The NAT club was one of the darkest storylines introduced in Pretty Little Liars, yet halfway through the series, the writers shelved it, leaving it to collect dust for all of eternity. What if they hadn’t? What if they wrote the NAT club storylines with care and gave them a satisfying conclusion? What if Alison was killing off the NAT club all along?
Being Groomed by Ian
During season one, we learn that Alison had been groomed by Ian, along with several other adult men, including Wilden and Ezra. Yes, I am plopping Ezra in here because I don’t buy that he had no idea Alison was high school-aged. She may have seemed “mature” for her age, but she genuinely behaved like and looked like a teenager.
Not only did Ian groom Alison, but he also recorded her changing clothes in her bedroom with her friends. It’s unclear if Alison knew about the hidden cameras, because she does tell Jenna that she thought he only made videos of her. We saw the camera propped up in the hotel room the morning that Ali went missing. We also saw Alison delete the most recent video after she overheard Ian tell Melissa he didn’t actually like Ali. Hearing this upset Alison so much that she went on Ian’s computer to delete her entire folder of videos, which led her to find blackmail on Jenna.
Ian manipulated Alison into thinking that he actually liked her, when all he wanted was to use her to get off. I’d make Ali take this very seriously and decide that he had to pay for what he did to her. She just had to figure out who “A” was and exterminate them first.
Alisons Disappearance
There were many clues throughout the first few seasons that Alison intentionally faked her death. It was a pretty popular theory, due to flashbacks in which Ali would say things like how amazing it would be to leave behind a young, beautiful corpse, essentially granting her immortality. In this timeline, we’ll say that Alison lured Bethany to Rosewood with the intention of killing her and using the body to fake her death.
Cece and Bethany already had a strenuous relationship, and we’ll say Charlotte was more than happy to get rid of the girl and help Ali at the same time. The girls would attack Bethany, Cece with a rock to the head and Alison would put her bracelet on the girl as she lay face planted in the dirt.
They’d hear Melissa coming and hide in the bushes until Melissa started to bury the body. That’s when I’d have Cece step out, and this is the conversation Jason would have seen the two girls having. He’d have missed the blond on the ground, but Cece would essentially blame Melissa and use the series of events to blackmail her moving forward.
Alison and Cece would use Melissa to help with their schemes throughout the show, including events like The Masquerade Ball and The Halloween Train, where she’d have to dress up and serve as a distraction.
Alison is portrayed as a sociopath in the earlier seasons, and I would lean very heavily on that for this timeline. She doesn’t like it when others have any kind of power over her, and the frustration around the NAT club is enough to make her homicidal.
Ian’s Death
In season 4, it’s revealed that Alison pushed Ian off the bell tower to protect Spencer. I loved this reveal, but in canon, it didn’t fit very well. This was the only person Ali ever murdered, and we never got any insight into why Alison was roaming around Rosewood that night to begin with.
Maybe she knew to protect Spencer in the church because she was already trailing Ian in the first place. It would make sense for him to be at the top of her hit list, considering the wound of his rejection was the freshest and probably the sharpest.
In this timeline, Alison followed Ian into the church, witnessed his altercation with Spencer, and threw him off the bell tower more for vengeance than to protect her old frenemy. We’ll say she saw Ian stumbling out of the church and followed him to where he was lying low at the barn. With a blitz attack, Alison knocked Ian out and tied him up. When he came to, she threatened Melissa and the baby, forcing him to write the suicide note before murdering him.
We can say that Mona did some investigating, trying to figure out where Ian could be hiding, and that was how she came across his body in the barn. It was Mona who wrote the fake suicide note, made up of “A” messages, and sent all those text messages to Melissa. Mona would’ve also been the one to take the horseshoe and exchange it for Melissa’s engagement ring at the pawn shop.
Maya’s Death
One thing that bothers me tremendously about Pretty Little Liars was Maya’s death. It was so disconnected from the rest of the story, which is why I like to tie it into the main plot of the show whenever I do these rayewrites. In this case, we’ll say that Alison went to Noel Kahn’s cabin after the Masquerade ball to lay low, not realizing that Maya was already there.
