Why Mona was the best ‘A’
OK, I know I’m not exactly going out on a limb here, but I think the reasons why she was so cool help illustrate why the later A reveals sucked so much.
First of all, she was a good character in her own right. Like, Mona was awesome even before the A reveal, and people actually cared about her. Charlotte was barely defined and no one really cared about her (ditto for Shana), while Alex, of course, we were unaware of the existence of. You can’t expect the audience to be shocked by a character they hardly know.
Second, she had a plausible motive. Not the one she gave, of course, but she still had one none the less. Fans could go “Yeah, that made sense”, even if the explanation she gave was more “Huh?”. For Charlotte and Alex all we had was the “Huh?”.
Third, she was part of their lives, and part of the story. One of the interesting things they did with her as A was that you can rewatch old episodes and see the overlap between her being A and her just being Mona. One of the great scenes of season 2 was Emily apologising to Mona, and you can see all the different Mona’s flashing across her face, almost fighting to control her reaction.
And this was where, imho, the next two A reveals really went wrong. In order to explain them, they had to create a backstory for both characters which took place entirely off screen. From a narrative point of view this was terrible, as it required straight-up exposition by the newly revealed villain, who had presumably been getting more and more frustrated at everyone else’s complete inability to work out their master plan. But also it reduced the liars, even Alison by the end, to side characters in their own story.
So many things that did happen ended up being red herrings, up to and including several murders. Heck, even the reason for Alison’s disappearance ended up being a “Whoops” rather than a “Damn!”. They kept setting up clues that there was something sinister going on, that the other body had been deliberately made to look like her, that the NAT club was involved, that Ezra was involved, that it was to do with Cape May, that Alison had some dark secret, that the liars themselves had done something, and then… nah.
Meanwhile, all the relevant action was taking place somewhere else with a bunch of characters neither the audience nor the protagonists even knew existed.
And finally, Mona being A worked thematically. She, like Jenna, was the walking reminder of the liars’ complicity to Alison misdeeds. But more than that, A was the personification of the rumour mill, of the judgement of society, of the hypocrisy and intrigue that goes from school to the broader society. A was the force that branded the girls liars when they told the truth, that exposed their failings while covering up those of the those in power. A was the condemnation that made a few selected victims into ‘bad’ girls, so everyone else could feel better about themselves.
Mona learned these forces, understood them, then turned them against the liars. Just as Alison had scapegoated her, she marked them out once Alison was no longer there to protect them. And because Mona was part of their world, this meant something.
Charlotte and Alex, not really. ‘Shits and giggles’ isn’t really a good motive for a villain, and it lacks any resonance as a piece of storytelling, The liars were just being punished for someone else’s sins, and in the end it meant nothing.
And the really frustrating this is, as mentioned above, they set up so many interesting hooks they could have hung a good story on, then ignored them. Then end of season 2, where Mona gets a visit in Radley, made perfect sense. There was someone else above Mona, someone controlling what was going on. Instead of just throwing out everything up to that point they could have built on it.
What would have made a lot more sense after the Mona reveal would have been to keep the idea of A as the watching, judgmental eye, but escalate. Bring in the constant voyeurism of the older males of Rosewood, the ones who exploit and objectify girls like the liars. Make it about the all of this, and the obvious creep factor in town. Make the next A a man, someone older, someone obsessed with the girls, someone with more resources and influence, but with a respectable cover, like an English teacher…
This show could have been so good if it had had any guts.
