'Pretty Little Liars' season 2 finale reveals identity of 'A': Burning questions answered! -- EXCLUSIVE
The wait is over: The identity of the elusive “A” was revealed on Monday’s new episode of ABC Family’s addictive teen mystery-drama Pretty Little Liars. The fast-paced episode careened through a Psycho homage and a masquerade ball before — SPOILER ALERT! — dropping the bombshell that variously snobby clinger Mona Vanderwall (Janel Parrish) was “A,” the cyber-bully who’d been terrorizing Aria (Lucy Hale), Spencer (Troian Bellisario), Hanna (Ashley Benson), and Emily (Shay Mitchell) since the death of their pal Allison (Sasha Pieterse) in the show’s 2010 premiere.
The reveal, of course, leads to so many questions: Why Mona? What was her motive? Did she have help? Is there a “Team A” now? Will Mona be back when Pretty Little Liars returns for season 3 in June? What’s happening next season? And we should address the other shocker of last night’s episode: Why kill Maya? To answer those burning questions and more, EW tapped series creator Marlene King and executive producer Oliver Goldstick for an exclusive interview to fill us in on all the scoop:
+ Mona? Really?! Yes, really. King says that Mona was the “most logical and also the most satisfying” choice for “A” because she had motive. “There were other people along the way who could have been ‘A’ — and they’re liars and they’re cheats — but Mona was completely abused by Allison and bullied by Allison,” King explains. “The Pretty Little Liars let her do it, and we see that in the pilot, in the very first scene, where she’s running after Allison and Aria and they just don’t even pay attention to her. ‘If you ignore it, it will go away’ — that’s what Allison says. And from that moment, ‘A’ was born.” As for Mona also being “A” in the book series, Goldstick adds: “We felt like we had a certain need to honor the thing that was set up by the author.”
+ What was Mona’s motive? “The motive for Mona really kicked into gear when Aria came back from Europe, because Mona had Hanna for that year and they became friends,” King says. “This fear of losing Hanna again inspired Mona to start tormenting these girls in the way that they tormented her, and then it kind of backfires. She ends up bringing them closer together than ever, so then she’s even more p—ed than ever in season 2. She really wanted to get Hanna back all to herself. Mona hates Hanna the most because the other three were Allison’s friend, but Hanna was her friend. She feels the most personally betrayed by Hanna.”
+ What key moments should fans go back and watch again? There are many, but King points to one in particular from last night’s finale. “In the finale, there’s a moment that I love where Spencer says to Mona — and I forget the exact wording — but it’s like, ‘I know who you are,’” King says. “Mona says, ‘Guilty.’ It was like she was completely giving it up right there. It was at the ball. There are little moments like that if you go back.”
+ When did Parrish find out she was going to be “A”? About halfway through shooting this past season — so, last fall. “Janel kind of suspected it all along, and so she played her role with that in mind, but it was really about halfway through season 2 that I pulled her aside and had a conversation,” says King. “I said, ‘You are ‘A.’ And so she started playing things with that
knowledge in mind. We started asking more and more of her, in more complicated scenes.”
+ Is Mona unhinged? Definitely, says King. “You can’t do what she’s done — I mean, Mona hit Hanna with her car — and not be unhinged,” King continues. “There’s a moment in the finale when she’s in the car, and Spencer says, ‘But you hit Hanna with a car.’ And Mona says, ‘It’s easier to forgive an enemy than it is to forgive a friend.’ To me, that sums up her entire motivation right there.”
+ Why kill Maya? “That’s the only backlash I think we’re going to get from the finale,” King says, referring to Maya’s unexpected death in the last few minutes of the episode. “The Maya fans are going to be a little bit upset.” The decision, King continues, was a difficult one. “It was a really hard decision to make because I know Emaya shippers are very passionate about that couple, but it just felt like we had to continue on this journey and it was a step we needed to take to give ourselves more mystery and open up the show to season 3. Plus, it was just great drama. That scene has me on my knees every time I watch it.” Adds Goldstick: “With Allison’s death — and now Maya’s — you say, ‘Are these related? They’ve got to be related.’ If they are related, was it because this person was about to be caught?”
