What Happened To Ezra?

It has been an arduous wait for Season 6B of Pretty Little Liars, but we're getting down to the home stretch. The new season of PLL premieres on Tuesday, Jan. 12, and while that may feel like eons away right now, the show has been dropping major clues about what to expect when the series returns. As fans know, the show will pick up after a five-year time jump, and our characters will have created new lives for themselves in the wake of A being unmasked. We know that Hanna and Caleb will have split, Aria will be suffering from the effects of A's torture, and Emily will be grieving the loss of her father, but the person who may have gone through the most turbulence is Aria's ex-boyfriend (and teacher) Ezra. So what happened to Ezra during the time jump? Whatever it is, it sounds bad.

According to the November Pretty Little Liars special "5 Years Forward," Ezra will have had a very difficult time after the girls leave Rosewood. As fans may remember, Ezra himself left the shady Pennsylvanian town to pursue charity work in Thailand with Emily's friend Nicole. Then, according to actor Ian Harding, everything was taken from Ezra "very suddenly and very violently." As a result, Ezra turned to alcohol to cope.

Obviously this isn't great news for Ezra fans, so what could have happened to turn his life upside down? Though we don't have too many details, it seems that one possible answer could be that he lost someone he loved. That person may even be Emily's friend and Ezra's co-volunteer, Nicole.

It's hard to imagine something shaking Ezra's foundation: the guy has already been through the ringer. He got shot and nearly died in New York, had his "son" ripped away from him, and dealt with serious family drama his entire life. Throughout all of this Ezra has always put on a strong front, which means that whatever happened to him had to be really, really bad. Losing a girlfriend could be the thing that pushes him over the edge.

Only time will tell exactly what led Ezra to fall into a "sea of alcohol," as Harding says, but it's just one more reason why we're eagerly awaiting the return of Pretty Little Liars.

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