Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin has been a breath of fresh air.
The latest entry in the iconic franchise took us on a wild ride as a serial killer stalked the liars at every turn.
Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin Season 1 wrapped with an unnerving, exciting, and revealing finale.
While it was filled with action, one key aspect was almost very different.
As you will recall, the Liars followed A’s trail and the villain had Madam Giry, Chip, Steve, and Noa’s mom’s drug dealer at the school.
The girls decided against harming them, but that wasn’t the original plan from the creative minds behind the show.
I asked creators Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Lindsay Calhoon Bring whether they entertained the possibility of the girls harming these individuals.
“Not only did we entertain it, we originally wrote the script that had all the girls taking revenge on their bullies,” Aguirre-Sacasa shared exclusively with TV Fanatic.
The showrunner revealed that it was so late in the game that they had done the table read with that development still in the script.
“When we did the table read for episode 10, the girls took their revenge on their bullies.”
Aguirre-Sacasa said it played like “gangbusters.”
“Not only 10 minutes after the table read, we got a note from the network where they wanted to gut check the girls bullying their bullies.”
“We get different notes throughout the process.”
“We loved when they took revenge on the bullies. I think we also understood the gut check of the girls being different from their mothers and knowing that even though they would want to get revenge on their bullies, that was not a great idea.”
“It would have shown that they hadn’t learned anything,” Roberto added.
However, Aguirre-Sacasa and Calhoon Bring understood why HBO Max asked for the change.
“That was so fun and alive in the table read. We really did go full horror,” Calhoon-Bring said of the original script.
“Nothing would’ve thrilled me more than watching Noa grab a fist full of needles and stabbing the drug dealer with them. That’s just full horror, slasher, like something out of Elm Street.”
Calhoon Bring believes the liars learned throughout the season that being bullies like their mothers was not the way forward.
“They learned from this experience. They’re walking away from this.”
“I’m happy with where we ended up,” she added.
The showrunners also touched on the season concluding with so many revelations.
“We started so many mysteries at the beginning of the season, and we knew we didn’t want any to dangle over beyond season one,” Aguirre-Sacasa shared.
“We wanted to tell complete stories, so as we were getting closer to those last three episodes, we had a list of the dots we needed to start connecting.”
The showrunner said that working through these mysteries made the final episodes “juicier.”
“We definitely wanted to go out with a big sort of bang, and it was almost operatic.”
Viewers learned on the episode that A is Archie, Angela’s twin, but the person pulling the strings was Prinicipal Clanton, their father.
I asked Roberto and Lindsay if we’re supposed to see Archie as a vigilante against bullies.
“He definitely sees the world in black and white and is definitely a killing machine,” Aguirre-Sacasa shared.
“He’s not someone that you try to plead or reason with. He’s sort of been manipulated and weaponized by his father.”
“He is a little bit like Jason, or Michael Myers, or Leatherface. You can’t talk them out of killing you if they’re coming for you.”
“And I think that was important to us that he was sort of like a force of nature more than a psychological person you could plead with your life.”
“He’s more like a human weapon,” Aguirre-Sacasa shared.
“I think even in the script for the finale, we described him as Terminator,” Calhoon Bring adds.
“When he went after Imogen, he was given this assignment. The trial was complete. The verdict was given, and Davie was the most guilty.”
“As the show and title suggests, the sin of the mother had to follow up on the child, so he was just beelining and beelining. He was ready to finish the job.”
Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin is streaming now on HBO Max.
Paul Dailly is the Associate Editor for TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter.