Each week Terry and Joe discuss the conclusion of S01 of HBO Max’s Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin.

Spoilers follow for episodes 8, 9 & 10.

“Chapter 8: Bad Blood”

JOE

Well, this is it, Terry: we’re headed into the home stretch of the first season of Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin and the Liars finally seem to have cracked the case of just who A is.

Except, as Tabby (Chandler Kinney) tells Imogen (Bailee Madison) after she questions if it can really be that easy: “Based on every horror movie I’ve ever seen: it never is.” Needless to say, we have two more episodes left in the season, so as a viewer, I think we can emphatically agree with Tabby.

But first things first: let’s talk about the progress that “Bad Blood” makes. While this is narratively similar to episode 6 “Scars” in that it’s another transition episode, episode 8 kinda/sorta works a little bit better.

That’s not to say that it doesn’t require a healthy dose of suspension of disbelief, particularly as the Liars implement their absolutely ridiculous blood drive scheme to collect samples for a paternity test. It could even be a little heist-y if it weren’t so anti-climactic.

The girls wind up looping in/emotionally blackmailing both Noa (Maia Reficco)’s mother Marjorie (Elena Goode) and Kelly Beasley (Mallory Bechtel) to assist them, while Noa tries to convince footballer boyfriend Shawn (Alex Aiono) to recruit the guys on the team. The former part goes off without a hitch, but because too many of the HS boys are using steroids, the latter plot is a big flop; the footballers won’t come anywhere near the event. This prompts an extremely icky montage of our Liars collecting samples from the locker room, including what looks to be a mound of hair from the shower drains. In the words of Mouse (Malia Pyles): Ewww.

I’ll confess that the logistics of this ambitious plan still don’t make any sense to me (they’ll know if one of the boys is the father of Imogen’s baby, and therefore a rapist, but how will they identify who that is if nearly every boy on campus gives blood?). Regardless, the show appears to think that this is all very exciting, so I imagine we’ll get the results juuuust in time for the finale.

Thankfully we don’t need to wait that long for Tabby and Imogen to begin addressing their trauma. After several episodes of dancing around it, they tell the other Liars, as well as Kelly and Tabby’s mother Sidney (Sharon Leal). The last confession feels particularly satisfying given how much time “Bad Blood” dedicates to the mother/daughter relationship and how Sidney clammed up when Tabby came home at 2 am after the girls celebrated the Blood Drive with a secret girls-only dance night.

I loved the dramatics when Tabby demanded that her mother “really talk” to her because although Sidney is arguably the best mother of the bunch, we know that she’s still actively holding secret meetings with the other Y2K moms. If anything I wish the simmering tension between the two of them had lasted a little longer because there was some oomph to it, which made Tabby’s confession over Thanksgiving dinner and her mom comforts her all the more satisfying.

But alas, PLL: OS has set this breakneck speed for itself and there’s so many characters, we have to blitz through subplots like they’re going out of style. So yes Faran (Zaria) is desperately trying to heal from her back injury, even though every discerning adult tells her not to push it. And Mouse is DMing creepy Steve (Alexander Chaplin) because her moms are still fighting. And Noa suspects that Shawn is also lying about using drugs.

It’s A LOT, but there’s so much of it that none of it really registers. Terry, I’ll turn it back to you to see if any of the personal subplots are gelling? What did you think of Imogen’s search of the Waters house and the “reveal” that Crazy Joe not only visited Rose in the asylum, but he’s prone to chasing teen girls at knife point? And can we talk about Kelly’s sly smile when she calls out her Sheriff father (Eric Johnson) for his queer tonsil-hockey late night extracurriculars?

TERRY

Joe, the more and more I think about this blood draw heist, the less it makes sense. We’ve seen Kelly dumping the cotton balls in a bag and the PLL swoops in to take them when it’s full. We’ve seen them going through the boys’ locker rooms and grabbing everything from hair and mouth guard samples to….a dirty ass jockstrap. But in none of these montages did we see them categorizing anything. And those swab balls were all just sitting in the trashcan together. Like…what exactly are they going to get out of this? That someone is the father? I’m confused.

Also, Kelly/Karen, dear: the point of the gloves is so that you don’t get blood on your body and it doesn’t help that you then push back your hair with the same hands you were grabbing cotton balls with. This is why you pull your hair back when you’re doing something like this, cuteness be damned. You nasty.

