Charlotte "Cece Drake" Dilaurentis

We don’t have a lot of information to write a full on theory, but I think we know enough to get some small conversations going as to Ali and Mona’s involvement.

Sasha said this:

“I have read the pilot, and I love how Ali is written into the story. Not to give away too much, but she plays a big part at the school, though she isn’t one of the characters from the book.”

I think Sasha accidentally gave away too much by referring to the school! I think it’s extremely likely that Alison will be the teacher at Beacon Heights High (I just made that name up, is it legit in the books?) - and then the first murder of the town (that unnamed mysterious character being played by Haley Erin) will actually happen IN Alison’s classroom. The bell rings for class to start, and as Alison enters her classroom, she finds a dead body in her class. The murder obviously can’t happen during class, because then there would be no show if we saw who did it. It would happen off camera.

Alison, being the teacher and therefore expectant to know her students quite well, could be a valuable source of information for the police to workout which classmates wanted Haley’s character dead.

Alison will start off as the innocent aid to the police’s investigation, but in true PLL fashion, there will be a Big Bad, the actual killer, who wants to shift any blame off themselves and so will start framing Alison, along with other classmates such as Sofia’s character Ava and Sydney’s character Caitlin. Soon, it’ll be the police’s working theory that a group of classmates banded together with their teacher to eliminate the class bully.

Now this part is quite far fetched but I think Mona will come into it because of her tie-in with Alex Drake and Mary. I think Mona, who is living her life in Paris with her boyfriend and Alex and Mary still trapped downstairs, is constantly eavesdropping on the police (don’t ask how, she’s Mona) to make sure that the police are not coming for her for having stolen Mary; a convict who broke out of prison. The second that Mona hears Alison’s name pop up in a murder investigation, she goes to Beacon Heights to inform Alison of the case the police are building against her. I’d like to think that Ali and Mona are now on a friendly level. I don’t think they’re going to do an entire spinoff with them bickering as if they were still in the stage where Ali calls her “Loser Mona”.

From there, once Mona is in Beacon Heights, I think Mona will somehow get caught up in the mess too. She may be friendly with Alison, but she won’t be dedicating her life to helping Alison. There has to be something in it for Mona, whether it be a reward of sorts, or, Mona actually starts getting framed too. Maybe the Big Bad gets really pissed off at Mona for helping Alison, so the Big Bad needs to take down Mona too. Perhaps Alex and Mary escape, and the Big Bad knows that Mona kidnaped wanted convicts, and is threatening her with this? “Do as I say, or I tell the police what you did?” Who knows. I’m not 100% certain of Mona’s involvement, but I do have a feeling that Ali will be involved because she is the teacher at the school, and something happens in her classroom.

During Pretty Little Liars‘ seven-year run, Ashley Benson would see the promotional posters for the show and barely recognize herself.

The actress says that during the first season of the Freeform (previously ABC Family) show, she was surprised to see how much she and her costars were photoshopped.

“PLL had put up this poster and it was from our first season and it was completely crazy. Nobody looked like themselves,” Benson, 27, tells Stylecaster.

She says that the problem exists across the media industry.

“Even for magazine covers, they’ll photoshop out a mole, make your boobs bigger or your waist four sizes smaller, and you’re like, ‘That’s not even me,’ “Benson says. “You never know how it’s going to turn out because you have no control and you’re not editing the photos, but it sucks when you’re like, ‘Wow. That’s a completely different person.’ ”

Frustrated with the misleading images, Benson now tells photographers not to photoshop her picture, other than small touch-ups.

“I always make sure to tell people, with any s— that I do or anyone else does, that unless it’s announced that it’s not photoshopped, it’s photoshopped,” she says. “And don’t get down on yourself for not looking a certain way because it takes a lot of hair and makeup, a ton of good lighting, and after the shoot, it’s all this editing.”

Benson has called out Pretty Little Liars for photoshopping their image before, during the show’s fourth season in 2013.

“Saw this floating around….hope it’s not the poster,” she wrote on Instagram. “Our faces in this were from 4 years ago … and we all look ridiculous. Way too much photoshop. We all have flaws. No one looks like this. It’s not attractive.”

Costar Troian Bellisario backed up Benson, adding, “Aren’t we attractive enough women as we are? Why can’t we just look like us. Once.”

Benson wants to make sure that the girls looking up to her don’t try to model themselves on an unrealistic body type. She’s very aware of body image, as someone who, as a size 2, was previously told she was “too fat” for a role.

Benson thinks that Hollywood is starting to change, but she’s still bothered by the body shaming comments on social media.

“I hate that people still make those comments,” she says. “I don’t think it should matter, the pressure of being a size zero, because everyone is talented. Everyone deserves a chance and the weight thing is too much pressure to put on anyone.”

With all the negative comments, Benson avoids social media these days.