It has come to my attention that there's been a spin-off series of Pretty Little Liars called Original Sin. Apparently it takes place in the same universe as the original show but not in the same town and not with the same A. Based on several reviews I've seen for the new show on YouTube and TikTok, it sounds like the show overall has mixed reviews with most die-hard PLL fans disappointed. So, I believe a re-write is in order!
⚠️TW: suicide, Sexual Assault, Drug abuse, Bullying
For context, I have not actually watched the show yet, so this is entirely based off of recap/review videos I've seen on Youtube. It sounds like Emogen is the main protagonist, and befriends the other liars in a Breakfast Club-esque detention moment. The liars have secrets and tea (one just got back from juvie, the main character was impregnated by her SA, another is a ballerina with scoliosis and tries to hide her condition for the sake of acceptance and competition, etc.) but it sounds like the primary motive for A is to enact revenge on the liars' moms because the moms let a girl [unalive] herself at a party/dance when she asked them for help. The main character Imogene's mom does the same thing in the first episode of the show after receiving an invite to a party that essentially is meant to recreate the night that the girl died on; I guess it's insinuated that the guilt from this night drove Imogene's mom to end her life (I'm trying to be tactful without using the exact verbiage because, as a SH and depression survivor myself, I know sometimes seeing the exact word can be triggering.) In this re-write universe, we'll have it follow the plot and lore of my original PLL re-write, so if you haven't read that yet GO READ THAT ONE FIRST! Anyways, it sounds like the first half of the pilot was promising, but then things fell apart from there. So, with the context in mind, let's rewrite PLL: Original Sin!
School starts and Emogen is back for the first time since the initial SA investigation from the party last spring break, roughly 6 months pregnant now. She cusses out a kid who pokes fun at her pregnancy in front of the entire class which lands her a cold seat in detention. Imogene's best friend sticks up for her, which also lands her in detention. There Emogen and her bestie meet the other liars, and after a few jokes and a mutual hatred for Karen Beasely, they sorta become friends. Then, after realizing that Karen is truly the most foul, Emogen proposes they all kill her. Initially it's taken as a dark joke, but then they discuss the hypothetical plan in more detail when one of the liars turns out to be a true-crime fanatic. After detention they dismiss the conversation, not actually planning to kill Karen but thankful to have made new friends with a mutual enemy.
The next day, Karen is killed - exactly as Emogen and the liars jokingly planned! How the hell did that happen?! The liars conduct in-house interrogations, too new of friends to be certain they can trust each other. They all follow leads to try to figure who may have killed Karen, and coincidentally they all start receiving personalized messages from A. The liars take their own leads given to them by A and meet each other per A's orchestration. A taunts them, then shows them another dead body - the school janitor. A now essentially orders the girls to cover up for A, or they'll pin the murders on them and share all of the liars' secrets (still kinda working on the red-herring motive).
But who the hell is A, and why target them? Well, ladies and gentlemen, A is for Allison, isn't it? So she has to be at least somewhat involved. When Allison ran away as Vivian Darkbloom, she didn't go far; the town Emogen and friends reside in is a hop skip and ugly little secret away. Here Allison rules the high school as queen bee, malicious and kniving as ever, under the name Vivian Darkbloom.
Vivian Darkbloom bullied and blackmailed everyone in her new town, and even recruited a group of friends to replicate her original clique back in Rosewood; a quirky artsy girl like Aria, a low-self esteem girl like Hanna - though ridiculed more for her thinness than bigness (because unfortunately haters body-shame all body types, so we ain't gonna leave our slim baddies to feel unrepresented), a smarty-pants like Spencer, and a pretty girl to love - and manipulate - like Emily.
Vivian couldn't leave the A-game alone; she missed the power and the games, she needed to feel control again. The replacement for Emily grows very close to Allison/Vivian. Her name is Bethany Young.
✨Now I know what you're thinking "CJ WHAT THE FUCK?!' But hear me out okay, this all gets hella confusing unless you read my original post about the Pretty Little Liars rewrite, so again READ THE ORIGINAL POST. And just stick w me bc shit's about to go down.
