‘Pretty Little Liars’ season 3: Check out Lucy Hale, more in cast photo!

In preparation for their grand return to TV on January 8, ABC Family has released some brand-new “Pretty Little Liars” season 3 publicity photos, and the one we really want to put a focus on here features all four of our leading ladies.

For the sake of comparison, let’s put this new one (which you can see to the left) directly up against the one released for the summer part of the season (below). Notice a difference? Almost fitting considering the time of the year that this new photo is noticeably darker, and also features all four ladies (Shay Mitchell, Lucy Hale, Troian Bellisario, and Ashley Benson) standing in front of some sort of nondescript background. For the fun of it, we’re just going to go ahead and pretend that it is Noel’s cabin from earlier this season.

Meanwhile, this old photo is bright, colorful, and much more summery in nature. The new image actually feels as much like a cast photo for a “Sucker Punch” sequel than “Pretty Little Liars,” though we wonder if Emily and Spencer are going to be cold in their choice of outfit.

While we can have our fun here, the reality is that these pictures really do not mean that much of anything. The story is independent from them, as evidenced by the fact that Emily was in a very dark place at the start of season 3 after Maya’s death, but in this image she could not be happier. The one person who is sure to have their heart smashed here pretty soon is Spencer, who will realize at some point pretty soon that Toby is hardly the man that she believes him to be.

What do you think about this new cast photo, and do you think that it does set the tone for a potentially darker season?