No text from "A" could ever leave us this shocked.
The latest episode of Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin reveals a connection to another teen drama—in addition to its predecessor. It turns out the HBO Max series and Riverdale exist within the same universe.
The new Liars learn in episode six that several of the patients from Radley Sanitarium, which featured heavily in the original series, were moved to the "Sisters of Quiet Mercy over in Riverdale" when the psychiatric hospital was turned into a hotel. If the Sisters of Quiet Mercy sounds familiar, that's because it's pretty infamous in The CW series as a home for troubled girls run by a group of nuns who don't exactly extoll the virtues of Christ.
Merging the words of Riverdale and PLL: Original sin is a bizarre twist, especially since the two series that have little connection beyond the fact that they were both created by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa.
And he recently explained exactly how the Easter egg happened. "We kind of just wrote that line in," Roberto told TVLine Aug. 11. "I assumed that we wouldn't be allowed to reference Riverdale, since it's in a completely different universe, but it stayed in. So, yeah, I guess it does exist in the same universe."
Roberto said it was a fun bit to include in this episode, which saw the new Liars visit Rosewood, the same town that the O.G. Liars—Hanna (Ashley Benson), Spencer (Troian Bellisario), Aria (Lucy Hale), Emily (Shay Mitchell) and Alison (Sasha Pieterse)—lived in.
Now that Roberto has combined the two worlds, he hopes to take the story even further. "Alex [Aiono], who plays Shawn, is obsessed with the idea of a rivalry between the Millwood High Steppenwolfs and the Riverdale Bulldogs," Roberto said. "I would love for there to be a football game between them. Who knows, though."
The existence of Riverdale makes for an interesting dilemma, as Lucy played both Aria and the titular role in the Riverdale spin-off Katy Keene. But the writers don't see this as a potential plot hole, with executive producer Lindsay Calhoon Bring telling TVLine that she'd "love a world where all of the shows come together, and Lucy Hale is in duplicate playing Katy Keene and Aria."
Anything's possible in the world of Riverdale.
New episodes of Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin premiere Thursdays on HBO Max.