Pretty Little Liars: Summer School Review - Exciting Mystery Slasher Fails To Learn From Original PLL

Summary The balance of horror and drama creates a compelling watch.

Pretty Little Liars: Summer School's characters lack depth, sticking to one defining trait each.

While not groundbreaking, the series pays tribute to classic horror.

Pretty Little Liars: Summer School is the second season of Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin, but the story doesn't stray far from anything that came before. Since the original show wrapped in 2017, multiple spin-offs have popped up to attempt to reignite the excitement of the PLL series. However, PLL: Original Sin took the premise in a new direction to breathe new life into a tired concept with relative success.

The dramatic slasher/horror mystery franchise returns with Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin, created for HBO Max. Connecting to the original series, Original Sin follows a group of teen girls terrorized by a mysterious killer named "A." Being held responsible for a terrible tragedy committed by their mothers over twenty years ago, the girls must uncover the truth of the incident to end the terror of Millwood, Pennsylvania - and to survive. Season 2 of the series was released in May 2024 and is subtitled Summer School. Pros The horror continues to add suspense and tension.

The balance between horror and drama works well. Cons Many characters lack depth, with one note personalities.

The story fails to do anything new.

Pretty Little Liars: Summer School sees the girls from Original Sin trying to move on with their lives after the Millowood massacre that shook their community during the school year. However, just like with the original series, there is always someone else ready to cause mayhem and hunt down a group of young girls. The show manages to set itself apart from the original due to the slasher horror element, which makes it much darker, but it's undeniably similar to the original despite this change.

Related Pretty Little Liars: Summer School Cast & Character Guide Max's Pretty Little Liars season 2, subtitled Summer School, features the return of many characters from the previous season, Original Sin.

Pretty Little Liars Can't Catch A Break

The format, though tired, is refreshed in PLL: Summer School

Image via Max

Despite going through one of the most intense and terrifying years of their lives, the PLL girls are forced to attend summer school due to their poor performance over the year. However, school is the least of their worries, as each one has relationship drama, awkward moments with parents, and they all need summer jobs to bring in some much-needed cash. As if that wasn't enough, the girls continue to receive unusual messages from murderous stalkers.

Building tension and drama is one of the things this series does best, and it delivers a compelling watch.

The premise here is nothing new, and dropping the characters into a summer school setting only emphasizes how similar everything that came before this season is. While the mystery amps up, and the girls fear for their safety, the show relies heavily on jump scares and ambiguous monsters to create tension. Fortunately, building tension and drama is one of the things this series does best, and Summer School delivers a compelling watch for anyone who has not gotten tired of the PLL format.

Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin Where to Watch *Availability in US stream

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buy Not available Not available Not available Cast Bailee Madison , Chandler Kinney Release Date June 28, 2022 Seasons 2 Network HBO Max Streaming Service(s) Apple TV+ , HBO Max Writers Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa Directors Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa Showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa Expand

The Pretty Little Liars Are Mostly One-Note

The Summer School characters have one defining trait each

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Over the course of season 2, the Pretty Little Liars: Summer School characters have plenty of opportunities to expand their personalities. However, in scene after scene, the girls stick to their singular defining trait above all else. Tabby (Chandler Kinney) loves movies, and only discusses movies, Mouse (Malia Pyles) enjoys lurking online in creepy forums, and Faran (Zaria) is obsessed with sports and outperforming anyone around her. While Imogen (Bailee Madison) and Noa (Maia Reficco) add some variety to their personalities, they could both be reduced to a single sentence and still have a complete description of their identity.

The actors are undeniably better than the original cast in most of their scenes, offering convincing performances, but the show isn't trying to break new ground, and it lives up to its own standard with a mediocre bar.

Despite this, the show still manages to be fun and lively, with the writing and production clearly, and often directly, paying tribute to classic slasher horror. This quirk of being a more horror focused series helps to keep things fresh, but it also makes it repetitive in two distinct ways. It is undoubtedly similar to every season of every Pretty Little Liars show that came before, and now, it's also a sequel to the season 1 story of Original Sin that feels like another chapter in a slasher franchise.

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As a result, the show is not necessarily original or new, but it's fun. Just like the sixth movie in the Friday the 13th franchise, it fails to tell a new tale, but for the die-hard fans, it's another entry worth watching at least once. The actors are undeniably better than the original cast in most of their scenes, offering convincing performances, but the show isn't trying to break new ground, and it lives up to its own standard. Pretty Little Liars: Summer School certainly expands the story, but it does not raise the bar.