An original Pretty Little Liars easter egg about Aria and Ezra at the end of Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin has been reversed in Pretty Little Liars: Summer School — and it's truly for the best.
In the last episode of the first season of the new Pretty Little Liars spinoff, it was hinted that Imogen (Bailee Madison) would be giving her baby up for adoption to none other than Aria Montgomery (Lucy Hale) and Ezra Fitz (Ian Harding) in a tieback to the 2010s series. The reveal was met with some amount of amount of criticism; Ezria, while pretty well-liked at the time, is one part of the OG series that has aged the worst.
The couple met when Aria was underage, just 16, and began dating while Ezra was her high school teacher. Despite the illegal nature of the relationship, they became a crucial ship in the series and even got married. Ezra never faced any repercussions for his actions, even after it was revealed he knew exactly how old Aria was and had, in fact, targeted her for his book and investigation into Alison DiLaurentis. (Oh, and he also had a flirtationship with Alison when she was 14 or 15, and he was an adult.)
In Summer School, which premiered its first two episodes on Max on May 9, Imogen doesn't end up giving baby Estelle to Ezria, however, and instead opts for a gay couple in their town. Imogen explains why when talking to therapist Dr. Sullivan in episode one, saying, "Because I got a weird vibe from that Ezra dude."
The reason for the choice was twofold: the cast saw the feedback online, and in the writers' room, it just made more sense for the plot for the baby to be nearby.
“[Fans] were [critical], for sure,” Bailee Madison tells Teen Vogue. “You know, here's the thing: I think you can always go into something with a really pure intention, and I think we would also be kidding ourselves if we didn't acknowledge that they did end up together and they're happy. I did like them together at the end of the [show]. But you take the response, and we're just excited to then be like, 'We can hear you. We are listening, and here's the little nod that we've got you. Loud and clear, message received, and here's a little joke to kind of button it off.' I'm honestly pretty happy about it because it's given me a really fun storyline to get to play with now that the baby has gone to these adoptive parents.”
Maia Reficco, who plays Noa, adds, “I'm happy to know that as a show, we're taking that into our own hands and steering in the right direction. I think people are going to like the way that plays out because it was a necessary turn.”
X content
Co-creator and co-executive producer Lindsay Calhoon Bring shares more about the initial decision to have the reference and what the change to Imogen's storyline then allowed the series to accomplish.
“[At the] end of season one, it felt like such a perfect, beautiful ending and a nice connector that Imogen might be meeting with Aria and Ezra, who, as a fan from the original PLL, I knew we left really wanting children, wanting a baby,” she says. “We meet Imogen at the beginning of the season, keeping tabs on the adoptive couple, making sure they're within a walk or a short drive away. Imogen's all about keeping tabs on everything, for better or worse, which Dr. Sullivan calls her out on in therapy.”
Calhoon Bring adds, “For season two, when we're talking in the writers' room, we were in dialogue a lot with trauma. The idea of postpartum anxiety was not something we thought of at the end of season one. The fear that Imogen might have that something bad would happen to the baby, she still is so driven by that anxiety, the idea that she would want to keep the baby close felt really right.”
Ultimately, Calhoon Bring says, it's about what works best for the story: “Unfortunately, you can't make everybody happy, so I think we really do start with our characters first and focus on what makes the most sense for them and what will generate the most story for them. Knowing that we could revisit these parents over and over just gave us so many great places to go.”
