OMG how this could be in drafts is confusing even to me. Its been there for 5 years. Luckily the show still has appeal, perhaps its also aged well with time. ENJOY
Rating on this review is PG14, I wasn’t holding back LOL
Pretty Little Liars – the final review
Of course spoilers for Alls Seasons and everything or everyone related to the show.
Images courtesy of abc family.
For seven seasons I watched with the rest of you the ups and downs of five teenage girls that eventually grew into women and their friends. There was torture, sometimes pure horror, murder, many deaths but sometimes also fun, romance, silliness and always friendship.
In real life I still crave such close relations as they kept despite what they endured, wouldn’t you? It was the all it could be at times and a hot mess at others for certain.
This review is about the girls with side notes of their others.
I will start with the littlest of the liars, though not the least, Aria Montgomery. When we first meet Aria she has only just returned from Iceland, a year away from Rosewood with her family. The time away was precipitated in part by the fact that one of her best friends, Alison has gone missing. The stress and strain on her and her friends was quite intense; the Montgomery’s chose to take Aria out of harms way or so that was the hope. Another reason for the year long trip we find out is that Byron, Aria’s father had an affair with a student, this information isn’t kept hidden too long in the first season.
Aria has her own little secrets it turns out her return to Rosewood had an unusual beginning, where she makes out with an older man in the bathroom of a bar/restaurant. We all know by now that not so much older man turned out to be the love of her life Ezra Fitzgerald. There is much drama and many tears through the years till finally get to the the altar. Aria had her time of exploration, a bit of a romance with Jason, Alison’s brother as well as a faux relationship with a co-worker, Liam. I saw faux relationship because it didn’t seem quite real to me, almost like the time Rory Gilmore had a boyfriend she couldn’t remember to break it off with.
Some of the complaints I had with the show writers were the obvious wobblyness of the situations. For instance in one season we find out that Ezra has been watching the liars, his countenance was quite uneven some times he would go into rages nothing like his regular self. It didn’t help that he was a version of the big baddie A. In hindsight or even in foresight that big reveal was the most bogus of all the False A’s. Ezra as a bad guy who basically used Aria was unexpected and just down right cruel.
Many times the writing on the show made me think of the demented painter from that horrible movie whose name escapes me, its like blood letting for the sake of it.
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Now on to Hannah Marin who despite a slight air-headedness seemed to find plenty of time to be spot on in the discovery stages of who killed Alison. I liked Hannah’s spunk it seems every time she had a thought that made sense to her, Spencer would call her on the execution of the word/phrase. Nevertheless Hannah seem to take it in stride.
Hannah starts out in the show as someone who has overcome being a fat kid and is now a slightly insecure fashionista. She even has a fancy blonde beau and perky sidekick friend, Mona, whom she often shoplifts with. The shoplifting is simple rebellion against her parents divorce though with the “we are adults” attitude of this tweens it really flies in the face of reality. Hannah isn’t twelve but that way of relating definitely is, it is very much a FAIL of massive proportions, I am glad that stage was short. Her poor morally bankrupt mother thought it was okay to spread her legs to get Hannah out trouble, another character FAIL. Seriously, she parades this man/cop around like its no biggie for him to take the bait as long as Hannah gets off scott free for stealing. Basically, if we are viewing this little divorcee family drama right, mom takes care of Hannah in whatever way is convenient, like setting a bad example for her child, while Hannah eats her feelings or used to until Mona came into the picture.
Luckily Hannah has her own set of values, she straightens up and gets a boyfriend to boot, in walks Caleb Rivers. Bad boy Caleb is all about making cash on the side with his cyber hacker skills and lucky for the liars later on he comes in handy. Caleb and Hannah are not the best match at first, she doesn’t know what to think of his brusk unkept attitude but its love at first kiss when she takes him home like broken doll to live in her basement.
Hannah had to deal with daddy issues as her father decided to remarry and has to deal with a new little blonde step sister to the mix. Lets just call her a spawn from hell, she has everything a girl can want including horses but for no real reason hates Hannah. The little hate Kate drama thankfully is short lived thanks to one of Hannah’s besties, Spencer Hastings.
Hannah’s winding road doesn’t include many men, except the one guy Jordan she almost married after him spent in New York, but by the last bell of the show she is back with her true love, Caleb.
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Emily Fields was just a tomboy with a boyfriend till she met Maya St. Germain.
