Why the PLL Summer Finale was Not Only Bad, but Offensive

Just to begin, this post contains obvious spoilers to the season 6 summer finale. So if you don’t want to know what happened, consider yourself warned. If you don’t care or are fuming in discontent of a post-shitty reveal as the rest of us are, here’s my thoughts after this episode.

                                                                You’ve been warned

There have been so many theories circling around about who the infamous ‘A’ terrorizing the liars is. Some have seemed super plausible like Wren, Ezra, or Mona, others a bit unlikely but amazing like Aria (I’ll never let go of this dream) and then completely random like Tipi the Bird is the mastermind of it all. But they decided to go with the most cliche person possible: CeCe Drake. I mean if we’re going off of Charles DiLaurentis already, c’mon…they didn’t even bother to change her freaking initials. I was immediately disappointed at that reveal because she seems like such a convenient character they just throw around whenever the writers are to lazy to come up with a better solution. Yes, she looks just like Ali and seemed to be involved every now and then, but in the past couple of seasons she has been 100% irrelevant and hasn’t made an appearance at all (this is also why I hate the Wren theory, but I’m trying to stay focused on why this reveal sucks, not other theories).

really?! how boring…

So, not only did they manage to give us the worst possible choice for A ever, but to make it worse, they twisted the reveal into something rather offensive. CeCe is A, yes, but she also is Charles and used to be a boy. That’s right, she’s transgender, JFC, WHY? This reveal was offensive for so many reasons, and I don’t even think I’m the right person to explain why, but I’ll do my best. First of all, there has never been a trans character before this episode and I highly doubt there will ever be one afterwards because they’re not using this trait legitimately, more as a scapegoat which is disgusting. They didn’t make the reveal to give CeCe a more interesting characterization or to give us more depth into why she became who she was, no they used it for pure shock value purposes. Most PLL viewers spent the last couple of months thinking A would be a boy due to the Charles hint, but by making it CeCe, they liked that we’d be surprised Charles was a girl. Fuck that. Trans people should not be used as a fucking plot device or as a way to trick the audience. Also they’ve given zero context that there would be a trans character, unless you count Ali finding the other dress, but I truly don’t count that…it’s actually insane.

After this giant reveal, they brush over it completely. Not once does CeCe discuss going through this transition in a freaking mental institution or how Bethany used this fact to turn everyone against her. The writers keep going on about how A is how she is because she was ‘abused’, but never once do they mention it’s because she was transgender. What an insensitive trope to throw around: traumatic child turns out to be trans…how fucking original. Especially when we’re really trying to be accepting and you guys just made one of the most evil villains on a TV show trans…wow…really? Also, since they don’t develop this point at all, it wasn’t a necessary edition. They don’t use this to make us sympathize, they use it to bully A and use it against her so she becomes the psychotic character we know today. Monsters are created not born, that’s how it always is, but just because CeCe didn’t take it far enough to ACTUALLY kill anyone doesn’t make her any less of a freaking psychopath. This was just so unoriginal and quite frankly boring. I REALLY did not want to hear about a cliche sob story over how A’s parents didn’t love her enough. At this point any other A would have been more interesting. CeCe would have even been more interesting if she just wasn’t trans. They could have actually made Charles dead and had CeCe in love with him or something, that would have been interesting. Mona was a better A than this crap will ever be, and no one will convince me otherwise.

So attempting to move past that horrendous reveal, they make Red Coat and Black Veil the same freaking person and it’s the most boring option you could have ever chosen in the whole world: Sara Fucking Harvey. Seriously? Sara was literally only introduced this season and though we all knew it was to give Emily some lesbian action (since that fucking girl can’t be single for five seconds) and to be sketchy as heck, but no one ever actually wanted her to be important enough to be Red Coat AND Black Veil…maybe if she was one of them, fine, but both?! Why?? What a freaking cop out. There are so many fan theories, good fan theories, read those because they’re just so much better than anything these writers have crapped out. I mean honestly. Where has the originality gone? Why isn’t one of the liars involved? Why wasn’t it one of the thousands of other sketchy character’s we’ve met for the past 6 seasons? Just why?

