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S06.E10: Game Over, Charles


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We don't know when it started, but  the affair with Peter was obviously taking place after CeCe was born, since she's older than Jason.

 

It was my impression that Jason was older. Vanessa Ray had said in an interview that CeCe was around 22 at the start of season 4, which is November 2011, and 6A takes place in May 2012 before the time jump, which would still make her around 22. But who knows what's even canon these days? Not her interviews, but IMK's? Norbuck's tweets? The actual show? I can see, though, that other timelines list CeCe as 15 months older than Jason. 

Edited by dradiscontact
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Did we ever find out what Shady Rhys was doing 1)  meeting up with undercover officer Clark at the abandoned doll factory (ep 08) and 2) at the DiLaurentis house at night when the PLMs went there to confront Kenneth (ep 09)?  I know one of the girls found his resume on the Enterprise's bridge compluter and said he was legit, but did they ever explain that other stuff?

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Did we ever find out what Shady Rhys was doing 1) meeting up with undercover officer Clark at the abandoned doll factory (ep 08) and 2) at the DiLaurentis house at night when the PLMs went there to confront Kenneth (ep 09)? I know one of the girls found his resume on the Enterprise's bridge compluter and said he was legit, but did they ever explain that other stuff?

Nope. Just that he's a decoy planted by Charlotte. Go figure!

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It was my impression that Jason was older. Vanessa Ray had said in an interview that CeCe was around 22 at the start of season 4, which is November 2011, and 6A takes place in May 2012 before the time jump, which would still make her around 22. But who knows what's even canon these days? Not her interviews, but IMK's? Norbuck's tweets? The actual show? I can see, though, that other timelines list CeCe as 15 months older than Jason. 

 

Well, it's pretty obviously a retcon, but Mr. D told Alison and Jason that Charles was 15 months older than Jason when they confronted him earlier this season, IIRC.

 

Then, in this episode CeCe said she was 5 when she went to Radley, so Jason was 4-ish, and Alison was almost 1. So, basically, Jason is only about 3 years older than Alison and the girls.

 

It also matches with the castings of young Jason/Alison/Charles in the home movies we've seen of the three of them, a lot of people said that young Alison looked too old relative to Jason and Charles, but it turned out that they had just already decided that Jason was 4 years younger than previously implied. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

On the plus side, it means that Jason was actually a relatively age appropriate option when he was sort of involved with Aria back in Season 2.

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Well, it's pretty obviously a retcon, but Mr. D told Alison and Jason that Charles was 15 months older than Jason when they confronted him earlier this season, IIRC.

 

Then, in this episode CeCe said she was 5 when she went to Radley, so Jason was 4-ish, and Alison was almost 1. So, basically, Jason is only about 3 years older than Alison and the girls.

 

It also matches with the castings of young Jason/Alison/Charles in the home movies we've seen of the three of them, a lot of people said that young Alison looked too old relative to Jason and Charles, but it turned out that they had just already decided that Jason was 4 years younger than previously implied. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

On the plus side, it means that Jason was actually a relatively age appropriate option when he was sort of involved with Aria back in Season 2.

But it was as recent as the dollhouse episode that Aria said "All these songs are from like 7 years ago" and Spencer responded "That was the year that Melissa took Ian." They were classmates with Jason. So he erased 4 years just 1 half-season later? 

I prefer to take the set "continuity" of 5 years to the jacked-up one the writers may have decided on afterwards.

 

I mean, didn't the early episodes already have Melissa in grad school? She finished undergrad in 1 year?

Edited by jjjmoss
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That's fair, but even in Welcome to the Dollhouse the boys in the home movie with baby Alison don't look 7 - 8 years older than her.

 

I don't know why, I guess they just forgot that Jason was supposed to be in the same class as Ian and Melissa. At best they could try to say that Jason was a freshman then and just hung out with the seniors.

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What really kills me about this episode is the damn hologram screen.  Marlene just didn't fucking care.