I think the problem with a show like this is that it hopes the breakneck speed will keep people enticed and following week over week, but also that no one will think about it. So when people like us have to slow things down and analyze it, the cracks start to show. And there are some huge cracks here, obviously.

To that end, no, none of the personal subplots are really gelling for me because they all feel surface level. And when something as weighty and dramatic as rape and sexual assault does come up, the story doesn’t have the appropriate amount of time to really sit with the repercussions and the aftermath because it has a zillion other subplots it needs to address. I really wanted more interaction with Tabby and her mother because, unlike everything else, that felt real and emotional (and it didn’t have Imogen’s vacant smile to ruin it).

But speaking of Imogen, I actually really enjoyed her Waters-house escapade. The chase sequence was thrilling, though unfortunately too short. I would have enjoyed a bit more of a cat-and-mouse style chase sequence because the house is such a fantastic set piece even though it’s your prototypical Scary House. It looks vaguely condemned, with chunks of the wall missing so that you can see through rooms. While it’s missing animal and human bones and detritus, it still looks messy enough that Leatherface would happily call it home. It has one of those slightly twisting staircases that always denotes something scary.

But it’s the details upstairs that intrigued me the most, from the bed with a noose in it to the big kennel filled with hay and a blanket. Someone is obviously being kept in there, and I doubt it’s a dog. Then there’s the mask and the most horrifying moment: a desiccated body of a woman on the bed.

When she runs into Joe, he looks slightly devastated that she’s there and repeats his earlier warning, “I told you to let it go.” So, obviously he’s not the killer. Because if he were, I don’t think he would have been as forthcoming with them and he wouldn’t have looked so disappointed to find her. Whoever A is knows what they’re doing and is playing with them in a way that Joe is not, and if the storyline wasn’t moving so fast that even the characters can’t keep up, they wouldn’t have immediately assumed that Joe = A.

I’m guessing he’s a brother or a son or someone related to A. And he’s been helping out because of some historical relationship/guilt with what happened to Angela. He tried to help out because of some loyalty to whoever is doing it, but obviously couldn’t take it anymore.

Finally, the Kelly of it All. Who is she, Joe? Is she Karen? Is she Kelly and has some kind of psychosexual bond with her dead sister? Is Karen actually dead? I ask this because Original Sin tends to do things for the shock value, actual reality be damned. And at this point, through all the wild and bonkers plotting, I wouldn’t put it past them to reveal that Karen has been hiding out.

Or that Sheriff Beasley is in on it because while we’ve seen a lot of the original PLLs who became the mothers of the new crop of PLL, we haven’t seen anything with either Mr. or Mrs. Beasley. Was Mr. Beasley the one who assaulted Angela? Is Mrs. Beasley related to Angela? Is her former name Waters? There’s something going on with the Beasley family and I think they’re at the heart of the Angela story, somehow.

These are the types of questions the intrepid investigators should be asking! Maybe they will in the next episode….

“Chapter Nine: Dead and Buried”

The penultimate episode of the season (series?), Original Sin brought out the big guns, Joe. Written by series creators Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Lindsay Calhoon Bring and, perhaps equally important, directed by series newcomer Roxanne Benjamin, “Dead and Buried” is probably the best episode of the show. It has an electric energy in the pacing, shots that elevate it from being a “typical TV show” and moments of character downtime that, I feel, have been missing.

Most - if not all - of the directors of Original Sin have worked on either Riverdale or Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, which makes sense given the creators. Roxanne is no different in that regard; however, she has cut her teeth on genre films like segments from Southbound and XX, as well as her feature film Body at Brighton Rock. And “Dead and Buried” has a cinematic energy across its 50 minute runtime that felt like a culmination of every episode before. I think a lot of that comes from Roxanne.

Original Sin has always had a breakneck pace in terms of the story; we’ve mentioned multiple times (including in this very recap) how the show just careens from one subplot to another without giving the scenes time to really land. But “Dead and Buried” has a couple moments where the show allows us to live with the characters, however briefly, and it makes all the difference.