I mean, clearly the writers are just too lazy to come up with a better freaking decision than this…because this is terrible…

Then they did an extremely jarring time hop to Labor Day right before the girls go off to college. So many questions are left 100% unanswered. What happened to CeCe now that it’s all out? Who killed Mrs. D? How in the hell did you girls actually graduate? And did anyone ever let the freaking moms out of the basement?? It went from CeCe saying ‘game over’ (which side note, thank god she didn’t kill herself because the only things worse than making A an abused, transgender is driving her to kill herself, that would have been the icing on the most offensive trope ever) and then all of a sudden it’s happy sunshine and ‘everything’s over’. Yeah freaking right. Then time hop 5 more years (seriously?!) and Ali is a teacher, a married teacher, remember when she was the baddest bitch in town? Yeah, now she’s a freaking teacher – side note, anyone know whose last name is Rollins? If it’s Lorenzo I may scream – and all the girls come back saying ‘he’s coming for you’, ‘we came back for you’. And that’s where it leaves us. Ugh.

So to sum up this cluster fuck of a summer finale: they made the long awaited A reveal EXTREMELY offensive and absolutely ridiculous (also did I forget to mention CeCe dated Jason…yeah, they just brushed right over incest in this episode too, isn’t that wonderful??) and left us with an insane time jump just so that they have a reasonable amount of time to create a new villain, a hopefully better villain, and continue this god damn show. The entire episode felt so, so rushed to me. I don’t mind the time hop as a plot line for 6B, but shoving it into the end of this episode made it feel cluttered and almost unbearable. They should have just wrapped up this stupid story line and at least left us with some closure. Also instead of throwing us into other problems they should have answered the rest of the important questions. I mean c’mon guys, you barely answered anything.

I’m just supremely disappointed in a good show that I thought knew better. They strung us along for 6 seasons to give us this? What a crock of shit. Absolutely terrible. I feel bad for my fellow fans and anyone who was truly enjoying this, Marlene King fucked us over and is probably cackling over a glass of wine watching us angry sob while raking in the dough. All I can say is MAYBE the following season/s will be better, but seeing this I wouldn’t hope for much. I won’t be surprised at the fan backlash and if this show loses a lot of followers. It has me questioning it as well. I’m just very disappointed, that’s all.

Though Emily punching Sara was great…just saying…

the only thing Emily has ever done right in this entire series…

Image sources:

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“The Fault In Our Stars” Was Flawless

I can’t even count how many horrible book to movie adaptations I’ve seen. When a book fanatic goes to an move adaptation of she loves, she can’t help but cringe in concern before even viewing it. We want to be positive, to buy into the hype, to scream and dress up like all the other naive people, but we can’t. We’re naturally judgmental and to be perfectly frank, sadistic. That’s the only reason why we would torture ourselves by watching these movies. As good as an adaptation is, it’s almost never how we imagine it. What’s better than our imagination? Of the franchises I’m truly obsessed with, there have been less than 10 adaptations that I will say have lived up to the book, maybe even surpassed, but let’s not get to crazy now. Yet last night, as I sat in a theater full of sobbing people of all ages (mainly girls though, no offense boys, cry away, there’s no judgement when we’re blinded by tears) I realized I was going to be adding to that number of movies.

If you haven’t read The Fault In Our Stars, go to a bookstore, go on Amazon, or download it onto your Kindle/Nook/IPad WHATEVER, right now! I’m not kidding you. Don’t be fooled by it’s Young Adult stereotype, it’s only given that because it’s an easy read. But don’t ever mistake Young Adult books for being childish because this novel, in fact almost all John Green novels, is anything but. It’s a fresh take on love, disease, and the outlook on life in general. The wisdom of these character’s surpasses their ages due to their circumstances. Cancer will definitely do that to you. If you don’t read the book you’re honestly not going to be able to appreciate the movie to it’s extent. You never will with adaptations. I don’t care how good a movie is, if you don’t know all the facts you can’t possibly understand the depth behind it all. This novel is a good example because it’s hard to capture the complexities of the emotions felt by these characters in a movie, though it was as good of a job as any.
Now I’m actually going to talk about the movie, spoilers below…you’ve been warned.

