Pretty Little Liars

[frelling_tralk]

CeCe being A really didn't feel earned to me, it wasn't anywhere near as emotionally devastating as I'd been hoping for (I was rooting for a really shocking reveal like Toby, someone that the girls knew and trusted). CeCe was a pretty random choice for A as she barely had a connection with the main four, only with Allison really. But then the whole twist of her really being Allison's sister was tied together pretty well in the end I guess. I'm not sure that it really was planned since season 3, it seems more like something that they started laying hints for in season 5 with Allison's return leading to all of the flashbacks with her and Mrs D and the hints of there being another little blonde girl? It seems so obvious in retrospect that Charles was transgender when you think back to moments like the Xmas episode and the two dresses that Allison was warned not to tell her father about, so that was well planned I guess. I think that everything was more or less tied together, but there were some major plotholes too, like Charles/CeCe witnessing Bethany killing Toby's mother as a young girl, even though Toby's mother didn't die until Toby was a teenager? The timelines on this show have always been a mess though lol. (And are they ever going to let the poor Mom's out! :P I don't know why they bothered showing them trapped in the previously's when they did nothing with it in the episode itself)

I wasn't really sold on trying to make CeCe sympathetic. Fair enough that she had reason to hate her father, but her motives were basically 'oh Mona said that Allison's friends were happy that she was gone', and that was enough for her to spend months tormenting them? I buy that Allison would have been touched by CeCe's story, especially as they were already close and acted like sisters, but the other girls appealing for CeCe not to jump because they know her story was pretty lame. They barely knew CeCe, and who would really want to save someone who had kept you locked up in a dollhouse and subjected you to months of trauma? It seemed like the writers wanted to start pushing 'A has a soul' and giving CeCe a tragic backstory, just because they were panicking about the reveal of A being a pretty minor character in the show and having no emotional payoff? A's actions against the girls always felt so personal, i.e recreating the night that Ali went missing and giving Aria back her old haircut with the pink streaks, so it didn't work for me to have CeCe have such impersonal motives and just talking about getting addicted to the game. It only really made sense for her to be obsessed with Allison and her family, not Allison's friends, and having her claim that she hated them because they didn't mourn Allison enough felt like such an afterthought

Sara being red coat AND black widow was incredibly underwhelming, wtf the character was only introduced this season??? They should have just had be CeCe black widow as well as being A, it ruins the impact of those scenes for me completely now to know who was really underneath that veil. I don't get what Sara's motives were at all, they never really explained that. I did cheer when Emily punched her though lol. But yeah, everything was so rushed that they should have just made the finale two hours long

And to change topics for a moment to talk about the flashforward, it's interesting making Allison a teacher, but lately I'm feeling like the writers aren't sure what to do with Allison since she's reformed? Her flashbacks were always so much fun when she was playing the ~mean girl~, and then season 5 also kept things interesting as everything about her was so ambiguous with the girls unsure of whether they could trust her or not, and she was clearly fighting against her worst instincts when it came to dealing with Mona and slapping her back. But since the show has made it clear that she has genuinely reformed and changed for the better, something about her seems really subdued compared to how she used to be, the writers even seem to present her as much older than her real age when it comes to her personal style. I guess her appearing older than her years makes sense with everything that she's been through, but I wish that they would give her some of her old spark back...

Comments

[ciaimpala.livejournal.com]

I was really underwhelmed and disappointed with the Cece as A reveal. I wanted it to be someone much more surprising and much more connected to the girls. I thought the Charles/Charlotte/Cece twist was interesting, and I agree that looking back there were some well-laid clues. It just wasn't what I was hoping for after all those years of speculation. And I liked the Sara reveal only because I had never liked her character and had suspected her as being evil, but I was hoping for more of a twist there as well.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Yeah, some of it felt very last-minute trying to make everything fit with CeCe, like revealing that oh yes she had dated Jason her brother, but don't worry they definitely never actually slept together! Or that oh yes CeCe's friend Bethany killed Toby's Mom when she was just a girl and CeCe's mother covered it up after she was framed for it, even though that doesn't at all fit with the timeline of Toby being a teenager when his mother died. I just don't buy that they planned CeCe out as A since season 3, it seemed more like season 5 was where they started laying the groundwork for 'Charles', and then they throw in a bunch of exposition this episode to try and make everything from season 3 fit with CeCe as A

