Pretty Little Liars S06E10 "Game Over, Charles" Review

Here we go, here we go...the moment we've all been waiting for, the moment I. Marlene King has advertised, "The 100% No Fooling, Undeniable REVEAL OF "A" a.k.a Charles DiLaurentis. So today is July. 17th and at the moment I'm writing this we're 3 episodes away from this episode but I'm writing my thoughts now so that you all can see the train of thought I have going into this. Whether or not we want to believe Shana as the "A" of Seasons Three & Four is another story completely (which will never make much sense, unless Charles befriended Shana, but even then,,,) but Charles has been "A" for Season Five & Six and has managed to capture The Liars and hold them for 3 weeks in a bunker. Needless to say Charles is the most accomplished "A".

This has been advertised as "the summer of answers" and we're coming up on a MAJOR doozie, the most important questions of the series, Who and Why? And the 2nd most important question, "Will any of this make sense?" I'm highly dubious on that question. Is Charles a character we've known and have seen before or is he a completely new character that the writers will have to introduce? I can't think of an episode in this series that has been more important than this one, but with this revelation comes a different series of questions, just what will Season 7 look like? Will The Liars befriend Charles as they did Mona or will someone take "The Game" from Charles? What does this all mean and I hope by the end of this review I'll have some idea of how some of those questions will be answered. And with all that out of the way, let's dive into "Game Over, Charles"...

Let's get the obvious out of the way, this finale was...well...not well received to say the least. I looked at some of the responses and the reactions and from what I can tell, no one really liked it. One of the main reasons is thanks to a Tumblr which outline some very startling evidences of Wren Kingston being Charles. I read the blog and while I was convinced, the evidence was so obvious that it wasn't obvious...if that makes sense. So getting this out the way, I had a feeling that something like this would occur. Everyone was convinced Charles was a "him" and while I never wrote it in a blog, I was thinking what if Charles wasn't a "him" anymore. Of course, I never thought this show would go so far as to have a character have a sex change and to be completely fair it was never stated that Charles had a sex change. So...

Hi, I'm Charles.

So Cece Drake is revealed to be "Big A", the ball that got the entire series rolling. Is this surprising? Nope. Was it as major of a reveal as the writers wanted it to be? Nope. But did it answer some questions in a good way? Absolutely. So many are hailing this as one of the worst Summer finales ever. I'm not entirely sure what they were expecting to get out of this. I know many people had their theories, ideas and some even wanted one of The Liars to be revealed as "A", but in the end, they were all proven wrong and Cece's story actually retconned a LOT of things and made them click. So if people didn't like the finale because "Big A" wasn't who they expected, get over it.

That being said, I'm sure many people aren't surprised because Cece was already revealed to have been "A" already back in Season 4 when she attempted to saw Emily in half and Aria kicked that bitch in the face. Cece's status as an "A" was always in question and no one really believed Shana was an "A" at all. So when Cece was revealed to be "A", it wasn't as if our suspicions of that character were fully dissuaded. I mean when the character you suspect to be a villain turns out to be the villain you're not exactly like "WHOA!". I imagine that was many people's reaction and that's essentially what put them off to the finale. The thing is, it wasn't as if this finale was genius, and to be honest most finales aren't entirely genius. Revealing Ezra as "Big A" WOULD have been genius, but alas, he was just writing a book.

Sorry, Player.

So on to the episode proper. Starting off with Charles's suicide attempt and have The Liars talk him down was pretty interesting, makes me wonder what changed, however, I wish The Liars were present with Allison during Charles' whole schpeel, having them watch through a holographic projector was...well...not entirely desirable, especially having Charles inexplicably know The Liars were watching, unless Bethany texted her. So now everything makes sense, who killed Mrs. DiLaurentis, who clocked Allison with a rock, who did what, where, how and more importantly WHY, and yeah, makes sense.

Wha?

Now we know where all The Liars are headed, Spencer's off to George Town, Emily's going to Malibu, Hanna's off to New York, Arai's going to L.A. and Allison is staying in Rosewood and becoming a teacher (of all things?) Anyways, we begin the time skip with The Liars returning to Allison's classroom (where she has taken on a different surname) warning Allison that "He" is coming after her. So this sets up what this and next Season will look like, a brand new start but a temporary start at that since Season 7 will indeed be the swan song for The Liars. Does someone steal "The Game" from Charles? Is it even about "The Game" anymore? What else could possibly go wrong, well wait...because 5 years in a LONG TIME. I'll catch you kids in the winter. Latersville.