As you hopefully already know the movie is about Hazel Grace (Shailene Woodley) a 16-year-old cancer stricken teen who doesn’t really have much on her plate aside from her doting parents, reality TV, and re-reading for the millionth time her favorite (albeit made-up…sorry folks, I wish it was real) book “An Imperial Affliction”. That is until her parents force her to go to group where she meets the charismatic, confident, and absolutely adorable Augustus Waters (Ansel Elgort). It’s sort of love at first sight, well…at least for him. Hazel is unused to the attention and is wary of his sudden affection for her. She sees how much caring for her takes its toll on her parents lives and she doesn’t wish that on Augustus (who is in remission from his osteosarcoma after losing his right leg). She tells him she’s “a grenade” whose death is inevitable. This doesn’t stop him and despite her tries, they fall into a deep love.

The tears kept coming during this movie. I do happen to be an overly sentimental gal and I cry at pretty much everything. It honestly started because of how spot on the casting was. I had an idea from the vlogs and interviews of the cast, but you just have no clue until they’re on the screen. Shailene as Hazel was nothing short of brilliant. She captured her witty, blunt, and realistic nature, but was also relatable and so lovely. If you ever have a doubt in her talent (and don’t lie we all did…c’mon what the shit as Secret Life anyway…) and if The Descendants didn’t already prove you wrong, this sure will. And Ansel is as much her equal in every way, though I’m biased because Gus is such a fantastic character if he even came close to doing him justice I was going to fall in love, and he by far did. The boy had him down to his swagger, mischievous glint, and infectious nature. I adored him from the moment he was on screen. Truly flawless. If you want an idea of just how flawless, check out this video clip.

Stand out moments for me was their stare-battle in the beginning of the movie. So precious and handled very well. All of their moments in Amsterdam which were as adorable as they were torturous due to the impending knowledge of Gus’s cancer confession. Nat Wolff’s portrayal of Issac was also absolutely fantastic. Issac, Gus’s soon to be/later on is blind friend, is one of my favorite characters. He’s a nice foil to Gus being madly in love for superficial reasons and then losing it as Gus gains the real thing, but Issac’s love for Gus matches Hazel’s and it’s shown beautifully in this movie. He adds to the sadness when he cries giving his speech at Gus’s pre-funeral saying “I don’t want to see a world without Augustus Waters” and he also adds some comedic moments like when he breaks Gus’s trophies or they throw eggs at his bitch of an ex-girlfriend’s car.

I could truly gush about this movie forever because it was so faithful to the book. There were omissions, as always, but honestly they weren’t missed. All it did was cut extraneous dialogue and unnecessary characters that distracted from the main focus, so it didn’t bother me a bit. Truly it was a dream adaptation. I can’t even count the amount of times I gasped at how a scene was exactly how I pictured it or happy-cried due to the amazingly believable performances from these actors. I even forgot how funny it could be or how much of a douche Peter Van Houten (William Defoe), the author of Hazel’s favorite book, was to them. But down to their endearing sex scene and Gus’s heart-wrenching pre-funeral, it was sheer perfection.

I’d be truly shocked anyone who views this movie doesn’t squeak out at least one tear while watching it. I don’t think I’ve sobbed that hard at a movie since Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, and that’s saying something. As stated before, I could talk about this movie forever, but now all I can do is leave it for all to view and hopefully love as much as I do. If you don’t, no issue, to each his own, but it’ll be going up there with the few cherished adaptations and held dearly in my heart. I can’t wait to recover so I can see it again and sob some more.

“Pain demands to be felt” is a quote from “An Imperial Affliction” and as true of a summary to this novel as anything. As harsh as it may be, this story would not be what it is without the tragic ending so we all can understand and learn. I recommend to all ages and genders to watch this movie because it’s brilliant, though don’t expect to leave this movie dry-eyed. It’s sad, but it’s worth every tear. Go see it ASAP, but dear god, do NOT forget copious amounts of tissues, trust me…you’re going to need it.