And I agree that Sara seemed very obviously shady from the beginning, but it was again very underwhelming to then throw out that she was Black Widow, that she was Red Coat. I wanted it to be someone really surprising y'know, and also someone that made sense for the writers to be picturing as Black Widow when they were writing those scenes. Instead they didn't even give us a motive for Sara working against the girls, and those are the kind of twists that I was really looking forward to seeing. The pieces just didn't fall into place for me, so much as it felt like the writers were straining to go back and make all the pieces fit

[rogueslayer452.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this mid-season finale felt incredibly rushed and underwhelming.

I felt that the reveal would've been more interesting if it was someone that the girls knew and trusted, since I thought it was said that it was someone that was introduced during the first season, the first episode even. But apparently that was false advertising. I kept wanting someone like Wren to be "A" with Melissa being Red Coat/Black Widow, or someone else close to the girls that they either thought they trusted and wouldn't have suspected as being involved somehow. Someone unexpected.

(I still maintain the theory that Lucas is Uber "A", while Jenna and some others like Melissa have always been kind of in the shadows of his schemes)

While I liked how we saw the events from her perspective and how it all unfolded, and I rather enjoyed the performance of the actress a lot in those flashbacks and her explanations, a lot of things felt incredibly retconned for this to work. Some of it made sense, but other things didn't, and so many things were left unanswered. While I would love there to be a transgender storyline, which had been theorized for a bit that Charles may have transitioned at some point, it kind of felt incomplete of an explanation of everything that happened over the course of the seasons. Like, as you said, it didn't feel earned enough to just explain away that the reason why all of this happened was because of it since it felt like such a sudden thing to spring on us in such a short amount of time, and never mind that it leads to some rather unfortunate negativity with the representation of transgender issues being connected with a sociopath who wanted to play with people like they were dolls for the sake of revenge and being addicted to tormenting people.

(It doesn't help that Marlene King seems to be blaming the negative reviews of the episode with transphobia. Which, while I have seen some people make transphobic remarks in light of the reveal, that's not why most fans are complaining about the finale.)

The pacing and editing of the episode as well seem so off, especially towards the end where it seemed like they just threw in random clips. Like suddenly they're on the roof then the girls are leaving town and then it's a preview for five years later? Like? None of it seemed like a proper payoff after everything that they've been through, there was very little conclusion on many things. It was like they were in a hurry to close the whole "A" case to start the new chapter, which if that were the case then they shouldn't have lagged on for episodes and instead focused on the bigger plot points. I mean, why was Sarah even involved if she was only going to be revealed as someone who was working with Cece? Why did the show insist on pushing this faux relationship when it was literally going nowhere to fake us out? Just, it was so random and it felt really uneven, and overall it was a disappointing, lackluster of a mid-season finale. I kind of feel cheated, in a way.

They should have executed this better. Granted, considering all the fan theories that have been floating around for years, many of which were too brilliant for this show, any final reveal would've felt lackluster.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I think there was some confusion with A being there from the pilot, because apparently Marlene said that back in season 2 when she was talking about Mona, but fan lore spread that it was a more recent interview that referred to Big A, whereas Marlene was always more vague about whether Charles might be a character that we've seen before or not. (The clue that she couldn't believe that people didn't pick up on in the first 20 minutes of the pilot was Mona's hand being underneath the desk when Aria receives her first text).

And yeah, there were so many red herrings like Melissa, Lucas, Noel, Jenna etc that they never really dealt with, even though there were so many hints about A being a team of people working together. To have it just be CeCe with Sara helping her seemed so underwhelming when Sara was only introduced for that, and was made to seem sketchy from the beginning ETA I guess that was the shows attempt to have one of the four main liars feel really betrayed, by having red coat be Emily's latest love interest, but literally who cared about Sara and was invested in that relationship? It felt like a poor attempt to have the kind of shock reveal and emotional impact that viewers had been hoping for with characters like Ezra and Toby, but it fell really flat to try and go for emotional impact with CeCe and Sara when both were newish characters that had been introduced as clearly shady. It still worked to an extent with CeCe because of Ali's friendship with her, but not with Sara at all, and certainly none of the four main liars had any real reason to care that much that it made sense for them to plead with 'A' not to jump. They must have already known how screwed up A was as a person, I don't see why knowing about CeCe's sad childhood should have made a difference when they were kidnapped and tortured by her

