Anchored Infinitely

OK, I know I’m not exactly going out on a limb here, but I think the reasons why she was so cool help illustrate why the later A reveals sucked so much.

First of all, she was a good character in her own right. Like, Mona was awesome even before the A reveal, and people actually cared about her. Charlotte was barely defined and no one really cared about her (ditto for Shana), while Alex, of course, we were unaware of the existence of. You can’t expect the audience to be shocked by a character they hardly know.

Second, she had a plausible motive. Not the one she gave, of course, but she still had one none the less. Fans could go “Yeah, that made sense”, even if the explanation she gave was more “Huh?”. For Charlotte and Alex all we had was the “Huh?”.

Third, she was part of their lives, and part of the story. One of the interesting things they did with her as A was that you can rewatch old episodes and see the overlap between her being A and her just being Mona. One of the great scenes of season 2 was Emily apologising to Mona, and you can see all the different Mona’s flashing across her face, almost fighting to control her reaction.

And this was where, imho, the next two A reveals really went wrong. In order to explain them, they had to create a backstory for both characters which took place entirely off screen. From a narrative point of view this was terrible, as it required straight-up exposition by the newly revealed villain, who had presumably been getting more and more frustrated at everyone else’s complete inability to work out their master plan. But also it reduced the liars, even Alison by the end, to side characters in their own story.

So many things that did happen ended up being red herrings, up to and including several murders. Heck, even the reason for Alison’s disappearance ended up being a “Whoops” rather than a “Damn!”. They kept setting up clues that there was something sinister going on, that the other body had been deliberately made to look like her, that the NAT club was involved, that Ezra was involved, that it was to do with Cape May, that Alison had some dark secret, that the liars themselves had done something, and then… nah.

Meanwhile, all the relevant action was taking place somewhere else with a bunch of characters neither the audience nor the protagonists even knew existed.

And finally, Mona being A worked thematically. She, like Jenna, was the walking reminder of the liars’ complicity to Alison misdeeds. But more than that, A was the personification of the rumour mill, of the judgement of society, of the hypocrisy and intrigue that goes from school to the broader society. A was the force that branded the girls liars when they told the truth, that exposed their failings while covering up those of the those in power. A was the condemnation that made a few selected victims into ‘bad’ girls, so everyone else could feel better about themselves.

Mona learned these forces, understood them, then turned them against the liars. Just as Alison had scapegoated her, she marked them out once Alison was no longer there to protect them. And because Mona was part of their world, this meant something.

Charlotte and Alex, not really. ‘Shits and giggles’ isn’t really a good motive for a villain, and it lacks any resonance as a piece of storytelling, The liars were just being punished for someone else’s sins, and in the end it meant nothing.

And the really frustrating this is, as mentioned above, they set up so many interesting hooks they could have hung a good story on, then ignored them. Then end of season 2, where Mona gets a visit in Radley, made perfect sense. There was someone else above Mona, someone controlling what was going on. Instead of just throwing out everything up to that point they could have built on it.

What would have made a lot more sense after the Mona reveal would have been to keep the idea of A as the watching, judgmental eye, but escalate. Bring in the constant voyeurism of the older males of Rosewood, the ones who exploit and objectify girls like the liars. Make it about the all of this, and the obvious creep factor in town. Make the next A a man, someone older, someone obsessed with the girls, someone with more resources and influence, but with a respectable cover, like an English teacher…

I’m really disappointed that there seems to be a general consensus (mostly by journalists and the cast/crew) that we’re not ‘allowed’ to be unimpressed with the finale. And I am speaking mostly to Troian’s quotes here. I love the woman but I think that’s an unfortunately really narrow way to look at fandom and the array of different emotions we all have. And we’re all upset for different reasons and to lump it all in with the same people who were sending her death threats about SpaIeb is really shitty. 

I can be upset by a result and not send death threats. The majority of us can. 

First, not everybody was in it for the same things. A lot of us were in it for the mystery. We were there to look at every single clue. We were there when they all said “everything is a clue in Rosewood” and took it to heart and wasted spent seven years theorizing, there were even Twincer theories that linked back to the earlier seasons! A lot of us were in it for the friendships and for the feminist undertones or the wlw rep which in the end left a lot to be desired. A lot of us were in it for the ships and romance. A lot of us were in it for more than one of those things, but a lot of us also weren’t and that’s not a bad thing.

The idea she’s pushing is that if you didn’t like the mystery, then look at the ships because yay endgame! But what happens when the mystery was unsatisfying, and you don’t care about the ships? What happens when the girls spent most of the time not together in the finale?

I don’t think it’s her fault for saying these things, I don’t think you can possibly understand fandom unless you’re in fandom and it’s very clear that’s never been something she’s been interested in and that’s fine. 

But this idea that we all wanted the same things is really just a sad view of fandom. I agree, not everybody was going to be happy. That’s going to happen in any show no matter what. But this whole narrative about how we should only care about the work that they put in and the time they invested is hypocritical at best. Like, sure, I concede the writers did probably try to make us as happy as possible, but when you’re only listening to a select few people on twitter who kiss your ass 24 hours a day, that’s not really fair and is really just the beginning of a deeper fan-service fandom issue.

And to that, I also say, what about the time fans invested? For years, we were told that “that night” was important, and we held on to that, only to have it mean nothing.  There were so many things that kept us holding on to the end because we thought we were going to get a a seven year reveal. Something that, after seven years, would knock us on our asses. Something that connected back to “that night”, to Alison, to the barn, to any of the original lore of the show. They kept that going because that was the only way to keep people holding on after Charlotte, and that does become a manipulation at some point. 

The complete lack of acknowledgment for a huge part of this fandom is really disheartening. I mean, take the classroom scene. They hyped that scene up for two years. People literally spent two years theorizing about something that in the end meant nothing, that they had no idea what they were going to do with. Somewhere along the way, the ships were the only thing that mattered. They sacrificed everything else for the ships, not realizing that some of us didn’t care about them. Having ships is fine, loving them is fine, but it took over the show, and I think, in many ways, the ships are what sunk the show. 

Our hearts are breaking for #Paily.  💔