Sasha Pieterse as Alison DiLaurentis

Pretty Little Liars is based on the series of books by Sara Shepard and debuted in 2010. It centres around four teenage friends who are brought back together when the remains of their missing friend are found. The series follows them as they try to solve the mystery of who killed her, all while dealing with the mysterious ‘A’ that torments them throughout the series. The series ran for seven years and the character profiles contain spoilers.

Alison DiLaurentis
Alison is the teenage girl who is missing and found dead at the end of the first episode. She was the queen bee in school that brought the four other girls together; after she went missing they grew apart. For the first three seasons of the show we only see Ali in flashbacks and hallucinations. As the flashbacks are shown from the other characters’ perspectives, we can‚Äôt be sure how accurate they are, however, Ali seems to be assertive, somewhat cruel, and willing to do anything to keep her ‚ÄòQueen Bee‚Äô status. We learn that she was having an affair with Melissa‚Äôs (Spencer‚Äôs sister) fianc√©; she was responsible for Jenna losing her sight and putting the blame on Toby, as well as bullying Mona and Lucas relentlessly.

She was also quite cruel to her friends. She threatened to tell Melissa when she saw Spencer kissing her then fiancé Wren. She tried to force Aria to tell her mother about her father’s affair, she would later blackmail him for money. She would tease Hanna about her weight calling her ‘Hefty Hanna’ and told her that purging her food would help her lose weight. But she was cruellest of all to Emily. Emily was secretly in love with Alison, who knew this and would lead her on, once telling her that she only kissed her as practice for the real thing with boys.

Clearly Alison wasn‚Äôt the nicest person, although it seems that she was putting on a tough front to cover how scared she was. In episode 13 of season 2 (“The First Secret”) we learn that Alison was being threatened by ‚ÄòA‚Äô. She never revealed this to her friends although in future seasons she does seem to be rattled by whoever is tormenting her.

When it is revealed that she is not dead and instead had faked her death to escape ‘A’, we see a completely different Alison. She is less confident, less manipulative and more forgiving. She eventually ends up proposing to Emily in season 7 and they have twins, giving her the stable family she never had.

Alison is proof that not all mean girls stay that way. While she treated people in a horrible way for a long time, we find out that she too was a victim. She was in a relationship with a man that was too old for her and who took advantage of her. While she was on the run for two years she couldn’t speak to her friends or family, she had no one to ask for help. She ultimately finds happiness with Emily after finding redemption from her friends.

-Michelle O’Brien
Contributing Writer
Girl Museum Inc.

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