And I didn't realise that Marlene was connecting the negative response to transphobia, most of the responses I've seen addressing that issue are more disappointment with the show because of villainising a transgender character, so it's rather unfortunate that Marlene seems to feel really proud and that they did something very progressive in making CeCe transgender, yet fails to recognise that it was not a flattering portrayal. I guess she felt that it was very sympathetic because of the childhood flashbacks, like the one on the roof with Bethany? But they made A so twisted in how the girls were treated as dolls and playthings (I mean heck Allison herself was framed for murder by the sister that supposedly loves her!), so it's hard to separate all of that from CeCe's childhood

[rogueslayer452.livejournal.com]

And yeah, there were so many red herrings like Melissa, Lucas, Noel, Jenna etc that they never really dealt with, even though there were so many hints about A being a team of people working together.

That's the thing that confuses and bothers me, because we've always had clues that there were more people involved, if not directly then definitely indirectly from their own motivations for doing whatever was asked of them by others involved with the "A" Team. Unless this is all something for the second half of the season with whoever they have after them five years later, they definitely retconned most of what has happened to the girls from other characters. At least, that's how I see it, since they never included any of the other suspected people involved in anything. I mean, what about Shana and Jenna and Melissa? Lucas and Noel? About about the entire NAT Club situation? So many loose ends still.

but literally who cared about Sara and was invested in that relationship? It felt like a poor attempt to have the kind of shock reveal and emotional impact that viewers

Exactly. Nobody really care about this new girl who seemed to have no other purpose than to be a pointless new love interest for Emily. Plus, this fandom isn't stupid. Most people knew immediately something was up with Sarah, simply because we knew nothing about her character and the show as actively forcing this random "romance" between her and Emily with absolutely no build-up whatsoever. And it just seems really random to have this girl be involved but then do nothing with her aside from that reveal. I mean, really. It was rather sloppy on the show's part. It would've been better if it had been someone the girls had known and never would have suspected would ever betray them. Someone that had already been established within the show and not just some random person like Sarah. But all-in-all, I feel like that character was wasted. We didn't even get a reason why she had joined Cece, it was like a "just because" non-explanation and that really sucked.

it's rather unfortunate that Marlene seems to feel really proud and that they did something very progressive in making CeCe transgender, yet fails to recognise that it was not a flattering portrayal.

It makes me kind of angry, in a way, because while I would love there to be a transgender story on the show you could tell that they probably decided to include this very recently due to the stories of transgender youth in the most recent years. And when there are so few transgender stories in fiction, let alone on television, it is kind of horrible to have one where their story is literally them being absolutely psychotic, worse when you have a moment where Cece was planning on committing suicide (twice, once with wanting to kill herself and murder her remaining family, and second after that plan failed to jump off the roof). I don't mind there being more LGBTQ inclusion, but only if it makes sense in the narrative and done in a respectful manner, and having a transgender storyline just thrown in there for the sake of adding an emotional aspect of the "A" story is, well, kind of cheating and also manipulative, especially if Marlene is going to be accusing anyone of not liking the reveal to being transphobic. Which seems like such a cop-out excuse, tbqh (but Marlene has always been kind of messy with her vague answers in tweets and interviews, I never listened to much of what she had to say anyway, but this was just a reaction I couldn't believe she had; I mean, like I said there are probably transphobic comments being made from some, but when it comes to the fandom I've seen nothing but legitimate complaints).

I don't know, it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth how it was all handled, my overall impression of that mid-season finale was underwhelmed and wishing it was done differently.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I felt like Marlene really wanted this to be the episode that answered every question, so it ended up feeling quite cold and inpersonal the way that she threw a bunch of exposition in there, except not in a way that really fit and made sense. Like that whole mystery of two blonde girls being buried alive on the same night and wearing the exact same yellow top, oh that was just a case of mistaken identity from both Mona and CeCe, and both Mrs D and Melissa mistakenly assumed that two different girls were dead and buried them alive at the same time without checking for a pulse. None of it really led anythere that suggested that anything was planned from the beginning, it was just last-minute trying to explain the mystery that they laid out with explanations like oh Allison just happened to be wearing the same outfit that Bethany stole from CeCe. But with a mystery show it doesn't work to not have all the clues lead somewhere that fit together perfectly in retrospect, I'm still wondering about plot lines from just this last season, like why did we spend about five or six episodes on the mystery of who was in the barrel when Mona wasn't even dead?

