It's around that time, when we can expect some of our favorite TV shows to premiere creepy episodes centered around Halloween. But when the show is already creepy year round, it needs to take it one step further and involve people in dead baby masks with knives in abandoned houses.
"Pretty Little Liars" (PLL) premiered its Halloween episode "The First Secret," to mark the beginning of ABC Family's "13 Nights of Halloween." The guilty-pleasure TV show is based on Sara Shepard's young adult book series by the same name, and centers around the murder of a teenage girl, Alison, and the subsequent texts her friends receive from a stalker that goes by the name of ‘A.' It's often referred to as the teenage version of "Lost," and needs to be watched in its entirety to be understood.
Each episode consists of several flashbacks featuring Alison and her four friends: Aria, Emily, Hanna, and Spencer. "The First Secret" is an episode-long flashback, or prequel, from the Halloween before Alison disappeared. The special episode reveals secrets that clue fans in to why certain things are the way they are two years later, in 2010, when the story begins to unfold in the pilot. We see Aria's first brief "encounter" with her boyfriend—and teacher—Ezra Fitz, and the end of her father's own affair with one of his students.
The five friends are around fourteen in the prequel, which is obviously hard to portray using four actresses in their early to mid twenties. Sasha Pieterse, 15, who plays Alison, seems to be the only one that can truly pull it off. Lucy Hale, who plays Aria, is somewhat convincing—but this may be due to her youthful appearance. Similar to "Glee," sometimes we have to pretend that high schoolers normally look like they are thirty.
While the rest of the episodes revolve around the four other girls, this episode highlights Alison and the mind games she likes to play on everyone she meets. Her friends are quiet and weak as Alison's posse, but confident and independent after her murder. She is the perfect representation of the "frenemy" most of us have befriended at one point; they disguise their constant urge to destroy everyone's self-esteem by pretending to create it.
Her power rests in her ability to think for her friends, manipulating them to get her own way—but how does she deal when she meets someone who doesn't buy into her act? Perhaps, by blinding her? Alison realizes that she cannot control the new girl in town, Jenna, when they both show up to a Halloween party dressed as Lady Gaga. She found her competition, and plans to destroy it.
We find out that Alison was receiving texts from their stalker "A" long before the other girls do two years later. As she is manipulating her friends, someone is torturing her; there is an entire story behind Alison that we have yet to discover. Fans of the book series may be pointed in the right direction, when an obvious clue can be found in Alison's room if fans look closely enough and remember that every detail in the show is included for a reason.
The episode reveals enough information to start making important connections, but were too many clues doled out? As a show that tends to be as vague as possible, it is surprising the amount of details that were included. At the same time, the clues lead to more questions (Is Alison really dead?), and we realize that the identity of ‘A' is just a small part of a much larger mystery.
The episode was a large contrast from the rest of the series, in both style and content. While "Pretty Little Liars" generally has a notable soundtrack, "The First Secret" was devoid of music aside from a creepy score. The director used different camera angles and techniques, differentiating it from past episodes. And the already creepy opening has been Halloween-ified.
The episode begins like a classic scene from "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" or some other cheesy teenage girl centered movie, but by the end has the potential to have you screaming as the girls are running away from a supposed killer. And just as we think we know who "A" is, our theories are crushed. Because as we are constantly reminded, "nothing is as it seems in Rosewood."
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