+ Does this mean that Garrett is off the hook for Allison’s murder? Not exactly. “Mona’s incarcerated for being ‘A,’ but not for being Allison’s killer,” King clarifies. “So when we come back, Garrett is still in jail for Allison’s murder. That’ll be dealt with in season 3. And the NAT club still very much plays a part of that. There might be one other member of the NAT club that you don’t know is a member of the NAT club.”
+ Do the PLLs know that Jenna can see now? “We’re going to keep that secret from the PLLs for a while,” King says.
+ Who was the Black Swan at the ball? “That’s a mystery that’s coming back,” King says. “Who was that person talking to Jenna and Lucas? And who is the Black Swan?”
+ Will Mona be around in season 3? For sure. “Mona stays a part of the show,” King says. “You haven’t seen the last of Mona. When I told Janel she was going to be ‘A,’ the next week I got a call from her manager because she knows that in the books Mona dies. Mona is ‘A,’ Mona goes off a cliff, and Mona is dead. So Janel was like, ‘Does this mean I’m dead?’ I’m like, ‘No, you will survive.’ So Mona is not dead because Mona is a beloved character in this show and she’s still a part of the show in season 3.” Mona won’t necessarily be in prison, King says, but “there may be some padding on the walls” of where she is, however. Goldstick adds: “This is a whole different adventure. That was one ride. They’ll get another ride here. Mona’s not going away, just to be clear.” (Goldstick says that killing Mona, like in the books, was never on the table. “We don’t kill people as easily in this show. We do kill some people, but we try to be a little bit more careful.”)
+ Does Mona have help? Is “A” now “Team A”? That’s still murky — and King doesn’t necessarily want to clarify anything for viewers quite yet. “I don’t think anyone should assume anything,” King says, cryptically. “I think our hopes are that we stay super, super quiet before coming back. We’re going to be making episodes for a couple of months before we start airing them [in season 3], and we’re going to have the Pretty Little Liars and everyone keep a little bit of radio silence on the tweeting until we come back because we really want people to be surprised with what season 3 of the show is.”
+ Was the person in the red coat at the end Mona’s accomplice? It’s unclear, but King teases: “Red is the new black. I think that’s the best way to say it: Red is the new black.”
+ Does Maya’s death factor into the mystery of season 3? Surely, surely. “It fuels a lot of it,” King says. “We feel like the Emaya fans deserve some answers and some closure, and that’s what season 3 will embrace.”
+ What else is happening in season 3? “Without giving too much away, when we come back,” King says, “Ezra’s still been Aria’s rock and safe place to land, and they’re closer than ever.” We’ll be introduced to Ezra’s family, including his brother, mother, and father. Plus, the impending birth of Melissa’s baby will become a central plot point in the new season. “That’s a mystery that’ll be solved in a few episodes as we get back.” And Lucas’ return in last night’s episode factors into the season, too. “What’s going on with Lucas?” King says. “He might not be the person you thought he was. I think he has a dark side maybe he’s been hiding.”
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Watercooler Exclusive! Pretty Little Liars' Mastermind Teases Season 3
Slap us in the girls' room and call us Jenna. Mona was "A" all along!
Or at least one "A." Last night, Pretty Little Liars' second season went out with a bang of crazy as the ABC Family quartet finally figured out who's been terrorizing them since Ali's funeral. Taking a page from author Sara Shepard's fourth Liars novel (in which Mona was also revealed to be "A") and several pages from Psycho, the show's second Hitchcock-themed finale gave us so much. A trip to a Bates-y motel. A shower scene that had us all drawing a bath. A loony-bin scene that would make Norman and his mom proud. And yes, a huge Spencer-Mona showdown that mercifully did not follow the book version by offing little Miss Maniac. Since this is PLL, there was also a lair-full of twists both romantic (yay Spoby!) and revelatory (Ezria did go all the way last week) along the way, as well as back-to-back final-moments shockers that screamed, "There's so much more to the story!" And probably a lot less of Maya. If Em's mom was right, then RIP, you glorious 40-something teenager.
