Warning: Spoilers Ahead!
The mystery is finally over: A’s identity has been revealed, and the five liars can finally live in peace… except, not quite.
This August, ABC Family aired possibly the most explosive, complicated, and jaw-dropping episode of the TV series, “Pretty Little Liars,” yet. And if that isn’t enough, viewers are going to have to wait until next year before getting any more answers (and more questions along with those, considering the nature of the show).
The series, which has been confirmed for a seventh season, follows four girls (and eventually five) over the course of their junior and senior years of high school after the disappearance of their friend, Alison. A year after her disappearance, the mystery around Alison is supposedly solved when the police find her body (which later turns out to be someone else, NOT Alison…). Shorty after this, the girls, Hanna, Aria, Spencer, and Emily, start receiving ominous text messages from ‘A,’ a seemingly omnipotent figure that knows all their secrets and exactly where to bite. Amidst relationships, feuds, police encounters, and (spoiler!) Alison’s return, the girls’ main objective throughout the next six seasons of “Pretty Little Liars” is to discover the identity of ‘A,’ who goes from slipping notes into lockers to kidnapping the girls, torturing them in an underground bunker, and claiming them as her ‘dolls’ (sociopath much?).
In season six, the girls finally tell the police about ‘A’, and at the same time, their prime suspect becomes Charles Dilaurentis, Alison’s supposed older brother who was admitted into a mental institution as a toddler after trying to drown his baby sister. According to his records, Charles committed suicide years ago, but the girls aren’t buying it. As time passes, evidence supporting Charles as ‘A’ grows, and he becomes the police’s prime suspect as well. At this point, even though no one has seen him for years, everyone is pretty sure about who has been torturing the girls over the past two years.
In season six episode ten, titled “Game Over, Charles,” the girls, along with the viewers, finally see ‘A’s face and hear ‘his’ story. It’s definitely Charles, but the form ‘he’ takes is something nobody expects. In fact, he is not a he, but a SHE, taking on the name Charlotte. Although it is not explicitly stated, Charles transitioned from a male to a female, who happens to be a character that viewers know very well by this point, explaining as to how no one had seen ‘him’ for years.
Some critics criticized the show’s writer, Marlene King, for this decision to make ‘A’ transgender, saying that she was jumping on the bandwagon and that is was unnecessary and cliché. However, King replied to the comments by saying that this was a decision she made three years ago for ‘A’ and that she is going to stick by her decision.
And although no one would have expected this character to be the mastermind behind ‘A,’ King said that if one were to go back and look at all of this character’s scenes and lines, one would realize that she basically stated she was ‘A’ multiple times, but in sly and discreet ways. One of these instances was in one of her very first scenes, when the girls hear her repeating a direct quote from Mrs. Dilaurentis, (“You’re always better off with a really great lie…”) which should have been an indication to viewers that there was something suspicious there.
After ‘A’ tells her story, a lot of the little, scattered mysteries that make up the show are finally unraveled… but, not all of them. While a lot of questions have been answered, there are some that were not addressed in full depth. One in particular was Mrs. Dilaurentis’ death. Charlotte revealed that her mother was the only person she felt truly loved her, so it wasn’t ‘A’ who killed Mrs. Dilaurentis. Who killed her? There’s no clear answer. Either these unaddressed issues were not important enough to be mentioned, or the producers were running out of time.
So, Charlotte is ‘A,’ and is definitely not just a criminal mastermind; she’s a little insane too. She finishes her grand reveal speech by telling the girls that she ‘loves all her dolls’ and that’s the reason that none of them ever died. She also reveals that a certain someone who got pretty close to Emily was actually working for ‘A’ for quite a few years and simply putting on a charade, a reveal that was pretty heartbreaking for both the characters and viewers.
So, what now? Charlotte is ‘A,’ most of viewers’ questions have been answered, and everything is seemingly at peace when the episode flashes to a few weeks after the encounter and shows the girls heading off to college. But just when viewers think it’s over, the scene shifts to five years later in a classroom at the girls’ high school.
The classroom is empty except for 23 year old Alison writing ‘Mrs. Rollins’ in chalk on the chalkboard. Her outfit and position gives the impression that she’s a teacher, but viewers only have a few seconds to question the name Alison wrote before Aria rushes in to the room, followed by Hanna and Emily, telling Alison that someone is coming for her and she needs to hurry. A look of fear crosses their faces when Spencer then runs in, saying that it is too late and “he’s already here.” The episode then abruptly ends, leaving viewers with one of the biggest and most un-contexted cliff-hangers the show has ever created.
Who could be after the girls now? It isn’t Charlotte, since Spencer says that ‘he’ is already here. Unlike other mysteries and cliff-hangers that the series has presented, the lack of context for this one prevents viewers from being able to concoct theories about what could be going on. Instead, “Pretty Little Liars” fans are going to have to wait until January of 2016 to get more answers. King has said that the rest of season six and season seven will feature the five girls in their twenties faced with this new threat, while at the same time juggling college, jobs, and relationships, which will include marriages and engagements.
It isn’t clear as to how this new (or maybe resurrected) plot will be executed, but one thing’s for sure: TV’s five most notorious liars can’t seem to get a break, which may not be so good for Aria, Spencer, Hanna, Emily, and Alison, but is great news for “Pretty Little Liars” fans who can’t seem to get enough of the ongoing mystery.
To find out who Charlotte is and hear the full story, watch season six episode ten, “Game On, Charles,” on ABC Family. The episode is also available on the ABC Family Watch app for mobile devices, Cox on Demand, the Cox Contour app, or for purchase from iTunes and Google Play.