A "Big Alison Twist" Is Coming To 'PLL'

The early seasons of Pretty Little Liars may have featured plenty of A action, but the single-lettered villain wasn't the only mysterious character that the Liars desperately wanted to know more about. The "murdered" Alison DiLaurentis was just as much of a question mark as A herself, and though the Liars spent a ton of time playing minion to their blonde Queen Bee, the more they learned about Alison after her disappearance the more they realized that they barely knew her at all. Alison was even crueler and even more secretive than the girls remembered her as. So it was pretty surprising when Alison returned to Rosewood and totally shed herself of any mystique — and that her "good girl" routine even carried over to five years after the Big A reveal. Is that all there is to Alison's character? Maybe not — a new spoiler from E! News hints that there will be "a big Alison twist" in Season 7 of Pretty Little Liars, and it could mean Alison's been faking a lot of her personality.

Pretty Little Liars' showrunner I. Marlene King talked to E! News about the upcoming — and potentially final — season of the series, where she dropped the "big Alison twist" bomb. Though we have no idea what the twist could mean, I'm hoping that it changes absolutely everything we know about later-season Alison. Right now, the show is presenting Alison as a reformed "mean girl" who used cruelty to protect herself. Now that she doesn't need to hide, Alison can be the Stepford Wife-esque woman that she always secretly wanted to be — but is this her true self? I not-so-secretly hope that it's not, and this hinted at "big twist" could mean that Alison's persona is all a part of a larger act. If the television series borrows from Sara Shepard's original books, then we might be able to predict exactly what happens to Alison.

Though the Pretty Little Liars television show doesn't closely follow Shepard's book series, there are certain overlaps of plot twists and themes. For example, in the books, it's Alison who has an identical twin named Courtney, while on the TV show, her mother Jessica has a twin named Mary. One thing that's very much the same is the early characterization of Alison as a cruel, controlling mean girl. However, later in the book series, Alison returns to Rosewood and claims to be a changed person, even befriending the Liars and apologizing for her past behavior. However, these "changes" are actually just a part of Alison's ultimate endgame to trick the Liars. It's later revealed that it's Alison who killed her twin sister Courtney, and that she's been stalking the girls as A after Mona's death.

Obviously, Alison doesn't have a twin sister in the television universe, but we already know that there's an equivalent character: her older sister Charlotte, who was also murdered. Alison has played the grieving sister for weeks, but what if that's the biggest lie that Alison has ever had to perform? This "big Alison twist" could mean that her good girl act is just that. Maybe Alison is just as manipulative and cruel as we saw in those early flashbacks — and perhaps she's even cruel enough to kill her sister. Maybe Alison was putting on the mask of sanity in order to enjoy a "normal" life, but upon hearing about Charlotte's relationship with her new love Dr. Rollins, she snapped, and killed her at the bell tower. Jealousy and revenge was the catalyst for "book Alison" to off her twin Courtney, and perhaps "TV Alison" could do the same with her doppelganger and older sister Charlotte.

No matter what the twist is, here's hoping that we learn a lot more about the ever-mysterious Alison. She may be playing nice now, but there has to be more to this complex character.

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