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Pretty Little Liars

When Pretty Little Liars premiered just over five years ago, it was a story of five friends, one of whom, Ali, went missing. Following her disappearance, the four remaining girls, Spencer, Aria, Emily, and Hannah, began getting threatening and cryptic messages from someone calling him or herself “A.” The four banded together to fight back against A, get answers about Ali and her disappearance, and hide a few secrets of their own.

While the show has never been one with rainbows and butterflies, it has certainly had its lighter moments. Caleb and Hanna’s shower scene, Aria and Ezra’s bar make-out session in the pilot episode, Adam Lambert randomly performing on a Halloween train, and Caleb and Toby’s bromance are examples of the moments that made PLL a fun show to watch rather than a depressing and terrifying one.

As PLL is nearing the end of the A mystery — it is confirmed that we will 100% know who A is at the end of Season 6A and that 6B will jump ahead to the young women in their post-college years — the lighter moments seem to be fewer and further between. Halfway through Season 6A, the liars have escaped from A’s underground prison where they were held for weeks, some subjected to psychological torture (A made them think that they were hurting each other). Spencer has again struggled with addiction to prescription drugs, Hanna destroyed her entire room in an attempt to forget the replica of it in which she she was held, Aria has lied to the cops and become obsessive about Andrew, and Emily has struck up an awkward and likely short-lived friendship with Sarah Harvey (the girl who was held in A’s prison for two years). In perhaps the most shocking and scary twist, the liars have discovered that A, recently revealed to be Charles DiLaurentis, is actually Charlie, Jason’s “imaginary” (or apparently not-so-imaginary) friend from childhood.

Though ABC Family has never really been a family network, these topics and themes are typically geared at people in their late teens, not the tween audience from which PLL draws a large fan base. Personally I know girls as young as ten who watch, and are obsessed with, the show. The producers might think that, since the show is five years old, its fans have grown up with it and thus the show can grow up, too. I was sixteen when the show first aired and that certainly was the case for me — it sometimes felt like I was experiencing an elongated version of high school along with its main characters. At 21, I obviously feel ready for, and truthfully a bit old for, these themes that are starting to make an appearance. However, the tweens who are starting to binge PLL on Netflix likely won’t be prepared for the dark turn that the show has suddenly taken.

Granted, PLL has been dark before. Spencer ended up in the psych ward, Hanna got run over by A when she found out too much, Emily was nearly drowned by her sometimes-girlfriend Paige, and Aria was trapped on a ski lift with Ezra who appeared to be A at the time. The difference now is that the dark aspects of the show are becoming more than passing moments where little is actually revealed; they are becoming major plot points that are meant to tie up the entire series and give the fans the answers to questions we’ve been asking for five years. In other words, you can’t cover your eyes and miss the dark parts — the darkness is the show now.

With only six episodes of the A mystery left, we can’t wait to see how dark the show is willing to go and what else the liars will have to endure before their stalker/torturer is revealed.

You can catch up on past seasons of Pretty Little Liars on Netflix, the current season on ABC Family’s website, or watch it live Tuesdays at 8/7c.

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