So where does that leave us, aside from counting the days until the June 5th season premiere? Well, it leaves the Watercooler with a few tidbits about the third season—and no amount of ominous texts from whomever Mona is in cahoots with can keep us from sharing them with you.
According to PLL's executive producer Marlene King, the next time we see our Liars, a healthy amount of time will have passed, but probably won't have healed all wounds, especially poor Hanna.
"The [episode's pre-credits] teaser is a two-month jump to the last day of school, and then we jump again to Labor Day weekend, the two-year anniversary of Alison's death," reveals King, adding that the first thing fans will see should bring back some unsettling memories.
"The opening image of season three is the barn."
And although King says "there is a breath we take" when the show comes back, things will quickly get back to creepy even before the theme song kicks in. Early in the season premiere,
"there's another revelation" and a turn of events that will become the 2012 version of "The Jenna Thing" (the fire Ali and the girls set that blinded Toby's sinister step-sister). This time, it will be known as "That Night," says King.
"That's why the episode is called 'It Happened That Night,'" she explains.
"The cliffhanger we left you with [last night] rolls into Season 3. So there are new questions to be answered, and there is a new villain out there [who] I would say the is equally as threatening, and similar but different."
As for what triggers the emergence the foursome's next tormentor, all King will give us is that
"the girls get caught up [in something] and they make a bad decision that will haunt them all throughout Season 3."
To whet your appetite for the next season, ABC Family has provided TV Guide Magazine with an exclusive first look at this new promotional art:
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“
A” Revealed! Pretty Little Liars Boss Answers Burning Questions
So we know who “A” is. Now what? A central mystery of Pretty Little Liars may have been solved, but executive producer Marlene King says that the story is nowhere near over.
“This was a season finale, not a show finale, and people should prepare themselves that there’s so much more on this ride,” King told TVGuide.com the morning after the episode aired.
“This is the end of one story, but the beginning of a much bigger story.”
Although Mona Vanderwaal (Janel Parish) was revealed to be Aria, Spencer, Hanna and Emily’s big nemesis, clues throughout the hour pointed to the clear fact that she’s not working alone — but the girls have yet to realize it. Who else is on the “A”-team?” Is Maya really dead? Are Spencer and Toby back together for good? King answers our burning questions.
Did you know who “A” was from the beginning?
Marlene King: For the first six episodes, we were, like, “Well, we could go a couple of different ways,” but then we decided we were absolutely committed to Mona.
Some people are a little disappointed that “A” wasn’t someone completely shocking.
King: We really wanted “A” to have a strong motivation, and Mona’s was. We could support that in so many ways in regards to her character, so that was the key factor in why we picked Mona.
Was it always going to be Spencer, the brainiac, who put the final clue together?
King: There was a clue we gave out that “A” wanted a playmate, and I think Mona really thought of Spencer as her equal. Realizing that Mona is a genius and as smart as Spencer, she picked her to be the one to figure it out.
Was Maya definitely in that body bag?
King: I’m not going to say. It’ll all be resolved very shortly in season 3.
OK, well, was there a reason you brought Paige back? Is she going to be Emily’s new love interest?
King: There was definitely something specific about bringing her back. Emily definitely has the hardest time adjusting after this finale and she comes back in Season 3 a little disconnected from the others because of that.
Mona’s mention of toffee lipstick in her final monologue and the fact that toffee ice cream was mentioned earlier is haunting me!
King: There are a lot of those little nuggets that are buried in several episodes and they open up doors for more questions in Season 3.
