Pretty Little Liars Might be the Best Show on Television

Two can keep a secret, if one of them is dead.

That’s a bold statement, I know, but the show just came back for the winter season and I totally forgot how much I loved it while it was on hiatus. Don’t get me wrong, the writing is terrible and there are more blank stares between castmates than on an episode of The Hills, but this show will suck you in.

First, the entire plotline began when Allie, one of a group of five girlfriends, was killed (maybe, that’s actually still up in the air). The four remaining friends then began receiving text messages from a cryptic anonymous being that refers to themself as simply “A.” And “A” knows all of the girls’ secrets. You’re intrigued already, I can tell.

So one of the girls is a star athlete and straight-A student who may have slept with her sister’s fiance. But that’s ok, because the sister is sleeping with everyone else. One of the other girls decided halfway through the first season that she was a lesbian after she met some neighbor girl from California that told her she was. Also, I’m pretty sure neighbor girl from California played a high school student on both Saved by the Bell: The New Class and Dawson’s Creek, so not only is she a lesbian, she’s also 100-years old.

The third girl, Aria, is sleeping with her English teacher. They met at a bar and began discussing “writing” and he instantly fell in love with her mind…or something. But her age-appropriate high school boyfriend just caught them making out in the teacher’s car, so that’s going to be a problem.

The fourth girl, Hannah, just got hit by a car because she knows who “A” is. Yet, after an hour of watching last night, we still don’t know who “A” is. Which is pretty much the appeal of the show. It’s like a low-brow Lost (was Lost high-brow?).

There are also all these shady characters on the periphery, like the age-appropriate high school boyfriend and the California lesbian, but also the slutty sister, Hannah’s friend from yearbook, the slutty sister’s now husband who was dating Allie before she died, and Jenna, the blind girl, who may or may not have had an inappropriate relationship with her brother; this is all murky but was laid out by possibly the quote of the night:

Jenna: I won’t let you come between us again.
Emily: Someone should have come between you years ago, like a social worker with a bucket of ice water.

Whhhaaaaaattt??? (May I remind you, this is ABCFamily. They’ve totally gone off the deep end since they started airing The Secret Life of the American Teenager.)

So I’ve been getting a lot of crap for watching Pretty Little Liars, and my only supporter so far has been Audrey Marks. Because she gets it. But if you watch one minute of this show, I guarantee that it will suck you in. It makes absolutely no sense, everyone is creepy and it’s basically the morbid version of Gossip Girl, but I seriously cannot get enough.

ABCFamily. Mondays. 8PM. Watch it.