“Pretty Little Liars” is officially coming to an end next year, and on Wednesday, show boss Marlene King explained why it’s nearly time to say goodbye to the residents of Rosewood.
“It was a process for everyone,” the creator and Executive Producer said on a conference call with reporters. “I think creatively, I always knew what these last 10 episodes would be, just not necessarily when they would be. … This conversation really started in Season 5. All of us kind of as a team – myself and the ‘Pretty Little Liars’ [actresses] and the studio and the network — and we all came to the conclusion that we want to go out on a high and we wanted to go out in a spectacular way with our fans still excited to tweet about the show and engaged in the show, and it just felt organically right to all of us and creatively it felt like the right time and the right way to do it.”
Earlier this week, it was announced that the final 10 episode-run will begin in April 2017.
Aria (Lucy Hale), Ali (Sasha Pieterse), and Spencer (Troian Bellisario) appear in ‘The Darkest Knight’ episode of ‘Pretty Little Liars.’ (Freeform/Ron Tom)
When the show resumes, don’t expect a major time jump, King said.
“It is one of our ‘moments later’ premieres so Ali will not be super pregnant, she’ll just be a little bit more pregnant than she was last night,” King said.
And Allison’s (Sasha Pierterse) pregnancy will drive storylines, the EP said in response to one reporter’s question.
“Yes, absolutely for both Allison and her friends — especially Emily,” she said.
But, could there be more to her pregnancy?
“I would say nothing is average in ‘Pretty Little Liars,’ so you can take that to fuel your theories. Everything is a little bit spectacular,” she responded.
Wren Kingston (Julian Morris) is among the characters coming back for the final episodes, something King expanded on.
“We’ll see him in more than one episode, which is fantastic,” she told reporters.
“When I first sat down to talk to Julian about coming back, he had never had a scene with Ezra and he and Ian [Harding] are friends in real life, so he’s like, ‘Please, can I have a scene with Ezra?’ So that was really the originator of the first scene that we’ll see Wren in when he comes back.”
King also addressed the Season 7 promise of a wedding.
“There will be more than one wedding,” she revealed.
When a reporter asked if that meant two weddings, King said, “maybe more,” adding even more speculation to the fire.
King went on to sum up “PLL’s” final episodes.
“The next 10 are emotionally the most powerful 10 we’ve ever had,” she said. “The Pretty Little Liars – the actresses are having so much fun with how deep they get to go in these final 10 episodes and they’re just having so much fun. Their characters are so layered and we really put them through the wringer as we do so well but they enjoy it and I think that we continue to be deadly and dangerous and uber-romantic, and let’s see, I would say the catchphrase is, it’s endgame — it’s final game.”
— Jolie Lash