It’s not the first time that the Liars have been thrown to the wolves, Alison (Sasha Pieterse) included, but it is the first time that the writers have played things this close to the edge. Pretty Little Liars, for a teen drama sans any supernatural elements especially, deals in life and death situations on what seems like a ceremonious basis.
Even after discovering that for the better part of four long seasons Ali was actually on the run instead of being dead (since let’s face it, in today’s programming 25 episodes might as well be an eternity), the body count is still fairly high – and, we’re not talking about characters dying from old age or illness either. Yet, after all that evading and creative storytelling, Ali’s lies caught up with her in the most inconvenient way, leaving all the Liars stuck in unflattering orange jumpsuits until further notice.
It’s not that I readily assumed Ali’s attorney was going to come up with a brilliant defense or that she was automatically going to be pronounced innocent, but the circumstances are problematic. The writers may not be concerned with realism at every turn, but they at least should concern themselves with continuity. Ali is a character whose very nature is to keep talking until someone believes her. Yet, when her literal freedom is on the line, she couldn’t respond to a simple question from the prosecution. If they could find an award she received a decade earlier over the course of an hour-long lunch break, they could probably track down her bunk mate and confirm it was rigged, right? It just seems a little hard to believe, that’s all.
Her fate, and the fate of her friends, who have now all been arrested as accomplices post-verdict, hang in the air, and this is the moment she decides to be speechless? In fact, the story arc overall since Ali ‘returned from the dead’ has been more than a little far fetched. Not that there weren’t lapses in reality prior to her reappearance, but the show has become decidedly darker since then – and not in a particularly good way. I’ve commented on it before, but whoever has filled the shoes of A, or comprises the A-Team nowadays, is playing by a completely different set of rules.
