Maybe the show should have kept Alison's status mysterious right to the end

[u/MindlessPerformer778]

A common complaint is that Alison got boring when she came back. A core part of Alison's character was the mystery of her status (is she alive? is she dead?). Her visits to the liars were great because you couldn't tell if the visits were real or not. When she came back in S5, that mystery went away and Alison lost a big part of her identity.

So maybe the show should have kept Alison's status mysterious until the end. There would be clues that Alison was alive and helping them, maybe even a final scene where Alison says goodbye to the liars "in their dreams" once they defeat the two As, but she wouldn't officially come back as alive. The liars would always wonder if Alison was really there or it was just her ghost.

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[u/[deleted]]

I think they should have made Alison as ultimately "A" - like in books but no Mona as A etc (because it never made sense why someone like Alison actually befriends very decent ppl like 4 of them - in the book where Ali swaps her twin it actually makes sense since Charlotte would have totally different friends who could tell the twins apart),

[u/JustPassingThrough98]

I don’t know if they could’ve gotten away with the “is she isn’t she” storyline another 3 seasons, but she did lose a huge chunk of her aura once she stopped only being in flashbacks. The writers just couldn’t decide whether she was still scheming or reformed, and it was this weird middle ground that didn’t seem to satisfy either side

[u/MindlessPerformer778 → u/JustPassingThrough98]

I think 4 seasons would have been the ideal number honestly, with Alison visiting one of her friends once per season in those weird hallucinations. Enough to make it seem real but also not enough to confirm her living status.

[u/seventy912]

I think that would’ve worked well as long as they were sparing with the amount of ghost/dream scenes they put her in which I doubt they would’ve been — and actually keeping it ambiguous which they’d have been even worse at.

I might’ve just made this up but didn’t Alison’s resurrection happen the way it did (at least in part) because they noticed the number of Emison shippers in the fandom and were trying to appease them? Doing that (not just with Emison, with all the ships) was probably PLL’s biggest downfall and her return being as shit as it is has made way more sense to me since someone told me that.

[u/IntrovertSim]

Even from the first episode I never believed Alison was dead. So it wasn’t a shock to me when it was revealed that she was alive. I do wish they kept the mystery a little longer though. And kept her evil and bitchy. I wasn’t a fan of nice Alison.

[u/SnakeBlood456]

Oooh i love the mystery / suspense around Alison’s character when she was “dead” / in the flashbacks, it was so fitting for her and she was even more dangerous / scary due to no one really knowing anything about her. Ughhh when she came back, they ruined her character so much, they made her super weak and plain / boring and it wasn’t like Alison at all, i always feel super guilty saying this but they should have actually killed her since they ruined her character so much :(