‘Pretty Little Liars: Summer School’ Chandler Kinney Talks Closing The Season As Millwood’s Final Final Girl

Katie Campione
·10-min read

SPOILER ALERT! This post contains details from the season finale of Max’s Pretty Little Liars: Summer School.

Bloody Rose Waters is no match for Millwood’s final girls.

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Pretty Little Liars: Summer School came to a dramatic close on Thursday with an episode that saw Tabby (Chandler Kinney) go head-to-head with this season’s masked villain, who is revealed to be none other than Mrs. Langsberry.

But she wasn’t working alone. As Tabby learns in the finale, she has a co-conspirator — aka Tabby’s former Orpheum manager, Wes. He’s got a bone to pick with Tabby since she called out his racist remarks about her film festival submission, making him possibly the only person in Millwood who wants to see her demise as much as Mrs. Langsberry.

Like any true final girl, Tabby makes it out on top, but not without a struggle. Kinney tells Deadline the sequence was “one of the hardest things I had to film.”

The actress spoke with Deadline about getting in the right headspace for Tabby’s finale moment, and what she’s looking forward to if the series is renewed again.

DEADLINE: So when did you find out that Tabby was going to be the final final girl, so to speak?

CHANDLER KINNEY: I had heard rumblings early on, but really didn’t have any more details. I think Roberto and Lindsay, we’ve all spoken about this, They like to keep us in the dark, which I have really come to love. At first, I struggled with it, because I think everyone likes a little bit of control and likes to know where they’re going. But I really enjoyed just being very present in the journey and trusting the ride. So I didn’t know the details of my final girl moment until basically a week before we started shooting the finale episode.

DEADLINE: What were your thoughts when you read the script?

KINNEY: I was feeling betrayed. Sometimes it be your own people, you know? [Laughs]. I was like, ‘Dude, you just spent years together, working alongside each other.’ No, I think I was feeling all the right things for my girl, Tabby. I was just so angry for her. She’s gone through so much and now this, and to be put in the state of where she’s stripped of her control and being used and exploited once again in a different way, but yet still very harrowing and traumatic way…my heart really bled for her. I took all of that going into those scenes.

DEADLINE: So this is the moment you’re finding out who Bloody Rose is, all of that while also finding out what happens to Tabby. Wow.

KINNEY: They just dropped the script in our inbox. They just wreak havoc. They don’t even tell us when. I just know when the group chat lights up. And they’re like, [an episode] just dropped!

DEADLINE: So, do you just skip to the end?

KINNEY: I think that was the first time I just skipped to the end.

DEADLINE: So, prior to reading that script, did you have any theories about who Bloody Rose could have been?

KINNEY: I mean, I suspected Mrs. Langsberry for sure, because I’m like, this girl just keeps popping up out of nowhere at the most inconvenient times. So I certainly suspected her for sure, and I really thought that it could be a possibility once Tabby was on to her. I think Tabby has a an expertise in horror. She’s a horror movie aficionado, and so I think she has her wits about her in this world, and pretty strong intuition. So I think she kind of helped me uncover the mystery.

DEADLINE: I have to say, I was a bit surprised neither Christian nor Johnny were involved. I guess I am glad for Imogen and Tabby. Did you ever suspect them?

KINNEY: I was a little weary as well. But I actually really love the way that it turned out, the way that it unfolded. I think that is kind of a trope in the horror genre that it’s the love interest. And that’s certainly a path that they explore, but I think that’s a really cool thing about our show, and having such geniuses like Roberto and Lindsay leading the ship. They know when to play into some of the horror rules, and then they know when to bend and sometimes break them. So it does keep people on their toes a bit, which I love.

DEADLINE: So, Lindsay and Roberto told me that, in the scene where all the girls are fighting about who could be the killer, Noa’s line about Henry looking like Jeffrey Dahmer was improvised. Do you often get the chance to improvise?

KINNEY: Katie, full disclosure, okay. I haven’t seen the episode yet. That is a reveal to me. That is so funny. I would love to talk about this. We typically do not improvise on the show. Everything is as written. And during the writer’s strike, we didn’t have revisions. We were fully written by that point, so there were no writers on set, no showrunners on set. We were kind of just trusting what was on the page, but…it’s like the teachers out and you have a sub, and then you start, like, acting out of line. That’s kind of what started to happen. So I actually tweeted about this, I think it was Episode 6 maybe, when we’re stitching up Faran’s arm. And I say, ‘You’re doing amazing, sweetie.’ That was one of the improvised lines that made it. That just was completely off the fly, very Tabby, because it’s still in the reference world. We don’t really improvise much, but that was a time where there are bits in this season, just by the nature of how we filmed it, where we kind of put a little bit of our own creativity into it.

DEADLINE: I’m so glad I could be the one to reveal this to you.

