Why is Caleb Hitting the Bottle?

Pretty Little Liars is once again incorporating substance abuse into its storyline and this time around it's the most stable character on the show who is struggling. Caleb Rivers returned to Pretty Little Liars as a series regular at the beginning of Season 5 after the character's spinoff series Ravenswood was canceled earlier this year. Though Caleb didn't spend much time in the spooky little town, it's clear that whatever happened between the series finale of Ravenswood and now really effected Hanna's once-levelheaded boyfriend. Since Caleb's arrival, he has been hitting the bottle pretty hard, blowing off responsibilities in order to down some booze. It's hard to see Caleb heading down such a destructive path, especially one that seems so wildly off course. The question now is: What happened in Ravenswood that caused Caleb to start drinking?

For those of you who skipped Ravenswood , the series followed Caleb as he explored a town that held the secrets of his troubled family history. While there Caleb befriended four other teenagers, all of whom were victims of a "pact" that their ancestors made with the devil so that Ravenswood would never suffer a loss of soldiers during a war. The pact sacrificed five teens from Ravenswood whenever a soldier came back to Ravenswood unharmed, and Caleb and his friends were next on the list to be offed. (Sure makes A seem like NBD, doesn't it?)

One interesting aspect of Ravenswood was that one of the five teens involved in the pact — and Caleb's potential "soul mate" — actually died in the first episode of the series. Miranda Collins (the girl with the chic haircut pictured above) drowned when the car carrying her and her four ill-fated friends drove off a bridge. Miranda was the girl that Hanna told Caleb to "keep safe" when he decided to stay in Ravenswood — and Caleb basically failed at that. For someone who spent a majority of Pretty Little Liars fighting off A attacks and guys with guns (remember that showdown with Nate at the lighthouse?) losing the person he was supposed to protect was crushing.

But while Caleb may have failed at protecting Miranda from death in a car crash, Ravenswood hinted that Miranda's life wasn't necessarily over. Miranda appeared as a ghost throughout the course of the short series and was able to communicate with her cursed friends. In the Ravenswood finale, the Pact Maker (aka "the bad guy") wanted to bring Miranda back so that all five teens could die together, fulfilling the promise that their ancestors made years prior. Miranda's uncle stopped the Pact Maker from completely the task, but did say that Miranda could come back to life.

Unfortunately, Ravenswood was canceled before Miranda was brought back from the dead. Now, Caleb is back in Rosewood, which is making us wonder just what happened to him in that small town. Caleb came back from Ravenswood a changed man, and he certainly has seen a lot of horrible things in the past few months. But the thing that turned him into a borderline alcoholic can't just be the presence of ghosts — something truly terrible and irreversible must have happened to make him a shell of his former self. It's possible that Caleb was once again unable to save Miranda — and the fact haunts him every day.

We don't know the exact details of why Caleb left Ravenswood, but we do know that he came back alone and unhappy. It appears that Caleb has taken up drinking to forget his bigger problems, and that might include whatever happened to Miranda in Ravenswood. Perhaps Caleb was given the opportunity to bring Miranda back from the dead and something went horribly wrong, leaving her to wander around the town as a ghost for eternity. That would certainly be something Caleb would want to forget, and hitting the bottle would be one (very unhealthy) way to do that.

Then there's the more extreme, far more awful option. The Ravenswood pact was the reason why Caleb was lured back to the town — he was one of the five teens slated to die in his generation. However, the show isn't necessarily specific about which teens had to go. What if the town went through with the pact, and Caleb came out unscathed? Perhaps his three friends and two other unassuming teens all died together as the pact warranted, and Caleb, for whatever reason, was spared, possibly due to the wrench that Miranda's death threw in the Pact Maker's overall plan. Caleb may not have technically been responsible for the deaths of his peers, but he would still feel survivor's guilt. Caleb's drinking habit could cover up the guilt he feels for living through the pact that was supposed to be his death sentence.

Whatever Caleb is running from, it's clear that drinking won't solve his problems. Until Caleb reveals the truth about what happened in Ravenswood, we're going to see a lot of brown-bagged rum bottles in his near future.

Images: ABC Family; Giphy (4)