When your beloved entertainment does you wrong
Published 4:33 pm Friday, June 30, 2017
If there were ever a trivia section for television, I would probably be your girl. I love all types of shows: drama, crime, medical, reality and occasionally game shows. With that being said, I like to think I know a thing or two about a great finale.
Tuesday night was the finale to a show I have been watching the last seven years. That’s right. I was in the 10th grade when this show began.
I couldn’t even drive yet, and now it’s just ending with me being 21 years old and having a full-time job.
I have stood by and watched as my show kept me guessing and coming back for specialty episodes—Halloween, Valentine’s Day or Christmas. I never gave up, because in the end I knew it would give me the answer to all my questions I had. I would know who “A.D.” was, one of the show’s biggest mysteries.
By now, you might’ve guessed I’m talking about the hit TV series for young adults, Pretty Little Liars. It’s centered around a group of five friends and their significant others who are being tortured by an anonymous person who only goes by the initials A.D. Every season finale thus far, a group from the “A Team” who serves A.D. has been revealed. But, this finale was the end all be all. We would finally find out who was A.D.
PLL had a fan base unlike any other. They had Internet boards across the globe where you could post your theory on who A.D. was and interact with other watchers. I frequented these boards, and am proud to say one of my theories for a previous season finale was right.
This time was much different, though. I. Marlene King, the creator of the show, told the fans only one person’s theory was correct.
She promised it would be a character we had watched grow and could empathize with. Everyone took to the boards and started correcting their theories.
Tuesday night, in the last 30 minutes of a two-hour finale, I realized I. Marlene King had lied to the viewers. A.D. was not a character we had ever met, and I certainly couldn’t empathize with someone introduced in the last episode, ever, when they had seven years to introduce them. I felt angry and betrayed.
Why would my show do this to me? Why would it let me down?
I had given it 160 hours, and it couldn’t repay me with a wowing reveal. I was done; I was over it. I turned off the TV and stomped to my room.
“When I create my own show…”
And that’s the thing. I have no doubt King thought this would be a shock factor to everyone, and while it was shocking, it created the wrong shock value. We can always say we could’ve done better, but at least she finished the end of “when I create my own show…” until I do that, I have no room to talk.
I can just accept that I don’t have a voice in the creation.