Channel J: ‘Pretty Little Liars’ should be over already

Janaya Greene
Tue, 02 Feb 2016 03:05:44 +0000
Arts & Life, TV, Channel J, pretty little liars

Spoiler alert: The following article contains spoilers for the TV show “Pretty Little Liars.”

I’ll be honest, I gave up on “Pretty Little Liars” seasons ago. Four seasons ago to be exact.

When the show first aired in 2010 (yes, a whole six years ago), I was a fanatic. I loved the show — the concept, “the pretty girls with an ugly secret,” the small, fictional Philadelphian suburb of Rosewood and so much more — until I found out there was going to be a season two.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t like being suspicious for long. I didn’t think “Pretty Little Liars” could last for more than a season. I know this isn’t something that the producers, cast and anyone else working to create “Pretty Little Liars” would want to hear. But the truth is, the longer that I try to solve mysteries in a show, the more impatient I get. In the first season finale, I wanted to know who A was and move on with my life. But nonetheless, TV did what TV does and left lovers of the show hanging. From that point on I stopped watching … until season two’s finale premiered.

Yes, I was suckered back in. The day ABC Family premiered the second season’s finale, they had a daylong marathon. I caught up and was let down at the end of the day, when again, A was not revealed. Since then I’ve managed to watch “Pretty Little Liars” here and there with less hope of knowing who A is. It took my little sister telling me that the second part of season six would feature the little liars five years later to make me give the show another try. But, of course, I was wrong. Again.

I was relieved when A was finally revealed as Charlotte Dilaurentis, aka Cece Drake, but extremely annoyed at her background story. It felt lazy. Cece was revealed as Alison’s transgender sister, and much of her background story was unsettling to me. First off, there are too many shows that feature stories of transgender characters without hiring actual transgender actors and actresses themselves. Also, it perpetuates the idea that somehow all transgender people are some sort of evil because of traumatic childhood experiences they may or may not have experienced. I won’t speak much on transgender people’s struggles because I am cisgender, but I will say that Cece’s background story felt like a huge cop out. Come on, ABC Family (or Freeform, or whatever), do better.

Plus the first few episodes of the latest season has proved that “Pretty Little Liars” hasn’t let go of the same old formula: life is good; something odd is happening here; someone is killed; “Where were you the night [insert name here] was killed?”; Aria, Hannah, Emily and Spencer lie to each other about where they were when [insert name here] was killed; the killer is found or the plot simply fails to resolve the murder; repeat.

In their adult lives, Hannah works in the fashion industry in New York City, Spencer works on Capitol Hill (predictable much), Emily lives in California but is no longer attending Pepperdine University after (spoiler alert) her father dies, and Aria leaves her passion for photography behind and now works at a publishing company. Alison calls her former friends to return to Rosewood to speak in court in hopes of releasing her sister, Cece, aka A, from Radley Sanitarium.

The “little liars” return, speak in court and voila, Cece is released from Radley and can return home to her sister — until she’s found dead in Rosewood’s local church, the same church where Ian was found dead in season one. The next episode takes on the show’s played-out plot formula I explained above, and quite frankly I’m still unimpressed.

I might keep watching to figure out who the new A is, but really I’m just tired of giving the show my time. When you all find out who A is, let me know.