“Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin” keeps throwing wrenches into the guessing game of whether or not it was really Karen (Mallory Bechtel) who fell from the rafters at the school dance or if it may have actually been her twin sister, Kelly.
“Kelly” has been giving off some suspicious vibes, and Faran (played by Zaria) has been hot on the case. At the Halloween party in Episode 5, the two went toe-to-toe in the kitchen, where Faran confronted Kelly over kissing her dead sister’s boyfriend, Greg. For Faran, the confrontation was the nail in the coffin to convince her that Karen is, in fact, still alive. But is she correct?
Episodes 6 and 7, which dropped on HBO Max Thursday, do not give a much clearer answer as to whether or not Faran’s suspicions will be proven correct. And it turns out, even the actors didn’t know at the time they filmed some of their most compelling scenes together.
“[The writers] would not tell me. It was frustrating at times, but I was just like, ‘You know, the audience is supposed to think she’s Kelly, so I’m just going to be Kelly,’” Bechtel told TheWrap. “That’s what they wanted, because they wanted the audience to be confused too. Whoever it might be, it’s a very weird time for them. They’ve always had this other half. So, it does make sense that their personalities might bleed a little. The ambiguity makes sense either way.”
It’s true, co-creators Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Lindsay Calhoon Bring previously spoke with TheWrap about leaving the girls in the dark on the true outcome of the Karen/Kelly mystery, as well as the identity of A. And the actresses agreed that their performances were elevated by not knowing.
“It made me really believe my character, because I was like, ‘Obviously Faran is right. Whatever she’s thinking is right,’” Zaria said. “It gave Faran a very distinct motivation, because I was just playing what Faran knew.”
The first two episodes set up quite the rivalry between Faran and Karen, who appeared to have had a long history of competing against each other in ballet. Faran dubbed Karen “the queen of gaslighting and microaggressions” and even Kelly recognized her sister as Millwood High School’s resident mean girl. While Faran seemed to generally remain calm and collected, there was something about Karen’s brand of mean that just got under her skin, Zaria said.
“I think that Faran doesn’t take time to create enemies,” the actress told TheWrap. “If you don’t like her, great. She doesn’t care. But I think the thing about Karen is that she gets in her way and aggresses her in a way that makes her feel something that I don’t think anyone else in the school can make her feel.”
While Faran’s disdain doesn’t initially extend as much to Kelly, she soon sets her sights on the twin after realizing that something seems off. There are times where Faran’s focus on Kelly seems unwarranted and even a little insensitive (considering she supposedly watched her twin sister fall to her death at the school dance). But Zaria argues that, given her history with Karen, Faran isn’t likely to go easy on Kelly, either — especially because she isn’t convinced it’s Kelly at all.
“I think when she gets microaggressed by Karen/Kelly, whoever she thinks it is at the time, she’s unable to see her as a human,” the actress said. “I think she just sees her as a monster. And she rightfully feels that way. The writing does such a great job of realizing that there’s no exact black-and-white line of who is good and who is evil. I think she’s unable to really connect with the idea that Karen or Kelly are real human beings.”
It remains to be seen whether Faran’s suspicions will be proved right, but fans may take solace in the fact that even the stars of the show couldn’t stop themselves from theorizing about the possibilities.
“There were so many theories, and you could never trace [them],” Bechtel said. “It was like, ‘Where did you hear that from?’”
