Pretty little liars: Original Sin (Season 1)

Once upon a time, before it inevitably collapsed under the crushing weight of its own convoluted plot machinations, Pretty Little Liars was one of the most enjoyable shows on TV, a near pitch-perfect blend of heightened teen melodrama and fizzy-pop mystery-thriller. Freeform, knowing they had a major hit on their hands, milked the show for all it was worth, cranking out an almost unfathomable 160 episodes (to put that in perspective, that’s almost 90 episodes more than Game of Thrones ran, and I can assure you that Westeros is a far more expansive world than Rosewood, Pennsylvania). Forced to contrive new ways to keep the narrative plates spinning as its premise was stretched into limp taffy, the show became an exhaustive endurance test long before it reached the finish line.  

Following two short-lived spin-offs (Ravenswood and The Perfectionists), the franchise has been ported to HBO Max with a new iteration that has little to do with the original (aside from taking place in the neighboring town of Millwood). Pregnant teen Imogen (Bailee Madison) finds herself at the mercy of a texting tormentor known simply as “A,” along with her cinephile pal Tabby (Chandler Kinney) and three other girls - uptight ballerina Faran (Zaria), sheltered tech geek Mouse (Malia Pyles), and juvenile delinquent Noa (Maia Reficco). The five of them come to learn that their mothers were once Millwood High’s reigning mean girl clique and they had some sort of hand in the suicide of a troubled girl named Angela Waters… seemingly passing their sins onto their daughters, who now find themselves caught in a fiendish morality play in present day. The leads don’t enjoy the instant chemistry that Lucy Hale, Ashley Benson, Shay Mitchell and Troian Bellisario did in the original… but their rapport grows stronger and more assured over the course of the season. Each of the five girls acquits herself well on-screen, but Kinney’s the most compelling presence… even though she bears the brunt of the watered-down, Kevin Williamson-style meta dialogue (“You know I’m a Dream Warriors girl,” she quips in regards to a Nightmare on Elm Street reference). 

Original Sin is less fun than the original Pretty Little Liars, and that has a lot to do with the creators embracing a surprisingly grungy, torture-porn-in-training aesthetic. A lumbering masked killer looms on the fringes (probably meant to call to mind Leatherface, but more reminiscent of former WWE star Kane); the opening credits evoke the grubby aesthetics of Seven, with a version of the theme song that sounds as if it were remixed by Trent Reznor during a spare lunch hour; dilapidated box cars and a decrepit house of horrors make up the show’s unsettling locations. There are some limp subplots (Noa thinks her boyfriend might be taking performance enhancing drugs; Tabby’s film teacher is a fuddy duddy who doesn’t appreciate Jordan Peele) and a sexual assault component that feels largely agenda-driven, but also some impressive touches - such as Mouse’s trans boyfriend Ash, whose identity is barely remarked upon, refreshingly… or Faran’s complicated relationship with her mother and her dancing (even if it’s hilarious that this random, small-town high school has what feels like a fully-stocked professional ballet company). Kudos as well to the handling of Mallory Bechtel as identical twins Karen and Kelly Beasley, who don’t impact the plot quite as obviously as you might expect - particularly when one of them strays afoul of "A" early on.  

The best thing about the show, however, is its tightly controlled plotting across ten episodes - it achieves something the original Pretty Little Liars couldn’t, and that’s offer an actual resolution to its core mystery. Of course, it lays the groundwork for a second season (which has already gotten a green light)… but if its predecessor were any indication, Original Sin might want to quit while it’s ahead - for all our sakes.