The wasted opportunity of making Aria "A" remains my biggest frustration with the show. Not just all the clues were there, but it would also justify some of her behaviour (like how she would constantly prioritize her relationship with Ezra above everything - even her own friends). And I understand that if you have her as your favourite character, having her turn out to be the villain wasn't very appealing. But I believe what made Mona's reveal so effective was the betrayal aspect. We loved her friendship with Hanna, so finding out that she was actually the one causing her so much harm was heart-breaking. The same would've happened if Aria was "A".

I definitely think Aria was supposed to be A, but Marlene eventually prioritised surprising the audience over choosing an ending that made sense.

I definitely think the writers' goal from the beginning was to have Aria be "A", which is why all the clues were there. I think Marlene King became paranoid when she thought the audience was catching on, and she was so desperate to shock everyone that she decided to risk the integrity of the story and throw in the totally random Spencer has a twin reveal. So disappointing !

The problematic nature of the mental illness aspect of the Aria is "A" theory actually adds credence to the idea that this was the original plan for the series.

23:34 yes, I also love the theory that Ali and Aria were working together. And from the flashbacks, they also seem the closest in the group.

hannah having someone in her phone as just “swimmer” actually is so real like shes so real for that .. she got their number not their name she wants to know if theyre calling but doesnt care to call them … iconic

I would love a Aria/Alison Final A Duo theory from you! Aria's core motivation when i think of the Aria is A theory is always that she was closer to Alison than the other girls, Mona was the sole A for s1-2, then Alison becomes A and recruits Aria/turns her against the other girls

