Pretty Little Liars Finale Recap: Charles, Red Coat and 12 Other Reveals 

‘ #SummerOfAnswers culminated Tuesday in what can only be described as the most answer-y finale in the series’ five-and-a-half season history.

: New Details About the Girls’ Lives After the Big Season 6 Time Jump Revealed

In fact, the final hour of this half-season was 

an info. dump, it’s probably just best to break down each reveal in bullet form. Ready? Let’s do this:

* First of all, it turns out that Charles is — drumroll please — CeCe Drake! She was obsessed with Alison, even considered her a living doll. (What the DiLaurentises thought was an attempted drowning was actually just Charles trying to give his lil sis a bath!)

* Mr. DiLaurentis wouldn’t buy Charles dresses, and when he found out Charles liked to play dress up in his mom’s closet, he stopped visiting him at Radley.

dead last season is because CeCe injected her with a freezing serum (which she injected Jason and Mr. D with in the finale.)

* Mrs. D bought the infamous yellow dress for Charles/CeCe when she turned 12. After that, whenever Mrs. D bought clothes for Alison, she also bought something for CeCe.

* Bethany pushed Toby’s mom off the roof of Radley because Charles/CeCe didn’t like her. (Hey, Bethany was just helping out her pal!)

* Mrs. D had “Charles” renamed “Charlotte” and paid Wilden off to have Toby’s mom’s death ruled a suicide.

* Mrs. DiLaurentis didn’t know Charlotte was CeCe until the day they left for Cape May. (You know, when Jason asked if he could bring his girlfriend on the family trip. 

* Charles/Charlotte/CeCe hit Alison that night, thinking she was Bethany, who was going to hurt Mrs. D.

* Mona hit Bethany with the shovel, thinking she was Alison. (Way to go!)

* CeCe befriended Mona in Radley because Mona thought she was Alison.

the Black Widow; she killed Wilden (and, presumably, Maya).

* CeCe left the country when the girls thought they killed “A” (aka Shana) in New York. She thought she could leave everything behind because the game was over. But it wasn’t!

* But wait, who killed Mrs. D? That, my friends, remains a mystery (likely to be revealed in Season 15).

As for the five-year time jump we’ve all been waiting for, it finally came at the end of the episode, though it didn’t reveal 

much. All we know is that Alison’s last name is now Rollins and that “he” is coming after her.

fans, were you blown away by the CeCe-as-Charles reveal — or did you kind of see it coming? Drop a comment with your take on the summer finale’s (many!) twists below.

Now I have a particular song from a particular old movie stuck in my head….

The song CeCe was singing “Lord help the mister who comes between me and my sister” is from White Christmas.

Lord help the sister that comes between me and my man!

Wow I waited for 6 years and I don’t like it I will never watch the show ever again

How was it disappointing? That was great! So glad it wasn’t wren that would have been so boring. I’m not sure exactly what outcome people would think was not a letdown?

When A turned around and it was revealed it was Cece, I was so underwhelmed and disappointed. I was thinking to myself, I can’t believe I wasted 5 and a half seasons of watching this show for this. It got a bit better as I continued watching and hearing the explanations, however, I reach a similar conclusion to yours: This show has just let many viewers down SO much over the years that no matter who A turned out to be, it’d be a letdown and not be completely satisfying. And while I’m happy that this A storyline is done once and for all (hopefully!), this answer-filled episode did nothing to change the fact that the majority of the show felt like a waste of time watching and that the A storyline should have been resolved at least 2 seasons ago. I’m sure someone will figure out all the issues or plotholes with having Cece be A since this show has been so convoluted, I barely remember things that happened. Did anyone else forget that A ran their car into Emily’s house? This past season, they kept referring to past A-related things that happened and almost each one I was like wow I forgot all about that. Also, completely called it that Sara was shady AF. Did not trust that girl from the minute I saw her.

SO DISAPPOINTED AFTER 6 years! Ugh! I was hoping it was one of the four girls all along or someone who at least has been around a lot!!!!

Ew, the Gossip Girl route? No no, that would’ve been awful.

I feel the same was I don’t think anyone thought that Cece was Charles. I kinda thought that Cece might have been redcoat maybe

I was disappointed with this episode. I was looking forward to A being a hot male. lol… I have no expectations for the upcoming season. 5 years into the future though? C’mon! It’s gonna be so weird.

