Most of Us still find it hard to believe that it has been 10 years since Pretty Little Liars finally revealed A’s identity.
Based on the book series by Sara Shepard, Pretty Little Liars originally aired on Freeform from 2010 to 2017 and followed five best friends who were constantly taunted and treated by an anonymous person named A.
The series became a pop culture phenomenon which inspired spinoffs, including Ravenswood, Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists and Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin.
The Moment
“Got a secret / Can you keep it?” The theme song for ABC Family’s hit Pretty Little Liars only compounded the torment for fans who waited six seasons for the central mystery to be solved. But on August 11, 2015, the teen drama’s four high school friends came face-to-face with “A,” who had taunted, tormented and nearly killed them several times over. The campaign of terror started with a text — “I’m still here, bitches. And I know everything. A” — and misdirects were plentiful, but the stalker was none other than Vanessa Ray’s CeCe Drake.
“Finally, everybody could breathe a little!” Ray tells Us.
Who Was Involved
Lucy Hale, Shay Mitchell, Ashley Benson and Troian Bellisario played the core group of, respectively, Aria, Emily, Hanna and Spencer, who engaged in lots of other intrigue in fictional Rosewood, Pennsylvania. The initial “A” seemed to point to the Liars’ missing- and-presumed-dead friend, Alison (Sasha Pieterse), but in reality, but in reality, Janel Parrish’s Mona Vanderwaal initially lit the “A” torch as revenge for being bullied.
Why We Remember It
The backstory! We knew CeCe as Alison’s friend and mentor, but CeCe was really Charlotte, Alison’s transgender cousin. Assigned male at birth (as Charles), she was locked away in a mental institution for much of her life, thanks to the transphobia of the man she thought was her father. That experience twisted her.
“I did my best to play her in a way that was very vulnerable and almost gentle, going back to the little kid,” Ray, 44, says. “Because we have seen CeCe in this glamorous Queen B status. She was just this older girl that had it all together. So to get to show this really young child version of her, I thought it was perfect to get to play.
Key Details
The script for “Game Over, Charles” was, of course, top-secret. To prevent leaks, “It was sent as a physical copy, and then I had to mail it back,” Ray recalls. During shooting, “We had to give our sides [script pages] back at the end of the day, and every side was numbered. Those protocols were really, really tight.” For Ray, who had already been traveling back and forth from L.A. to NYC for Blue Bloods, filming that summer finale was a whirlwind due to her real-life wedding plans: “I got married on a Sunday and then on Monday had to be on set at 6 a.m.!”
The Aftermath
A social media pioneer, Pretty Little Liars was a monster Twitter performer, and this episode was its most-tweeted, surpassing even the 2017 series finale.
Fans were divided about the reveal, though, and the show caught some flak for its LGBTQ+ representation. Featuring a trans character “was a big deal at the time,” Ray says — but making said character a murderer rankled. After the show ended, PLL spun off Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists (2019), and a new friend group populated HBO Max’s 2022–24 revival, Pretty Little Liars: OriginAl Sin (emphasis on the “A”!).
A New Perspective
“Now we’re used to origin stories about TV villains: seeing why they became the way they did, understanding the human element underneath this murderous character,” Ray notes. “I thought Pretty Little Liars was ahead of its time. It was really cool to strip away the layers of CeCe — the trauma [of] being shunned by her parents and put in an institution. They tackled all these issues.”
Where Are They Now?
Ray remained on CBS’ Blue Bloods until its 2024 farewell — and reveals a return in Donnie Wahlberg’s fall spinoff, Boston Blue, is “definitely in the realm of possibility.” How about a show centered around her character, Eddie, and onscreen husband Jamie (Will Estes)? “I would do it in a heartbeat,” she says. “Ours would be set in Miami or Hawaii. Blue Bloods on the beach!”
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