LOS ANGELES — The big mysteries of “Pretty Little Liars” finally will be revealed to all of the fans of the TV series. No more red herrings. No more sudden twists. The last 11 hours of the seventh season of the Freeform series begins airing tonight and the identity of the “A” will be known.
Now, the only thing fans need to do is try to remember the clues from the 150-plus episodes that have been sprinkled out over the seasons. Even the cast has had a difficult time keeping all of the bits and mystery pieces straight.
Lucy Hale, who plays Aria Montgomery, jokes that she’s on the show but is as confused as some of the fans.
“It’s been very fun. We almost need graphs and grids, to sort of understand what’s going on,” Hale says. “But I’m always constantly impressed that the people who have watched from the very beginning, and that’s why I love our fans. They don’t watch here and there. They watch West Coast feed. They watch East Coast feed. They re-watch it, and they really put the pieces together.
“They’re very passionate, very smart. They come up with even their theories and they’ve changed our lives. This has been such an amazing ride, and it’s been so fun, and it truly is all because of them.”
The fans have watched the story unfold through Hale, Troian Bellisario, Ashley Benson, Tyler Blackburn, Ian Harding, Shay Mitchell, Andrea Parker, Janel Parrish and Sasha Pieterse. They have not only watched, but the fans have made the series one of the top topics in social media. And it’s so popular that fans around the world go online to watch the series before it officially becomes available in their country.
Series creator I. Marlene King was aware of what fans were saying through social media. She listened to their ideas but never let them pull her completely away from the original plan she created for the show’s mystery course.
“If there is a couple that people really love, or a couple that people really don’t love, we have taken that into account as we move the story forward,” King says.
Mitchell, who plays Emily Fields, has loved being able to see all of the theories by the fans as each episode would air. She’s excited that all the fans will finally get their answers.
Social media is expected to be even more intense surrounding the final episodes. “Pretty Little Liars” tends to start trending on Twitter a day before the episode airs. That’s why anyone who wants to find out the answers to the mystery without spoilers will need to watch the episodes when they air.
“Pretty Little Liars” is one of the highest rated shows on the cable channel and a monster of social media. That doesn’t read like the kind of credentials for a show going off the air.
There’s a simple reason the series is ending now.
Joseph Dougherty, executive producer of the series, says, “We’ve done everything we possibly can to say thank you and reward you, and pay things off, and answer the questions that people have been asking about. And we’ve pretty much run out of questions at this point.”
TELEVISION
“Pretty Little Liars”
8 p.m. Today, Freeform
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