I assumed it was a clue for Melissa’s guilt, but our readers think it points to Aria, whose favorite ice cream is toffee.
King: Everyone is a suspect and everyone continues to be a suspect for everything in Rosewood
.
Garrett and Melissa are so bizarre (and possibly guilty). How will they play into Season 3?
King: When we come back, Garrett is about to go on trial for Alison’s murder. Melissa always has interesting ulterior motives to all of her actions and a lot of that will play out in Season 3. We’ll answer more questions of old mysteries like what happened the night of Alison’s murder and did Garrett really kill Alison?
And are Spencer and Toby back together for good?
King: When we come back in Season 3, they’re still happy.
Even though she tried to slap him.
King: That was Troian’s idea. She said, “He’s just tortured me with this lie and I can’t believe I would be so forgiving!” It just worked so beautifully.
Where does Season 3 pick up?
King: We do have a time jump and during that time jump the girls don’t receive any “A” texts. They receive silly joke texts, but the next few months there is no sign of “A” and they believe that “A” is Mona, [who] is locked away. The premiere episode is called “It Happened That Night,” and there’s an incident that happens in the teaser of the episode where the girls make a decision that was of poor judgment. That night becomes the new Jenna thing and we go from there.
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'Pretty Little Liars' Janel Parrish on Season 3 time jump, the black swan and more
"Pretty Little Liars" capped off its second season with a roller coaster of an episode, culminating in Janel Parrish's Mona being revealed as "A" and being locked away in a mental hospital. Parrish spoke with Zap2it about Mona's motivations and what we can look forward to when PLL returns for Season 3.
So you're "A"! How did you feel when you found out?
"I was super excited. I had heard whispers that it might go in that direction ever since the pilot, only because Mona is 'A' in the books and it's such a big thing to change. But the writers were always coy about it, so I tried not to get too attached to the idea. But I always hoped that would be where it went. So I was super excited when I read the script for the finale. It was so hard not to call everybody in my life and tell them."
It seemed like the way the episode left things, possibly Mona is just one of A's minions. Like perhaps we haven't gotten the whole story there?
"Well, Mona is definitely 'A'. But there could be more to the story and that's what we're leading to for Season 3. Season 3 will focus on Mona explaining how she did what she did, if there are people helping her, who and why, who her visitor was and just all those things will be revealed in Season 3."
Congratulations on being made a series regular for Season 3, by the way. We hope we don't just see you in the mental ward the entire season.
"When the Season 3 premiere starts, it's actually going to take place six months after the finale ended, so
Mona will have spent six months in the sanitarium by the time the premiere comes around. So you will find out more about what has happened in the time when you saw the girls last."
So did you find out before everyone else that you were "A"?
"I asked Marlene a bunch of times, because I had a couple of scenes and to determine how I would play it, I had to know if that was where she was still going with it. So throughout the season, I'd be like, 'Hey am I still 'A'? What's the deal?" and she'd coyly say, 'As of now, yes. But it could change.' So I always had it in the back of mind and I tired to play my scenes as if I knew I was 'A'."
So you knew at the start of Season 2?
"Yes. I had a very strong idea that that's where they were going. But they did say that things could change, so I tried not to get super excited about the idea. So when I got the finale script and finally saw that's where it went, I was very, very excited."
Was Mona's obsession with Alison the driving force behind all of this?
"Definitely the fact that she wanted so badly to be like Alison. And when Alison died, Mona tried so hard to fill her shoes. And Dr. Sullivan did say in the finale that Mona has a personality disorder, so she's not of sound mind. But she's also a very smart girl. She has a plan for everything she does. You'll find out more about that in Season 3."
We found it really interesting that Spencer found those black swan sketches, but then there was actually a girl dressed as the black swan at the dance? Do you know who that was, even if you can't tell us?
"I do."
Is that something we might find out in Season 3?
