Can we finally talk about how Ezra Fitz manipulated everyone, including Alison?

. While they are rarely seen together in "real-time," their history reveals the darker side of Ezra’s motivations and the lengths Alison went to manipulate those around her. Refinery29 Relationship Timeline The Meeting (2008):

The true nature of their past was hidden for four seasons. It was eventually revealed that Ezra was the mysterious "Board Shorts" Alison wrote about in her diaries. The Meeting:

The pair met in a pub near Hollis College the summer before Alison disappeared. Alison pretended to be a college student to gain the attention of Ezra, who was then an undergraduate student.

He was writing a true-crime novel about the murder of Alison DiLaurentis. He had been researching her before she disappeared. He took the job at Rosewood High not to teach, but to get closer to her friends—the Liars—to mine information for his book.

In the series finale, when a pregnant Alison (now “Mrs. Rollins”) confronts a contrite Ezra, the scene is heartbreakingly quiet. She forgives him. She thanks him for the summer because, twisted as it was, he was the only person who saw her as “just Alison.” He apologizes not for the predation, but for the book.

It proves that Ezra Fitz was never a good guy who made one mistake. He was a guy who made the same mistake twice—until the show decided to stop calling it a mistake and started calling it destiny.

However, critically, this retcon saved the narrative. Before Ezra’s lair was revealed, he was simply a boring, statutory rapist dressed up in tweed. The Alison connection gave him depth. It made him terrifying.