I think the thing that made me most sure about Aria being A was the way her secrets were handled, especially early on. Her keeping Byron's affair secret is something her mother (at least in the show) nor anyone else would ever blame her for, and I always thought it was a little weird that A only told Ella only when Aria had made up her mind to tell her- effectively getting what she wanted done while dodging the blame from Byron by not technically have been the one to do it. As soon as she comes home to Rosewood, she immediately starts a relationship that she seems way too invested in extremely quickly, almost suspiciously quickly. Because the way A torments her personally (separate from the liars as a group) almost entirely revolves around her relationship with Ezra for most of the series, but unlike a lot of the other secrets, it's not something she personally can be blamed for. If the secret was to ever come out, Ezra (rightfully) would get the blame because he groomed her, and while she may be judged for it by some people, everyone in her personal life would be sympathetic. Her being blackmailed with this relationship isn't as threatening if there are almost no stakes and hypothetically, she was using Ezra the whole time. Maybe Alison had told Aria about her relationship with Ezra all those years ago, she knew he was a creep, that he was shady with a lot of his own secrets, ones she could take on as her own. It would explain why A sets up Noel to save her and Ezra's relationship, it was too soon for them to get exposed and if they were she'd have to come up with another reason why she's being blackmailed. In the episode where A sends her the doll that says "make Jackie go away" she remarks that A's only making them do what they want to do, but the consequences for Hanna and Spencer are way higher- Hanna risks her Dad never speaking to her again, Spencer has to break both her and Toby's hearts- but Aria? At MOST she risks Ezra breaking up with her, but if she doesn't care and she also doesn't care about Jackie she's not really risking much. Jackie turning around and blackmailing her was unexpected, but in the end that just results in Aria and Ezra, not A or Jackie, telling her parents the truth. It comes out probably earlier than Aria planned, but it's still on her terms, and as she expected: she's not the one being blamed. But she also can't NOT have a secret A's holding over her head so she makes plans so that she can go back to seeing Ezra behind her parent's backs: and then A quickly uses that secret to test how loyal Hanna is to Aria. And then she conveniently misses out on going on the date. Not to mention that it's shown even if she DOES get caught eventually, she proves she's capable of blackmailing her own father with the Meredith affair to let her do what she wants. In season 3 she also gets to tell Byron about trashing his office herself, even if it was technically under threat, but it's something she and most other people could justify with she was angry at him and she was a dumb teenager, and also it seemed like Alison pushed her to do it, she had three scapegoats in that confession. The Halloween Train is odd, but that could be explained by one of two things either Aria set it up to make it continue to look like she was in danger or there was infighting in the A Team and they were trying to take her out. According to the show it was Wilden and Melissa who did that, and Wilden would soon be dead and Melissa could probably be controlled easier because of the Bethany Young secret. The next secret she gets "threatened with" is once again: one of Ezra's that could only end up with them breaking up. Something that has very few consequences if she doesn't care about him. That secret comes out because A sends a text from Aria's phone saying he found out and that he broke up with him- or maybe Aria did send the text as a test and also to maintain the appearance of her being blackmailed. She WAS going to tell Ezra, but this way she gets to make Spencer do it and continue to make it look like A cares about harming her. In season 4 Ella gets attacked with bees (kinda fucked, but given Pam and Ashley were at risk for going to jail, it's kinda smaller) but the only thing that does to Aria is make her more convinced that she needs to make Ella leave the country- which would be convenient for A because there's one less parent to wonder where she is all the time. And then Aria doesn't get a single individual A text for the rest of the season. Also when Jenna refuses to give Aria information about Alison she soon ends up with her head bashed in, face down in the water. Aria also gets physically attacked a couple of times this season but never ends up with any actual physical damage. She also has that weird conversation with Cece's roommate who entirely breaks the canon of the show, but maybe if she was intended to be the final A, this was her getting the idea to have Cece be the next one to take the fall for it now that Mona's no longer on the A Team- and given an episode or two later Cece is seen in the hoodie for the first time, it would line up (although I doubt Cece would be aware Aria was behind everything). I don't know if she knew about Ezra writing the book AT FIRST, but if she found out and realised while she was playing him, he was playing her, it could have pissed her off enough that she put everything in place for her to reveal the final secret she had on him: that he'd hooked up with Ally. It also would give her an excuse to get her hands on the information he'd gathered about everyone else. A (as far as I remember) never threatens to expose her for killing Shana, although if A does it's not like they go through with it, she's also got the excuse of it was clearly self defence and how was she supposed to know pushing Shana off a stage would actually kill her, Shana was on the A-Team, but her allegiance had changed an Aria couldn't have that after all. And in the doll house, while she is being threatened, physically the most that happens is A gives her a cute haircut (which is traumatizing and fucked if Aria isn't A, but is completely find if she is) she does have an excuse to keep acting like it's horrifying as well because all the cameras are pointed at her. I never watched past the Cece reveal, so I can't speak to the last chunk. But I think this would also explain why A NEVER exposed Aria for cheating in every relationship she had, but also why Aria may have done it in the first place if she genuinely was never into Ezra, but needed him to maintain her cover. I don't think the multiple personality thing fits or would have been the right thing to do, but rather I think it's more likely Aria blamed the others for Alison's death and spent the whole year in Iceland mulling over it, becoming more and more like Alison behind the scenes. They always seemed quite close, and Aria out of all of them seemed the most complicit to Alison's more vicious side. Maybe it started with misplaced frustration, frustrated that all of Ali's secrets got her killed and that she still doesn't know all of them. Having the others secrets, while also mimicking Alison constantly pushing them to admit to them, could be her twisted way of both protecting them, while also blaming them for what happened to Alison. Getting addicted to the power of the game, but also when she knows secrets that they haven't told her it play into her internal narrative that they're bad friends, because good friends would tell her everything- good friends wouldn't be like Alison and die because of secrets Aria still didn't know. It's also a good way to push them to investigate Alison's death, finding out more information for her, but by the time Alison is revealed to still be alive it's too late, Aria's in too deep- plus now she's furious that Ali effectively lied to her and put her into this position in the first place, because she has to blame someone, she can't accept that she is the one who took things this far. Although, this could lead into her eventually recruiting Ali to be part of it to, which would be different from how most people would suspect things would go, but I think it could work- Alison made her like this in the first place, and now they're going down the road to hell together. There'd be a lot of hypocrisy in her motivation, but I don't think that's out of character, plus having the person who attempted to kill Alison being separate from A would have been better for reveals in my opinion.

"Split personality" is a terrible trope. Dissociative Disorder is something that most of the time comes almost exclusively from repeated child sexual abuse, specially during the first infancy, when the brain is forming. It's a survival tactic by the brain, it's the only way those children are able to survive that happening to them, emotionally and psychologically, by literally pretending to be someone else that is not there or that can protect themselves or that can fight back. People with Dissociative Disorder are survivors, and to then villainize them is extremely cruel. The only person they ever hurt is themselves. People with any mental illnesses are 99.9999999% of the case victims of further abuse and violence in life, and not the perpetrators. There is no such thing as a "psychopathic split personality."

The books' explanation of A is so perfect and I hate that they deviated from it so much just because Marlene was trying to win against the show's fan base

I never thought of or liked the idea that Aria was A when I watched the show, but in retrospect and after learning about the plot in the books I think the Aria-Alison being A theory is how the show should’ve ended. It would have added so much more momentum to the A reveals than Cece and freaking Alex Drake

Part of why I loved Aria was because I thought she was really suspicious 😂 I felt like there were some missed opportunities with plot points, and that the writers really jumped the shark with Alex Drake

I think the black swan theory can go deeper ,cuz in the original ballet, the Black Swan / Odile's role is to trick the prince into thinking she it the white swan / Odette. If Aria were to be A , it would make a pretty good parallel with her pretending to be Alison ( the show's Odette)

Borderline personality disorder and split personality disorder are two VERY different mental illnesses, just to clarify!