For once, each of the subplots feel like they have a throughline in the episode. For instance, Faran gets a lot of screen time this episode, as she deals with her boyfriend Henry getting kissed by Kelly, which leads her to confront Kelly, which leads her to discover Kelly is cutting herself, which leads to her confrontation with the sheriff which leads to the sheriff fighting back and arresting her father which leads to the final cliffhanger moment of the series. She has agency and her actions bring us closer to the truth.

Then there’s this fantastic moment when she confronts Sheriff Beasley about his predator nature with the boy(s) on community service. Their combative conversation feels like swordplay, with each one trying to get the upper hand before Beasley uses his physical body to threaten Faran: “What do you want, you little bitch” he snarls. And Faran leans right back in, matching his threat with one of her own. It’s a fantastic bit of staging and direction that gives this meeting significant depth. But then it gets better, as Faran storms out of Beasley’s office and rounds the corner to gather herself.

It’s such a small moment: Faran gathering her breath and coming off of the adrenaline high of being so forceful against a police officer. But it’s a character beat grounded in authenticity and it allowed the scene to rest for a moment with its importance. It’s something the series hasn’t really done, as scenes run into the next scene without allowing things to slow down at all. I loved this moment.

But I have gotten way ahead of myself. “Dead and Buried” opens weeks after “Bad Blood” and resets the storyline. The Pretty Little Liars fill their parents in on what’s going on, explain the themes of “the sins of the mothers visited upon their daughters”, discuss the connection to Angela Waters and recap all of the wrongs the parents visited on Angela (which we also recapped in last week’s, er, recap). It feels a bit anticlimactic, given how many episodes the two groups have spent keeping secrets from each other to have (most of) it all out on the table. And it lets the parents off easy, with their bullishness summed up as “we were the mean girls” and “it was the 90s.” It also allows “Dead and Buried” to focus on tying all of the loose threads together and setting up an end game, which is arguably easier and more important for a plot-focused ensemble show than digging into the characters’ trauma.

What follows is mostly attempting to clean up the myriad of subplots the show introduced, from Mouse’s cringey relationship with Steve to Marjorie’s detoxing/relapse to Tabby and her mother’s relationship dealing with the sexual assault to Imogen’s quest for the truth about her mother’s death. It’s doing a lot and some of it feels a bit like hand waving away some of the threads, particularly the resolution of Mouse’s situation with Steve, but it also feels like it's getting the narrative back on track.

And with that I want to turn it over to you, Joe. Am I alone in vibing with the energy of this episode? Last week, I made the prediction that Chip might have been the rapist and this episode seems to push that thought…do you think it’s a red herring or is Chip truly a monster under that golly-gee, boy-next-door sheen? Is the reason all of this is happening because of Sheriff Beasley, who is seemingly trying to cover up Davie (Carly Pope)’s cause of death? And before we get to the finale, who do you think is A?

JOE

Oof, Terry. Oof. I want to get on board with your positivity about the direction and allowing a few moments to breathe, but I’m very hung up on the confirmation that Sheriff Beasley was not only involved in Angela’s story, but that he was the one who raped her “just to prove something.”

I’ll confess that I’m just coming off a substantial debate about the controversial ending of ‘Sleepaway Camp,’ which has been a) rightfully criticized for being transphobic with its “shocking” twist regarding Angela’s true gender identity and b) reclaimed by trans fans and critics alike for highlighting the damaging effects of being forced to live an inauthentic life. I won’t pretend that PLL: OS is on the same echelon as Sleepaway Camp, but the Sheriff Beasley reveal has some of the same vibes.

On one hand, we have the story of a repressed homosexual who did unspeakable things because he was unable to come out in 1999. He then carried the trauma into adulthood and continued to victimize vulnerable teens, including his own daughter Kelly (he seems completely oblivious about her cutting when Tabby mentions it). But, on the other hand, Pretty Little Liars is basically just rehashing the tired “queer villain who rapes (and maybe kills) because they’re queer.”

It’s obviously a bit more complicated than that, and yet because of the show’s hyper-accelerated speed, I’m not confident that this storyline will be explored in any depth or nuance; certainly none of the other long-percolating subplots have been.

To give “Dead and Buried” some credit, though, the show has seemingly jettisoned a lot of the dead weight storylines. Faran’s desire to keep dancing has been sidelined in favour of a storyline that, yes, needlessly introduces drama into her relationship with Henry (courtesy of Kelly’s unsolicited kiss), but mostly serves to put Faran and Sheriff Beasley in each other’s path.