"Yes, I think it will.
Everything is connected. The puzzle pieces will start to come together."
So Lucas might have something to do with "A"?
"Could be.... I don't know." [laughs]
Let's talk about the other big bombshell for a minute - Maya's been dead this whole time and "A" has been texting/calling Emily as Maya. We find it really interesting that "A" doesn't necessarily have to be Maya's killer - Mona could've just known about it and taken advantage of it.
"Yeah. There are a lot of pieces to the story that people don't even know about.
Maya's killer might not necessarily be the same person who killed Alison. Or 'A' might not necessarily be the same person who killed Maya. That's where Season 3 comes in, you will find out more about all those pieces."
We can hardly wait to get more of the puzzle. "Pretty Little Liars" returns to ABC Family Tuesday, June 5 at 8 p.m. ET/PT. For more information, visit ABC Family's official PLL site.
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Pretty Little Liars' 'A' Talks Big Reveal, Her Team of Helpers and Upcoming Time Jump
ABC Family’s Pretty Little Liars unmasked “A” – or at least the public face of the Liars’ tormenter – in its Monday-night Season 2 finale, but it’s rather evident that not all is as it seems when it comes to the true puppet master behind all the chilling chicanery.
The morning after the big reveal, TVLine spoke with Janel Parrish, who plays Hanna’s onetime BFF aka the vengeful Mona – and now a series regular for next season — about bringing her “A” game to such an “intense” character.
ON FIRST LEARNING ABOUT HER FATE | “I got the official word about a week before we filmed the season finale, and it was just so surreal,” Parrish gushes. “It’s an honor, really, to play such an intense, important character to the story, so I just embraced it and loved every minute of filming it.”
ON HAVING ANY SUSPICIONS OF HER OWN | “I had a feeling it was [Mona], because obviously Mona was ‘A ‘in the books. I [previously] tried to get answers from the producers, and they basically said, ‘It could be you but things can change. We’re not following the books exactly.’ But I had hoped that’s where [the story] would go, and I’m so glad that it did!”
ON DONNING A HOODIE FOR THE FIRST TIME | “It was so exciting,” Parrish says of slipping into A’s outfit of choice. “[Series creator] Marlene [King] cried when she saw me walk on the stage wearing it for the first time…. It was like watching her baby come to life.”
ON THE “A” TEAM (AKA MONA’S ACCOMPLICES) | “You guys will definitely find out in Season 3. Next season will focus more on people’s connections, finding out how Mona did things, and if people were helping her, who and why…. Allllll the pieces will come together.”
ON THE PERSON WHO VISITED “A” AT THE END | “I know who it issssss,” the actress teases. “But I can’t tell you!” (As for whether that mystery person is also whom Jenna met with at the picnic table and/or the Black Swan at the gala, “I can’t say for sure… I don’t 100-percent know everything. I’m curious, as well!”)
ON EARNING A PROMOTION | “I am officially now a series regular for Season 3, which is a dream come true. I’m so honored to be a part of such an amazing show.”
ON THE LENGTH OF MONA’S LOONY BIN STAY | “That, I do not know. I know that when we come back [in Season 3], it’s six months after the finale has ended, so I will have been in the sanitarium for that time. But I do not know for how much longer she’ll be in there.”
ON HER HOPES FOR A MOMENT BETWEEN MONA AND HANNA | After all, it was the Liars’ appropriation of that friendship that triggered Mona’s psychotic break. “It’d be really interesting to see their interaction now that everything has happened the way that it has. Mona’s world got shattered — she lost somebody that she trusted and loved — so I’m sure were going to see the repercussions of that.”
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SEASON 3! I'll be waiting!"
It seems like to me that all the clues in the past episodes were helpless because they suddenly revealed Mona as A in ONE episode -- everything did not make sense at all. After all, hopefully season 3 will be much better and clearer, and won't go by the book anymore even though I never read it.