When it comes to classic franchises staying alive in the hearts of fans, “Pretty Little Liars” is undoubtedly close to the top of the list. Its two spinoffs, “Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists” and “Ravenswood,” were both cancelled after one season, but this year, the newest reboot “Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin,” promises thrills, chills, and spills in its teaser trailer ahead of its release on July 27. Five new Liars – Imogen (Bailee Madison), Tabby (Chandler Kinney), Faran (Zaria), Noa (Maia Reficco), and Mouse (Malia Pyles) – are the targets of another anonymous criminal mastermind, one who’s seemingly connected to each of their mothers who witnessed the suicide of their high school friend 22 years ago.
Even in the first three episodes, it’s established these characters have more significant life challenges than just surviving high school and tracking down a mysterious murderer. The show isn’t shy about exploring teen pregnancy, sexual harassment, drug use, and lots of gore in a slasher-thriller world that Reficco described as “a complete reimagination of the existing universe” in her exclusive interview with POPSUGAR.
Co-executive producer Lindsay Calhoon Bring told TVLine just how different the new iteration of “PLL” is from the original – thanks, in part, to it airing on a streaming service. “[It] expanded the playground and let things get more dangerous. It also let us have more freedom to push the violence, to push the horror.” In the same interview, co-executive producer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa said that while he and Bring are fans of “Pretty Little Liars,” they wanted to “establish our town and our girls without being in the shadow of that original, iconic franchise.”
Viewers are quickly putting together complex theories about the fate of the new Liars, but even with “PLL: Original Sin” being a major departure from “Pretty Little Liars,” there are still plenty of connections fans of the original will pick up on. Here are some hidden “Pretty Little Liars” Easter Eggs we noticed in the first three episodes of “Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin.”
HBO
The Return of "A"
“Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin” wouldn’t be a “PLL” spinoff without the notorious “A,” the main antagonist who harassed the Liars in the original show by threatening to reveal their deepest secrets. In the beginning, the Liars believe “A” is their former friend Alison DiLaurentis (Sasha Pieterse), who mysteriously went missing. She’s the only one who’d know the secrets “A” is torturing them with, after all. But after Ali’s body is found, they realize “A” has to be someone much worse. When signing cryptic messages of torment, the villain’s signature is always “A” – short for Ali – and sometimes depicted in bright red.
The true identity of “A” isn’t always consistent throughout “PLL,” but the moniker sticks. Now, in “PLL: Original Sin,” texts, notes, and even the first kill of Imogen’s mother, Davie, are all signed with an “A,” giving the new Liars their first clue as to who their tormentor could be.
In the original “Pretty Little Liars,” “A” doesn’t become a physical presence until later in the series, but the first three episodes of “Original Sin” establishes “A” as a tall, brooding, masked villain from the start. Another way the symbol is incorporated into “Original Sin” is through transitional graphics highlighting the passage of time, which feature every letter “A” in red.
Everett Collection / ABC Family/courtesy Everett Collection
Small Towns in Pennsylvania
The original “Pretty Little Liars” takes place in Rosewood, a small, nondescript, white-collar town in Pennsylvania. Fans of the franchise quickly learn that “Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin” takes place in Millwood, PA, another working-class town. The first “PLL” spinoff, “Ravenswood,” is also set in Pennsylvania. The only “PLL” offshoot that moves out of the state is “The Perfectionists,” which follows Ali and Mona (Janel Parrish) to a new college town in Beacon Heights, WA.
Overall, a Pennsylvania-small-town vibe seems to be the standard for “Pretty Little Liars.”
Everett Collection / Eric McCandless
Wes and Tabby's Relationship Parallels Aria and Ezra's
One of the main relationships that rises and falls multiple times throughout “Pretty Little Liars” is between Aria Montgomery (Lucy Hale) and Ezra Fitz (Ian Harding). The two meet and make out in a Rosewood bar, only to find out soon after that Ezra is Aria’s high school English teacher. The pair embark on a forbidden romance spanning the show’s entire run, “A” constantly lurking in the wings threatening to expose their secret.
“Original Sin” seemingly offers a more realistic (and decidedly creepier) take on Aria and Ezra’s relationship in Tabby (Kinney) and Wes (Derek Klena). As Tabby’s boss at the movie theatre, when Wes isn’t flexing his authority over Tabby, fawning over how “mature” her movie knowledge is, dangling his elusive NYU-film-professor connections over her head, or saying outright that he’s interested in her, he’s incessantly finding reasons to make her stay late at work and offer her rides home.
It has yet to be seen whether their relationship turns into anything romantic, but considering the original “PLL” was often criticised for the romanticisation of a student-teacher relationship, it seems Tabby and Wes’s relationship might be “Original Sin”‘s attempt at a course correction.
HBO / Barbara Nitke
There Are Always Twins
“Original Sin” quickly establishes Karen Beasley (Mallory Bechtel) as the high school mean girl who bullies Imogen, Tabby, Faran, Noa, and Mouse for different reasons. Viewers also learn her identical twin, Kelly (also played by Bechtel), has a complicated relationship with her sister – one that isn’t fully explained or developed before Karen is ultimately murdered by “A” at the end of episode two.
Fans of “Pretty Little Liars” will remember that when the original Liars think Ali is dead, it turns out to be the body of Ali’s twin sister, Courtney DiLaurentis, and Ali is still alive, making “A” and Ali’s backstory even more of a mystery.
The question of whether any of the original Liars will appear in “PLL: Original Sin” is still not answered, but the existence of twins in the spinoff mirrors this element of the original to an eerie degree. And because Kelly and Karen do switch places early on in “Original Sin,” it begs the question of which twin actually died and which one is now choosing to help the Liars get out of trouble and solve the mystery of who “A” is.
HBO
Horror Movie and Pop Culture References
OK, this isn’t a “Pretty Little Liars” Easter egg, but almost anyone will recognise the many references to iconic horror movies sprinkled throughout “Original Sin.”
From the bucket filled with red paint in the rafters of the school dance as an homage to 1976’s “Carrie” to the small text Tabby gets from “A” quoting a line from 1996’s “Scream,” you can barely count the visual and verbal references on one hand. Additionally, much of Tabby’s dialogue establishes her as a horror-movie buff who not only makes quick-witted references to movies but also dreams of attending prestigious film schools.
“Lindsay and I, as writers and creators, are fans [of the franchise],” Aguirre-Sacasa told TVLine about their deliberate callbacks to classic horror films. “We’re fanboys and fangirls. We love this stuff. We love when characters [from other shows] pop in, we love the crossover episodes.”
These are all the connections we’ve sussed out for now, but there are sure to be more as new episodes of “Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin” premiere on HBO Max on Thursdays this summer. Aguirre-Sacasa said, “Once you hit Episode 6, the Easter eggs – and more than Easter eggs – start coming fast and furiously, up to literally the last moment of the last episode.”
