Did ‘Pretty Little Liars Summer School’ Really Need a Cult on Top of Everything Else?

Editor's Note: The following contains spoilers for Pretty Little Liars: Summer School Episode 5

The big picture

• Kelly Beasley's involvement with a mysterious church
  Pretty Little Liars: Summer School
  causes concern among his friends due to his seemingly sinister activities.
• Church rituals cause changes in Kelly's personality as doubts arise about Pastor Malachi's true intentions.
• While the cult story is intriguing, it distracts from the show's main mystery, which revolves around A and Bloody Rose Waters.

Pretty Little Liars: Summer School So far, it's come with some really fun additions to the show, from summer jobs that improve the town of Millwood to exciting new love interests and a terrifying new threat in the form of Bloody Rose Waters. Season two puts the Liars in even more dangerous situations, with Bloody Rose putting each of them through tests designed to kill or weaken. But it's not just liars who have their plates full this summer. Kelly Beasley (Mallory Bechtel) has been involved in a sinister little subplot of her own, and she's finally baring her underbelly.

What's going on with Kelly on 'Pretty Little Liars: Summer School'?

In season 1 of pretty little liarstitled original sin, we met the Beasley twins, Kelly and Karen. And in that season, Karen met her untimely death at the hands of A. This naturally turned the Beasleys' world upside down, and Kelly was forced to navigate life without her twin sister by her side. But that was never going to be easy, and going into Season 2, Kelly seems to have undergone a bit of a character change. After the death of her sister and her father, Kelly is convinced to become a member of Our Lady of Holy Grace, the new church in town. This pressure comes from his mother, Martha (Jennifer Ferrin), who herself is a devout member of the church. At first, it seems pretty harmless. After all, the Beasleys have experienced some tough losses, so turning to religion to cope is understandable. But as the show has progressed, it has become clearer Our Mother of Holy Grace has a little more going on beneath the surface than anyone might have realized.

As Kelly gets deeper into Our Lady of Holy Grace, she begins to drift away from her friends, focusing solely on church, her family life, and her boyfriend Greg (Elias Kacavas). But soon, even her relationship with Greg begins to suffer, and her friends find it hard to get in touch with her. Martha tells Faran (zaria) that Kelly has “found her true self under the guidance of Pastor Malachi (Charlie Hewson),” and that there's nothing to worry about. But Faran doesn't buy that explanation and confronts Kelly, who echoes that she's happy and assures Faran that he's not being brainwashed at church .It is soon revealed that Pastor Malachi is planning a kind of event called Redemption House. It's something the church had done years before, in different towns, and it's used to help the town and its inhabitants cleanse themselves of sin, which, after the massacres at the hands of A, is much needed in Millwood.

Is Our Lady of Holy Grace a cult?

Throughout everything summer school, we see Kelly become more and more involved with the church, so much so that there is a noticeable change in her personality. And as Redemption House's preparation gets deeper, things start to take a more suspicious turn. Even Kelly herself begins to have doubts about the true intentions of the Church. One of the scenes she has to rehearse requires her and Greg to talk about an accidental pregnancy, and after Greg says he'll support Kelly in whatever decision she makes, Pastor Malachi interrupts them because it wasn't scripted original Kelly then announces that she made some changes as she feels the original words would hurt some people she cares about, most likely her old friend Imogen (Bailey Madison), who was pregnant in season 1. Pastor Malachi doesn't seem to care, though, and claims that her doubts are the devil's doubts, which her mother agrees with.

We find out later Marta has become abusive towards her daughter, going so far as to lock her in the prayer room to think about her sins, in a very Margaret White approach. From this point on, Kelly feels almost like a robot, a shell of her once bubbly self, and it seems as if she has truly fallen under Pastor Malachi's brainwashing. Fast forward to episode 5 and we begin to learn that there is definitely something dark going on in the Church. Faran finds out through Henry (Ben Cook) that the church has an “inner circle” of sorts, of which Henry is a part. Naturally, Faran investigates and heads into the Church to find Henry, Kelly, Mrs. Beasley, Pastor Malachi and more engaged in some sort of twisted ritual, chanting and all. And when Faran confronts Henry about it, he chooses the Church over her, which means that something isn't right, and that maybe our Mother of Holy Grace is something more reminiscent of a cult. It's a twisted and good revelation. But did the show really need it?

Did “Pretty Little Liars” need a cult story?

There's no denying that a cult story is a fascinating revelation. It's scary and twisted, and it's clearly taken over many of the towns in Millwood. But he did pretty little liars do you really need to go there? Yes, it's an interesting subplot, but the main focus of the show is A, and the liars A targets. We've only just begun to scratch the surface of revealing who's behind the Bloody Rose's mask, or rather gauze, this season. And considering there are only 8 episodes this season, compared to Season 1's 10 episodes, there is literally no time to waste on other mysteries.

There's still a lot we need to learn on the Liars side, and with the latest tests of the girls constantly on Bloody Rose's part, there's no room for another plot line to drag on, it's certainly not a cult Something like this takes a while to come to fruition, and while the show has been doing well so far, time is running out to get into the seedy underbelly of the Church and Pastor Malachi. We barely know anything about him, or the Church, for that matter. While the story itself has the potential to be interesting, it doesn't exactly fit the season as well as it could due to the shorter length of the season. Too much time has already been lost from Bloody Rose's story, and we need to delve into it soon to prevent the final reveal from feeling rushed or sloppy. Sure, the show could reveal that Our Mother of Holy Grace and Bloody Rose Waters are somehow connected, which would be a great way to wrap it all up, but it doesn't seem likely that's where the story is going.

There's already so much going on in the town of Millwood, with A and Bloody Rose targeting liars, piling a cult on top feels a bit overwhelming. Maybe it would have been better to save this story for later, or just cut it entirely and make Kelly a more central member of the Liars like it looked like she was going to become in Season 1. There's still time to finish this while doing it with finesse, but at the end of the day, pretty little liars it was fine focusing on the A story, and it didn't need a cult on top of everything else. It takes a lot of time and takes away from what has always been the central focus pretty little liarsboth past and present, which is A, and the liars targeted by the ominous stalker.

Pretty Little Liars: Summer School is available to stream on Max in the US

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