the Aria doll not wearing the hoodie after all could still be a piece of evidence bc they must have seen on set what it would look like in this specific lighting. so maybe they played with that on purpose, dressing her in Aria-Clothes but making them look like the A-Hoodie

DID (dissociative identity disorder) is what was formerly known as "split personality/multiple personality disorder". BPD is something entirely different lmao

"It doesnt link to Alex Drake, because nothing links to Alex Drake" 💀

here's a lil insider knowledge Miss Lauren, aria was always supposed to be A, she was supposed to have DID and the move to Iceland was supposed to be a "cover-up" for her having a break after Alison disappeared and her going to Radley, where she meets Cece, and they bond over Alison, then she gets out of Radley and her DID causes her to start the A game. (don't like the DID/ split personality storyline as DID is usually the consequence of extreme child SA, though not always, so I just don't like it) They then decided to scrap this storyline after the show started getting a bad rep for its portrayal of mental illness, also the Aria is A theory began to get suuuuupppppeeeeerrrrr popular online and Aunt Marlene was OBSESSED with "outsmarting" the audience so she threw out everything and pulled a "twist" out of thin air. SO yeah. That's the story. So it's technically not a theory... it was planned, but because they we're soo ass at representing mental illness they didn't want to take the risk.

“i mean he’s the villain of the whole show..” abt ezra lmao facts

About the mental illness "card".. I think A did so many twisted, unrealistic things, for many years, that a mentally stable person could never. I mean somebody, who is invested for torture middle school girls like this, and put his/her all life around it is nonsense, for an ordinary person. Many murders, hackings and illegal things throughout the years. Don't get me wrong, this is also due to poor writing and direction. I would have liked the story to be more realistic. But it obviously wasn't. Also, one thing that bugs me, is through about 10 years, the side characters in the A team had almost NO motives to do the things that they did. Exclude Jenna I was like... Why would Noel, Shana, Sydney, Sara and all these characters get involved in things, that they could go jail to?? "I will spy on five girls and try to murder them, because I found out, that I'm also in love with Jenna.." -_- I mean please stop. They tried to explain most things, but let's face it, they succeeded very poorly. So yeah.

yess pls do a dollhouse deep dive. i loved the dollhouse episodes and agree that we should have got more scenes or another dollhouse episode

Honestly in my opinion arias character would have been saved if they made her a. by the end of the show her only plot lines were wuth creepy Ezra. I had a theory that the only reason why Ezra even dated aria is because he thought that aria was a and killed Allison we know he was writing a book abt ally’s disappearance and aria says that he believed one of the girls killed Allison it would make sense that her groomed her to try get the truth out of her or maybe to get close to get ti read her journals. I also loved the whole Allison and aria teaming up theory. I think they should’ve had it where Allison was obsessed with aria it would cover why she had those pictures of her when she was sleeping and why Vivian looks so much like aria .Allison could’ve very easily manipulated aria with the whole baron, sleeping with a student, causing Allison to be able to bring out the Darkside in aria. Then, when Allison showed up missing aria was determined to find out who did it. I also used to think that they could have done something with the tension between Hanna’s mom and arias dad like maybe someone took a video outside the house and used that to drive a wedge between Hanna and her. Like maybe Mona used that to try to recruit aria for the same “ hatred” if that’s what you want to call it for Hanna. And also if aria and Allison really were closer then eveyone else’s thought. Like the whole ally braking up Noel and his gf for aria and aria being the only one to tell Allison to cut it out when making fun of I think it was Lucas. I could see maybe aria thinking hanna was trying to replace Allison in her eyes and Mona being able to get her in the a team wuth that.

I truly think at one point they were going to make Aria A after Mona. Once the book material ran out and Mona was revealed they needed a new A and Aria was the easiest of the main four to lay breadcrumbs behind her but since she was a fan favorite they couldn't commit in the end even when it would have been an awesomely shocking reveal. (at least better than what we got!) Personally, I think they DID want to make one of the main four A but we got a twin instead? It was the same as Gossip Girl, The rumor online was the REAL gossip girl was one of the maids but since people guessed it they decided to change what everyone guessed to "shock" people when all it did was leave people confused and scratching their heads. Trying to subvert audiences, especially in the age of the internet, is near impossible but showrunners think last-minute changes that make little to no sense is okay as long as they trick the audience. It sucks they want audiences to be smart enough to pick up on the "clues" they lay out for us but we also can't be too smart as to "figure it out" before the end or they will change it in the name of subversion. It keeps happening with really good shows too just so they can "rug pull" audiences.

