that revolved around that same concept, and i always thought they were absolutely nonsensical and cliché. you can imagine my surprise when that was actually the final reveal of who A was

Emily and Paige made me feel rage that I’ve never felt before. Them alone as characters, and as a couple both.

They really took Alison’s character from this badass villain that had secrets on everyone and was bold enough to blackmail grown adults to a kind of pathetic shell of her former self who feared everything and proposed in a pug sweatshirt

my forever question is : why did they despise mona so much, but forgave everyone else who has done so much worse to them

One of the biggest problems is that the longer the show went on the less the main characters actually mattered to the story. In fact Mona was the only A who had any attachment to the Liars- Ezra was writing a book about Alison, Charlotte wanted her family back, Alex wanted revenge for Charlotte's death. Yet the girls kept getting tortured because technically they were the main characters, but all of their storylines were filler because the main storyline didn't have anything to do with them. Essentially they were the shorts at the end of a Pixar film- cute, fun, entertaining, but you know they have no real impact. From season 3 onward the liars had no actual ties or connections to the main plot.