We Have to Go How Many Months Without 'PLL'?

The Pretty Little Liars Season 5A finale is bittersweet. On one hand, I'm going out of my mind with the knowledge that someone on the show is going to die in the PLL #fAtalefinale and just want to know right this second who that person could be. Mona? Melissa? Caleb? I won't be satisfied until the credits roll. Of course, the problem with actually watching the finale is that it means no more Pretty Little Liars for quite some time. Though the #fAtalefinale won't be the end of Season 5, the show will go on hiatus for some time after the first half of Season 5's deadly conclusion. So when will Pretty Little Liars return?

We don't know for sure, but we can make an educated guess given the show's patterns. After the Season 4A finale on August 27, 2013, Season 4B of the series began on January 7, 2014 with the episode "Who's In The Box?" PLL has followed this basic pattern since the second season — one half of the show is in the summer while the other airs in the winter. Following that pattern, it's reasonable to conclude that Season 5B of Pretty Little Liars will resume around the same time in January of 2015.

Pretty Little Liars will have two additional episode that air before the official beginning of Season 5B. One is a Christmas episode, which will be the show's only holiday special of the year. But Halloween lovers won't go without a healthy dose of PLL during the spooky season: The show will air a "fan appreciation" episode, which will air during ABC Family's 13 Nights of Halloween block.

So what can we look forward to when PLL returns? Though we don't know much about the specific episode — yet — a PLL producer did tweet this hint about the upcoming 5B premiere. Here's the photo Joseph Dougherty tweeted below:

The title of the episode is a reference to the Ingmar Bergman film of the same name (there is no comma in the film's title) and might shed some light onto what the new episode may be about. The film tells the tale of a woman with schizophrenia who struggles with her interpretation of reality. In the film, the woman Karin has just been released from an asylum where she received treatment for her incurable mental illness. It's an interesting choice for the title of this episode, given that Radley Sanitarium is constantly intertwined with the main mystery on PLL. Could this title hint that someone will be in — or recently released from — a mental institution?

It wouldn't be the first time. The show hinted that Mona may have struggled with some form of dissociative identity disorder prior to her time in Radley, and there's a possibility that she may return to her old haunt. Then there's the chance that it could be Alison herself who ends up in an institution like Radley — Ali has acted very shady in the past few episodes, and even the police aren't buying her kidnapping story. Could Ali be deemed mentally ill and put in Radley in the 5A finale or Christmas episode, only to be released in "Through The Glass, Darkly?" It would certainly benefit the liars if she was...

Images: Eric McCandless/ABC Family; Giphy