***SPOILER ALERT
It’s no secret the producers of “Pretty Little Liars” were once stereotypical glasses-wearing, coffee-carrying, novel-toting English majors. The Liars have studied a crazy amount of classic literature in honors English at Rosewood High since we met baby teacher Ezra in the pilot four seasons ago.
Literary references are always being slipped in the script, from “To Kill a Mockingbird,” to “Lolita,” and “The Count of Monte Cristo,” making you wish you had an on-call English major to fill you in. But one specific story sticks out as particularly important to the plot– “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” by Robert Louis Stevenson.
Maybe you’ve read this novella in high school, or maybe you just know what it is most famous for: a personality split between good and evil. Mr. Fitz starts teaching on the story in season four and at the same time more and more of A’s true identity is revealed:
“Now, you all know the plot to Jekyll and Hyde. But you don’t know the story. That happens with great writing. It gets turned into cliches, and we lose the raw power of the original. But the original in this case is amazing. Stevenson was so caught up in his own story that he wrote this draft in three days!”
Am I the only one who thought he was a bit too excited about this story?
In episode 14, we found out why: a hooded figure angrily bursts into A’s lair after realizing the liars had broken in and narrowly escaped. When the figure finally turns around, Ezra is revealed as the black hoodie, black cap, black glove wearing stranger stalking the liars by night.
Ezra is A.
Mr. Fitz is A! Maybe he fancies himself a modern day Jekyll and Hyde or maybe he’s just a creep. Either way, I’m fairly certain the producers were alluding to the novella when they created Ezra’s character and plot lines.
So what can the story possibly tell us about the future of Pretty Little Liars? It follows Dr. Jekyll, a respectable guy who was bored one night so he concocts a potion to transform into the evil Mr. Hyde. While loose on the town, Mr. Hyde becomes guilty of murder, crime, and general debauchery. Dr. Jekyll transforms more and more frequently as time goes on and soon loses control of his transformations.
This mirrors that of Ezra, who seems to be up to more and more A-business towards the end of season four. While he starts the season completely innocent (Ezra is A? NEVER EVER EVER), as the season goes on, he slips up several times and nearly reveals his true identity to Aria.
Season four ends on a cliffhanger: Ezra is shot while defending the liars. I’m incredibly thrilled that he turned out good in the end (at least it appears so…), but will he survive?
Unfortunately, Dr. Jekyll kills himself and Mr. Hyde in the end. He does it because his transformation into Hyde would have become permanent, and he wanted to save the community from his destruction. He ultimately sacrificed himself for others, as Ezra did.
But maybe the producers will diverge from the classic at this point? One can only hope. Despite his incredible depravity at some points, I’ve come to admire Ezra over the past four seasons and would hate to see him gone forever. Not to mention that he has been extremely important to the series plot line as a whole and it would be difficult to imagine where the producers would take the show without him.
Will Ezra live or die? What other literary references do you see in the show? Let us know in the comments!