The Tribune

Episode Name: Grave New World Air date: 10/22/2013 Summary:In the special Halloween episode of "Pretty Little Liars," entitled "Grave New World," airing Tuesday, October 22nd (8:00 - 9:00 PM ET/PT), Aria, Emily, Hanna and Spencer crash the Ravenswood Founders Day Celebration after finding a clue in "A's" new lair that Ali may indeed be alive. Dressed in their finest Edwardian wear, the ladies hit the creepy cemetery party to find Ali before "A" can. But if Ali is truly alive, could the PLLs be leading "A" straight to their friend without knowing it? With Ezra lurking in the shadows, "A" may be closer than the girls realize. Meanwhile, Caleb heads to Ravenswood to help the girls and meets kindred soul Miranda (Nicole Gale Anderson) along the way.

You’ve got to give the Pretty Little Liars writers some credit – that took guts. Aside from making one of the Liars ‘Big A’ (or ‘Uber A’ as I refuse to call them), having Ezra Fitz revealed as a wrongun in this summer finale’s final moments was the most ballsy move they could have pulled at this point. Aside from the shippers and endless heartache this means for them, this changes absolutely everything we thought we knew about ‘A’, and Rosewood and Alison’s dealing with ‘Board Shorts’ in the summer before her supposed death.

But before I get overexcited about this awesome episode, we have to remind ourselves that this show LIES. The writers lie in interviews, the characters lie on screen and everything we see and hear has to be taken with a large pinch of salt. That said, Ezra as the leader of the ‘A’-team makes a lot of sense, and has definitely been foreshadowed multiple times over the last four seasons (he was on the Halloween train; he was at Alison’s funeral; he drinks the same whisky as ‘A’; Aria has been the least targeted etc.). He’s certainly higher up the chain than Mona, but his affiliation with the show’s villains alters the game regardless.

The extra-creepy element of the reveal is the assumption that Ezra, not Wilden, is Board Shorts, and could possibly have gotten Alison pregnant before trying to murder her. Remember, Ali was around fourteen years old when this all happened so, given Ezra’s already immoral and possibly illegal relationship with seventeen year old Aria, this vindicates all of the anti-Ezra fans who called him out as a paedophile since the pilot. He’s a predator going after young girls, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Ali, not Maggie, was the girl his mother paid off to have an abortion. This is darker than I ever honestly thought they’d go.