If A had at least been someone with a really understandable notice for torturing the girls then okay, but CeCe's motives were always about having her family back, it just didn't make sense for her to go to such extremes with the other four girls, and throwing in that she got addicted to playing with her dolls just made her seem like she had randomly crazy movies for the bulk of her actions, yet Marlene and the cast have been talking about how we will understand and have sympathy for A after the reveal? Well no, I still don't understand why CeCe went to all that trouble with the dollhouse when it had literally knowing to do with her explained motives of wanting to keep Allison with her. And why was A sending Allison notes claiming responsibility for killing her Mother?

[rogueslayer452.livejournal.com]

I'm still wondering about plot lines from just this last season, like why did we spend about five or six episodes on the mystery of who was in the barrel when Mona wasn't even dead?

Oh yeah, especially since it seemed that Tanner knew something was inside of it, but it was never talked about again after the fact?

One of the main problems this show has is introducing so many little subplots and storylines into the seasonal and main arc, spending so much time on it for some episodes, even half the season, only for it to be left behind as a trivial thing. At this point, the show has become so convoluted with unsolved and incomplete storylines and questions that I sometimes feel like it's deliberate to confuse the viewers that once it's time for any "big reveals" we would feel compelled to just accept anything they give us just to move things along. I mean, I really had to think back throughout the seasons to pinpoint exactly how the timeline went again, and for something of a mystery show it shouldn't be that complicated.

I still don't understand why CeCe went to all that trouble with the dollhouse when it had literally knowing to do with her explained motives of wanting to keep Allison with her.

Exactly, that dollhouse was so elaborate and deliberate, everything that "A" has done has always centered around Alison and her friends, about revealing their secrets. If Cece was all about seeing her family again, why go through all that trouble? Why was she so angry with the girls? Just because they weren't exactly happy with the way Alison had treated them? Cece knew what Alison was capable of with her mean girl status, they hung out together and did mean things to others together. Cece was practically like a mentor for Alison, in a way, as I recall a lot of the flashbacks in previous seasons. And remember "The First Secret"? Alison had been getting threatening messages since Halloween. Someone was intentionally threatening her, so much that she tried tracking down who was sending her those messages. If Cece was the one doing that, why? She was already friends with Alison at that time. I mean, none of it really makes sense, even with the familial connection.

And why was A sending Allison notes claiming responsibility for killing her Mother?

Yeah, that also doesn't make sense, either. Remember the picture/video that Alison received of her mother being buried? Why would Cece torment Alison like that if she truly loved Alison and their mother? None of it makes any logical sense given the information dump the finale gave us. It further proves that Marlene and the writers don't think these things through, and just do whatever they think people may buy.

(I'm not normally this pessimistic about this show. I acknowledge that it's ridiculous and nonsensical at times, but it has been mostly enjoyable for me throughout the seasons, and despite people being tired of the "A" guessing game I liked the ongoing mystery of it all and have been entertained by what we got....until now, that is. It's one of those moments where I wished they had kept with the book reveal instead. With all that build-up, all that anticipation, they could have done much, much better.)

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Honestly I think that they wanted to do something similar to Allison's twin from the books, and assumed that the sister in this case being transgender and telling us all to look out for a male character called Charles would be a shocking enough twist to impress everyone with the A reveal, but one big twist just isn't enough when you've spend nearly 4 seasons building up to that mystery. I think that they were banking a lot on Charles really being a female character being enough to induce huge gasps and get talked about as being something that nobody saw coming. But then the episode just felt like such an exposition dump with the writers straining to reach for emotional pathos. I mean I've brought it up a couple of times now lol, but it was a big let-down to give us no interesting motive for CeCe targeting the main characters. It seemed like they should have been incidental in her goal to establish a connection with Allison and Jason, yet she spend way more time on her sisters friends for some reason, apparently she didn't even know that Allison was still alive until the season 3 finale!

