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‘Pretty Little Liars’: Dissecting the painting in Mary’s doctor’s house
In photos of Tuesday’s (Aug. 15) episode of “Pretty Little Liars,” Spencer (Troian Bellisario) and Aria (Lucy Hale) are seen talking to a man (Keith Szarabajka), who is pictured in what is presumably his home, putting together a puzzle on his coffee table.
As “PLL” viewers know, art and literature seen in the show are never there by accident — remember “Isle of the Dead”? — so Zap2it did a little digging about the painting in the puzzle. It is titled “Interior with Portraits” by Thomas Le Clear and features two children getting their photo taken.
The children in question are James and Parnell Sidway, who were both deceased when the painting was commissioned by their older brother, Franklin. Parnell, the little girl, died as an adolescent, while James, the little boy, died in a hotel fire at age of 26 (he was a volunteer firefighter).
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That information coupled with the fact that the episode description includes the line “the girls track down the doctor who delivered Mary’s baby” lead us to believe that this painting is significant — because this man is probably the aforementioned doctor.
There are four people involved in the painting — Franklin, Parnell, James and the photographer in the foreground. So, who do these people represent in the “PLL” universe?
Parnell and James could represent Charlotte (Vanessa Ray) and the unknown Drake baby, letting fans know that Charlotte’s younger sibling is a boy. However, the deaths don’t line up. Charlotte didn’t die as an adolescent, she died in her 20s, like James. And the unknown Drake baby is presumably still alive, because … what fun would it be if that person is dead?
What if the photographer is the Drake baby? And the two children he’s photographing, which stands for spying on in the “PLL” universe, are Charlotte (Vanessa Ray) and Alison (Sasha Pieterse)? Cousins aren’t that far off from siblings, so maybe the older brother who commissioned the painting is Jason (Drew Van Acker), the two children are Charlotte and Alison and the photographer is the Drake baby — who we happen to think is Andrew Campbell (Brandon W. Jones), a.k.a. “AD,” which stands for “Andrew Drake.”
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Pieterse told Zap2it during Season 6 that Andrew is definitely mixed up in everything, though at the time, people thought Andrew was Charles DiLaurentis. Maybe this how he fits in.
“Andrew is a weird component in all of this … It might not be what you think it is, but he’s really cool. He came out of nowhere. But at the same time, he was always there,” says Pieterse at the time.
“Interior with Portraits” is the second conspicuous piece of art in Season 7, the first being the copy of “Twelfth Night” seen at Rollins’ (Huw Collins) apartment earlier in the season. This mysterious new Drake baby throws another possibility into that mix as well and while we don’t think we have enough information to confidently say who represents which “Twelfth Night” character yet, the big picture seems to be coming into focus.
“Pretty Little Liars” airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Freeform.