'Pretty Little Liars' Boss Answers 13 Burning Questions About the Season 4 Finale
If you’re any sort of fan of “Pretty Little Liars,” we know Tuesday night’s season finale left you shouting at least two words: “HOLY!” and the other word we won’t print here.
If you haven’t watched yet, read no further. Spoilers abound!
Despite the majority of the episode revolving around a very vigorous Alison DiLaurentis (Sasha Pieterse) telling the four Liars about what happened to her in the moments before she was buried alive, the action and reveals were non-stop. Ezra was shot! Mona knew all along! Spencer is innocent! But, for as many answers as we were given, a myriad of questions were formed.
Well, we don’t mess around here at Yahoo TV. We went directly to the source — executive producer I. Marlene King — for more answers. Here are 13 of ‘em.
1. Is Ezra [Ian Harding] dead or alive?
We have a table read tomorrow and people will be Instagramming who is at that table read, so that mystery will be solved soon.
Something tells us he’ll be there.
Yeahhh…
2. Aria [Lucy Hale]’s reaction to Ezra getting shot — running to him with such passion — was that telling of where her true feelings still really lie?
It was so beautiful. Lucy did such a great job. … The fact that he risked his life to save her and her friends and that her emotion was just to run to him and that raw emotion is very telling of who they are as a couple. They’re soulmates — you can’t deny it.
[Related: ‘Pretty Little Liars’ Season 4 Episode Photos]
3. That said, we really loved Jake [Ryan Guzman]. Have we seen the last of him?
I love him too! It’s funny, I keep getting these tweets from people saying, “I still don’t understand — why did Ezra hurt Jake?” Ezra didn’t hurt Jake; A did. Hopefully he’ll be back. That actor works a lot and we can’t always control how much time we get with these people. So, when he’s available, we’d certainly like to keep his story alive. I always say Ezra is the intellectual, the romantic, he’s so complicated — now we know more than ever how complicated he is — and Jake’s such a simple guy. He’s like what you see is what you get, and Aria was sort of drawn to that. But, at the same time … she can’t quit Ezra.
4. Mona [Janel Parrish] knowing that Alison was alive all along was such a great twist. At what point did you decide to give her that knowledge?
I love that scene! Mona’s smart — she did get everything she wanted. There’s a lot of stuff to Mona that we knew early on and a lot of stuff that found it’s way. That wasn’t something we knew in Season 1; it’s really something that came out over time as we started to really put together how smart she was as original A. It just felt like just such a clever Mona thing to do.
[Related: 'Pretty Little Liars’ at the Season 4 Finale Event in New York City]
5. Ali had so much power before she left Rosewood. Now that she’s about to be integrated back, we imagine there will be quite the power struggle coming up. Is she going to feel a bit like a fifth wheel now? The four girls have grown so much closer than they ever were.
Absolutely. We haven’t shot the premiere yet, but the script is written and there’s a scene. It’s just a single little scene in the premiere, which is really pretty non-stop action-y and takes off where this finale left. When the girls finally have the chance to breathe and do that kind of girl talk they do, Ali is the fifth wheel and she’s not relating and she kind of steps outside the circle. You see the beginning of this new story we’re going to tell.
6. Will she be a couple grades behind them, too?
Well, we’ll catch her up. [Laughs.] I can’t have her coming back to school as a freshman. She wouldn’t do that. I think she’s probably been taking some online classes or something. We’ll weave her into senior year.
7. With Caleb [Tyler Blackburn] coming back, her crush on Holbrook [Sean Faris], and current romance with Travis [Luke Kleintank], Hanna [Ashley Benson] has quite a few boys on her plate for Season 5. How’s she going to deal?
She’s becoming more like Emily — a bit of a playa. I think a lot of it though is all misplaced because she loves her Caleb.
Poor Travis! He’s sweet.
Yeah, he is sweet, but I don’t know if he’s going to be able to compete with Caleb. We’ll see.
[Related: 'Pretty Little Liars’ Invades PaleyFest 2014]
8. Save us some trouble here: Melissa Hastings [Torrey DeVitto] whispers something into her father’s ear in the police station. Do we need to crank up the volume to figure out what she says? Is it there?
We took it out. She really did whisper the truth and I don’t think you can crank it up. I’m pretty sure, in post-production, we took that completely out so you couldn’t hear it.
What about lip reading her reflection in the window?
You can try! People find things on our show that always amaze me. … Our fans are little sleuthers themselves and that makes it all so much fun for us.
9. Speaking of sleuthing, where has Noel Kahn [Brant Daugherty] been all this time, and is his last name [pronounced like “con,” as in con artist] an indication of his true nature?
I will quote Alison when I say, “Wait for it. We’ll get there.”
10. Paige [Lindsey Shaw] started out so insane, so we’re still just waiting for her to go bonkers again. Is it coming?
She’s in our Season 5 premiere and there’s a really interesting twist and development happening with her character that I’m excited to share with everybody.
11. What should we look forward to for the big 100th episode?
Caleb comes back in the 100th episode. That’s when he’s coming back to Rosewood probably as a surprise visit to Hanna. There is a very, very big reveal in the episode, a mystery fans have been asking for awhile will be solved. Emotionally, it’s a pretty epic episode.
12. Will the girls ever graduate high school?
God, I hope so. I know they want to so badly. It’s the one thing the girls always say.
13. If they don’t, what are you going to do for Halloween next year? They can’t have two Halloweens in one school year.
Actually, this year, we’re not going to do a Halloween episode. We’re going to do a Christmas episode, which we’re really excited about.
“Pretty Little Liars” Season 5 premieres on Tuesday, June 10 on ABC Family.