KUMBIA SHOW: It's The Beginning Of The End For "Pretty Little Liars"

via BuzzFeed

During an exclusive visit to the set of ABC Family’s massive success story, BuzzFeed News learned everything you need to know about the last days of “A,” the show’s looming five-year time jump, and how they’re preparing for the end.

ABC Family

At 9:30 a.m. on a typically picturesque spring day in Hollywood, the stars of ABC Family's megahit Pretty Little Liars were flying through their first scene of the day. It's one they'd filmed countless times: Lucy Hale (who plays Aria), Troian Bellisario (who plays Spencer), Shay Mitchell (who plays Emily), and Ashley Benson (who plays Hanna) argue over the true identity of "A."

Since the series premiered in June 2010, the characters at the center of the series have squared off with one another, with their parents, with their significant others, but mostly with the endless parade of suspects who could be "A." The omnipresent tormentor — revealed at the end of the most recent fifth season to be a not-yet-seen character named Charles DiLaurentis, the presumed brother of their friend Alison (Sasha Pieterse), who was presumed dead until she reappeared halfway through Season 4 — has tried to manipulate and maim the four young women ever since Mona Vanderwaal (Janel Parrish) was unmasked as the original "A" in the Season 2 finale.

The scene they were filming during BuzzFeed News' exclusive visit to the set called for a three-on-one: Spencer, Emily, and Hanna warned Aria that her new friend might be connected to Charles. In between takes, the actors segued in and out of character; checking their phones and laughing. "Everybody who gets close to you is 'A,'" Bellisario joked to her castmates, a tongue-in-cheek summary of the scene for Hale.

But it wasn't solely a familiarity with the material that allowed the four actors to make quick work of the scene. There was a renewed sense of enthusiasm driving them toward the Season 6 midseason finale ever since executive producer Marlene King revealed that episode will bring the complex, muddled, and drawn-out "A" storyline to a close once and for all.

It's an unexpected turn of events that the millions of fans who have turned Pretty Little Liars into a ratings and social media behemoth can thank themselves for.