Pretty Little Liars, which aired from 2010 to 2017 on Freeform (formerly ABC Family), had quite a great task to tackle with the unmasking of the infamous black-hooded stalkers that captivated the internet as they tormented Aria (Lucy Hale), Hanna (Ashley Benson), Emily (Shay Mitchell), and Spencer (Troian Bellisario) from their junior year of high school until their mid-twenties.
After the lackluster reveal on “Game Over, Charles” that Cece Drake (Vanessa Ray) was “Big A” and Charles/Charlotte DiLaurentis, the person who took the “A” game from Mona (Janel Parrish) during the girls’ senior year, expectations were high for the reveal of “A.D.” during the latter half of Pretty Little Liars Season 6 and Season 7. The Cece reveal also shattered the series-long mystery of who had tried to kill Alison (Sasha Pieterse) on that one Labor Day night that changed the course of the lives of every Rosewood resident, confirming that it was just happenstance that Alison had been nearly killed that night. It had nothing to do with her or her reckless, “mean girl” antics that had created such palpable tension between Alison and literally every single person that had the displeasure of being around her. Needless to say, fans were disappointed after the years-long journey for such unsatisfying answers.
The Pretty Little Liars series finale, “Till Death Do Us Part,” picks up one year after Mary Drake (Andrea Parker) had taken the heat for Hanna’s bout of vehicular manslaughter that killed Archer Dunhill (Huw Collins), a.k.a. Elliott Rollins, and Mona confessed to killing Cece by accident in the church’s bell tower.
The Identity of A.D.
One of the disappointing aspects of the Pretty Little Liars series finale is the reveal of the final stalker. Lo and behold, it is a character that the fans have never officially met: Spencer’s long-lost identical twin sister, Alex Drake… who happened to have a couple of “romantic” scenes with Toby (Keegan Allen) over the course of Season 7.
Alex’s motivation for being A.D. is rather simple. She grew up alone, in England, after being sold by one of the Radley doctors that delivered her. Because Spencer was born first, she was given to Peter and Veronica Hastings (Nolan North and Lesley Fera), while Alex was born second, unlucky, and jealous. It wasn’t until around the time she was 18-years-old that she met Wren (Julian Morris), Melissa and Spencer Hastings’ on-and-off-again love interest, in London, who gave Alex all of the information she needed to know what had really happened to her when she was born. Additionally, Wren and Cece were already aware that Cece and Spencer were sisters, so Wren connected Cece and Alex.
When Cece died in “Of Late, I Think of Rosewood,” Alex came to town seeking revenge for her late sister. But, along the way she grew jealous of the life Spencer had, slowly deciding that she would take Spencer’s place in her group of family and friends. In the series finale, that’s exactly what she tries to do. She kidnaps Spencer, stepping in as Spencer with no issue… until Jenna Marshall (Tammin Sursok), and the superior senses she’s used to memorize how Spencer breathes and how Spencer’s heart beats, realize it’s not Spencer.
While the story is relatively interesting, it simply lacks any emotional weight. Their tormentor once again being someone with no real emotional ties to them, just like Cece, was a slap in the face to viewers who had continued to tune in. If Alex had been introduced sooner, and the viewers knew of her existence and what she was attempting to do, it could’ve been a different story. But there’s no real sense of betrayal, like the kind of heartbreak Hanna felt upon learning that Mona was the first tormenter in the Season 2 finale.
Aside from it being someone the viewers and the characters knew nothing about, it’s also about the execution. It wasn’t until halfway through the finale that this twist was introduced, leaving no time to satisfactorily dig into what had happened. It’s a quick story, it’s over, and then everyone moves on. It has no lasting impact on anyone, which defeats the entire purpose. It’s just an unfortunate coincidence that these girls happened to be the ones absolutely tortured by two people that they were hardly connected to. The motivation behind Cece and Alex’s stories feels lazy, and it’s hard to believe these were ever supposed to be the Big Bads.
The Mona of It all
If there’s one thing you need to know about Pretty Little Liars, it’s that they will use Mona as a scapegoat for anything, absolutely wrecking any and all of the character growth we see from her during the in-between times. Whenever the show needs a killer, Mona’s there to take the fall. It happened with Bethany Young, the girl who was believed to be Alison, and again with Cece. In the series finale, Mona dons the black hoodie once again, despite making so much progress over the last six or seven years of her life, finally moving on from who she was in high school. Even with Cece, that was an accident, so while it was frustrating to once again have something like that fall on Mona, it was relatively excusable. But there was no need for Mona to become A again, helping Alex to kidnap and entrap Spencer.
Then, after everyone realizes that Alex exists, Mona and her unrecognizable boyfriend that’s pretending to be a cop kidnap Alex and Mary Drake to lock them in a dollhouse of her own creation in Paris. It’s a dangerous message to send because of Mona’s continuous battle with mental health, which is why she became A in the first place after Alison’s relentless torture in middle and high school. Quite a disappointing end for the character, reverting her back to who she was long ago before countless instances of character growth and reparations to her relationships with Hanna and the other Liars.
(It doesn’t help either that it is confirmed on the canceled spin-off, Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists, that Mary and Alex escape from Mona’s dollhouse and are on the loose.)
The Liars
To be frank, the endings introduced for the Liars all feel lazy and superficial. By the end of the Pretty Little Liars series finale, they all have the same ending (except for Spencer): Married with kids/kids on the way. These girls are in their mid-twenties when the show ends, so why were they all so focused on having children already? Aria and Ezra had just gotten married, and had a movie being made based on their best-selling novel. It would’ve made so much sense for them to travel the world together instead of adopting right away, given their interests that were brought up repeatedly throughout the show. Hanna and Caleb were just starting their careers, but so focused on trying to have a baby. Emily and Alison having kids made sense considering that was a story introduced several episodes earlier, but it’s still frustrating that nothing more inventive or specific to who they both were was done by the writers.
Spencer’s ending isn’t great, either. After being kidnapped by her twin, we’re left with Spencer finally beginning to reconcile with Toby, who had just lost his wife Yvonne (Kara Royster) in a car accident mere episodes earlier and hadn’t recovered yet from that loss. In addition, she’s becoming a lawyer, which is something Spencer says she never wants to do. She didn’t want to follow in their footsteps… but because no real thought was put into where these girls ended up, that’s what she got.
None of the characters’ endings felt personal to them or like a real conclusion to the journey we had gone with them on over the last decade of their lives. Everything was just being wrapped up in the same way to keep the girls in Rosewood, whether it made sense or not. (Spoiler alert: It did not.) Despite knowing that Season 7 would be the last, the ending felt rushed, unimaginative, and inconsistent on all accounts.
Pretty Little Liars is currently streaming on HBO Max.