To defend the show for a moment though, wasn't it Mona who was the original A from the Halloween flashback, sending the notes on it being my turn to torture you? As far as I'm aware A was just supposed to be Mona for the first two seasons, hence the irony in Mona convincing Allison to run away for protection when she was A all along. They only introduced the new A mystery in season 3, they just made it seem in the season 2 finale that there was an uber A that Mona was taking orders from. That was another slightly disappointing reveal though to just hand wave it as oh Mona was really drugged up at the time and didn't know what she was saying , although I suppose it was a good twist that makes sense in retrospect that she believed that she was really talking to Allison when it was actually CeCe.

[rogueslayer452.livejournal.com]

To defend the show for a moment though, wasn't it Mona who was the original A from the Halloween flashback, sending the notes on it being my turn to torture you? As far as I'm aware A was just supposed to be Mona for the first two seasons, hence the irony in Mona convincing Allison to run away for protection when she was A all along.

Hmmm, I'm not entirely sure. It's highly probable and it makes sense, though the confirmation about that has been rather vague.

Although, it begs to question who had been stalking Alison during her time in hiding? Was it Cece basically wanting her to come out of hiding? Unless that is the Uber "A" that has been said will happen at some point. There's just a lot of unanswered questions about the series of events throughout the timeline who "A" tormenting them all, from Alison to the rest of the girls. Some of it was Mona, then it was Cece, but then there were other instances that I'm just scratching my head about.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure that it was all Mona sending Allison the notes originally, and then Allison ran away convinced that she was in danger after the whole being buried alive ~misunderstanding~. But hmm I'm not sure who was stalking Allison after that, it couldn't have been CeCe as she still believed that Allison was dead until the season 3 finale, right? Could that all have been paranoia on Allison's behalf after her being so shaken at what had happened to her? Or I guess that it could still have been Mona, she did know that Allison was still alive all along, and obviously had motive in wanting her to stay gone

When I have time I'm going to try rewatching from season 3 I think, and see how many clues or nitpicks I pick up on this time around *g*

[braverys.livejournal.com]

I wasn't expecting it to be Cece either, but I think they explained their reasonings well enough. I mean, this is PLL, we shouldn't get our hopes up too high you know? That being said, the time jump should be interesting and I'm looking forward to seeing what demons the girls face next.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Heh true, at the time CeCe worked for me well enough as A as the show did at least give her a story that I wasn't expecting, it was really afterwards that I started nitpicking it more. I was really bummed from the first about Sara playing such a large role though, that part felt so last-minute :(

[stolenglimpse.livejournal.com]

I didn't want to click on this post because of the spoilers but since I friended a PLL account on Facebook, I was completely spoiled of the A reveal with an image of Cece looking basically banged all up to hell.

My reactions to this, yes, reactions, were "F*, I've been spoiled for an ep I haven't seen" (still got 3 or 4 eps to catch up to) and after it was "Cece is A? Why her? Doesn't make sense."

I got spoiled more by reading your post but it's ok. I don't much care for red coat and Sara or anything. I know what to expect now for those missing eps but reading all this and it's really just a mess. It does feel like they rushed into choosing Cece and trying to buid a story to link her to everything. And Sara, well... whatever. How would she joine Cece in tormenting the girls. Why? Also, everything happened pretty fast. Ali disppeared and Sara as well. The same night?

I still need to catch up but the show kinda dropped down a bit because of this. I'll still enjoy it, just... meh on the big reveal. I don't know if it's because we've been expecting too much and this just feels like a major let down or what but... meh.

And for Marlene to pinpoint the whole transgender thing is what got the fans be so negative... NOPE. It just hasn't been done properly... too rushed...

Anyway, I'm speaking without having been fully caught up so I'll shut up now haha!

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Aww I'm sorry you were spoiled, I figured that it would be hard to avoid once the big A reveal came out! To be fair the reveal might draw you in more when you're watching the episode, as opposed to just reading my bitching about it lol. It was interesting in a way to link CeCe to Charles and the Delerantis family, and Allison's reactions were reasonably emotionally effective as she and CeCe had been close, I was mainly disappointed that it was such a non-character in the other girls life's and that her moties in targeting them hadn't been thought through more. Literally her only motive apparently was Mona claiming to CeCe that the girls were happy that Allison was dead, but that wasn't even true? There were some conflicted emotions maybe, but they were clearly the people who were closest to Allison, they were all obsessed with looking into Allison's disappearance and obviously loved her, so CeCe just had no reason to start tormenting them for years to get ~revenge~ for Allison?