KINNEY: That’s why I laughed so hard, because I had no idea what made it at that point. We had to fill the space, and that’s such a crucial moment too, because you never really see the girls go head-to-head. But also with any friendship, there’s a bit of conflict, and not everybody’s gonna be on the same page about things. So we really wanted to nail that moment, to show that part of it. So we kind of just started throwing stuff in there.

DEADLINE: The entire end sequence where Tabby is running from Wes and Mrs. Langsberry is very intense and very physical. How was it filming that?

KINNEY: I’ll tell you that church scene was definitely one of the hardest things I had to film, because I want to say it’s like 10 pages. We shot it all in one. We shot it top to bottom. I know it cuts away to the girls’ reactions and them trying to get to Tabby, but for the purpose of performance and just living in that moment, we shot the whole thing. So it kind of felt like a play at times, because there were like 15-minute takes. So to be in that state, to put your your body and mind in that state of horror, is exhausting. I just remember I could feel the energy and exhaustion in my body the whole sequence. From the time I’m kidnapped and put in the confessional to the stabbing that took a week, basically, to film all of those pieces.

I remember I was waking up in the middle of the night from nightmares. I had so much anxiety. I literally started doing these somatic breathing exercises, because I felt like my heart was just racing all the time. I think it’s because I really challenged myself to live in that world, and, being a final girl you have to have a level of certainty of how this is going to go down. When you’re looking at that person across from you and realizing only one of us is going to make it out alive, and it has to be me, that is a state of being that you have to click into. So I was definitely there, and I felt it in my whole body, and it was sore and painful and but really, I think, rewarding, because I did get to emerge alive and well.

DEADLINE: I wasn’t sure if Tabby was really going to stab Wes at the end. What did you think of that moment? She really goes for it.

KINNEY: I was not surprised by that one bit. I think when I’m in Tabby’s mind, she knows what needs to be done. I think part of that is she’s a bit desensitized to this world of horror, just by the sheer amount of horror that she consumes in her personal life. That’s really fun to be able to play in that sequence, because she’s able to predict how this is going to go down and not fall into some of those horror tropes and stereotypes.

I think that moment is the the point that every part of Tabby’s story has been leading up to throughout both seasons. She’s been silenced. Her story has been erased. She’s been undermined and gaslit and discriminated against a lot by Wes, and she’s been stripped of her innocence and of her power and control and agency. So these are all things that she is in a fight to reclaim. She’s in a fight to tell her story and in her own voice and in her own way and to have ownership of that story. So this whole test is a test of that reclaiming. When it came down to it, she realized this is life or death. It’s the only way that I can live my truth, otherwise, it will be taken from me, and that truth is something that she’s willing to die for. I think there’s nothing more powerful or empowering than that, and I think that moment is a testament to her bravery. I remember feeling energy surging through my body, and it was electric and weird, and I’d never felt anything like that. So it was quite primal. She lets out this roar. I just hope that people feel that strength in that moment, because it’s one that she’s worked really hard to reclaim and own.

DEADLINE: If the show gets renewed, what are you hoping for Tabby and the girls? I mean, I’m exhausted for them at this point. They need a break.

KINNEY: Pretty Little Liars: Spring Break. Pretty Little Liars: Study Abroad. Get them out of Millwood. That’s been the ongoing joke. No, I’m tired for them, but I’m also just really excited. I’m really excited for Tabby, especially, because she is a very internal character. You just see the gears turning in her brain a lot of the time, but she doesn’t always put those those emotions into actionable steps and in all the same ways that I think some of the other girls do. I think Tabby is very reserved in that way, but that doesn’t make her any less. I don’t know, she still feels big, but she just kind of pushes it down and puts it on the back burner, I think, at times, to put others first. So I think what’s really beautiful about this finale, and why I’m so excited for this moment for her, is because so much of that internal conflict gets externalized and becomes actionable in a really entertaining way. hope to see more of that for Tabby.

Obviously, she struggles with letting people in. I think that’s why this moment is so huge for her, because it really is her at her most vulnerable, and I think that’s going to let viewers into her mind and into her heart and and I want more of that for her. I think it’s really good and healthy and healing for her. So that’s what I want in Season 3.

DEADLINE: I’m curious, after the appearance of Dr. Sullivan, are there any other PLL alum you would like to see in Millwood?

KINNEY: Ooh, anyone that wants to come play in Millwood, truly. I think what’s so exciting is we really are just getting started. These girls are ready for more. There’s so many more stories to tell. We’re already talking about fun ideas that we have and how the world can only expand further. We’re open to anything. I would love Troian [Bellisario] to direct. We’re kind of putting that out into the ether. We saw her at ATX in Austin, and she was so incredibly sweet and has just always been so supportive. So we would love that. Anyone that wants to come hang.

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