By: Maranda Wabik
Femme Fatale Friday, ,

Alison DiLaurentis and Aria Montgomery: The Real A’s

For this week’s Femme Fatale Friday, I have decided to give my readers a two-for-one!    In recent weeks I have been re-watching, and watching YouTube deep dives into, Pretty Little Liars.    I was a fan of this show for its whole seven-season run, I do enjoy re-watching it.   However, each time I watch it I am reminded of how disappointing the second two A reveals are.

A in three incarnations is the major antagonist and villain of the series.   This person is an anonymous figure who stalks and torments the Liars for many years.   Three different people were revealed to be A during the run of the show, along with several others being revealed as on the “A-Team.”   In other words, they were helping A for a time without being A themselves.

The first A reveal was amazing and kept to the books.   Mona’s A reveal was well-done and made so much sense, even letting her live (when she died post-reveal in the original source novels).   I really enjoyed having Mona still around in the series, so I was happy they decided to change up the source material here.   I have only read the first four books, ending with the first A reveal and Mona’s death, but I know how much the plot differs from the series.

The second A reveal was that of CeCe, who turned out to be a sibling of Alison’s who had gone through a sex change and was punishing the Liars for not properly mourning Alison’s supposed death.   The third A reveal was that Spenser had a surprise twin named Alex who was taking her revenge for Spenser having a better life than her.

Now for this post, I want to share my favorite theory of what I would have had to happen for this series, as opposed to this horrid conclusion.   I am not the first to state that Alison and Aria should have been the UberA together, but I have a specific way in which their roles as A would have evolved.

I believe that Alison chose Aria to become one of her friends because she knew that Aria had the potential to be just as much of a narcissistic sociopath as Alison herself was.   I would have had Alison groom Aria to embrace her inner wicked bitch and Queen Bee.   Alison would have shared that she had found out that Hanna Marin was her twin sister.   You see, I would still do the twin thing, but with characters we already know.   That is why Alison befriended Hanna, but she never told her the truth.   When Alison learned that her mother had given her twin sister up for adoption to her best friend (this is my explanation of the secret twin thing, Ashley Marin could not conceive so her best friend Jessica DiLaurentis gave her one of her twins to adopt) she wanted to punish her family.    This is when the development of A and the plot to fake her own disappearance comes in.

Ali and Aria were in on the plot to make sure Ali could successfully pretend to be dead for two years.   While Aria spent a year in Iceland, everything was calm.   When she returned to Rosewood, she and Ali’s plan for A began.   Before Ali left she and Aria had recruited Mona with the intent to make her part of their team.   Ali gave Mona tips of popularity and in return, Mona would begin to torture people under Aria’s instructions when she returned to Rosewood.   Aria, through Mona, made Spenser, Hanna, and Emily’s lives Hell in order to prove her own power (and Ali’s).

When Mona was caught Ali and Aria needed a new person to take the mantle and protect themselves.   As Ali had recently learned that CeCe Drake was in fact her long-lost sibling, born Charles, known as Charlotte, she chose her.   CeCe and Aria enacted many terrible plots against the other Liars for several months until Alison’s return.

After Alison’s return, Ali and Aria worked together to instruct CeCe on what to do to torture their favorite dolls.    This would lead to Mona faking her death, a trial for Alison, and the events of the Dollhouse.   Aria was never in any danger there at the Dollhouse because she was the real one in charge.   When the time came for CeCe to reveal herself it was decided that she would kidnap Ali and confess the truth to her.   Aria was with the other Liars and Mona, so she had to fake her shock.

The dynamic duo of A’s stopped torturing for five years after that.   Charlotte’s release from being institutionalized proved to be the catalyst in bringing them back together.   They decided to have some fun with the last incarnation of A.   This time they would go by A.D., after Ali’s initials.    For many months they took delight in torturing their friends, but eventually, Aria wanted to plan her wedding and Ali was pregnant, so they took a year-long hiatus.   It was during a crazy wedding weekend that they decided it was time to bring matters to a head!

Ali and Aria kidnapped Hanna, Spenser, and Emily to tell them all.   Ezra was also there as he was Aria’s fiancee, as well as a long-term member of the “A-Team,” so yes he already knew and accepted the truth.   During this kidnapping, the others learn that Hanna is Ali’s twin, and the whole story I have just laid out.   Alison informed Emily that she was taking their twins and running off with Aria and Ezra to find more lives to ruin!   After this, the three disappear for good and the locks on the doors of the cells keeping the girls secure are released.   They never again hear from the true A’s!

In my version, Alison would never have been redeemed because she was so much more satisfying as a villain.    Aria would have happily been another villain, as it was hinted at from the beginning.   Ezra being complicit and even enjoying the games shows how terrible and skewed his morals are.   This was a little bit like fanfiction, as I have laid it out, but it is a theory of what could have been a good ending.    I hope that you have enjoyed reading my version of events for the end of Pretty Little Liars.   I know that this is a little different than my normal Femme Fatale Friday content, but I have been very inspired by this idea and had to share it.   Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

Note on Image: The image at the top of the post is Ali and Aria.   I found the image on https://prettylittleliars.fandom.com/wiki/Arison.

Further Watching