"A" Revealed! Pretty Little Liars Boss Answers Burning Questions

So we know who "A" is. Now what?

A central mystery of Pretty Little Liars may have been solved, but executive producer Marlene King says that the story is nowhere near over. "This was a season finale, not a show finale, and people should prepare themselves that there's so much more on this ride," King told TVGuide.com the morning after the episode aired. "This is the end of one story, but the beginning of a much bigger story."

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Although Mona Vanderwaal (Janel Parish) was revealed to be Aria, Spencer, Hanna and Emily's big nemesis, clues throughout the hour pointed to the clear fact that she's not working alone — but the girls have yet to realize it. Who else is on the "A"-team?" Is Maya really dead? Are Spencer and Toby back together for good? King answers our burning questions.

Did you know who "A" was from the beginning?
Marlene King: For the first six episodes, we were, like, "Well, we could go a couple of different ways," but then we decided we were absolutely committed to Mona.

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Some people are a little disappointed that "A" wasn't someone completely shocking.
King: We really wanted "A" to have a strong motivation, and Mona's was. We could support that in so many ways in regards to her character, so that was the key factor in why we picked Mona.

Was it always going to be Spencer, the brainiac, who put the final clue together?
King: There was a clue we gave out that "A" wanted a playmate, and I think Mona really thought of Spencer as her equal. Realizing that Mona is a genius and as smart as Spencer, she picked her to be the one to figure it out. 

Was Maya definitely in that body bag?
King: I'm not going to say. It'll all be resolved very shortly in season 3.

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OK, well, was there a reason you brought Paige back? Is she going to be Emily's new love interest?
King: There was definitely something specific about bringing her back. Emily definitely has the hardest time adjusting after this finale and she comes back in Season 3 a little disconnected from the others because of that.

Mona's mention of toffee lipstick in her final monologue and the fact that toffee ice cream was mentioned earlier is haunting me!
King: There are a lot of those little nuggets that are buried in several episodes and they open up doors for more questions in Season 3.

I assumed it was a clue for Melissa's guilt, but our readers think it points to Aria, whose favorite ice cream is toffee.
King: Everyone is a suspect and everyone continues to be a suspect for everything in Rosewood.

Garrett and Melissa are so bizarre (and possibly guilty). How will they play into Season 3?
King: When we come back, Garrett is about to go on trial for Alison's murder. Melissa always has interesting ulterior motives to all of her actions and a lot of that will play out in Season 3. We'll answer more questions of old mysteries like what happened the night of Alison's murder and did Garrett really kill Alison?

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And are Spencer and Toby back together for good?
King: When we come back in Season 3, they're still happy.
Even though she tried to slap him.
King: That was Troian's idea. She said, "He's just tortured me with this lie and I can't believe I would be so forgiving!" It just worked so beautifully.

Where does Season 3 pick up?
King: We do have a time jump and during that time jump the girls don't receive any "A" texts. They receive silly joke texts, but the next few months there is no sign of "A" and they believe that "A" is Mona, [who] is locked away. The premiere episode is called "It Happened That Night," and there's an incident that happens in the teaser of the episode where the girls make a decision that was of poor judgment. That night becomes the new Jenna thing and we go from there.