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Pretty Little Liars Finale Reveals A (For Real!): Find Out the Shocking Truth!

Pretty Little Liars finale
The Pretty Little Liars Season 6A finale finally revealed the true identity of A!

Well, folks — it finally happened! After almost six full seasons of nonstop theorizing, the Pretty Little Liars Season 6A finale finally delivered the answer to the most sought-after question in television history: Who is A? It was revealed during the Tuesday, Aug. 11, episode, “Game Over, Charles,” that A is actually — drum roll please — none other than CeCe Drake (Vanessa Ray)!

But trust Us when we say that this mAjor reveal was just the tip of the information iceberg throughout this season’s epic conclusion. Black Widow, Red Coat, Bethany’s killer — no hood or veil was safe from this onslaught of answers. In fact, there may be some out there who found the information to be somewhat overwhelming.

Related: PHOTOS: Meet the cast of PLL

So if you’ve managed to pick your jaw up from off the floor, here’s a look back at everything we learned throughout this game-changing finale.

Charles Is CeCe

It turns out that the whole “Charles is a girl” story line wasn’t just a red herring after all. After getting themselves locked in a secret room within The Carissimi Group, Mona (Janel Parrish) and the Liars discovered a live newsfeed that led directly to a conversation happening between Alison (Sasha Pieterse) and A — or should we say CeCe? And that’s when her story began to unfold.

Mr. D Is The Real Villain Of This Story

Remember how Mr. D recently revealed that Charles had tried to kill Alison in the bathtub? Well, that’s not exactly how the story really went down. Charles loved Alison. In fact, he thought of her as his own living doll. So when she wouldn’t stop crying one day, he thought taking a bath would help her to calm her down. The almost-drowning was completely accidental. But given the fact that Mr. D was none too thrilled that his son had taken a liking to wearing dresses around the house, he was just looking for an excuse to lock Charles away at Radley. And that’s precisely what ended up happening.

Related: PHOTOS: Us' exclusive PLL #TBT pics!

Bethany Killed Marion Cavanaugh

By the age of 12, Charles had developed a new friend at Radley by the name of Bethany Young. But it turns out that this character isn’t nearly as innocent as we originally thought. One day, Charles was modeling the infamous yellow dress for Bethany on top of the roof when they were interrupted by a fellow patient — Toby’s mom. Fearful of what would happen if Marion were to see him in a dress, Charles hid and assumed that Bethany would be able to send her away. But Bethany had a different idea in mind and decided to push Marion off the roof instead. Since it was just her word against his, Charles ended up taking the fall (pun intended). Mrs. D paid Det. Darren Wilden (Bryce Johnson) to rule the death as a suicide, so the whole thing eventually got swept under the rug. (Poor Toby!)

PLL finale Janel
Mona and the Liars stumbled upon Ali’s discussion with A — aka Cece!

Charles Became Charlotte

As time went on, Mrs. D accepted Charles as her daughter and began calling her Charlotte. Eventually, she convinced the Board to allow Charlotte to attend classes outside of Radley. Charlotte went to class at first, but she eventually started using her out-patient free time to get better acquainted with her siblings without ever revealing who she really was. To them, she became known as the alluring and mysterious CeCe — a good friend to Ali’s and a girlfriend to Jason (Drew Van Acker). (Yep, that means she was technically dating her brother.)

Mrs. D was furious once she discovered that CeCe was actually her daughter (for obvious reasons), but also because Mr. D was under the impression that Charles (now CeCe) was dead. However, she needn’t have worried. Mr. D had no idea who she really was, which allowed her to spend the entire summer with her family in Cape May right under their nose.

CeCe Was The One Who Hit Alison With A Rock

Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place! When the DiLaurentis family returned home for that fateful Labor Day weekend, CeCe had every intention of telling Alison the truth about who she was. But Bethany managed to ruin things yet again. She escaped from Radley in CeCe’s clothes with the intention of hurting Mrs. D. But since Alison had the exact same wardrobe, CeCe accidentally mistook her for Bethany and attacked her with a rock while Mrs. D watched from the window in horror. 

Related: PHOTOS: PLL's best fashion moments

Mona Killed Bethany

At the same time, Mona was busy mistaking Bethany for Alison and hit her over the head with a shovel, killing her. Apparently, Alison had recently been extra cruel to Mona, so clearly murder was the only logical choice left? RIP Bethany. Even if you were a tad crazy.

CeCe and Mona Became Friends At Radley

Believing that CeCe had killed Alison, Mrs. D sent CeCe back to Radley, where she eventually befriended Mona during her brief stint there. Mona was so heavily medicated that she often mistook CeCe for Alison and constantly did her bidding. This is also how CeCe became so well-informed about the Liars and their many secrets. But even after getting out of Radley, Mona didn’t want to end the game and continued to receive instructions from CeCe from afar.

Sara Is Both Red Coat and Black Widow

Thanks to Mona’s constant intel, CeCe learned how happy the Liars were that Alison was gone. This made her furious, so she began tormenting them as a form of payback. But when she started to see a mysterious blonde in a Red Coat, she wondered if Alison was actually still alive. So she used Sara Harvey (Dre Davis) as a decoy — dressed in a red coat — to try to lure Ali out if the Liars’ lives were in trouble. (A theory that was proved correct when Ali pulled the girls out of the fire.)

Related: PHOTOS: Lucy Hale's best red carpet moments

And since Wilden was one of the only remaining people who knew about CeCe’s true identity, she killed him and instructed Sara to go to his funeral — wearing a black veil — to make sure he was really dead. Guess that Sara Harvey girl really was super shady after all! Sorry, Ems. At least she got to punch her in the face by episode’s end. So there’s that. 

Mrs. D’s Killer Is Still Unknown

CeCe was the one who originally found Mrs. D’s dead body, but by that point her murderer was long gone. So who could it be? Let the speculating begin!

PLL finale Shay and Ashley
Unlucky for Emily, it turns out Sara Harvey was a member of the A team with Cece.

Ali Is A Target Yet Again

Once Alison and the Liars managed to talk CeCe off the ledge (right after her plan to blow up Radley failed), the game was officially over and showed the Liars parting ways for different colleges on Labor Day weekend. The only one staying behind was Alison. (Perhaps she wanted to be able to visit CeCe in prison?) And then, just like that, we were transported five years into the future.

While most details regarding the time jump remained scarce, we did learn that Alison was now a teacher going by the name of Mrs. Rollins — and the Liars charged into her classroom, yelling that “he” was coming for her. Here we go again!

Tell Us: Did “Game Over, Charles” meet your expectAtions?

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