Well, after five-and-a-half long seasons of torture, anonymous texts, and way too many dots to connect, A was finally revealed on last night's summer finale of Pretty Little Liars. What had previously been dubbed the #SummerofAnswers came down to a single night of answers shoved into one majorly crammed hour.
Here's the thing: no matter who was behind that black hoodie, faithful fans of PLL were going to be disappointed. If you've been watching the show since the beginning like I have, you've been through the series of buildups and letdowns that come with the territory. And whether you meant to or not, you've likely spent hours in your own head theorizing who this mythically intelligent and insanely loaded character could be. Like, you should be in Radley right now you've thought about it so much.
The only logical avenue for Marlene King to take was pinning these disconnected plot points on someone we already knew. Imagine if a face we'd never seen or a character we barely recognized tried to own up to everything in this episode. Then the fans really would've been angry. I think it's rather obvious at this point that A has been a lot of different people to the writers over time. There wasn't nearly the planning put in to make this a seamless reveal, a fact that could be seen in the oddly forced flashback sequences of last night's episode. Look at How I Met Your Mother. Whether you hate the show's ending or... oh wait, there's no other option but to hate it. Anyway, those showrunners knew their endgame from the beginning and never strayed from it. The same cannot be said for the PLL team.
So while I wasn't gasping for air the way I did when we came #FacetoFace with Ezra or even Toby, this reveal could've been a lot worse. And I have to applaud Marlene for finally cutting the crap and sticking to a real conclusion for this arc. Sure, I was still hoping Aria or Sara or some other totally out-of-left-field character would be our Big A. But CeCe's story seemed about as organic and realistic as this series could deliver.
There are still so many questions, and I hope they don't get brushed under the rug with this five year time jump. I'm also glad, though, that the show didn't have CeCe commit suicide in any easy-way-out plot twist. Do I think that another character was meant to be Big A when this series began? Yes. (Personally think they were going the way of Ali's twin until they got bashed for playing too close to the books with the Mona reveal.) But do I also believe they did the best they could with a completely twisted situation I never thought they'd be able to write their way out of? Yep.
Now, there's but one thing we can do. Commence series rewatch and fact checking expedition!