I think that most people are bummed because they were hoping for some really shocking reveal that would have an impact on the girls (I was rooting for Toby!), but CeCe was basically pegged as shady from the beginning. True most fans didn't guess that she would be A, but most of the speculation was that she was Red Coat or involved in some way, so it wasn't enough of a wow moment to have 4 seasons lead up to that reveal. I feel like the writers were counting on Charles being transgender to be a big enough twist to blow people away anyway, but it just wasn't

Let me know what you think when you do catch up :)

[stolenglimpse.livejournal.com]

Cece was only ever really close to Allison. No link to the other girls, like you said. And never were the girls happy for Ally's disappearance so I don't get where Mona saying so comes from.

I was always under the impression that "A" was this huge team of people. Mainly because Mona was the first and she seemed to answer to someone else at some point.

I loved Mona as "A". And having Toby follow in later and such... that group meeting of people bullied by Allison made a lot more sense, too.

Basically, that illusion fooled the most ârt of fandom since Cece seemed to only be working with Sara. So... what? Two different groups for two completely different reasons? I mean, everyone was shady around the girls anyway.

Charles being transgender would have had a much bigger impact if it hadn't been linked to the big "A" reveal. Like Willow turning gay for Tara. That wasn't mixed with something else just as big or bigger... That was done perfectly. Marlene should have taken notes on that *laughs*

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

They explained away Mona answering to someone else as her being so drugged up when she first arrived at Radley that she thought that CeCe was Allison. She mistook CeCe in a red dressing gown for being Allison in a red coat when she said that 'I did everything that you told me', but in fact the original A of the first two seasons was always just Mona. CeCe takes over and steals the game from her in season 3

And exactly, I think that people got their hopes up because of previous shocking reveals like Toby being on the A team, or Ezra apparently being A. The writers always backtracked obviously, but there was still that expectation for this reveal to be a really major one this time to finally find out which character hated the liars that much, so a lot of us were left feeling like 'is that it'... I feel like they could have pulled some more characters in and had least have Black Widow as someone really intriguing (Jenna or Melissa would have been cool!), instead of basically only introducing Sara this year as being behind everything with CeCe. And they never even gave Sara any motive for that, so it's hard to feel like oh wow, that's who was in the red coat, that's who was underneath the veil

[stolenglimpse.livejournal.com]

Major let down, really. And to think Marlene King sounded sooooo excited about the reveal, that everyone would be blown out of their seats and everything. She failed and she blames it on the transgender thing...

Anyway, I'm still going to enjoy the show and I still wanna buy the seasons on DVD.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Oh same, I'm still interested in what they're going to do with the time jump :)

[favoritexrecord.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I believe Cece as A/Charles was really planned since season 3, either. It does seem like it was decided sometime in the last two seasons and then they backtracked to make it work.

Sarah as Red Coat/Black Widow was the most disappointing reveal on this show ever. Basically anyone else would have been better, including Bethany.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

From what Marlene said she probably was in mind as A in season 3 and that's why they introduced her, but I definitely think that the whole Charles backstory wasn't thought up until season 5 when they started planning for Allison's return and doing the flashbacks with Mrs D, but even so there are still sooo many plotholes. I wish that they just hasn't introduced Toby's mother suicide as such a big plot, I wasn't that into it in season 4 anyway when most of Spencer's story was about helping Toby look into it, and none of the timeline tracks with Charles's age as Toby's mother died when he was a teenager, and Charles herself wasn't even a teenager in the flashback!

And totally agree on Sara. She wasn't even a great actress let's be honest, and there was nothing intriguing about her character to me compared to some of the people that they could have chosen between

[mfirefly10.livejournal.com]

Honestly, while I was disappointed by the CeCe reveal, I gave up on them ever making it anyone important when they backtracked on Toby and Ezra. At most, I thought maybe it would be someone like Jenna who at least had a reason to hate the girls. But I knew it wouldn't be any of the main characters because the writers have already proven they don't have the guts to go there.

