Pretty Little Liars: Summer School introduces a new villain named Bloody Rose who has an interesting background and nebulous motivations. The Pretty Little Liars franchise includes numerous TV shows. The most recent one is the second season of Original Sin, titled Pretty Little Liars: Summer School. The story picks up where the last season left off. Unlike the original TV series, Original Sin both reveals and shows the downfall of Archie “A” Waters.
With the villain out of the way, the cast of Pretty Little Liars: Summer School needed to either get Archie out of trouble in true PLL fashion or introduce a new villain. The writers took the latter route by introducing an urban legend about a woman named Bloody Rose who turns out to be real by the start of the second episode. With her on a killing rampage, it’s important to establish who Blood Rose is and how she became involved with the Liars.
Deviating from the original show, Pretty Little Liars: Summer School introduces a new villain who goes by a different name – Bloody Rose Waters. This villain is the ex-husband of the now-dead Principal Clanton and the mother of Archie Waters, aka A, and the late Angela Waters. She is first introduced in Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin, only appearing in a few flashback scenes; however, even without being physically present, she’s felt throughout the show. She reportedly became mentally unstable and went to Radley Sanitorium after Angela died by suicide.
However, before this, she kept Archie at home because he supposedly had “a face only a mother could love.” During this time, she kept him in a locked dog cage, as shown at the end of Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin. This gives a hint as to the mentality of the character. Bloody Rose seems to have a cruel and unempathetic personality, explaining why she could murder others so easily. Based on Pretty Little Liars: Summer School episodes 1 and 2, which were released on May 9, Bloody Rose’s calling card appears to be red roses.
At the start of Pretty Little Liars: Summer School, Bloody Rose is thought of as an urban legend based on the story of Angie Waters and Archie Waters ‘crimes. She seems to be a variation on the myth of Bloody Mary – a ghost who is covered in blood and kills people. Like the legend of Bloody Mary, Bloody Rose can be summoned by standing in front of a mirror at 12:01 AM while saying Bloody Rose’s name three times. However, in the myth, the mirror specifically needs to be one that Angela Waters looked into.
Additionally, the legend says that Bloody Rose lives in a cabin in the woods where teens can visit. Most of the legends are detailed on a website called Spooky Spaghetti – a ripoff of the website Creepy Pasta, where users posted paranormal and creepy fictional horror that read like scary stories told around a campfire. One shot at the end of Pretty Little Liars: Summer School episode 2 hints that Bloody Rose might function like Slenderman too.
While Slenderman takes kids as proxies, Bloody Rose supposedly took the teens Sabrina and Nick as her “children” because they were worthy of her love. If this legend of her taking in kids is true, the show could be working towards an A-Team reveal down the line. In either case, the legend simply adds to the omnipresent feeling of Bloody Rose Waters.
The start of Pretty Little Liars: Summer School doesn’t establish the character’s motivation for going after the new Liars. However, her drive can be surmised from her relationship with the villain and the events of Original Sin. Bloody Rose could be going after the teens because they are the children of her daughter’s bullies. She could blame them for Angela dying by suicide. Additionally, Bloody Rose could be upset that the teens put her son behind bars and on death row if she ignores Archie’s capability and agency. She could feel that others deserve to die if he does. Lastly, her rampage could be triggered by her husband’s death.
No matter the cause, Pretty Little Liar‘s Bloody Rose villain is by far a more vicious and violent villain than ever seen before in the Pretty Little Liars universe. The original show’s A focused primarily on the Liars. Everyone else was collateral damage. Meanwhile, Bloody Rose stabs an innocent girl repeatedly, indicating that Noa, Faran, Mouse, Tabby, and Imogen aren’t her only victims in Pretty Little Liars: Summer School.