YMMV / Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin

• And You Thought It Would Fail: Thanks to Pretty Little Liars spin-offs Ravenswood and The Perfectionists being cancelled after only one season, many expected Original Sin to meet the same fate. The announcements of many HBO Max Originals being cancelled in August didn't help. The series ended up becoming one of the most streamed series on HBO Max while airing and received critical acclaim from critics, with a second season announced not long after the season one finale.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: Many viewers predicted that Chip is Imogen and Tabby's rapist thanks to his romantic interest in both of them, his eagerness to partner up with Imogen in taking care of the infant simulator for health ed, and him "pretending" to be the father of Imogen's baby at the adoption agency.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • After an episode of being a privileged, homophobic, and racist bully to the Liars, as humiliating as the video of her drunk and angry is, seeing Karen squirm watching it at the Orpheum as her classmates laugh at her can be quite satisfying to say the least.
  • Seeing Tyler be a misogynistic, racist, homophobe makes it all the more cathartic when Tabby punches him in the face, breaking his nose, and A strangles him to death.
  • Faran's willingness to backtalk to her overbearing perfectionist mother can be cathartic for anyone who grew up with similar parents, especially when she rightfully calls her mother out on forcing her to have an unnecessary surgery, then ignored Faran's telling her of the back pain she's been powering through for years afterward.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: Principal Clanton (Archie and Angela's father) suggests that his son has a deformed face, which was why Rose Waters (their mother) never enrolled him in Millwood High School alongside his twin sister. In the Waters' former residence, the Liars find a room with a cage that has colored crayons in it—implying Rose regularly kept him in there. As A, Archie is never heard from except for when he talks to Noa. Furthermore, during The Reveal, he only appears to act as his father's henchman without any thought or opinion of his own.
• Fandom Rivalry: Like their predecessors before them, with Gossip Girl (2021) thanks to both being Soft Reboots of popular teen dramas focusing on a clique of high schoolers, now releasing within a relatively short timeframe of each other and on the same streaming service HBO Max, with comparisons over which series is the better reboot being common.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Imogen/Tabby was always more popular than Imogen/Chip even before he was revealed as the rapist
• Funny Moments: After each of the other Liars try to say nice things to Karen at her grave, Faran starts off with "I didn't like you Karen", with the girls looking at her in surprise.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Davie discouraging Imogen from being friends with Karen might be because of how Karen is a reminder of her past as a bully. However, there’s more to that reason: she dated Karen’s dad, Tom Beasley, in high school, who raped Angela. Since she thought Angela was lying, she ended up going too far in bullying Angela, resulting in her death. Seeing Karen around her daughter is a reminder of her past regret siding with her rapist boyfriend.
    • Similar to how Karen sided with Greg when Imogen and him kissed, Davie sided with her then-boyfriend Tom Beasley when Angela revealed she was raped. It sometimes makes you wonder if Karen is a Generation Xerox of both Davie and Tom.
  • Karen being killed by A makes A look like a Bully Hunter. However, Sins of the Father not only applied to the Liars, but also to Karen, the daughter of Angela’s rapist, Tom Beasley. Since she is so similar to Tom she ended up dying for being a bully just like him.
• Improved Second Attempt:
  • After all the flak that the original show got for revealing Cece was trans and then killing her off while revealing she was still evil, the show introduced a well-received trans character in Ash, who is also played by a trans actor, unlike Cece.
  • The original show's main ship Ezria was Condemned by History for being a completely inappropriate relationship since Ezra was Aria's teacher, and being inappropriately supported even by the adult cast. While some took problem with Imogen deciding to let Aria and Ezra adopt her baby, the show portrayed Wes's interest in Tabby as predatory and inappropriate, regardless of how he genuinely doesn't seem to realize this. Tabby is not comfortable with it, outright calls him manipulative, and her mother flips out on Wes when she starts to suspect him of assaulting Tabby.
• Jerkass Woobie: A turns out to be one of these. Archie Waters was the twin brother to Angela Waters, who has "a face only a mother could love" and was thus hidden away by her mother, implied to have been locked in a cage by Rose Waters. He had to watch his sister's suffering at the hands of Davie and her posse, until she's raped by Tom Beasley, and then loses Angela when she commits suicide, and then loses his mother when she's taken away and institutionalized following Angela's death.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Imogen and Karen leave Imogen's room to find the hallway flooded, opening the bathroom door to find Imogen's mom's corpse eyes wide-open in a bathtub of blood with a bloody A etched above.
  • A sends Mouse a video of how they killed the dead rat who was put in Karen's backpack — turning the cage into a vacuum. The show itself spares us seeing the actual death but leaves us knowing how they died an excruciating death.
  • A chasing Noa. She sees him in front of her apartment door, then goes to run and try to bang on her neighbors' doors asking for help, and when the elevator takes too long she runs in A's direction to go to the rooftop, with A grabbing her and dragging her by the leg, only escaping by kicking A in the face, dropping from the stairs, and then leaping from rooftop to rooftop to barely get away.
• Tear Jerker: Imogen feeling overwhelmed when asked about what she'll do about the baby. Originally planning to raise it with her mom, she has a panic attack and goes to the school nurse to ask about aborting it, to be reminded that she no longer can because she's six-months pregnant and will have to wait three more months and give birth, with Imogen becoming aware of how irrational her request was when it was clearly a way for her to try to cope with the situation makes it all the more sad.