Editor’s note: Spoiler alert for last week’s episodes of HBO Max’s Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin.

Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin continues to dig more into the slasher genre and last week’s death has the liars shook– and it is a huge deal heading into the finale episodes of the season which drop this Thursday.

The end of episode 7 showed the death of villainous jock Tyler Marchand (Brian Altemus) as the girls, Imogen (Bailee Madison), Tabby (Chandler Kinney), Faran (Zaria), Mouse (Malia Pyles) and Noa (Maia Reficco) receive photos of his body.

This information definitely has the liars on edge as they continue to track down A. But now, it seems as if they are on the offensive instead of waiting for A to tip them off on his plans.

“This definitely lights a fire under the girls,” Kinney told Shadow and Act in a recent interview. “They keep thinking that they are done with A and that whatever needed to be done was done and handled. But clearly, A is very relentless, which we love because it lends itself very nicely to one epic wild ride for these girls, but I think moving forward, this is a very pivotal moment. And I think once they realize that….just the level of which A is capable of terrorizing these girls, it is more than just tormenting and threatening and being invasive and I mean this is highly understated– but also annoying [laughs]. He also is now deadly, and I think it is very motivating, to say the least, for these girls to uncover the mystery and understand why they’re being targeted and why they specifically are at the heart of this of all this mess and chaos.”

The upcoming episodes will also dive more the trauma she faced from her assault and how that will impact how she moves forward with everything.

“Until episode five, Tabby had not confronted this trauma in her life,” the actress explained. “She’s in no way passive in dealing with it, [but] I just don’t think that she knows to event approach. It’s just something in her life and very present, no matter how much she wants to ignore or dismiss it– [it] remains present. Luckily, she now has Imogen by her side to lean on and to help her continue down that journey, but I think that this is a really important story to tell, especially because these stories often do go untold, and if they are represented in the media, I think sometimes it’s done in a way [doesn’t portray] it as an intimate look. These two girls have gone through something and you can see as the season progresses, the ways in which it affects them very differently. I’m dancing around this, so I don’t spoil [laughs], but I think as Tabby turns to directly confront this thing in her life, definitely becomes more difficult for her to reconcile what has happened to her, which is a part of processing and ultimately healing. It’s beautiful and messy and tragic journey for her–but it’s a very necessary story to be told and I hope when people see it that they feel that they feel seen and feel heard and feel that they have a safe space within Tabby and Imogen and within our show.”

Watch the full interview below:

The first seven episodes of Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin are now streaming on HBO Max.