‘Pretty Little Liars: Summer School’ Creators Dissect Final Episode & Tease Whether Original Cast Could Make Appearances In Potential Season 3
Pretty Little Liars: Summer School Warner Bros. Discovery
SPOILER ALERT! This post contains details from the season finale of Max’s Pretty Little Liars: Summer School.
There’s one less faceless villain roaming Millwood.
Episode 8 of Pretty Little Liars: Summer School debuted Thursday, wrapping up this season’s mystery with one last test for the final final girl, Tabby (Chandler Kinney). It only makes sense that they (yes, they) would save Tabby for last.
But while all five girls manage to survive yet another murderer and get their grades back in order, the finale also leaves the door open for plenty of new and returning haunts in that Pennsylvania town.
In the interview below, creators Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Lindsay Calhoon Bring spoke with Deadline all about the finale, including how they landed on this season’s adversaries. They also weigh in on whether more Pretty Little Liars OGs might make appearances in the future.
DEADLINE: First of all, I am shocked that Christian, Johnny and Jen all made it out of this season completely innocent. I thought for sure one of them was involved with Bloody Rose. Can you talk about sowing those seeds of distrust and how you decided to keep them out of it, ultimately?
ROBERTO AGUIRRE-SACASA: It was very reflective of us in the writers room. We really didn’t know until the end that they weren’t villainous. I will say I feel, and Lindsey correct me if I’m wrong, we never thought Jen was going to be potentially super involved in being Bloody Rose or being part of Spooky Spaghetti, but, definitely, Christian and Johnny were on the table as possibly being villains.
LINDSAY CALHOON BRING: We went through every possibility, the same way the girls on the show do. That Episode 7 murder board scene with Tabby going through the suspects was us getting ready to break the finale, and I think Roberto, you’re right. There was a dark day where we thought ‘Well, Jen could be Rose and then Johnny and Christian could be working with her.’ But we really cast Rose as every female on our show.
For Johnny and Christian, there was definitely a time where we thought ‘Oh no, I think makes a lot of sense.’ They both offer all the reasons that everyone says on the show. They came out of nowhere. Christian’s really into horror movies and mask making. So there were a few dark days where we thought that we were going to go there, which is why they made such perfect, we think, red herrings and really kept you guessing throughout. So we’re really happy with how that wound up. We thought for a second, too, in a sad way, it will be hard for Imogen and Tabby to not go there themselves and not convince themselves that their boyfriends were bad, given all the trauma that they had been through. So, of course, Wes having planted a mask at Christian’s and dead bodies in a freezer for Imogen to find didn’t help.
DEADLINE: Speaking of the freezer, there was a moment during the climax of the episode where I thought, ‘Wait, is Johnny still in the freezer?’ I’m glad that was addressed.
AGUIRRE-SACASA: We talked about that a lot. Once the horror of the evening of that harrowing goes on and the girls are running around, it’s like, ‘Oh, do we have to cover the fact that Johnny is in the freezer?’ And by the way, we barely got that shot of Mallory opening up the freezer and letting [him out]. It was literally one of the last the last things we got on that stage day, literally like the penultimate day of shooting. And it was like, ‘Guys, we may not get the shot.’ And I’m like, ‘We have to. We don’t have a shot. Johnny’s in the freezer, freezing here.’ But but but but it was a big point of discussion amongst everyone is like, does Johnny survive the freezer or is he like Jack at the end of The Shining? And who lets him out?
DEADLINE: That conversation they have after Noa brings up her suspicions about Johnny and Christian, it’s an interesting moment. I really enjoyed that they were truly spiraling in that way.
AGUIRRE-SACASA: That’s a favorite scene of ours, for sure. It’s so nice that we were able to build up to that scene. But every episode, we were like, ‘Is this a scene where all the girls turn on each other and accuse each other’s love interest?’ Lindsay correct me if I’m wrong, but there was some wild improv that the girls had, like I think someone said, ‘Well, what about Henry? He looks like Jeffrey Dahmer.’ That ended up in there. Was that an improvised line?
CALHOON BRING: That was an improvised line. One that we’re obsessed with. Nothing is wrong with that one. We’ve never really had the girls fight. Other than being stalked and nearly killed by a seemingly skinned woman all season, I think at that point, the girls are all kind of like, ‘We’re in a good place.’ Tabby and Imogen just spent the night with their boyfriends and are feeling really safe. Everybody’s really happy. Why are you trying to yuck my yum? Don’t do this to me. So I think it was very, very, very fun to amp them up and get to that fight and for Tabby to be the one who, at the end of the fight, is like you know what? There’s kind of truth to what everybody’s saying. We wouldn’t be good investigators if we didn’t look into everybody, and that includes the people that were in our relations with. So that’s what starts that hunt for sure.
DEADLINE: So, you say you went back and forth about who Bloody Rose would be, and what their motive would be. How and when did you land on this Mrs. Langsberry and Wes team up?
AGUIRRE-SACASA: Very early on, we knew that our slasher villain was going to be Bloody Rose. We landed on that way before we landed on who exactly was going to be under the bandages. Obviously there’s a recurring theme of mothers throughout the season. We have Mrs. Langsberry. We have Dr. Sullivan. We have Mrs. Beasley. So we knew that there was a wide array of suspects. I felt like once we knew that Tabby was this season’s final final girl, it felt like both Mrs. Langsberry — and knowing that probably Mrs. Langsberry wasn’t super up to speed on websites and recruiting teams — and Wes were the characters with the deepest, most direct connection to Tabby. Obviously, Tabby was really good friends with Chip. Tabby and Mrs. Langsberry cross swords in our premiere episodes. She confronts Tabby, Tabby writes ‘rapist’ on Chip’s gravestone in the first episode. Wes has been Tabby’s antagonist since Season 1. So, it just started slotting into place, but it was about easily halfway through the writing of the season before we started firming up those guys as the villains.