Emily’s realization of her attraction to girls and reactions from her family are a big part of the first two seasons. Her mother was totally against her being “out” while her father tried to be appear supportive despite Emily hearing them discuss it one night.
Admittedly, it is one of the better characterizations in the series. There is much empathy and compassion toward the topic of other sexual designations. I can say BRAVO writers.
It is again desire at first kiss with Maya. Emily fights it at first even though she had in the past been in love with Alison, the silent kind that no one ever acknowledged. Unfortunately, the tortured but sweet time with Maya is dragically cut short with Maya’s murder. Heartbroken Emily ends up in the arms of a lecherous Paige. Paige had been eyeing Emily for years and I never saw any true chemistry with the two of them. Paige goes from trying to drown Emily to trying to kiss her in record time. I have been very vocal in my reviews about this mismatch. Not sure who was paid off to allow this to even happen. It is about as unreal as Lisa Braeden’s existence in Supernatural, but I digress.
Paige and her clinginess luckily doesn’t get to keep Emily forever but does have a couple of college years to bond. Emily also has a winding road of romances with several others throughout the series. I will save this favored ending for the last.
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Spencer Hastings the highly intelligent one in the series. Not only smart but oddly enough quite horny. I find her character to be mismatch of strange proportions. She was often found kissing her sisters boyfriends, as I write this it makes me laugh. I want to know when she had time to study what with solving the mystery of Alison with others and annoying her sister by her existance.
I know she was the serious one, the one bound for the Ivy’s. Her parents were lawyers and her sister seemed smart enough. I say seem because all we really saw was her being devious and lying. She flaunted her beaus, pretended to be pregnant and watched the liars, all of that doesn’t necessarily show high intellect, nope just nosiness.
Spencer who was ever curious ended up falling for the felon, Tobey Cavanaugh, next door if you want to know the truth of it. No love is not a respecter of persons. Their winding road started with french lessons and she goes back to him in the end, hot and heavy to start again.
In between times, we find that Spencer is NO Hastings heir but only the daughter of her adopted father and the neighbors twin sister. How convulted and twisted can a story be? I tell you it got downright crazy at the end of this tale.
If I were to guess the ending it would not have been this, admittedly I didn’t read the books. Not only that but she has a twin sister, something that is so far in left field for us NONE book readers that it seemed thrown together. Of all the people in Rosewood, to have a twin, she would have been my last choice.
Well, her sister, Alex Drake, was the evil twin, but no so evil as disperate for a Man of all things, Yes you know it FAIL!! To make this even weirder it makes her Alison’s cousin, Jason’s sister, Jason is Alison’s brother also and Cece Drake’s sister who was the original A, who is also called Charlie because of all the things happening in Rosewood there was time for Charlie to change genders. I guess in Radley Sanitarium they do nurture your entire psyche, that is if you are not a little blind baby. Oh never mind.
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The final Liar is Alison DeLaurentis, who had been missing a year at the start of the series. It was believed that she also was found in that beginning, but it seems no one or at least the girls didn’t see the body.
Let’s be clear about Alison, she had a reputation for being bossy and a bully. She treated her friends like whatever she had to say was the law. It seems she really never grew up and expected everyone to be at her beck and call. She was popularly unpopular for that behavior. There were many of her classmates that she taunted including, Mona, Lucas and Paige. She also was heavy handed with giving advice to her closest friends, I wonder if any one of them was surprised she had gone missing.
During Alison’s time out on her own she endured some things that made a difference in her character and personality. Despite leanning on Cece who wasn’t always available because it turns out she was hanging with Wren and Alex, she was also abused by a young man who took her money.
It took time for the others and the town to take her serious in this change which of course created problems in the last two seasons. Alison herself also had times of going into her previous persona such as her outbursts with Paige after she started to realize she loved Emily.
This ended up being my favorite part of the last season. Emily was always the best friend to Alison despite her bad behavior and to see her protecting Alison after they began to grow close felt like a good situation for them both. Paige finally took the hint and left town while Alison had Emily’s twin girls and moved on with their lives. I think that would have been a good ending.
Of course the actual ending, was a total rerun of the original first part of the series but with new characters, a whole new group of five girls with one gone missing, how Unoriginal.
For only seven seasons the show seemed longer to me. Many times with the obvious inconsistencies I wanted to stop watching but it had that car wreck effect. Sometimes I watched because I couldn’t stop because I was curious to see what was next. In the end, I am glad I watched to the end.
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