The stuff with Noa and Shawn and the doping also appears to be leading somewhere, though it’s unclear how much of this is important. Are we meant to applaud her decision to finally stand up to her mother’s dealer? Do Shawn’s weaksauce excuses for continuing to take steroids after football season has finished matter?

Millwood is a town of shadows, dilapidated buildings (oh hi The Quarry!) and perpetual gloom courtesy of Aguirre-Sacasa and Calhoon Bring’s cultivated Riverdale and Sabrina visual aesthetic. That look has frequently been attributed to David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, which itself perfected the concept of a “small town with secrets,” but it’s unclear how much PLL: OS is setting up long-running storylines for an anticipated (hoped for?) S02 and how much will ultimately play into a possible A unmasking in next week’s season finale.

So while I’m extremely hesitant about the Sheriff Beasley reveal and genuinely perplexed about Mouse’s storyline with Steve (I may have sent you several scream texts, because WHAT. WAS. THAT?!), credit “Dead and Buried” for generating huge momentum going into the finale. I was particularly taken with the sped-up editing in the final scenes as Imogen learns her mother’s body has been dug up, and Faran learns about the Sheriff’s ties to Angela.

It definitely makes you want to immediately hit play on the finale…so let’s see how the show handles the landing.

“Chapter 10: Final Girls”

Hmm…I have to say that I’m on the fence, Terry. There’s some good stuff here (Imogen’s chase through her old house first and foremost), as well as some ill-conceived, poorly thought out stuff (the reveal that Robert Stanton’s Principal Clanton would rather kill Imogen than his daughter’s rapist). It’s classic PLL:OS!

Let’s start with the Chip stuff, since that narrowly avoided disaster. After realizing that Chip was absent from his shift at the Orpheum on the night of Tabby’s attack, the girls search his room for evidence (ie: Imogen’s missing underwear). They find a box of “disturbing” videos - rape-revenge films - that Tabby insinuates is evidence of his twisted desires. <siiigh>

This is the latest in a string of problematic interpretations of the horror genre that Tabby (and by extension the show) has advocated for that rubs me the wrong way. This is equivalent to the “blame the movies” thinking that we saw in the wake of Columbine and continue to see after mass-shootings. Considering how much of a horror audience proxy Tabby is meant to be, I find her ill-informed (at best) and alarmist (at worst) point of view really off-putting.

When Tabby and Imogen confront Chip about their respective sexual assaults on the basis of Tabby’s gut, I braced for the worst. Would PLL:OS pull its usual “twist” and reveal that the girls had falsely accused an innocent man? Thankfully we’re not doing that, but it walked right up to the line, which was far too close for my liking. Let’s not be so cavalier about sexual assault in the future, mmkay show?

With that storyline mostly put to bed, “The Final Girls” moves on to unmasking A…which is a similarly frustrating affair. As their mothers are abducted by A, the girls investigate the old Waters house and immediately discover ALL OF THE EVIDENCE to confirm that Angela (Gabrielle Pizzolo) was a twin with a severely deformed brother named Archie. When the girls are lured to the school for “the trial,” they’re presented with a series of Saw-like traps of the people who bullied them (Chip, Noa’s mom’s drug dealer, Steve, and Mme Giry), then confronted by Principal Clanton, who is both the mastermind behind A, as well as Archie and Angela’s father.

The backstory is…well, frankly it’s ludicrous. We’re asked to believe that Clanton cares more about his daughter’s “erase her” bullying than the fact that she was raped. And it’s baffling that the show never addresses the fact that Clanton worked with his daughter’s rapist to punish the girls earlier in the season (!!!). Sure, Tabby questions his misogynistic double standard, but Clanton simply delivers a glib “Who do you think I’m pinning this all on?” rejoinder.

It’s absolutely stupid, Terry. Sure, it gets us arguably the best baby battle since Inside as Imogen fights Archie solo, but it takes a lot of mental gymnastics to excuse how dumb Clanton’s rationale is.

So all’s well that ends well, with all of the supporting subplots wrapped up like Christmas bows for the holiday. Including Chip, who is (presumably) killed by Archie, who has also killed Sheriff Beasley in the hospital after the Sheriff was wounded by his wife in an effort to protect Kelly’s life.

