No Lies About This "Pretty Little" Show

I'm the first to admit it: the first time I saw the trailer for ABC Family's "Pretty Little Liars," I rolled my eyes and sighed. What looked like nothing more than a teen soap opera dressed up in detective clothes couldn't possibly survive the cutthroat TV ratings game. Or could it? When buzz for the show started swirling right out of the gate, my morbid curiosity took hold. The first episode reached out and grabbed me, and I've been hooked ever since. Never judge a book by its cover, and never judge a series by its premise.

With the premiere of its sixth (yes, sixth) season this week, "PLL" has done an astonishing job of sustaining its central mystery. In short, a group of teenage girls loses a troubled friend under mysterious circumstances. When she turns up dead, they all start receiving texts, notes, and other taunting calling-cards from the mysterious "A," who threatens to share the survivors' own secrets unless they carry out A's wishes. Basically, it's the worst case of cyber-bullying EVER. In exploring what really happened on that fateful night, the writers (sometimes sadists) always resolve enough plot threads to keep you happy while raising more questions to take their place. Unlike other long-running series, these "yes, but now" developments are not the sign of desperate story contrivances to delay the inevitable, but rather evidence of a carefully detailed mythology that propels the plot and its themes forward. Pretty deep for a show about pretty girls!

Don't get me wrong: the show is hardly perfect. There have been horrendously awkward guest stars (I'm looking at you, Adam Lambert), and there have been a subplot or two that go absolutely nowhere except to give the actors more screen time. I've always liked Laura Leighton, who plays one of the mothers, but she should have just skipped the otherwise solidly plot-driven Season 3 Halloween episode (amusingly, the same episode as Lambert's appearance). In it, a little girl comes to Leighton's house, and she turns out to be a ghost. For a show that stays so grounded in reality, this was an odd and disorienting move, especially since that random ghost girl hasn't once been mentioned since, even in passing to poke fun at Leighton. Unless Random Ghost Girl is the key to everything and the trump-card mastermind that the show has kept up its sleeve all along? (If that ends up being even a small part of the ending, I'll be SUPER pissed and you can retroactively disregard this entire post...)

In addition, the usually sharp writing occasionally finds itself marred by the same cliched dialogue and predictable situations that whodunnits have used as crutches for decades. Still, it's almost refreshing to have one thing about the show that I can safely figure out on my own without frantic texts to fellow viewers. After several elaborately orchestrated close calls and deliberately misleading revelations, both I and the audience have yet to discover who's really behind everything and why. It's simultaneously thrilling and frustrating to not know how the series' endgame will play out. I also have to applaud these writers and producers -- on a network with "Family" in its name -- for not shying away from dark, edgy subject matter to properly set a tone that respects the characters and their intertwined stories.

To me, the most intriguing aspect of the show is its spin on the coming-of-age tropes found in similar youth-driven series. In any other show, our lead girls would deal with school pressure, family dynamics, and personal relationships through the more familiar lens of suburban privilege. "PLL" deals with all of that and more, putting these girls through the wringer while making some bold statements about the complex nature of honesty and the flexibility of right and wrong. There has been great reward in observing how the main characters have grown and changed as they struggle to reconcile the comfort of their small town with the weight of the secrets it holds. Among other attributes, it's these unique variations that continue to make the show worth watching.

Once you start, though, be prepared to binge-watch! And who knows? Seeing multiple episodes closer together may just yield an extra clue or two that casual weekly viewers missed. Add in the show's sly recurring references and homages to great mysteries and psychological thrillers of the past, and you get a pleasant surprise disguised as a guilty pleasure.