Maya will, of course, recognize Alison, who would kill her to keep her being alive a secret. By this time, Mona could’ve had Noel Kahn’s place bugged, the same way she did with the liars, so we can assume she learned about this by the time she dropped that “Maya Knew” anagram to the girls in Season 3, Episode 7, “Crazy.”
Alison would get carried away with envy and make the decision to dump Maya’s body in the backyard that Maya “took” from her. I like the idea of Mona framing Garrett and Alison trembling in her boots, trying to figure out what “A’s” end game was, and being even more determined to figure out who they were. “A” never did anything for free, so covering up a murder for her was bound to have some serious repercussions.
Garrett’s Death
By this point, Bethany’s body had been stolen from Alison’s grave, and she had no idea who was responsible. The girls were getting keepsakes delivered to them, and she was on the highest of high alert. But she couldn’t help herself. She was determined to obliterate the NAT club. One of them was probably “A” anyway. It’d make sense that the creepy peeping tom club evolved into an “A” team, so that was even more reason to snuff them out.
I’d have Alison sneak on the train in the same costume as Caleb. It was the perfect disguise, and no one would ever think a girl would be in that costume, much less the dead Alison Dilaurentis. On the Halloween train, after seeing a heated discussion between Garrett and Spencer, Alison would make her move to take him out. Afterward, she’d shove the body in a crate, and just as she went to throw it overboard, Melissa and Wilden popped up in their matching Queen of Hearts costumes with an unconscious Aria.
Wilden and Melissa were both following “A” ‘s orders at the time due to blackmail. “A” wanted Aria dead for some reason, so when they were arguing, it was about whether or not they were willing to commit murder to cover up their secrets. Melissa was already covering up the Bethany murder, so what’s one more? She had too much to lose to not comply at that point.
They’d open the barrel with the intention of dumping Aria in it and finding Garrett’s body. Shocked, disgusted, and overwhelmed, they put the unconscious Aria in the barrel and proceeded to fight about their next steps. That’d be when Aria wakes up screaming and stabs Wilden in the leg.
Wilden’s Death
The night of the Lodge fire was when the seams of the show really started to fall apart. This episode left so many plot holes that never get filled, but let’s see if we can fix that with more involvement from Alison.
We know that Wilden called Shana and Jenna for help after Ashley hit him with her car. We can keep this, but say that Alison witnessed this and was in contact with Shana at this time. Shana told Alison what was going on, not knowing her connection to Wilden, and that was how Alison discovered the plan at the Lodge. In canon, CeCe flew a plane there, but I’d change this to Alison, since we had an entire plotline establishing her ability to fly. I would keep Alison rescuing the girls, but she’d go for Wilden immediately after ensuring their safety.
Cece has now confirmed that Alison is alive, so of course she sneaks on Alison’s plane and witnesses her murdering Wilden. Infatuated with her murderous ways, Cece becomes determined to protect Ali and bring her home, so she frames Ashley.
Jenna’s Close Calls
There were actually a few situations where Jenna almost died in the show. There was a fire at Alison’s house in Season 2, Episode 25. Two seasons later, Jenna was drowned at the lake by Cece. This has always been weird to me because in season 7, Jenna told the girls she had met Cece for the first time after Cece’s reveal at Welby. I think the proper interpretation is that Jenna was lying in season 7, and I’d like to keep that here rather than acknowledge the retcon.
For this timeline, we’ll say Alison was behind both attempts. Alison purposely blinded Jenna, but she was still parading around Rosewood rather than staying gone as Alison demanded. Annoyed by her face, Ali lured Jenna to her house, posing as Jason, then trapped her inside and set the fire.
At the lake, while everyone was distracted, Alison snuck in and tried to drown Jenna, saying that the only options she ever had and ever will have were to leave Rosewood or die. With the stress of the attack and believing Alison to be dead, Jenna assumed that this was Cece.
Final Thoughts
Ultimately, I love the concept of Alison being the one to kill off the NAT club members. It makes the most sense to the story, in my opinion. It gives her a reason to fake her death, outside her search for “A” and gives her so much more agency than she was granted in the canon timeline.
But I’d love to know what you think. Should Alison have been on a secret mission to kill off the NAT club?