Season synopsis
Contains spoilers for this season and earlier seasons.
A year after Alison DiLaurentis disappears, Aria, Spencer, Hanna and Emily reunite when anonymous messages signed “A” expose private details from their old friendship. Rosewood police soon find Alison’s body, but the messages continue, and the girls revisit the night their clique fractured. They also face the secret behind the prank that blinded Jenna Marshall, while Alison’s old video footage points toward Ian Thomas and makes Spencer’s sister Melissa part of the investigation. Each girl is drawn back into a different private problem as the group tries to decide which clues are real.
Aria struggles to keep her relationship with English teacher Ezra Fitz hidden from her family, while the Montgomery household is already strained by Byron’s affair. Emily grows close to Maya, the new tenant in Alison’s former home, and comes out to her parents; Maya is later sent away after drugs are found in her bag. Hanna’s mother Ashley faces money trouble, and Hanna’s relationship with Caleb develops before she learns he has been spying for Jenna. Spencer’s attraction to Melissa’s former fiancé Wren and then her growing bond with Toby add more tension inside the Hastings family.
The girls’ attempts to clear Toby and understand Alison’s last days bring them to a video showing Ian with Alison, and suspicion shifts toward him. Hanna recognizes a clue about “A” but is struck by a car before she can tell her friends; she later names Noel, though the threats keep coming. In the finale, the girls take Alison’s flash drive to the police and Spencer confronts Ian in a church bell tower. A masked figure intervenes and Ian vanishes, leaving the girls unsure whether he survived and with no confirmed identity for the person still targeting them.