Pretty Little Liars: Summer School Cast Talk Season 2 Secrets, Cameos, and More

Photograph by Karolina Wojtasik/Max

“I am so obsessed with summer school” — a phrase probably no one has ever uttered earnestly until Pretty Little Liars star Maia Reficco, who is, of course, referring to season 2 of the Max show. It’s a sentiment shared among her costars Chandler Kinney, Bailee Madison, Zaria, and Malia Pyles, who were honestly happy to finally be filming the series in the summer after a dark and gloomy first season in upstate New York. Pyles adds, “We'd be on set and wrap a day of shooting and then go get soft serve ice cream and watch the sunset in the park.”

That real-life dreaminess is definitely present in Pretty Little Liars: Summer School, which premieres with its first two episodes on May 9 and sees our five Final Girls take up summer classes to successfully make it to junior year. One “A” has been vanquished, and they think they’re in the clear; they start going to therapy; they pick up summer jobs (and romances). As Madison’s Imogen exclaims in the trailer, “Best. Summer. Ever!” But a new villain is ready to tear down all they’ve built: Bloody Rose Waters, a deliciously scary scarlet-masked terrorizer. This will be the summer of their lives indeed.

The filming of PLL:SS was split into two parts — before the SAG and WGA strikes began, with just a couple weeks left to film, and after. The cast of the show took to the picket lines together in Los Angeles, posing for photos with signs like “No Lies… StAnd in solidarity with the WGA!”

“It's the industry that I grew up in, and it's been an interesting time for me, reframing a lot of what I knew about the industry,” Kinney tells Teen Vogue, sitting in a retro booth on the Millwood Creamery set in December 2023 as the show nears the end of filming. “It's been an important time of education and solidarity and banning together for what's right and what's fair.”

“It was so empowering in the sense that I have been a part of the Guild since I was 12 years old,” Pyles echoes, “and I hadn't gotten to really understand and know what that even meant and what it meant to be a part of a union until I was actually on the ground.” They all felt an immense sense of solidarity with each other and the show’s writers and crew. Madison adds, “It's our livelihood, and so to get to stand there on the picket lines and hold up the sign was the easiest thing that you can do in that moment.”

While they picketed, they also had time to explore personal ventures: Madison and Reficco worked on music, Zaria wrote screenplays and songs, Pyles wrote poetry and went camping, and Kinney embraced having time for herself — “It has been a time of, I guess, learning how to separate who I am from what I do,” Kinney says.

As season 2 filming comes to a close, the cast are reflective, if not a bit emotional, at the ending (at least until a potential season 3). “I was talking to Chandler last night on the drive home from set,” Madison says. “and we were just reflecting on the fact that the season was coming to a close and it was really hitting us, and I just said, ‘I'm so thankful for this show.’” She’s a little teary. “We are a family when we are here, and so we're so fulfilled in these ways that are not always given to you or guaranteed.”

In between takes on set, we watch as Kinney and Madison skip down the school hallway and make animal noises; co-creator Lindsay Calhoon Bring can’t help but laugh fondly as she looks on. Zaria sums it up: “It felt like the last week of school and the first week of school, both energies at once.”

The change of scene for season 2 was crucial. Bring and co-creator Roberto Aguirre Sacasa have spoken often about how they infuse the show with near endless classic horror film references, and summer unlocked a whole new set of them. “We really wanted to infuse some joy and a fresh vibe and fresh POV,” Bring says. “Summer lent itself to us with our writers thinking like, well, separate from horror, what are our favorite summer set pieces? A pool. A community pool that gives us the horror like something in The Strangers: Prey at Night, but that also gives us a fun summer job for a lifeguard.”

But while the aesthetic vibes are fun, the undercurrent of this season does have some serious notes. The first season was about carrying the sins of the people who came before you, and what making it right looks like. “Season two is about the children carrying the trauma of season one and trying to find a light through it,” Bring says.

And what helps with trauma? A therapist. “Hot girls go to therapy,” Kinney says. Inspired by the novel The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix, the show created a group therapy scenario to unpack everything the girls have been through and brought in a familiar face to lead the sessions. Longtime actor Annabeth Gish reprises her role as Dr. Sullivan, the therapist from the original Pretty Little Liars who found herself blackmailed by “A” herself as she attempted to help.

Gish is pretty beloved on set. “She's the best, best, best. What an icon,” says Kinney. “Such a powerhouse and she's so funny,” says Pyles. Adds Reficco, “Brilliant. We all know it. She's awesome. I mean, she was in Succession. She's monologuing. She's carrying.”