CALHOON BRING: I think, even as late as Episode 6, as we were writing, Wes was someone who we thought would be an amazing body drop, who was on the chopping block. We even went so far as to write a pretty cool kill sequence for him at the Orpheum of Bloody Rose showing up and killing him. Then as we were doing it and going through it, we thought, ‘Oh, this doesn’t feel right. There may be a better a better fit for Wes in this story. He might be more important here.’ And knowing, too, that he’s so connected to the Orpheum, as was Chip. That would make sense. They had a relationship as well. [He’s] so connected to Tabby and such a disgruntled filmmaker, then the idea that Spooky Spaghetti served this bigger purpose — Spooky Spaghetti sort of became its own streaming platform. Ultimately, we’re trying to build an audience to release this movie that Wes is making. It just all kind of came together and collided for us.
DEADLINE: I need to ask your thoughts on Dr. Sullivan. She was starting to grow on me, especially once we find out she had nothing to do with Bloody Rose, but when she called the girls narcissists at the end of the episode, that ruffled my feathers. So, I almost didn’t feel bad when she was killed by Archie. In your opinion, where do we end on the Dr. Sullivan front? Friend or foe?
AGUIRRE-SACASA: First of all, we love Annabeth [Gish]. She’s so iconic, and she’s such a wonderful, wonderful actor and such a wonderful human being. When we kind of landed on the theme for Season 2 being trauma, early on, we landed on the idea that the girls would be in therapy, really owning the events of Season 1. There was a therapist in the Pretty Little Liars extended universe.
When you introduce a psychiatrist’s character into a horror franchise, you kind of have to play that they might be Hannibal Lecter. You just kind of have to embrace that tension. I have to say, a lot of actors don’t like playing villains and don’t want to play potentially bad people. Props to Annabeth that she was like, ‘Whatever you want me to do, I’m there. If you want me to be the villain, I’m there.’
CALHOON BRING: I think with Dr. Sullivan, all things can be true. I think she can be someone who was doing her job, who cared about the girls, but is ultimately self serving. It’s funny, early on in the season, Dr. Sullivan tries to put down boundaries. She tries to keep boundaries up, but Imogen just keeps going through. [As Dr. Sullivan] ‘Why are you in my hospital room? Please, please leave. What are you doing here?’ There’s a bit of muddiness in their relationship. Dr. Sullivan, being a mother who lost a child and Imogen being a child who lost a mother. So I do think they have a connection. At the same time, I think Dr. Sullivan, through working with these girls was bound and gagged and tied and left in a dirty closet. And at the end of this, it’s like, if I can’t at least profit off of the year that I had, then literally what are we doing? So I do love that she became that delicious villain in the end for sure.
DEADLINE: There’s another hilarious moment in the finale, where Kelly says ‘I locked mama in the prayer closet,’ and the other girls are like, ‘There’s so much to unpack here,’ but they just move on because it’s the least important issue at hand. When you’re writing, how do you find moments like that to insert that comedy?
AGUIRRE-SACASA: Lindsay is one of the funniest people I’ve ever met and worked with, and I don’t think I’ve ever worked on anything that doesn’t have some kind of sense of humor, so it felt all very natural. You don’t want to get too earnest with any of these characters. It just felt so natural and important and part of the DNA of the show that the girls would always have kind of a sardonic sense of humor. Only Kelly could say ‘I locked mama in our prayer closet’ and it makes total sense. For the other girls, it’s like ‘God, there’s so many things we could talk about with with that.’ It’s impossible to not be funny with this show.
CALHOON BRING: Roberto cracks me up. We’re obsessed with our show. Making a show is hard. Making a show during a global pandemic is hard. Making a show that pauses for two strikes is hard. Our relationship was so built on humor and laughing through everything. For me, I feel like I’m at my wittiest and my best when I’m my most broken down, which isn’t healthy, and I should see Dr. Sullivan about that. But I think in life, when things are at their hardest — whether it’s grief, whether it’s trauma — if you can’t find a way through that through humor, then you’re just not going to survive it. So we always talk about the girls as survivors, and this is their coping mechanism. There’s always going to be humor in what’s happening in the show.
DEADLINE: You’re almost so proud of Kelly for locking her mom in the prayer closet, but then you’re like, ‘Wait a minute…’
CALHOON BRING: One of my favorite moments with that too, it’s at the end of Episode 7. It’s Jennifer Farrell who plays Mrs. Beasley, the things she’s yelling through the door. One of the things is, ‘Did you drug me child?’ It’s so good.
DEADLINE: Now that you’ve brought back Dr. Sullivan, what are the chances there could be more appearances from PLL alum in the future?
AGUIRRE-SACASA: I think in Season 1, we made the conscious decision to reference a couple of things like Rosewood and the Radley Asylum and things like that. But we were really focused on building this version in this town of Millwood. I think Dr. Sullivan was so seamlessly integrated in Season 2. Should there be a Season 3, and we’re so hopeful, I think it would just have to feel totally organic and right. We would love it, but what would drive it is the story and it really making sense.
CALHOON BRING: That’s exactly right. By the way, we’re fans. Our writers are fans. Our cast are super fans who are constantly asking when are we writing in Troian [Bellisario] and when are we writing in Lucy [Hale]? Is Allison gonna make an appearance? For Season 2, we didn’t think ‘Oh, we have to connect to the original universe.’ We thought, ‘These girls need therapy. Oh my God. There is a connection there that is organic.’ But we love the show. We love the world. We love Rosewood, and, should there be a Season 3, we’ve definitely talked about making those visitations.