With so many teenage girl characters on one show, it's no wonder that there's a lot of drama on Pretty Little Liars. Sparking all of the drama is Alison DiLaurentis (Sasha Pieterse), who disappears from beautiful Rosewood at the beginning of the series. Her so-called best friends are left picking up the confusing pieces and the mysteries just keep coming.
There may be a lot of similar series that fans can get into but there will only ever be one PLL and Alison is a big reason why. Unfortunately, although Ali is one of the main characters on the series, there are a lot of things about her that aren't perfect.
Lost Her Status And Didn't Get Much Of A Personality In Return
Many movies talk about popularity, Mean Girls being a perfect example, and PLL is the same. Ali was the Queen Bee before she left Rosewood, but she quickly lost this status as the girls realized that they could be as confident as she was.
After Ali lost her status, she didn't have power over anyone anymore, but she also didn't have much of a personality. It would be hard to pick out any of her discernible personality traits as she seemed quiet and mysterious all the time (and not in a good way).
The Story Of What Happened To Her Is Confusing
While fans of this popular show were ecstatic to finally learn what happened to Ali while she was away from Rosewood, it wasn't quite the homecoming that people pictured.
Unfortunately, the explanation of Ali's disappearance is confusing. Sure, fans learned that her mom thought she was dead and buried her alive. Ali ran away, figuring she would be safer than staying in Rosewood. But because the series has featured so many twists and dead ends (so to speak), it was tough to stay focused on Ali's timeline. This could have been wrapped up in a much cleaner way.
Her Character Has Zero Consistency
In flashbacks, Ali is a real jerk, but when she comes back to Rosewood, she's a mousy person who can barely look at the other girls. It makes sense that she would be changed by what happened to her, but her character is so inconsistent that it's hard to know whether she can be trusted.
A show like PLL should be very clear about who is good and who is evil. With Ali, it's never been obvious, and that seems like a glaring problem.
Her Love Life Makes No Sense
Ali can say some wise things but her love life isn't where she shines. She gets married to Archer Dunhill (Huw Collins) and fans don't see them together enough to really buy into this particular relationship.
Instead of showing them getting to know each other properly, it felt like this marriage (and romance in general) was rushed.
Her Friendship With The Other Girls Isn't Well-Developed
Since the liars spend so much time together without Ali, trying to solve her disappearance, it makes sense that they would bond with one another. But Ali's friendship with the other girls isn't well-developed as it truly fizzles out once she starts hanging out with them again.
It's frustrating as a fan of the show not to see Ali really connecting with the girls that she once taunted and then left behind.
Ali And Emily's Love Story Took Too Long (And Didn't Even Last)
When Emily Fields (Shay Mitchell) and Ali fell in love near the end of the series, fans were happy and had been hoping for that moment. But this love story took way too long to happen, and since it didn't even last, it's yet another example of a problem with Ali's character.
When the PLL spin-off The Perfectionists premiered, however, fans found out that Ali and Emily's romance was suddenly rocky. Why have these two characters finally get together only to tear them apart?
Forgiven Too Easily
Ali also gets worse as the show goes on because the other characters forgive her too easily. This seems like an important flaw in PLL's writing.
She didn't treat the liars well before she disappeared, but they definitely welcome her back with open arms, even though there are a lot of sketchy things that she has brought into their lives.
A One-Note Character
PLL makes it pretty black and white: the liars are nice people who have been pushed into solving a major mystery, but Ali is a mean girl. She's very one-note and this is something that doesn't change as the show continues.
Real people are much more complex than that, and TV characters should especially be more compelling. It would have been great to learn more about Ali's backstory. Even just a brief explanation of some of her interests (besides treating people poorly) would have helped.
Certain Storylines Make It Impossible To Like Her
One of the worst things that a character on a teen drama could be is unlikable. While adult characters on TV shows are complicated and there's room for a lot of nuances, a mean teenager can be incredibly cruel.
There are many storylines that make it tough to like Ali, including when she's actually under arrest for two murders: Bethany Young and Mona Vanderwaal. Of course, Mona isn't actually dead, and Ali didn't kill Bethany, either. But this made fans question whether Ali had committed these crimes and it became even tougher to want her to succeed. It's one of those plot twists that didn't work.
Has Too Many Cheesy Flashbacks Early On
For a while, fans only see Ali through flashbacks as she's gone from Rosewood for the show's first few seasons. This isn't a good thing because the flashbacks are pretty corny. They could have been presented in a much more well-developed way, but instead, fans see her as the same popular girl and don't really learn anything else about her.