i feel like my ideal silly over-the-top A reveal would've been Aria having a twin instead of Spencer. it wouldn't have necessarily made sense with the Montgomerys as a family but lbr the Hastings-Dilaurentis family tree wasn't handled well either, i wouldn't expect it to make perfect sense 😅 if there weren't so many other surprise twins in the show, i think it could have worked. especially if they played it kind of like Alison and Courtney in the books, where Aria's hypothetical twin got to know all the girls by impersonating her

I really wanted aria to be A and have a whole season where she is blackmailing Ezra, ultimately sending him to jail

I feel like most of Aria’s hallucinations/visions/dreams or whatever could be explained by anxiety, stress and maybe some PTSD which is so valid honestly 😅

I would love a video where you go through all the “duos” in the group and decide which one is the best friendship

I know that during the filming of Spencer’s Radley arc in season three, Troian was not pleased with the poor portrayal of mental health by the show and took her concerns to the writers room. This may have affected some of the planned ideas for future character stories and their motivations for behaving the way they did. It very much feels like the original idea was to take the Aria is A route with Hanna thrown into the mix somehow. I find the choice to introduce the characters, plot, and A storyline to the audience, was told through Aria and her family. They even set up stuff regarding Aria and her family in those early seasons, that don’t quite add up. It mentioned that the Iceland sabbatical was motivated by Byron’s affair with Meredith and Aria’s mental health in dealing with Alison’s disappearance, but we are never given any details about their time as a family during that year abroad. We also have the “coincidence” of Aria being the first to get an A text message and her arrival home kickstarting A’s arrival and harassment of the liars. There are the blonde twins in Aria’s baby book in the pilot and in the picture hanging in the Montgomery dining room. Aria’s Radley file that Dr. Sullivan had in her possession in season two, before we had been introduced to the sanitarium in season three. The Vivian DarkBloom disguise being inspired by Aria and mimicking her to the point she is mistaken for Vivian. This being Alison’s plan explains the pictures of her sleeping face that Jason had in season two, and how we see pictures were used to create masks of Wilden in season 6B. We have Mike’s struggle with mental health and Jason covering for him as he stole items from each of the liars homes. Plus, Byron mentioning his brother Scott and how both he and Ella seemed frightened of speaking even speaking about him. Then Byron comes into Ashley Marin around this time. We learn Ella’s maiden name is Rose, and in season three, Spencer googles April Rose bc of the note that Garrett left in his mother’s hospital room and we can see that there is an April Rose fertility doctor or OBGYN. Considering they eventually used the plot of Emily and her eggs being stolen and fertilized, and then implanted in Alison without either person’s consent, has always made me think that this is the where the show intended to go in the early seasons, but not with the Hastings and Dilaurentis families. We are told that Ashley Marin has a sketchy history and refuses to speak about it. She’s very very protective of Hanna and will do literally anything to keep her from harm. We don’t know why Tom left her for Isobel, and gave up being a father to Hanna. It was odd that his own mother preferred Ashley and Hanna to her own son. She also mentions a mentally disturbed family member on the Marin’s side of the family. I think Tom discovered Hanna was not his biological daughter and that caused him to no longer connect with her and stop thinking Ashley hung the moon. I think Ella used her relative’s medical practice, Dr. April Rose, to help her adopt a surrogate or conceive, bc we learn later that Aria is unable to have children. This would align with the struggles Ella would have faced and sought help from through her family member that worked in that area of medicine. I think Alison found out about Ashley selling her eggs in her youth and that the person used to fertilize the eggs was Scott Montgomery. There is a case of this happening in real life and it may have influenced Ali’s decision to “pick” each of girls she chose to be in her clique, especially Aria. Aria’s true connection to Alison is the most ambiguous and it was intentional. Garrett also tells Spencer that medical records don’t lie, and he went with Melissa to her OBGYN appointments with “Wren.” Melissa got pregnant very fast and I think she passed her baby off as Ian’s to keep her child away from Wren. Taylor was chosen for the name of her child bc it would work for a boy or a girl. This was another level of protection for her child. Ali had the pregnancy scare and was blackmailing Bryon for cash. We assume she was blackmailing him about the affair, but what if it was about the truth of who actually fathered his children with Ella. I think Pastor Ted was going to be Scott. It makes sense as Ella subconsciously picks up on how he eats ice cream exactly like Byron and was turned off by him. Ted was super shady and almost seemed to be testing out whether Ella or Ashley would recognize who he was, bc he immediately went for Ella first, maybe for information, and then targeted Ashley and Hanna to be his new family. I think the Radley mental hospital being used as a front for the trafficking of children to wealthy inferior families in Rosewood, was always the plan. But April Rose was the doctor and the eggs were fertilized by Scott who was in Radley as a patient at the same time April operated out of the hospital. April could have taken a liking to him and since he was a genetic relative of Byron’s, she used him to fertilize Ashley’s donated eggs and Ella gave birth to Aria and maybe a twin, and Ashley ran away with one of the babies, which was Hanna . Scott wanted his children back and that’s who the NaT was selling their videos to. I would even suggest that the Fitzgerald family may have financed things or made money off of it and that this is how Ezra got involved with Alison and CeCe and got obsessed with Aria, who he purposely targeted. It would explain his ability to get medical records and all the info he had on the girls and how he got CeCe to cooperate with him. Wren and CeCe were both children born from this trafficking situation, and they were blackmailing and helping people sneak in and out of Radley with fake security cards, as Eddie explained to Spencer. I believe Wilden helped hide Melissa’s child with Wren in the Amish community or it was his child with Alison. Wilden had an Amish background in the books and it would explain why Alison felt SO guilty seeing his “ghost” that she broke down in season 6A or 7. I think Hanna had Mona kill Ali bc Alison knew the truth about everything and bc of how she treat Hanna the worst. Hanna was way smarter than she ever let on and I think it was her copy of Lolita that Spencer found in season one or two, but Hanna lied and said it belonged to Alison. The book had the ticket to the redcoat locker and redcoat was the one who met Mona in Radley at the end of season two. She is obviously working for this person and wants to protect them, and it makes sense that it was Hanna bc she had the key to the coat locker the whole time. I think Hanna lied about how she saw Alison pretending to be Vivian at the salon, and Mona was the one who was telling the truth in her flashback. I also think Aria’s strange connection to Jenna and the introduction of Sydney, was meant to show us Jenna’s sister or fraternal twin. I think the twin gene was in the Montgomery line originally, and if Scott fertilized the eggs, there would be many sets of twins and fraternal twins all Around rosewood. They dropped most of this stuff and that’s why it seems pointless. Maya knew that Ali was alive and she knew Aria was the one who attacked Ali before Mona could get to her. This is why we never saw faces of Bethany and Avery. If you notice, Hanna knew to start with Sarah Harvey and she did it for a reason. The conversations between Hanna and Mona is second 4 and 5, reveal quite a bit about how they planned to take out Ali, and how Mona lied about killing her to Hanna, and had actually helped Ali escape that night after Aria attacked her. We never met Jenna’s mother or Toby’s father, which I thought was done purposely because Jenna arrived in Rosewood with knowledge of Alison and the Ca The show already explained how these illegal adoptions were going unnoticed, as Peter Hastings was crooked attorney who worked with Judge Khan, Noel and Eric’s father, to forge legal adoption records. This is the blackmail Ali had over Noel.