I think it worked, to a certain degree. I liked the backstory for CeCe, despite the giant Marion-sized plot-hole. And I'm interested in seeing how the Ali-CeCe relationship develops from here. Though yes, I completely agree that it made no sense for the other girls to feel so much for someone they barely know. It's one thing for them to realize that 'A' has a soul, but another for them to actually want to save her.

But the Sara reveal was much more disappointing. As you said, we JUST met her. She has no relevance to the plot or any character but Emily thanks to that shoe-horned romance. And I'm fully convinced she was not intended to be evil/working with 'A' in the beginning. I think they had a different person in mind and either the actor wasn't available or they were afraid of the backlash so they played it safe with Sara.

And that's really my big issue here. Both CeCe and Sara were such safe, boring choices. So yeah...I'm glad I'm more invested in the characters and their relationships than I am in the mystery because that whole thing was disappointing.

ITA with you that they don't know what to do with reformed Alison. I loved what they did with her in season 5, but she's seemed like an entirely new character this season. So we'll see if they do any better with her in 6b.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Honestly I was hoping that they might be planning for a twist with Toby, after introducing and then dismissing the possibility of him as A in season 3, I thought that would have been so much fun if he has been A all along and managed to convince Spencer thst he only joined the A team for her. Keegan's many recent interviews on how exciting the A reveal was also made me wonder. (And huh at some of the stuff he said, like A being there since the pilot and how it's going to come together as so obvious when you go back and watch every episode?)

It's stupid for the writers to be that afraid of backlash, I believe that Troian has spoken about the network stepping in as well. For example when Spencer was briefly on the A team at the end of season 3, they originally wanted to have that last much longer, but the network objected to her working against the girls in cases audiences turned on Spencer. They don't seem to get that the audiences watch the show partly because they want to be knocked back by the big reveal, not have it just be random characters introduced specifically to be shady, why else would the Aria as A possibility be so popular! Toby or Ezra would have been such daring choices, and it would have been so much more fun to go back and rewatch with thst knowledge in your minds, whereas CeCe's character was barely even there as recurring most of the time after her episodes in season 3. I am reasonably happy with her backstory with Allison, but it is a big let-down that they couldn't do more with her motives for targeting the other girls

And yes Sara was just completely lame, it totally felt last-minute to make her both Red Coat and Black Widow, and not playing fair either as she wasn't even a character in the show when we were trying to guess who those characters could be. Nor was it even well-done, nearly everyone was wondering why we spending so much time with her and why they were forcing her romance with Emily

At first I was happy with how much Allison had grown, but during the romance with that police officer I did start thinking about how she's an entirely different character now. I wish that they could have kept some ambiguity about her as Sasha was always so good at playing the more vivacious and charming Allison, but from the flashforward it doesn't look like Allison as a teacher is going to be all that different from today? She seems to have been aged up way too much, ironic considering that she's the only one of the main actresses who actually is still a teenager

[mfirefly10.livejournal.com]

Toby would've been an excellent choice. He had plenty of reasons to dislike Alison/the girls, even if he eventually fell for Spencer. And it would've been much more emotionally devastating and the consequences would've been more long-lasting. Like...poor Spencer would never date again :) But I knew they'd never go there. Even if the show-runners wanted to, the network would've never allowed it.

I don't know what they did with Sasha's makeup in that flash-forward but Alison looked ridiculous. I hope they do a better job of trying to make her look older when we get to 6B. Spencer looked odd too but I think that was more clothing/hairstyle choice than makeup.

[bm-shipper.livejournal.com]

And are they ever going to let the poor Mom's out! :P I don't know why they bothered showing them trapped in the previously's when they did nothing with it in the episode itself

They will find their bodies 5 years later or so since no one else seemed to bother about that anymore *lol* :D

I don't get what Sara's motives were at all, they never really explained that.

We don't even know how Sara and CeCe met at all, so that's a huge "gap" or plot hole in the story... why did she even help CeCe? What did CeCe do that Sara owed her or something like that? I much rather would RedCoat have been someone like Jenna or Melissa or whatever, not some Random chick we haven't seen ever before...

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Definitely :(