Madison and Zaria say their characters had especially dynamic exchanges with Dr. Sullivan as they process their respective losses and transformations. “Imogen holds a very big fascination with Dr. Sullivan, and I think uses her longing and missing her own mother, and kind of projects that onto Dr. Sullivan,” Madison says. “The fact that the second season of the original PLL opened with her and our second season is opening with therapy, I think it's just a really special nod.”

“Honestly, you approach it and you go, ‘Okay, this is going to be intimidating because she is a veteran,’” Zaria says. “She is OG PLL, and she has this amazing warmth, and kindness, and a smile that could just make you forget about everything wrong in the world. It was really nice to have that for Faran, who is forgiving but does not trust easy, so it takes her a while. The disarming nature of Annabeth was hard to ignore at times. She's really good.”

Therapy brings in a major theme for season 2: healing. It’s a big season of growth for these Liars, who are discovering more about their individual identities as people in addition to dealing with a new stalker. Imogen has cut her hair — “Everyone's viewing them now as these victims, and I think for Imogen, she's really spiraling with having to deal with that again,” Madison says. “But they're like little lying liars now this season. It's really fun to watch.”

Imogen and Tabby are wading into some new romantic interests, and all the fraught drama that comes with that. Kinney notes, “It's now really a story of reclaiming [Tabby’s] voice and tapping into that power that has always been there, and I think it bleeds into every part of her life and her personal relationships.”

Faran is envisioning a life beyond ballet, and Zaria finds it relatable, the search for what you like and what defines you. “She's figuring it out,” she says before adding slyly, “She's a messy girl. She's a bad, bad girl. Let me just say, can I tease something for season three, I do not know how it's all going to shake out for her.” And stay tuned for some interesting Faran/Imogen moments. “Faran and Imogen really get to see each other in a way that they didn't necessarily get to… in the first season.”

Mouse, meanwhile, is discovering her own freedom and power, but also that healing doesn’t happen overnight. “There's moments where she loses herself and there's mistakes along the way,” Pyles says.

Before season 2 started, Pyles got to go to the writers room and trade a secret in exchange for seeing the bulletin board with all their plot post-it notes. That’s when she saw the words “Spooky Spaghetti,” the name for the fictional Creepypasta-esque horror story site that Mouse reads. “I just wigged out because I'm such a creep that when I was younger I used to fall asleep to Creepypasta, actually fall asleep to people narrating it. Please don't diagnose me in the comments,” Pyles jokes. “I think I had an easier time [unpacking why Mouse is captivated] just having the history that I do, understanding finding some light or levity in a dark world.”

And finally, Noa: one of several Liars with a potential new romance on the horizon. “She’s building herself back up and [figuring out] where to find solid ground,” Reficco says of Noa. Ava Capri joins the cast as Jen, a new friend (or more… the trailer shows the pair leaning in for a kiss). “Being able to tell a queer story as a queer person was also incredibly fulfilling, and with one of my best friends Ava, [who is] incredible.” They also acted in Netflix’s Do Revenge together. “In season 2, it just feels like we're watching every little seed we planted blossom into something beautiful.”

Gina Girolamo, an executive producer on PLL:SS and the head of television at Alloy Entertainment, had a front-row seat to the making of the first iteration of the series in the late 2000s. She has an idea as to why the new series is succeeding where other spinoffs haven’t.

“The first time around it was a show that didn't exist — young women with secrets and having to come together to face the sins of their past and get through the threat and the challenge of an omniscient villain. The girls bonding together was what the audience was drawn to,” Girolamo says. “This time around what Lindsay and Roberto really tapped into is a coming-of-rage story, because we're post-Trump, post 2016 election, now we're post-Roe, and these girls are pissed. They're pissed at the patriarchy. They're pissed that they have to deal with this crazy killer. They have a lot on their shoulders, and they're also just trying to get through high school and go out on a Saturday night.”

Across Pretty Little Liars: Summer School, there’s a catharsis in seeing these five Final Girls battle their demons and find ways to thrive anyway. It really is the friendships that make it fun to watch — strip away the fun aesthetics, the summery vibes, the horror movie references, and you have a friend group fighting for survival, sure, but also for the people they want to become.

“There's a beauty in coming together for a common goal,” Zaria says. “Not only does it hopefully get you closer to something that feels right and feels just, it hopefully gets you closer to something that feels like some retribution."

Pretty Little Liars: Summer School premieres with two episodes on May 9 on Max and will air subsequent episodes every Thursday.

Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue

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