WOW I’m glade one of you said it….,I think that that is the major reason why people…. because the psychopathic antagonist of this show did turn out to be some guy the the fangirls can fetishes into some kind of tortured bad boy ala Klaus from the originals, Damon Salvatore, Tate from AHS etc…. this makes me so disgusted.

That’s usually how it is with mysteries lasting seasons. Literally no matter who A turned out to be there is going to be people who are disappointed. I did like how they explained a lot and most of it flowed together nicely.

personally I feel like a lot of people thought cece was shady from the beginning and can not remember her storyline tho for the life of me I was hoping it was gonna be one of the girls/ boyfriends or something also I cry at every sad film was all prepared to cry didn’t even feel sad to be totally honest I don’t understand why she was a complete pscho just because her dad didn’t accept her I am sure quite a lot of people are in the situation irl and they don’t torture 5 girls i don’t know I just didn’t have that amazed feeling however Sarah at the beginning I thought she was shady then I actually kinda liked her what I want to know is what happened to her/ how did she die?

Me as well. Not everyone was going to be happy with the outcome. Marlene explained pretty much everything and hopefully the rest comes 5 years later. Whoever happened to be A I was okay with. I just want to know everything and not have anymore questions.

I feel like I have wasted my life watching this show, & this finale was just disappointing to me. It’s like the writers wrote this sht last minute.

Feel the exact same way. Barely much satisfaction at all. Feels like I’ve wasted HOURS watching this show. It’s definitely a one-time watch show for me. I don’t think I’d ever watch it again even 10 years from now.

Same. FIVE years and this crap. This show needs to end, like right now! RIDICULOUS!

Complicated plots like this aren’t written “last minute”.

This show has become nothing but a series of anticlimaxes and this finale was no different. I don’t terribly mind that CeCe is A but it would’ve been so much more satisfying if it had been either one of the main four—Aria!—or a character from the show’s past who’s history of dislikes or grudges against Alison or any of the other girls actually played out ON SCREEN(Lucas, Jenna, Melissa)i.e. not someone who feels like they were just plugged into the role in a split second(it just doesn’t feel like CeCe was supposed to be A from the beginning).

She obviously wasn’t. Hence the incredibly awkward ret-con of her and Jason dating… she goes ewww at sex, but is fine with copious amounts of making out?

Eh…this felt anti-climatic after all the hype. I really wanted to care about A’s story but ended up being confused and bored.

Same! I didn’t feel sorry for CeCe what so ever.

I actually loved this episode. Not a fan of Sara being both Red Coat AND Black Widow, but the CeCe reveal more than made up for that. As excited as I am to see how the girls are in the flash forward, I really think they could have wrapped up the show in this episode if they had left out the flash forward and tied up all of the loose ends. Alas, I’m sure the ratings for this episode will be the highest in a while, and the flash forward should get enough interest to sustain the show through season 7.

SPOILER ALERTS!!! I clicked on this thinking it was another article to promote the finale, not recap it… Can you add a header that it’s full of spoilers for the west coast?!

It says “Recap” in the title. That is the spoiler alert.

So hold up Emily made out and presumedly had sex with the person who killed Maya? WOAH

Sara didn’t kill Maya. Maya’s stalker Lyndon James killed her.

Sara also didn’t kill Wilden. That was Cece.

Cousin Nate killed Maya, right? We solved that like 2 or 3 seasons ago?? I’m confused about why I keep seeing”Sara Harvey killed Maya” theories online.

The crap was that all about?!! Out of all the possible storylines they could have come up with, they chose that?!!! You’d think that after all this time of waiting we’d be glad to finally know who ‘A’ is, but no. That was so disappointing, kind of like a telenovela that’s been cancelled for showing too much bs. Honestly, they could have used any fan theory on YouTube and it would have been better and more interesing and would have made more sense.

I think they probably did the opposite. Checked all the fan theories, and then chose the suspect no one else picked, ignoring the fact that this was probs because it was a ridiculously stupid idea.

I read a few weeks ago “what if CeCe is A and transgender?” So haha they failed if that’s the case.