Bethany Young and Allison/Vivian become besties in this new town, and because Bethany is so much like Emily (she even has a crush on Vivian), Allison/Vivian strings her along and tells her some of her own secrets. One of those secrets is that she's actually a runaway from Radley Sanitarium, and before she moved to their town she ruled Rosewood as Allison DiLaurentis. Bethany doesn't believe Vivian/Allison at first - everyone makes fun of the 'loony bin' that is Radley - so Allison/Vivian sneaks them both in to see some of the crazy people Allison met while she was there. One of the 'crazy people' Allison met as "Aria" was Mrs. Kavanaugh, the mother of one of her classmates. Mrs. Kavanaugh was always 'so annoying' about her little Bible verses and her love for horses and the Christian farm she was raised at. Allison takes Bethany to the roof of Radley to show her the skyline of Rosewood, her home. Well Mrs. Kavanaugh catches Allison and Bethany, and Mrs. Kavanaugh realizes that Allison is who she thought was supposed to be Aria, and "Aria" escaped, so she goes to call for help to recapture "Aria" but then Allison pushes her off the roof. Bethany is shocked and mortified. Security comes running and Allison blames the incident on Bethany Young, and lies and says that she was there as a volunteer named Cece Drake and saw Bethany push her. Bethany is obtained and hospitalized, assumed guilty by her therapist Dr. Rollins because she's been having more and more violent encounters with her teammates in lacrosse at school. Allison gets away again, but Bethany's sister knows Allison/Vivian set her up - she always rubbed her the wrong way.
Bethany tells her sister the truth - about how Vivian is actually Allison and Allison used to pretend to be someone else as a patient at Radley. Bethany and her sister plot revenge on Allison by obtaining as much information as possible. Bethany's sister visits Rosewood under the name Sara Harvey.
Now things are gonna get confusing so here's what you need to know for this timeline to make sense; Alison ran away 'that night' pretending to be Aria. Allison as Aria escapes Radley, real Aria moves to Iceland. No body was found or buried 'that night'; Mona thinks she killed Allison, but has fugue memory as a trauma response to the attempted murder and forgets the night ever happened. Spencer's sister Melissa said she buried Allison to protect Spencer - she lied, she buried Allison for Mona. Then Aria pulls Allison out of the ground, Ezra drives Allison to Radley, etc. Spencer was high on pills and thought she was arguing with Allison, but she was arguing with Cece, who had the same outfit as Allison on because they were besties and loved to twin outfits. Spencer goes back inside. Obviously after this night Allison is living large as Vivian Darkbloom after she realizes Aria is abandoning her by moving to Iceland, instead of helping her escape like she had promised. Allison befriends Bethany then falsely accuses her. Bethany's sister does some investigating under the name Sara Harvey and befriends Cece Drake after a spring break trip. Sara and Cece become friends after a mutual resentment for Allison; Allison got Cece thrown out of the NAT club and put Bethany in Radley.
Melissa confides in Cece when she gets psychologically overwhelmed by the supposed murder of Allison - she needs to make sure she and Mona get away with it. So, Melissa, Sara and Cece get their faces fitted and they attempt to create Allison masks to occasionally parade as her, that way Allison's friends can see that and think Allison is alive.
One night Bethany gets frustrated and escapes Radley to confront Cece, Sara, and Melissa, who all think Allison is dead. Bethany wants to be certain that Allison is dead - she doesn't want Allison to escape her revenge when she's been sneaky with her personas already. Ian is outside watching Bethany approach the house and thinks it's Allison, so he runs to Melissa's barn house, grabs his trophy, then kills her. Cece, Melissa, and Sara see this then Cece gets an A message threatening to expose them all for the murder of Bethany and the "supposed" murder of Allison. Cece realizes that the -A signature was usually used by Allison, so she digs up the hole under the gazebo and they realize Allison was never dead. Now they gotta cover two birds with one blanket - and try to get at least one step ahead of Allison. Scared and confused, Cece goes to Jessica DiLaurentis and tells her the truth - well, part of the truth. She claims Allison disappeared because she killed a classmate, and now Cece doesn't know how to protect Allison because they found the classmate's body. Jessica agrees to protect Allison and Cece, and helps bury Bethany - Cece remembers the outfit she was twinning with Allison the night she was reported missing, so they dress Bethany in that outfit and bury her under the gazebo construction area. Jessica plans to lie to officials if the body is ever found and pretend it's Allison. Cece and Melissa vow to help Sara enact revenge on Allison via the A team, and they must first find Allison by interrogating her friends.
