As ABC Family’s Pretty Little Liars amps up to its mid-season finale next week, the penultimate episode tonight is sure to be full of more juicy mystery as our four liars (Emily, Aria, Hanna and Spencer) finally tell someone all about “A” and the tormenting they’ve endured from the mysterious someone since the series began. However, regular viewers of the show will not be surprised when things go from pretty bad to extremely worse.
In the midst of all the “A” drama on tonight’s episode, our favorite lesbian Liar, Emily Fields (Shay Mitchell), is reunited with her former love, Maya (Bianca Lawson). Will the sparks fly again even though Emily, thanks to “A” and her manipulations, recently stopped seeing Samara (Claire Holt)? AfterEllen.com went right to the source and stopped by a set visit of Pretty Little Liars on Monday in Burbank and managed to get a few minutes with Mitchell to ask all the questions we’re dying to know the answers to.
Mitchell showed great excitement over what happens when Emily and Maya are reunited in tonight’s episode and shared the following with a beaming, satisfied smile.
“Maya comes back and when she left Emily, Emily had not really come into her own yet,” Shay said. “Maya was still [saying] ‘You don’t want to be with me’ so they didn’t leave on the best of terms. So now when Maya comes back she gets to see Emily in a whole new light and see just how much Emily has progressed. She finds out that [Emily’s] had a couple of dates since Maya went away [laughs] so it’s just getting to re-meet each other and see that they’ve each grown in their own way.”
Since it wasn’t so long ago that the budding romance between Emily and Samara went cold (to catch you up, “A,” in her usual controlling ways, forced Emily to give her digits to one of Samara’s friends and, of course, Samara found out and since Emily couldn’t tell her exactly why she gave out her number, Samara ended it), any chance we can see a Maya/Samara interaction tonight or in the future?
“I don’t know! Thus far, I don’t think so but it would be quite interesting,” Shay said. “I keep begging the writers to have all of Emily’s girlfriends come to some restaurant and have a meeting with all of them. That would be very funny. But right now, it’s just Emily and Maya in the next episode.”
All the drama aside, Mitchell shared one of her biggest wants for her character and that’s to see Emily go where she has yet to go.
“I want to see Emily have a serious relationship,” Shay said. “I watch every episode and when I see the scenes of Aria (Lucy Hale) running into the sun light and sunset with Ezra (Ian Harding) and jumping I really want Emily to have that, too, with a serious girlfriend. We’re pushing for that but I do feel that this is very necessary for her to have a lot of interactions with different girls so that she can really know what she likes. This is all very new for her so I think dating is important.”
But, first, there’s the action-packed mid-season finale next Tuesday. When asked what her favorite scene is in the finale, Mitchell was clearly dying to talk about it but instead painted a pretty sexy picture involving something involving high heels and a gun.
“I wish I could tell you! There’s a lot of action. I always say that every episode is like a feature film condensed into however long it is…but [in] this season finale there is so much action in it,” Shay said. “It was so much fun for me. My ideal future job would be action/Bond movie running in heels with a big gun. Getting to do any sort of action in the show is so much fun for me and there was a lot of it. A lot of it! The girls also have a lot of scenes together, which is really cool, too. I really want to talk to everybody after the season finale and say ‘I told you! Wasn’t it crazy?'”
In the meantime, Mitchell shared that she’d love to see the cast get out of Rosewood in the near future. “I’m pushing the writers to bring them to Europe! Let “A” bring them to Italy and Paris and everything! I would love that!” Shay said. “They can’t stay in Rosewood forever. Be on the lookout for that! Hopefully it happens. New York, possibly.”
One upcoming episode that Mitchell was able to talk about was the upcoming Halloween episode, which will air October 19 and kick off the 13-day countdown to the spooky holiday that ABC Family is known for every year. In the episode, which is a full-episode prequel that takes us back to the time just before Allison’s disappearance (which happened in the pilot of the series), we’ll get a window into what life was like when Allison was alive. And since we’ve already seen a bit of Emily’s crush on Allison in flashbacks, will we see any more displayed in this prequel?
“You will! It is flashbacks and even in a couple of the flashbacks you’ve seen in previous episodes you see Emily’s affection for Allison like in the library scene where she kisses her and you just get to see that in the flashback and why she was so hurt when Allison disappeared. So, yeah, it’s really nice this scene she has with Allison,” Shay said.
As much trouble that has come since Allison’s disappearance, when asked what other character she would like to play in an alternate universe, Mitchell said, you guessed it, Allison. “I play the sweet one out of the group [so] I’d love to play Allison, who is so conniving. You’re evil! I think it would be really fun to play her character.”
Once she finishes shooting the second season of the popular series, Mitchell admitted that she and her co-stars have their eyes on some movie roles but also said that she’s been bitten by the travel bug and wants to do some traveling. Anyone want to stow away in her luggage?
Pretty Little Liars airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on ABC Family with the mid-season finale airing August 30. The second half of Season 2 will begin airing in January 2012.