This was so disappointing, I thought they were going to have “Charles” pull the “Cece” mask off at the end. THAT would have been better than what happened. Who would have thought there was a worse finale than Lost, but this beats it in the suck department.

so much hype for this??? so dissapointing! Come on, Cece was ALWAYS a big suspect! That was just as worst as Dan being Gossip Girl! DELETE

Hey now, Gossip Girls finale was amazing compared to this. Avid fans new it was Dan by the middle of the final season (or at least were getting to it). Did it have flaws? Yes, but I wouldn’t put it in the same category as the PLL train wreck of the Big A reveal. At least Gossip Girl kept it in the group, and they tied it up nicely.

I know it’s like years later but only on season 4 of gossip girl nvm :(

Can someone pretty please explain why CeCe tormented the girls???

It sounded like she tormented the girls because she thought they were happy Ali was dead…

Because Mona made a comment to CeCe about how the Liars were glad Ali was gone, and it pissed off CeCe. So, the Liars became public enemy number one to her.

Thank you. I was confused about that, too. There was so much in that episode that it made my head spin. LOL

One comment was made about how CeCe had heard that the girls were happy Allison was dead so overprotective CeCe decided she had to torment them to teach them a lesson. To me, so much of the show is about how the 4 girls were tormented. The reason should have been better. Everything else was pretty good.

Thank you, I thought I had missed something because it seems like almost murdering them multiple times was an overreaction to them being glad that their bully Ali was gone.

She was under the impression that the girls were glad that Ali was dead, so she decided to mess with them. Then, when it was discovered that Ali could be alive, she continued to torture the girls because she knew that Ali would resurface and come to help her friends if they were in great danger. Once Ali came back, Cece decided to end it and move on, but in the end, she was obsessed with the A game because she was good at it and decided to continue playing.

Horrible ep!!!! Seriously Marlene?! The whole trans storyline seemed like a copout to me so they could do whatever they wanted.

I don’t think it was a cop out, I think it was an attempt to mislead the fans. However, it wasn’t executed very well, not because of poor writing, but because the show had such a long run that all the options had been considered. In all honesty, I wouldn’t have been surprised no matter who ended up being A.

Thank you! I didn’t hate it but no matter who it was revealed to be nobody would be all that shocked because pretty much everyone has been considered A at some point.

Liked the finale. Very similar to the books. But who is Rhys & why wasn’t he part of the finale?? He is a new character & don’t know how he fits in.

Ahhhh! What if he is the guy that’s coming after them in the next season?!?

He’s not. He’s just a decoy that Cece hired… and was forced into the storyline because someone on the staff saw that he looked like Jason… kinda… I think he just looks bland.

Im gnna bet that they bring in the Wren storyline in Season 7 for this just to make up for the MASSIVE cop out that was this episode..

Did anyone else notice Mona was missing at the end after she said she wanted to see the end of story? It did not show her 5 years later either.

She wasn’t in the flash forward, but she was in the previews for next season. She’s the one asking Spencer if she still has nightmares.

As soon as Hannah looked at the camera and called A a bitch, I knew it was a girl. I thought it was great. Made me feel sorry for A.

Can someone please connect the dots for me? How did CeCe and Sara know each other? How did they start working together? Did CeCe kidnap her the same night Ali “went missing” or did they meet in Radley? As usual, this finale left me with just as many questions as answers. Ughhh!

I betcha Mona actually killed Sara and that the girl posing as Sara/Red Coat/Black Widow is actually Bethany Young. Let’s throw in that she’s probably the one that killed Mrs. D too for CeCe to find.

This is the theory that I’m going with as well.

Well, the girl that Mona hit and Melissa buried alive.

It’s the summer of transgender. A is transgender, Jenner is transgender, they’ve got a character on a daytime soap opera that is transgender, Family channel has shows following transgender teens and transgender adults. Transgender has been all over yahoo news this summer. So is it coincidence that A gets revealed as a transgender Summer 2015 – at the same time being trans is all over the news? Or did TPTB sit Marlene down and suggest how this ending at this time would work with programming plans. Or maybe I’m just being cynical – maybe A made me feel that way?

My thoughts exactly. Transgender is a hot topic right now and I’d be fine with it if I thought this was Marlene’s plan all along. Sadly, like most of what goes on with this show, I think it’s just another idea she pulled out of her backside at the last minute with no real longform storytelling involved.

It felt a lot like the Coache Beiste storyline on Glee. Just felt so inorganic. It’s like they realized they’ve been BSing their way through the show and they were just scrambling for last minute ideas. There’s nothing wrong with having a transgender character storyline, but this was inorganic and poorly done.