i genuinely think aria was supposed to be A, post ali’s “death” being revealed, because she thought the liars killed ali, her best friend, and wanted revenge, and when mona (og A that tormented ali) went away, she would continue until she found out who killed ali, so learning ali was alive made her angry at ali and want revenge on her too, but marlene prioritized shock over story

aria is wearing a black hoodie in the dollhouse! the pic u found was the preproduction stage of the ep you can tell bc the background of the dollhouse in the ep has a pattern of pictures of the girls on it while urs is js white

From the start I believed that aria was A, she was the right fit for it. I think she could’ve pulled it off, and like you stated in the video. The fans needed that deep emotional connection to the cast to have that betrayal. I think it would’ve been so cool.

I think Eddie recognized Aria because she snuck in to Radley with Hannah that one time

I do agree that the split personality thing is genuinely harmful and disrespectful but I do think that that is what Marlene and the rest of the team were setting up for in the earlier seasons so it just felt frustrating to have all of these clues result in nothing

Someone needs to make a video about all the times the writers started a plot point then just never brought it back up after that episode/ never explained the meaning behind it (like Eddie Lamb recognising Aria, Alison taking photos of Aria, everything to do w the NAT club, how could be Cece a child when Toby's mum dies when Toby and Alison + the others were teens, lots lots more) just so i can see someone else be as frustrated about it as I am 😭 (or like this video says, the writers just using mental health or evil twins as a way to explain away all the plot holes) also Mona's reason for becoming A (once Aria comes back home) being that the liars stole Hanna from her but the only reason they became friends again was that A was sending them texts which drew them back together again so it makes no sense kinda...

You should do one of these videos for Wren, I know he technically ended up on the A team but many people, myself included, believe that the writers intended him to be Big A.

I think Aria was A but the writers changed it after fans began catching on.

I definitely believe that the original plan was to have Aria be the final "A", and I think that if they had done it well it would have been much more narratively satisfying than what the show gave us... But that being said, I don't think they would have done it well. They probably would have gone the "Aria has DID" route to avoid making the Aria we know an actual malicious villain - and I will 100% take nonsensical Alex Drake over yet ANOTHER villainizing portrayal of DID (or any other mental illness, for that matter).

