Pretty Little Rewatch: The Perfectionist Edition

So much of TV is way too concerned with being Clever™ right now. There’s this pervasive myth that audiences won’t enjoy a narrative climax unless it’s a total surprise. “Predictable” is always used as a pejorative term when it comes to storytelling, but I think that’s absolute crap, because here’s the thing: 

Unpredictability is not, inherently, a virtue. Unpredictability can mean: a) you don’t have a clear grasp on who your characters are or what direction they’re growing. b) you don’t have a clear vision for the story you’re trying to tell. c) you don’t know how to tell the story (for example, you have a Point A and a Point B but the middle is a bunch of disjointed time-wasting filler. 

“But,” the showrunners cry, “you never saw that twist coming! We kept you on your toes!” That does not make it good. Cleverness is often just smoke and mirrors designed to distract the audience from a lack of substance; it doesn’t guarantee a worthwhile story. I don’t want to be shocked for the sake of surprise - I want to feel like the experience was worth my time.

I want to be introduced to a character, and then I want to be taken on a journey with that character. I want every step of that journey to teach me who they are; what they believe, what they want, what they hate, what they fear, and what they love, so that when they are faced with a conflict or a critical moment of decision, I understand exactly why they do what they do. I’m hoping their choices in that moment will reveal something truthful and powerful and worth knowing about another person’s experience. 

When PLL was being filmed, Julian Morris posted a video of a hooded figure walking into a room. Once the promo for the finale was released, I realised the moment he filmed was when we saw the hooded figure visit Mona in Radley.

We now know this was actually Wren. My question is: why the FUCK didn’t we see Wren IN the actual hoody if Julian was on set whilst this scene was being filmed?!?!?!?!?! We’ve been told Wren wasn’t more involved because Julian wasn’t available for filming, but in this circumstance it seems like they just didn’t even bother. I mean…. he was literally THERE watching instead of doing. Someone hold me back.

The board game was Alex, but the book was Mona’s endgame. She planned to finally get A.D. and in the end, she won.

I’m bummed too. I’m really torn between being bummed about it and being logical about it like I’m sad because it should have been shocking, it should have been a painful reveal, it should have included all of the girls but instead, it made the first 5 seasons irrelevant, it made four out of five main characters not relevant, like, I don’t think that’s what any of us honestly signed up for. When you think about the good reveals, they were shocking because it hurt. 

Mona - shocking because we saw her for two seasons. We knew her. And it hurt because the girls had finally learned to play nice with her. It hurt because we knew how much Mona meant to Hanna. We had to see Hanna be devastated that her best friend, the best friend who arguably saved her life, was the same person torturing her. 

Toby - shocking because we saw him for two seasons. We knew him. We loved him. He was the ‘moral compass’ of Rosewood. He was friends with Emily, and the other girls came around to him, and Spencer was so in love with him. It was devastating to know how devastated Spencer would be, how devastated Emily would be, how much it’d hurt the girls to know someone so close to them did this. 

Spencer - !!!! A main character! We were shook!!!! We knew she probably joined to find out what happened to Toby, not because she wanted to hurt her friends, or because she was suddenly evil. But her pulling that hoodie out from her pillow case in Radley? Knowing she was the one who kidnapped Malcolm? That was huge and it was shocking and fun.

Ezra - shocking because we knew him! For four seasons! A lot of us still loved him back then. We got to look forward to seeing it unravel and to seeing how it would affect the girls. Aria’s utter devastating in 4b was Aria’s best storyline in seven seasons. Ezra being revealed was exciting and upsetting.

my salty older sister minutes after 7x20 finished

SHE HAD ME HOWLING WITH LAUGHTER OMFG

“You know me, Spencer. You killed me.” For the A message with the dirt in Spencer’s bed.

The blood on Spencer’s clothing in the Dollhouse.

Flashbacks of both Emily and Spencer hitting “Ali”.

Melissa’s confession to burying who she thought was Ali because she was trying to protect Spencer.

Bethany being dressed as Ali that night, including a bracelet. The letters between Ali and Bethany. We know who hit Ali though how did Bethany end up in the ground? Was that all Mona?

Why have Sara Harvey dressed in the “That Night” get up in the Dollhouse? Why have Mona dressed up that way in the Dollhouse?

Flashbacks of that night- why put so much emphasis on the Liars being drugged?

Dream and hallucination Ali telling different girls that they all know more about that night than the realize?

I would have to go back over the A messages, though am pretty sure there were more alluding to them doing something wrong that night.

I get that AD is different than A, and that this was supposed to be a totally separate storyline. I am just not happy with it at all, because they could have woven together a flowing story from start to finish. Those Patsy Cline songs were supposed to be so important and such a huge clue, and she addressed them by Charlotte giving an album to Alex saying they were important to her?