Screen Time

Texts From A: Every Secret Evil Twin You Can’t Prove Isn’t In Season Seven

Hello, friends, and welcome to the final installment of Texts From A. I binged all of Pretty Little Liars and wrote, by my count, just over twenty posts about the journey. I hope you’ve enjoyed it because now my friends, family, and therapist are all longing for the day when I stop talking about how much I hate Ezra Fitz.

(Joke’s on you, loved ones, I’ll never stop until he’s been erased from time and space.)

The end of season six + season seven had what I think most people would call a…weird amount of secret evil twins. I think the amount of vaguely believable secret evil twins tops out at “one”, and PLL got that with the reveal of Mary Drake, who is the secret twin of Alison’s mother. (I’m not sure you can strictly call Mary the evil twin of the two, though. That’s probably Alison’s mom.)

But that wasn’t enough for Pretty Little Liars. No, they needed another. In the finale of the show, they introduced Alex, Spencer’s secret evil British twin.

Also Spencer and Alex are Mary Drake’s other secret children. The first, obviously, was Charlotte.

Anyway, Spencer’s secret twin turned out to be the new AD. I think. Or maybe there were multiple ADs? I don’t know. I just know Alex was an AD and she tried to replace Spencer.

We don’t have proof the show didn’t have even more secret evil twins. They clearly love them. There could be loads of secret evil twins out there. Don’t worry, I’m here to tell you about them.

1. Noel Kahn’s secret evil twin who was actually in every scene with him, we just never noticed because they are both that forgettable.

2. Fitz’s secret evil twin who thought it would be funny to propose to Aria like, right after she and Fitz got together after she dumped her charming editor boyfriend.

3. Nicole’s secret evil twin who emerged from the jungle at the perfect dramatic moment. The real Nicole is dead, having been fridged for Fitz’s character development. Secret Evil Twin Nicole just exists to stir up drama between Fitz and Aria.

4. Every Jenna who appears in this season is actually just one in a series of progressively more secret (but strangely, less evil!) twins.

5. Marco Furey has a twin, but he isn’t evil, and he’s secret to everyone except Marco. Marco and his secret twin (also named Marco) live in a beautiful synchronicity, perfectly moving in and out of the world so they seem like they’re one person.

6. Alison’s secret evil twin isn’t that secret, and is also younger than her by many years, which is uncommon in twins.

Seriously though they had a blonde teen named Addison Derringer take Alison’s place as the school bully, and Alison has to contend with her. Like yeah we get it, we get what you’re doing.

7. Yvonne’s secret evil twin who died in her place.

- I’m just not feeling great about Yvonne dying so that Toby can be freed up for Spencer/Alex.
- Pretty Little Liars: Dedicated to killing every black girl on their show to the very end.

8. Hanna, Spencer, Emily, and Alison’s secret evil twins, who were the ones acting like Aria is the only person to have ever hurt someone they cared about while being blackmailed.

- (Aria started working with AD)

9. Aria’s secret evil twin who chose that wedding dress.

10. My secret evil twin, who died in my place when my heart exploded after Emily and Alison got gay married.

- Also the secret twin to their not-secret twin daughters. The secret evil twin is always just out of frame, twirling her tiny baby mustache.

11. The show wants us to believe that it’s Mona at the very end of the show who is holding Mary and Alex hostage for her own funsies, but actually it’s Mona’s secret French twin – the most evil kind of secret twin you can have.

That’s probably all of them.

Probably.

Friends – thank you so much for taking this journey with me. Pretty Little Liars is an utterly bonkers show, more than I ever thought. I absolutely loved getting to livetweet it and yell at my friends in DMs and then write about it for you. Here marks the end of it, unless I end up feverishly emailing my editor in the middle of the night to pitch a dissertation on Rosewood and how the show shapes it into a nonsensical Room of Requirement-style town with regular masquerade balls. [Editor’s Note: I’m here for it.]

But no, probably this is the end.

In conclusion, I don’t know who needs to hear this, but Ashley Benson (who played Hanna) is queer and dating Cara Delevingne. Most people apparently already knew this, but I didn’t, and I’ve never been happier for my daughter.

Sarah Hollowell

Sarah Hollowell is a fat Hoosier writer working to up the magic quotient of Indiana. She's been published on Huffington Post, Fireside Fiction, and Apex, among others. She spends most of her time binging podcasts and needle felting characters from Animal Crossing.