Aria is by far my favourite liar and I was SO on the “Aria is A” train. During the first few seasons the clues were SO OBVIOUS to me. I never liked the Split Personality Disorder, because of all the reasons you’ve mentioned, but to be honest, I wouldn’t have put it past the show, they loved the mental disorder escape goat. My theory for the motive was (just as you said!) that she and Ezra were writing a book together and she was just cruel enough to play her “friends” to get good material. I believe the writers might have considered it, but they dropped the theory when they saw fans picking up on the clues too much. If I remember correctly, they decided to not make Ezra A and went for the book plot line because the fans didn’t want Ezra to be bad, so we know the writers changed things as they went along. To this day I don’t believe Alex was the original Uber A. After the time skip the Aria is A theory didn’t make sense to me anymore, but I honestly would have been happy with Wren and/or Melissa being A, or Alison (that would have been soooo iconic) or even Mona again, but the creators preferred shock value over a properly tied up ending.

Yes, please make a video on your Aria is A theories, I'd love to hear them! When I was watching PLL, I was kind of hoping Aria would be the big A (honestly, anyone would've been better than Alex D.), but only if she had a good motive 😅

I’m America you can usually go into a bar and just get food if you’re underage. The only time I remember being ID’d was if I was going to a club, but like the UK, you can go to a pub or a bar and just get food and no one bats an eye.

Seeing Lucy hale act out a psychotic character like „A“ is such a missed opportunity 😭✨

Gonna be that person and say I’ve never clicked so fast 🤗❤️

Girl- I am so glad I found your channel- you answer so many things I’ve questioned and never fully understand. Thank you for the time put into these! It doesn’t go unappreciated!

I think it would have been good if for a season they were living without A, maybe because Aria was taking medication, but then something real bad happens which makes her go back to not take them and so A comes back. So having a finale where the other liars slowly find out and help her get better. It could have been a nice message, her friends helping her despite what she did at her worse and help her not being defined by her mental illness. But yeah I think this would have been the only decent way if they were going for the mental illness route

I also did not want A to be Aria; I didn’t want it to be any of the core-four purely due to attachment. At the end of the day, I think the show runners nudged us in whatever direction that felt most interesting at the time, and now we’re all left trying to connect unrelated dots. 😅 Feature of pretty much all teen dramas, I think. (Also a massive GG fan, I struggle to justify it to people)

When you were talking about how Aria's traits and how they align with A's personality - as well as her having the creativity to come up with some of the things A did similarly to Mona because of all the films she watched - in the way that Aria read so much literature . I agree - it also reminded me of a moment from season 7 when Aria just got busted by her friends that she was A and she finds Archer Dunhill's body in the back of her car and she asks Ezra to help get rid of it and they were talking about if he was able to handle the body and his reply was something like " I have a masters degree in American literature I think I can handle the body" again kinda alluding to the fact he was A for a while. So if he could read enough literature to be creative enough to be A for a while why couldn't Aria.

I would have loved Alison and Aria being A together. Aria loved bullying people with Allison in the flashbacks. They would have tortured the other Liars together.

I actually don't know what's more interesting, that all of the other girls were willing to forgive Cece later on, or that Aria was the only one that wasn't

When you got to the part about the clue for A being 'lips and a lighting bolt', my mind instantly went to Aria's iconic "shh" in the intros and I quickly ran to check if there was lightning in the background but there wasn't...until i remembered the special episodes (The black a white episode, Christmas and most importantly Halloween) have different intros with special effects and filters, and the Halloween episodes in specific, in the intros you can see lightning flash right after Aria does her icon "shhh" and that's what I think Marlene was referring to when she gave the clue 'lips and a lightning bolt'.

I think the fact that the writers went on Twitter and talked all their talk was the most frustrating thing. I get you not wanting Aria to be A, but literally anyone else would have been better than what they gave us. Especially Wren and Melissa. They constantly gave us bonus hints to have us draw specific conclusions then got mad that we did just that. I think if they didn't force specific narratives onto us, a lot of people would have been fine with the ending.

If you did the research and read her file you’d know the entire time Arias family was in Iceland Aria was actually in Radley that whole time…

“The bar is in hell” too true 😭

Just screamed bc I’ve been waiting for a long deep dive on this

Marlene and her team just used to get on Twitter and lie 😂

Truly aria destroying Ezra’s apartment was nothing. Like you said, girl was going through it. And he deserved that.

Well supposedly this was the plan, for aria to be A. I think Marlene made a post about this and other posts hinting at it but it must have been too obvious or unappealing or something. But thanks for this video, there are some things which I hadn’t noticed before 💜

i do think the show was going for Aria has DID and is A but doesn't know it at some point, but then they dropped it cuz someone told them that it was really harmful. I personally think there is a world where having someone with DID be the villain can be done, but at the time of the show and now still, the public perception of DID was completely messed up and unrealistic, literally almost always used to have a twist villain, not realising that DID is a trauma response to horrible childhood abuse, and that people who have it are way more likely to be victims than persecutors. it's very very slowly changing, we got a few depictions that are nuanced and compassionate, but yeah, i absolutely don't think that PLL was the show to do that, seeing as pretty much all of their mental health rep was horrible. I also think at some point they were just putting random clues there and thinking they'll probably come up with something that makes sense later, but it just left amillion unanswered questions and open threads lmao.