I dunno, Terry. This…was messy. But I’ve also gathered that this is what PLL:OS fans have been enjoying about the series. This scattershot plotting is too reminiscent of Riverdale and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina to me (I jumped ship on both shows after the first season).

As much as I want a slasher-centric series in my life, I don’t think this is a good fit for me. I’m giving S01 of Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin a B-. It’s certainly no A!

What about you: did you like how A and Chip’s storylines played out? After all of the teases, are you surprised that Kelly is actually Kelly? Did the cross-cutting between the school climax and the Beasley dinner work for you? (It didn’t for me; too much lost tension) Would you watch a potential S02 if the show isn’t *actually* cancelled and, if so, what would you want to see? And what grade do you give S01?

TERRY

One of the best parts of the whodunit slasher subgenre is guessing who the killer is and so when a narrative pulls the “it’s someone we haven’t even seen outside of the mask!” twist, I get kind of annoyed, Joe. Original Sin feels incredibly indebted to the Scream franchise with its meta humor, cool mask and hip teens. But what it fails to grasp from that venerable series of films is that the killer is someone we know and the fun is figuring out which one of the characters is/are the killer/killer. Original Sin attempts this by having Clanton be the mastermind, but the logic here escapes me. This seemingly rational dude is willing to stage a Saw game in his school and potentially ruin his own life for…what, some over-the-top and preposterous scheme to get revenge? And pin it on the sheriff who, at this point, is probably being rushed to the hospital? I get that he couldn’t know that last part but there’s waaaaayyy too many balls to juggle with this ridiculous plot.

The motive of the killer/deformed twin brother (ugh at the disability trope that continues to be a thing in 2022) also makes zero sense. He’s propelled by a sense of justice in punishing bullies by…being a bully himself. And when each of the PLLs are confronted with their own bully, Clanton praises them for showing mercy…something neither him nor his son do. I’m okay with a angel of vengeance coming down and sorting out the “evil” people, but you can’t then reverse that in the climax by having the very same people praise the protagonists for doing the opposite.

A lot of this doesn’t make a lick of sense.

I’m glad you brought up the rape revenge movie subplot because I legit sighed heavily at it. Look, rape revenge isn’t my go-to genre (even though there are some fantastic films in the subgenre that Original Sin overlooks…like Revenge), but a lot of rape survivors do find catharsis through the films. So, yes, I’m sure there are people who take some sick sense of pleasure in watching the subgenre, but writing it off as only being watched by sickos continues the moralistic way in which horror films have been used this season.

I called Chip being the rapist because Original Sin pushed so hard in that direction the back half, but even I was taken aback by how instantly Tabby and Imogen confronted him. I was also afraid the show was going to pull a twist here and he wasn’t the perpetrator. Like the climax, I found these dangling threads to be way too quickly disposed of. The same could be said for the Beasley family standing up to Tom, the closetted gay villain. It felt pedestrian.

The best part was easily the chase sequence. For all of my complaints about Madison’s acting, she nails the physicality of this scene, fighting off someone much bigger than here while also about to go into labor. This was a thrilling chase, easily the best in the series.

If Original Sin doesn’t get renewed, one thing I will be thankful for is to never hear Tabby ask what everyone’s favorite X movie is. Ending the series with everyone discussing their favorite Christmas movie (Die Hard! The Nightmare Before Christmas! Ugh) was absolutely painful to me because this is either the third or fourth time its happened. It’s not cute or witty. If the series does get renewed, it sounds like we might get cameos from the original series, as Imogen is giving her baby up for adoption to Ezra and Aria, two characters from the Freeform series. I don’t know what that means, exactly, except that maybe the show will have to shell out for Lucy Hale and Ian Harding in season two.

Original Sin has been a wild ride, though, Joe. And with our penchant for covering meaty and heady content, it’s kind of been weird turning off the brain to try and enjoy the messy journey. The biggest surprise was that A was uncovered so quickly here. From what I understand in the original series, that question took the entire series to unveil. Where would a second season go from here? Obviously A is still around, but he’s not exactly a series-defining villain.

If I had to sum up this first season, it’d be an R-rated Riverdale, full of the bizarre and chaotic plotting and inscrutable motivations. For me, it’s a generous B- because some of the highs were high, but the lows were painful. Hopefully, if there is a season two, it can ground the story a bit more.