Skip to the timeline of Original Sin: Sara Harvey didn't die like she did in the original tv show. Instead, Emily turns her in to the police and Sara is kept in Radley after blaming her grief and remorse for Bethany to join the A team and torment the girls. She is hospitalized with Cece, who comes up with this elaborate lie to get into Radley and hopefully one day appeal to leave. Sara thinks Cece is going to help Sara leave as well, or at least escape under an alias, but she doesn't. Sara thinks Cece abandoned her, but she realizes Allison murdered Cece. Allison and Aria have already been caught and hospitalized in an undisclosed location, from which Allison supposedly escaped again. So, Sara finds the daughters of Bethany's high school friends to bring the group back together. They joke about killing their own equivalent of Allison - Karen - and Sara kills her as A. Sara torments the girls and their mothers, hoping to draw out Allison for one last hurrah before finally ending the - A urban legend by destroying Allison, Aria, and herself - who she calls Alias-on (a play on Allison).
Emogen and her friends must end the generational curse of Allison's - A reign by putting the pieces together to avenge Bethany's death.
That is what Original Sin should've been about; tie it back to the original PLL universe and maintain plot line consistency/tie up lose ends we never got answered in the original show.
Spencer finds herself locked up in a high tech prison underground and finds that a bloodied Ezra is locked up also, in a separate cell. He starts to tell her that he has to get out and hurry up to get to Aria He pretends to struggle at first but then, he pushes his cell door open with ease. Spencer is equally horrified and baffled.
“Spencer, you were always the smart one. You found out it was me, and you were about to tell Aria. But I can’t let you do that.”
He reveals that he is the real A.D. Assuming a different alias with Aria (unknowingly) being his accomplice. He is obsessed with toying with/torturing young girls - especially Ali. He discovered Aria’s multiple personality disorder early on and decided to use it to get in the girls’ inner circle. He reveals that he has poisoned Aria so that she would be barren. He intends to take the Emison girls as his and Aria’s own, and he is the sperm donor.
As Ezra is speaking, he looks back and finds Spencer’s cell is empty. She lunges a knife from the underground bunker into his back and we see his body fall.
“Deux peuvent garder un secret si l'un d'entre eux est mort… Two can keep a secret if one of them is dead.”
The last scene is the group of girls at an outdoor funeral for Ezra. After the other girls have left, Aria (now a “widow” in black) is crying with both sadness and anger. She hears rustling by a nearby tree. When she looks over, Ezra in a black hoodie puts his finger to his face as if to say “shhhh”. Aria returns this sign, except directly to the camera. Fade to black.
Reasons to suspect Aria has been a part of the A shenanigans since way back
*The writers make mention to her one year in Iceland after the BFF's 'disappearance' and never touch on it further. *Her connection with Alison seem forced a and sometimes non existant. *She may be a clumsy but we have seen A moments before the girls almost catch them due to hearing a noise from somewhere. We're just seeing it from a different pov. *Her weird close connection to Mona the A tech queen 2.0 *Her not so subtle message to Mona in the cinema that sent her crying in the bathroom. It takes a lot for Mona to show vulnerability after all she's been through. *The recent references on her handling a knife. *Her ability to lie really good to her friend's faces as we can clearly see these last few episodes. *Her "I'm helping Ezra" or "Ezra Ezra Ezra" excuse to disappear and be shady. This may not be new to her. *In conversations with the liars, Aria always seems to be either straying the conversation away or setting them up with some bogus distraction. *She has the least amount of A torture moments in all the liars. *Secret diary writing. *Her photography. *The magic show in ravenswood where she disappears. In these kinds of stuff, the person disappearing is usually involve with the trick. That's what makes it work. *Her sudden tech skill after hearing Caleb talk that morning. Lol. *Some of her outfit choice. *Her lack of motivation in the solve for A quest the liars have been doing. *AriA *A chose and ppearabtly trusts her enough. Why? *She got away with a lot that A could have easily used. There's more but it's so much.
Thanks guys for following my page and giving my sometimes outlandish theories the time of day, its been a blast and will miss it all ! :( To all my aria is a theorists who never gave up on the one and only theory that makes sense no matter how you slice it! lol ARIA IS A til the very end! wooot! woot!
ps: imagine the writers try and steal our genius tumblr theories n tweek them to create the spinoff??? be on the look out guys! because i will be at that protest XD
Ok I just watched the episode and Aria brings salt water taffy to visit Nicole! Didn’t A have a thing for salt water taffy in the early seasons!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I think AD is gonna reveal him/herself to Aria in the next episode. That would explain the shots of Aria in the limo, and her going dark in 7X15. That would mean that AD would maybe make Aria keep it from the rest of the girls, and that would mean that she'd turn on them, in a way. I'd SO be down for that.