Easily my favourite channel to watch PLL content we love you Lauren♥️ And I definitely agree they time after time use mental health issues as a reasoning for someone’s actions like the whole reason Mona was A was because she was bullied so much by Alison that led to her developing a personality disorder and ending up in Radley and I’m not sure what illness Cece has but for drowning Alison in the bath and for being A she is sent to Radley too and lastly when Spencer has a mental breakdown after finding Toby’s ‘body’ she is sent to Radley as well just for the conclusion to be that she will end up on the A team

In my experience bars near universities are even stricter then other bars. My friends school actually required passports over ID's because they had run into trouble too many times.

in america you can go into a restaurant that has a bar in it and sit at the bar to order food if you’re underage. if it’s just a straight up bar with no restaurant attached then you usually get ID’ed at the door at least where i live

oh ive been WAITING for this one

I absolutely WOULD like to hear your 'Aria is A' theory!

Depending on the business (and your apparent age), several IDs may be required. Locations with a younger clientele-particularly those close to colleges-are more likely to card you, and they might have a general policy that applies to everyone, regardless of age. Most eateries will accept well-behaved children.

loved this video as always!!🩷

Please do your own Aria is A theory! And also do the reading fanfics and rating how much you would have enjoyed see those couples in the actual show!

I think it's possible that it was somewhere in the works, but as things went on, they gravitated away from that idea. I think that's why there are seeds, but nothing really comes to fruition. I think the reason people like this theory so much is due to the second and third A reveals being so disappointing. The first reveal makes sense and is satisfying, because Mona had the means and motive, while being someone the audience was pretty familiar with. I think people want a similarly satisfying A for the other parts in the story. I think that they easily could have made the story work in this way, but after a certain point, it wouldn't have worked anymore. Like, if they had decided on this idea and stuck with it, it could have turned out brilliant, but it's not like you can take that ending and slap it onto the show we got and have it make sense.

Luv your videos!

Ali and Aria as A is actually so good omg that would have been an amazing ending

Always a good day when there’s a Lauren Daisy deep dive

im so excited to watch this !!

i love watching videos about this theory

This video slayed so hard, I’ve agreed for so long! Love your videos 🩷

I dont know if this necessarily adds anything but you could say that maybe Allison took the pictures of Aria so she could style Vivian's hair after her? I just always assumed that was the reason why Duncan mistook Aria for Vivian but I've never heard anyone bring that up.

You should definitely do the PLL fanfic idea that sounds super fun

I believe it was revealed, that she was supposed to be A, but the fans put it together so fast. That they changed it

i love the aria is a theory with aria as my my favorite liar

I also like the Wren theory as well that could have gone places I thought they were insinuating that he helped CeCe but they never really clarified it

Broooo I still believe Aria was always supposed to be A but because we all figured it out they changed it to make it spicy. But sis with all the evidence you heard how can you not believe it? lol btw Aria also was my fav which is why her being A would make me so happy lol

I was diagnosed with DID at 25, now 32. It impacts my life, but TV always misses the trauma aspect. I suffer far more with cPTSD symptoms than I do with DID. After therapy life with DID itself has become a lot easier and more organised. DID is a trauma induced disorder from a very young age. There's a lot of shame and grief. Even triggered I've never wanted to hurt someone other than maybe myself. Anyway, I wanted to thank you for what you've said about blaming mental health. It was an issue. Now it's the opposite where mental health is glorified.

A lot of the theories about PLL just really make me want to read the books. I know that comparing a show to its book source material is not always helpful (some changes from the books make the story and the characters BETTER, some make it worse, it's a nuanced conversation) but it really makes me curious about author intent vs "this was written purely for entertainment on TV". So often, in tv shows like PLL (ie mystery), we get little plot threads that go nowhere because the people creating the show just want to make something engaging in the moment, but in books, it behooves you, as the author, to make sure there are less plot holes, and that things get solved in the text, because we don't have a visual medium to accompany it. However, because the character of Alison is changed so much from the books to the show, I think Aria being the ultimate/final A in the Show universe would make sense for both the plot and just purely for entertainment. I think, because the show wanted to get rid of Alison having a twin and Alison being A, adding Charlotte/CeCe and having Spencer be the one with the twin does not help the story, it just adds more characters and makes it seem like the showrunners can't decide on the villain. Because the Liars don't really have any history with CeCe and Alex Drake, them being A feels less impactful, and I think having Aria be A in the end would be a good surprise the way Mona being A was. Its way more impactful to the story to have A be someone that the liars know, because that person would have more motivation. CeCe and Alex's motivations just feel kind of weak when their grievances should be against their parents, not with the Liars themselves. My memory is a bit hazy with Aria's character because I don't really like Aria, she feels kind of boring to me, and having her be A would at least make her a more interesting character in my eyes. So I don't think that Aria is A in the show but I wish she was. And, if they did have Aria be A, remove the mental health side of it! She could just be evil, manipulative, and a liar and it would be fine.

