‘Pretty Little Liars’ season 4, episode 13 review: Is Alison DiLaurentis alive?
This is a question that many “Pretty Little Liars” fans have been asking for much of the past several months, and finally at the end of the Halloween special tonight, you may have finally gotten the answer: Is Alison really dead, or is she actually the infamous Red Coat?
We have to be honest here in saying that we more than expected to write this episode review with a barrage of complaints that nothing whatsoever was resolved over the course of the Halloween special. Instead, what we had was a backdoor pilot for “Ravenswood” that introduced the character of Miranda, and spent a good half of the episode helping us learn more about her as well as some of the layers of the town.
Now, we have to go into what was the worst part of this episode special by a mile: The reason Caleb is staying put in Ravenswood is so that he can watch out for her. This is a woman that the characters just met! Why in the world would Hanna send away the man that she loves for him to spend time helping someone they barely know? We know that there are such things as sacrifices, but this was completely unbelievable that he would just leave town for this. It almost feels like the writers did not want to break up Hanna and Caleb in fear of the blacklash, so they had to make up something else that also introduced the world of Ravenswood in the process.
Had this entire episode been about the final five minutes, the grade would have been much higher. The problem is that, like many backdoor pilots, we spent most of our time dealing with a story that doesn’t really matter to the flagship story. Then, there was a surprise ending tacked on with Alison being alive and Ezra being the person that she supposedly fears … and it seems like the ladies are starting to figure it out. We would have rather just seen a full backdoor pilot than an episode that goes half and half, especially on an episode like this. We’ll give it a passing grade for the shocker, but we can’t go any higher thanks to all of the time that could have been used in a much better way. Grade: C.
What did you think about this Halloween special, and were you surprised about the Alison shocker at the end of the episode? Be sure to share some of your thoughts below! Click here to read some more news related to the show, including a preview for what is coming up when the show returns.
Photo: ABC Family