Hopefully whatever new menace the PLLs will be facing in thee future, it won’t be boring, nd if Marlene listens to her fans, which she doesn’t, it’ll somehow lead back to Aria and make everyone happy

Complete ass-pull to fit in with the theme of the day… totally agree.

Was it just me or did I miss something? How did Charles become CeCe? Did Mrs. D pay someone at Radley for him to have an operation? I’m confused.

My impression was that Radley wanted to be rid of Charles. Mrs. D faked his death and had an operation somewhere else then brought Charlotte back to Radley. Why no one was suspicious seems odd.

Do we understand what Shana’s deal was? I have no clue how she fit in.

It is explained is season 5 that Shana wasn’t A she just really hated all of the girls for what they did to Jenna. Shana was in love with Jenna.

soo…that whole story line was totally irrelevant except for the fact that it meant Cici — the most unnecessary character in the world — could be seen getting on a plane to leave..

this show gets worse the more i think about it…

Got it. Someone needs to create an image like the white board at the RPD explaining everything.

That’s what I was thinking the whole time. How did Charles get surgery to become CeCe? But I guess Mrs. D could have taken her out of Radley to get it done.

Can someone please connect the dots for me? How did CeCe and Sara know each other? Did CeCe kidnap Sara the same night Ali “went missing” or did they meet in Radley? Why were they working together? As usual, this finale left me with just as many questions as answers. Ughhh!

I’ve lost track of who killed who on this show. Someone please remind me who killed Garrett and Ian? So many plot points that didn’t tie in to the final explanation. And CeCe tortured the girls because they were happy Ali was gone? And this was after Mona tortured them for being Ali’s friend? I need Cliff Notes for this show

Wilden killed Garrett, and Ian had killed himself (apparently).

I don’t even know what to make of all this, it was a trainwreck of epic proportions. And of course they had to make Sara a bad guy instead of just a red herring like Ezra & Toby (whether or not people like her is irrelevant in this case, it’s still the “lesbian character = bad and/or dead” trope that’s been played out a million times). Pretty much nothing in this “reveal” felt organic to me, it was a convoluted mess all around, from A’s identity and the motives to Sara’s involvement to who hit/hurt/killed who and why, and don’t even get me started on the incest stuff.

I should never have come back to this show. Curiosity never ends well with this show. Anyway. Disappointment, meet Remote.

Basically, PLL just taught me that trans people are evil.

Instead of the fact that trans people are just like anyone else, some good and some evil? Seems like it’s the viewer’s problem, not the show’s.

But that’s not what the show says, that some are good and some are evil just like everyone else. There’s one. One trans character and she’s the big bad of the whole show. Where’s the good trans people to counteract that?

She wasn’t born evil just because she was trans. Look what happened to her ever since she was little because her dad didn’t understand Charles. If anything the show said “if you reject your trans child and lock them up in an insane asylum their whole life they will become crazy and evil.” Lol

Pretty much… don’t let them out of the asylum… thanks for that lesson PLL[/sarcasm]

On EW, Marlene actually confirmed that Charlotte actually killed Wilden, not Sara. And that Shana started the fire at the lodge and Sara was the one who pulled out the other girls.

no ali pulled them out she saved them did u see ali said that as well

Actually she, Ali, said that someone had already pulled them out by the time she got to the burning lodge…She just made sure they were alright.

The “CeCe is Charles and a transgender” thing was a theory that came up quite a while ago. Since it was one of the theories that made the most sense, it stuck around so I am a little disappointed they went that route.

I think most of my disappointment though, is from the fact that they didn’t go the twisted, dark, sociopath route. CeCe doesn’t seem nearly as twisted as some of the things “A” did.

I completely agree! A did some devious things and they made it seem like it was an innocent cat and mouse game, like Cece was never really trying to hurt anyone. It seems like she never really had a reason to torment any of the other girls, which is disappointing because that means they were all just guilty by association. #summerofdisappointments

It still makes sense to me that Aria has DID (dissociative identity disorder) – way too many clues that matched that theory on ariaisa.com and that her alternate personality was running around doing doing messed up, dark, vengeful A stuff. Clues show she had mental disorder issues. Plus a theory was floated that every time A “forced” her to do something, it was usually for her benefit. IE she wanted her mom to know about her dad’s affair and A forced the reveal.

