The TV Chick

Tonight’s episode of Pretty Little Liars is a prequel. It’s a full hour where Alison is alive, where Jenna can see and where the girls are ruling the school. I couldn’t get enough of this flashback episode, and to be honest, I hope they do another one. “The First Secret” takes place on Halloween, and the girls gear up for Noel Kahn’s big party. Before the party, Alison meets new girl Jenna, who seems like she might have been the first girl to ever challenge Ali. Ali is still up to her manipulative and mean girl ways, but in this prequel, we learn there’s a lot more to Ali than we knew.

At Noel Kahn’s party, Ali and Jenna show up in the same costume. Ali then gets herself into a sticky situation, that even scared me. Sasha Pieterse, who plays Ali, advised everyone to watch this with the lights on, and I agree. There are some scary moments. There are also some moments I had been hoping to see for quite some time. First of all, we get to see Alison’s bedroom. I want to watch the episode again and pause it to see if I can pick up on any clues. Second, we get to see Spencer and her family’s relationship a bit more, and how she became the Spencer she is now. Third, we see Ezra. I’m not going to tell you in what context, but we do see him, and it was such a clever way to put him in the episode. Also, Darren Wilden is back. Remember him? The creepy cop from the first season who makes a brief appearance in the second season? We learn a little bit about him, too. But one of the biggest things we learn is about A. A was an entity before the four girls. I don’t want to spoil any more, but what we find out is very interesting. We get a lot of questions answered in this prequel, but as expected, many more will arise. It sets up a very interesting second half of the season for a bunch of characters. I am very interested to see what else we learn about Lucas’ past and how being tortured by Ali affected him. Also, the beginning of this episode starts out with a crazy story about a mental institution and it reminded me a bit of the books. I wonder if other book fans will notice this as well.

While this Halloween prequel might just be a “one off” in TV terms — as in, there won’t be new episodes until January — it was a fantastic episode. I really hope there are more prequels to come. Perhaps in a different period of time, or one that picks up right after Halloween. I want to see more of Alison before her death and more of the girls before Alison’s death. But regardless of whether or not we get more hour-long forays into the past, I obviously can’t wait for more new episodes in January.

Be sure to tune in tonight at 8 PM to ABC Family for the big Halloween prequel episode of Pretty Little Liars!