After the disappointing second half of season six, many of us may have given up on "Pretty Little Liars." I for one have considered it once, twice, maybe five times. Why? Because I, Marlene made the terrible mistake of not following the books Sara Shepard so skillfully wrote.
Yes, she didn't want those who had already read the books to have the show spoiled for them. But did the writers think that way for "Harry Potter?" Did they totally change the way "Divergent" or "The Hunger Games" end? No. It's what we want as readers, we want the characters and storyline to come alive in front of us. Sure, some parts may change due to condensing and time, but we can deal with that. I. Marlene changed the whole entire plot, and because of that season six has hit a wall and became a total dud.
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Back in 2010, when the first episode came out, I watched and got so excited. Almost everything matched up to the first book and I fell in love. I'm a strong believer that the book is always better than the movie/series but I thought this could be a close call. Mona ended up being A, as it was in the books, however in the show she was admitted into Radley instead of dying. Of course, a new A soon popped up as well as the hint of twins from the Halloween episodes. The twin plot in the books has been some of the best planning I've ever seen in a book, and I so desperately wanted to see it work out in the series.
But the writers kept saying A was going to be someone completely different, and I never liked that idea. Still I watched because the storylines were intriguing. The show also gave me characters who were not very present in the books like Toby, who died in the first, and Ezra, who wasn't very present in the liars lives after him and Aria ended things. The series also created many characters who weren't in the books like Caleb, CeCe, and Lucas.
The suspense had me when the liars were stuck in a dollhouse being controlled by who knows who, it was at a whole new level of creepy and I loved it! It was when A was revealed that I thought, “That’s it? This whole time?”
I read Tumblr theories every day for a week leading up to the midseason finale and I saw way better storylines on there than the show provided. Timelines were way off with CeCe being A; for example, she stated that Bethany Young killed Toby’s mother back when they were young but we were earlier told she died when Toby was a teenager. Many fans contemplated writers switched who it was because theories were getting too close and they wanted attention brought to transgender children. I honestly just hated it because she was not an important character who we saw too often.
Fast forward five years and CeCe is dead. The girls are now stalked by not only the killer but someone who thinks they know who the killer is. By this point, I’m just sitting watching these episodes wondering who has the time and energy to stalk 20 something-year-olds. Every episode this half of season six left us with nothing. Zero information learned. When the finale promo was aired, #TwinonPLL was shown and I flipped. Finally.
But I was left again totally disappointed. Mary Drake? Jessica DiLaurentis’ twin sister? The actual mother of Charles/Charlotte? I’m not going to lie, seeing Mary dressed as scary Jessica up from the grave was the most excitement this whole season, but I do not like how it ended.
Truth is, I’m over irrelevant characters who have not been seen in seasons suddenly showing up and having a big role in the show. I’m also not a fan of random characters being added like Rollins and Mary when Shepard created amazing, evil characters in the books like Alison and Nick.
We are only introduced to Mary and Rollins when we’re about to learn they’re evil, and that is literally their only reason for being there. Alison, being the main character, was a great plot twist and we knew Nick from almost the beginning, even if we didn’t know it then (he created different names and got close to each liar, gathering information).
I may have big dreams for the series because I have read the books. But it’s like the writers have just taken a vacation this season and it seems like no fan is happy about this. I can only hope season seven will make up for this disaster, and that the killer revealed is someone who is relevant and makes sense.
