You Can Join the A Team or You Can Disappear

Pacing is a major issue with serial television these days. I am always a fan of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer route where you set up a big bad at the beginning of the season and defeat them at the end. Without a distinct goal you wander aimlessly around an island for unknown periods of time like Lost. Then there are series like The Killing that has a goal it is reach for, but as we found out in the first season finale, we have no idea when we will actually learn the killer of Rosie Larson.

Pretty Little Liars. fell into the latter category; we knew the goal for the titular characters was to figure out who the omnipresent A was. For the first three blocks of episodes, the show set a good mystery with plenty of suspects who could have been the mad texter, but the show started to lose steam as the mystery stretched out too long. Sure there was no throw the remote at the television moments like when the mystery was left unsolved on The Killing, but it was starting to get frustrated.

Then as Pretty Little Liars returned for its fourth block and we were finally promised that by the end of the season, A would be revealed which jumped started the show again as you had to pay attention to every little detail because like I said earlier, anyone could have plausibly have been A. One moment that struck me in what could have easily have been a throw away special Halloween episode, separate from the other episodes was a look at the end that former Allison tormentees (yes, I just willed that word into existence) Mona, Jenna, and Hermie the Hermaphrodite gave each other.

So that triad went straight to the top of my list of possible A suspects (after a not so dead Allison, which was more based on my hope that is was her because it would have made for the most interesting storyline). It turned out I was thirty-three percent right on my prediction when Mona revealed herself to Spencer after a dramatic costume change. Or am I more correct than I currently know? Not only did Mona threaten Spencer that should could join the A “Team” suggesting that Mona had some help. And just in case anyone though that Mona was just referencing the awesome eighties television show (if there is The A-Team on Pretty Little Liars, is Mona the Face of the team or Hannibal?), she also hints at multiple people during her weird inner monologue in her padded room and the telling a mysterious figure she did everything she asked her to at the very end. Of course the mysterious figure just happened to be wearing a jacket similar to Vivian Darkbloom’s coat.

So now the question is who is in that red jacket and just who Mona was working with? There was the black swan that looked exactly like Melissa who was talking to my previous suspected Mona cohort Hermie the Hermaphrodite. And of course the person with the biggest vendetta against Allison, the newly sighted Jenna, who gave her own mysterious figure a package prior to the masquerade ball. Oh yeah, and we will also have a murder mystery next season when Mya showed up dead at the end of the episode. Was it the crazy lesbian swimmer? Melissa, who had a front row seat at the crime scene? Another member of the A Team? Hopefully the show learns that two season is too long before the reveal something and we get at least one answer by the end of season three which will be starting up in two short months on Tuesday, June 5 at 8:00.

Pretty Little Liars 2.x gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.