So the girls go for drinks at a bar called THE RADLEY!? why? Is that where CeCe is in 5 years? In the end I’m more excited over the time jump than I am about this reveal. So PLL got me again.

And what did CeCe have against Jason? He didn’t even know what happened to his brother and she tries to kill him and then drugged him.

I think its that she wanted her whole family together.. Well at least thats what its been made out to mean.. just to get Drew Van Acker into the season finale

WTH happened to CeCe. She says game over and then nothing. They mention Sara in the next scene but no mention of A the person they’ve been trying to find this entire show! Are they going to tell us what happened to her in the flash forward or are we just supposed to forget the whole convoluted mess happened. They said there would be no more questions from the past. If they just never tell us what happened to her I may need to check into Radley.

I think we can all agree that it is time to move on from this ridiculous reveal.. And just totally forget about the Charles /Cece /Charlotte story line…

In the end, love it or hate it, we all know we’re sticking around to see what happens next!

The summer finale was such a disappointment! Cece was a suspect a long time ago! I understand being transgender was the twist, but I wasn’t pleased with my own reaction! I was hoping to jump out of my seat! I have been waiting for A to be revealed for years and I feel it should have been someone I didn’t expect! I think the story behind Cece was a little confusing and I still have several unanswered questions! The ending wasn’t pleasing either! What happened? The show was amazing until the summer of answers finale…

It’s like Lost all over again. It’s easy to write questions, but it’s much harder to write answers.

They should’ve just gone with the Wren theory.. at least that made sense.. and although we haven’t seen Wren in a while, we actually cared about what he was doing every time he showed up.. so it would’ve been good to have the theory that was soo well thought out come true.

Also.. what was the point in so many characters saying sly comments about him throughout the show.. like Eddie in Radley?! He talks for ages in Radley about how he doesn’t trust Wren and Wren seems so dodgy.. and there was literally no point. They should’ve saved some cash on that and just moved on to show Cece once in a while so that THIS wouldn’t happen

****SPOILER FOR NEXT SEASON. If you freeze frame the promo, Aria has a small ring on her wedding ring finger.

This is such crap. Really they couldn’t have came up with anything better. I always kinda suspected cece but I never thought they would do transgender. Next half better be better. They still hot some questions to answer. Why would data all of a suddenly help cece? Who killed Mrs d? I’m guessing whoever killed alis mom is gonna be the villain in season 6B. If you look at the preview the girls yell to Ali that “He” is coming after her.

Well.. if they say HE we better be looking out for female characters then….

I hope that they do redeem Charlotte in later episodes. If they redeemed Mona, they can do the same with her. Maybe she can help against the new villain

It was rather disappointing. I knew Sara wasn’t to be trusted. So that wasn’t a surprise. I had never really given CeCe another thought so it was a surpise but it was still anti-climatic. The whole thing was anti-climatic. Oh well……

You loved 40 minutes of stationary exposition in an attempt to cover 6 years of plot holes?

I absolutely loved season 6 finale but I still wanted A to be a complete guy and I wanted Bethany to be alive and black widow and red coat!

And most importantly, are the PLL Moms still in the DeLaurentis basement?!? Another plot point that was totally tossed by the wayside(other than the very brief scene at the beginning where the phone was ringing in the main level of the house). I probably would’ve rather watched another ep of those four having drinks and dishing–especially Veronica!–than the anticlimax that we ended up with.

haha ofc they’re still there: Mr D and Jason are both frozen and Rhys Matthews is legit so he definitely left. 2 of the women are divorced and single.. Emily’s dad is enlisted in the army and Mr Hastings is an idiot who hates his son and never visits him.

So YES they’re just gnna have to live there for 5 yrs until their daughters all get back and realise their moms were missing.

Or…. the slightly easier answer is that Ali let them out when she got back home :D

Somehow figuring this out was more fun than watching the real finale

I never saw it coming. That Cece was A I thought maybe Cece was redcoat or Sarah

I wrote this a month ago…..And knew seasons before that!!

I stand by my original prediction months ago…..CeCe is A!!! She was a Charles and is now a CeCe…….She is the right age…she is obsessed with Ali. She looks like them….and she always seems to be around when she needs to be…and when she doesn’t need to be.

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