Pretty Little Goodbye - 7.20 PLL Recap & Review

I cannot believe it's been 7 years since I discovered this show. I binged the first 10 episodes, and I feel completely in love with the cast. I stopped watching sometime after season 3. I did catch up, somehow up until season 5 and then I dropped out again. And while I never really watched all the episodes, I always kept up with news, gifs, recaps and reviews. This show, it's cast, and the fans have been with me almost my entire adult life, and of course is sad it's ending, even if I really wasn't a fan of the story-line, but I still am a fan of the essence this show. So, it's time to say goodbye to seven years of mysteries, twist, turns, and several A's.

The 2 hour finale played like a movie, so the pacing of the episode was completely different of what we're accustom to. That being said, the first hour was just exposure. It picks up a year after Mona is revealed to kill Charlotte, and A.D was seen riding into the sunset, and everything appears to be Rosé color.

Hanna's designs are taking off, Caleb sold his software to Lucas and they are trying to get pregnant. Mona gets out of the Welby and Hanna as her sponsor, lets her stay with her and her dear husband, who is having none of it. However Hanna still feels guilty about dragging her former bestie back to the game.

Alison and Emily are still happily together, raising their twins Lily and Grace. Still being teachers. Emily thinks her girlfriend and her mother are unto something as they spend most of the first hour of the episode whispering around. Obviously, it was Ali doing a grand gesture and planning to propose to Emily, something she had to do on the spot (Pug sweater included) once her girlfriend went into the we won't sleep until we talk, phase. And she said YES.

Melissa is back in town, and her relationship with Spencer appears to be better than ever. The younger Hasting has been working with her mom in the law firm [As a paralegal], and going to college.

Toby comes back from Africa where he's been working with Jason, building houses.

Aria and Ezra (why are these two still together, besides I. Marlene King's will, it's beyond me but that's a topic for another day, possibly never) are maybe selling the rights of their book to a movie studio, for an adaptation and they are quite literally getting married in a couple of days.

So they go back to Rosewood where their friends throw them a bachelor and bachelorette dinner party, on the new the lost wood resort, because they're classy AF.

While this dinner was happening, lurking in the bushes, was black hooded Melissa, and she keeps the rest of the first hour doing the same, everywhere.

Aria finds out she cannot have babies, so she runs to her best friends, claiming she can't marry Ezra, cue the drama. Melissa finds out this, but PLOT TWIST [not really], it isn't Melissa, but Mona in one of those realistic creepy masks. She does the call and informs A.D., but the information is not of the interest of the bully, as it's not on the plans.

And according to plan, Mona kidnaps Spencer, when she wakes up, we get our big reveal, A.D is Spencer's British long lost twin sister, Alex Drake. Because why the hell not.

Cue explanation montage, Wren met Alex back in London, when she was working on a bar, and had no idea about Spencer. Wren set a reunion with Charlotte, and the sisters hit it off. However Charlotte missed the game, and went back to rosewood, hence A.D urgency to know what happened to her. But once she got her answer, she wanted everything Spencer had, the friends, the family, Toby. She somehow convinced Wren to shot her because she had to be identical to Spencer. Apparently, at some point Wren was a no done with everything or something, because Alex killed him, and turned him into a necklace, because diamonds are forever. Oh, and he is the Lily and Grace's father.

Alex's plan was very straight forward, she kidnaps Spencer and takes her life, if it weren't because she ran into Ezra, who was annoying her so she kidnapped him to. Making him Miss his wedding to Aria. Who thought he left her because she didn't tell him she couldn't have babies when she first found out. [Again, this drama was solely for this scene, so]

Alex is planning to kill Ezra, and was planning in doing the same with her sister, but she made a deal with Mary, so instead she was planning on leaving Spencer in the bunker she built.

Bashful [Spencer horse] was the real MVP but as he doesn't talk, Jenna, smelling a bitch from a mile away, was the one to let Toby know Spencer wasn't Spencer, as she ran into her on the law firm. Toby miraculously connected the dots, and informed the liars, who were trying to find Ezra, as he booked a hot air balloon as a honeymoon gift before disappearing, so it made no sense. Mona also came clean, as she let the others know she wasn't done with the game, as she was playing A.D. since she came out of the Welby, and while she didn't figure out who she was, [Until Toby came with the news] she did know where she was, the house Toby had built.

They run there, where Ezra and Spencer had managed to escape their cells, [Thanks to Mary bobby pin] but were still trapped under ground. In classic twin fashion, Toby and the rest arrive as Spencer and Alex are fighting over an ax, dressed the same, and both saying they are Spencer. Toby asks to the real Spencer to tell him her favorite poem of the book she gave him. And the other gets arrested, as Mona has called the 911. The police also arrested Mary a few blocks away.

But, PLOT TWIST, turns out that the police officer who arrested Alex, was Mona french boyfriend, and somehow they managed to drag Alex and Mary all the way to France, where Mona has them as her dolls, possibly forever.

At the End, Aria and Ezra get married, and are ready to go on their honeymoon. Toby will stay in town for a while and maybe [hopefully] he will reconnect with Spencer. New wedding bells are ringing, as Ali and Emily are engaged, and Hanna is pregnant.

The End.

Score: 3.6/5

Honestly, I cannot say the A.D reveal it's a surprise as the twin theories have been always part of the PLL mythos. And Spencer having twin, have been a theory for weeks, maybe months now. This twist somehow works because of the amazing acting of Troian Bellisario, who gives her everything, and even if her accent wasn't spot on, it didn't bother me as much, because of her strong presence on the screen.

The first hour of the episode was pretty much exposure, and while I did appreciated the sex scenes [Especially the Emison one, because we don't get much LGBTQ+ love and sex scenes very often] it was completely unnecessary from a storytelling point of view. As a Highlight, the scenes with the moms were fantastic, and I wouldn't mind this spin off. Not the one they are apparently planning, with Addison and co., which I still can't tell if they were really serious or if it was just a call back to the pilot episode.

This show was great on it's early seasons, but it got really sloppy over time, and in my opinion there is no other way it could have ended if IMK wasn't going to compromise her obvious bias towards some characters. Ezra, Melissa, Wren, or even Jason were more compelling characters to make A.D, but she settled for the secret twin.

It didn't answer all, but somehow she planned it with enough time to plant clues here and there about Alex's presence, and it kinda worked. Can't say it was a satisfactory ending, but it's the ending nonetheless.

This show was very problematic since the beginning and up until the end [Bullying, a teacher dating his under age student, physical and mental abuse, incest, pretty much rape???, Etc]. Some of this problematic behavior was never even addressed and it was thrown under the rug, but somehow this show managed to get us all involved and sometimes even rooting for some horrible people. It was, most definitely, part of our lives. Pretty Little Liars, you will be missed.

Goodbye and good riddance.

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