I dont think Aria having a split personality would be a cop out. When a show gives zero clues, and then just goes : This person only did it due to a personality disorder, then it is a cop out. Aria however had several moments where she totally flips out on camera, so I dont think it would feel like bad writing. Plus the fact that they used Iceland as a cover up for her being in Radley would mean that it was something they planned from the very first episode.

girl you would LOVE buffy and it's so fun to see the original teen drama

Alison was actually the one who got them all fake ID's, we see that in a flashback to that one party where the girl gets pushed down the stairs (by Ian? i'm not quite sure)

usually in the us because of liquor laws you’ll normally get id’ed if you go into a bar but it also depends state to state (some states are so strict they won’t let you buy alcohol on sundays)

In the U.S you're able to go in to bars before 9 sometimes 7 without an ID. It usually is the case where they sell food etc. After 9, in most if not all bars all minors are kicked out of the bar because after hours is truly "bar" hours if that makes sense; before that it is considered as a restaurant/ bar.

As much as I love Aria and wouldnt of wanted her to be A but if Im honest, it would have been a much better ending then Spencers unknown twin.

Speaking of split personality I know this isn’t pretty little liars but in gossip girl Blair’s mom said Blair has a split personality

Im from Colorado, and we went to quite a few restaurants that served alcohol as teens. You were only carded if you ordered a drink, but then there are dedicated bars or clubs that may or may not card at the door. I’m sure it varies by state and even county jurisdiction though- even individual business owner preference. (Kind of a non-answer, lmao- but sounds similar to the UK other than the 18 vs 21 for legal age.) I DID always wonder how the Gossip Girl kids constantly got served drinks at NY bars, I chalked it up to rich people.

Alright fine pull my arm I’ll rewatch PLL for the thousandth time 😊

just putting a timecode here so i can switch to my phone to watch easily! will delete in a bit. 1:01:39

i don’t feel particularly strongly about this theory either way, but objectively it feels kind of bad-faith to hold this theory to a standard of cohesion and logic that the writers of the show didn’t even hold their own storylines to.

One thing that i realized is that A knows who Ezra is (and his history with a young Alison) meaning that if Aria was A she might’ve seen dating Ezra as an opportunity to have a secret A could use against her that wouldn’t hurt her too much to have exposed, not to mention she could keep Ezra close while he was trying to solve the mystery for his book and have an easy way too get rid of him if he found out the truth by reporting him

not you posting this the day after I go on a deeeeep dive of this theory. great minds

32:26 the pausing and reading has only become more of an issue since streaming. Previously you could just fill it in with nonsense because people were watching it on dvd and couldn’t pause it as easily. They were expecting us to try and read other things on the screen but not to be able to pause, stop and fully look at everything on the screen

I truly feel like aria was 100% going to be A- but Marlene dropped far too much evidence. The fans quickly put 2 and 2 together! Marlene saw that we KNEW who A- was and just wanted this big plot “twist” ending and then pulled the Spencer has a secret twin out of nowhere ending The ending WAS changed last minute you can’t convince me otherwise.

i think the writers made a choice early on to pick a few possibilities with different emotional impact (likely Aria, Wren, Ezra, Cece, Melissa, Lucas, maybe mrs D), and wrote in hints to all of these people and made sure to keep the plot loosely possible for any of them to be A. i think they thought this was "smart" bc they could pick an ending based on audience reception

If Aria was A I would have loved it if she was dating Ezra because she knew he was writing that book and she wanted to keep him (and his information) close. And I think A should have put an end to Ezra when he got too close and it's revealed later in the "Big A" reveal which would have been Aria and Allison.

I understand that you don’t like the theory because the only motive that makes sense is insensitive to the issue of Mental Health. However, the writers have already proven that they are lazy and insensitive. They were definitely setting her up to be A in the first couple of seasons and then just lost the plot trying trick the audience. Ariana’s a A with Alison or Mona is one of the most believable theories. Along with Jenna and Wren.

I think Aria was supposed to have the “Alex” twin story line but for whatever reason they ended up switching it to Spencer

American here! It depends on the Bar! Small bars without kitchens ID but bar and grill places won’t until late at night. It’s place to place