 

 

Now that we've had some time since the episode aired to think (and, in my case, to compare to S1-A), my two cents are that both this episode and the last one had this terrible "hastly put together" feel to it. The last one had some truly godawful editing during the prom with the couples dancing and Ali going around and around which went on and on to the point of looking comical. The worst thing is that we know this crew is capable of delivering the prettiest and most atmospheric episodes.

 

Hell, one of the things I remember really praising PLL for was how they manage to pull off some really ridiculous stuff because they were great at embracing it and creating the right atmosphere for the story. And then we get...what we got. A space ship.

 

My mind can't help but go to that omnious announcement we might get a season 8 and I can't help but think there might have been a lot of last minute decisions made in regards to this summer finale, starting no later than the hiatus before S6. If Sara frigging Harvey doesn't scream last minute decision than I don't know. The feeling that this car was heading towards one direction and was violently turned to another is one I've seen expressed over and over by fans and I'm right there because I also simply don't buy this Cece reveal was planned and I tend to be the last one to accuse writers I love of lack of planning. But the construction more than the content of the episode convinces me of this.

 

What happened? It was either inexplicable incompetence (which was what I concluded at first) or being desperate to stretch this story, once again, that they took away so much from S6-A than we were left with almost nothing (that's what my gut says now). 

Edited by cuddlingcrowley
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How long could they have been planning something if this reveal was tacked on last second? ShanA felt very tacked on (she was originally meant for Ravenswood, right? Plus it was a white hand in that scene with Jenna). So they had a new plot for five and then changed it for six? I like the one that it was Ali. I mean, why was she smiling outside Mona's house when she was "murdered"? It would have been better if she was black veil and not Sara. Cece I think they had an idea about making A. Why else add a new person to that night after two seasons?

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How long could they have been planning something if this reveal was tacked on last second? 

 

 

Considering a story of this size, I'd say any change in A, Black Widow and Red Coat's identity made after S4 ended would be considered last minute, let alone in the hiatus before S6 which would be my guess where some major changes were made when breaking down the episodes for S6-A. I only have experience writing a novel, though, but I can imagine with TV you have like a dozen of balls to juggle besides actually coming up with the story so it's a lot harder NOT to deliver a complete mess of an end-product.

 

ShanA felt very tacked on (she was originally meant for Ravenswood, right? Plus it was a white hand in that scene with Jenna).

 

 

I got that feeling as well. But Shana always gave me the feeling she was filling in for Jenna. Not that Jenna would have had the exact same storyline that Shana did if the actress hadn't been pregnant, but the characters seemed to serve the same the purpouse in the narrative. I think the white hand originally belonged to Cece!

 

 

So they had a new plot for five and then changed it for six?

 

 

I doubt the "Ali is actually alive thing" was something that was planned from the start, I'll say as much. That plot became necessary because, imo, this show was dragging on its last legs on S4-A. They needed a fresh storyline yesterday if they wanted to stretch this show until the end of S5 let alone a S7. But I think that up until the planning of the end of S5 the writers were mostly in control of the story. The road was bumpy and the wheel was unsteady, but they got it. We would always have some unanswered questions but the reveal would be satisfying.

 

Then they started planning S6 and I think somewhere along the way all hell broke loose. I never thought I'd detest a season more than S4-A, than S6-A happened. Hell, I was cool through Emily grieving frigging Maya! I was cool like you wouldn't believe!! I knew it was necessary and I was fine. I'm not a difficult person to please, damn it!

 

I like the one that it was Ali. I mean, why was she smiling outside Mona's house when she was "murdered"? 

 

 

Besides Mona possibly having been murdered that is? We are talking about the girl who was Ali's original A AND convinced her to fake her death and run away.

 

It would have been better if she was black veil and not Sara. Cece I think they had an idea about making A. Why else add a new person to that night after two seasons?

 

 

Ali as brack veil would have interesting. It would certainly give S6!Alison her much needed edge back. But I wouldn't have wanted her to be A's helper. I would have wanted her to be Black Widow because she was the one responsible for trying to kill all the Nat club members!! The team-B storyline was this thing that at the time it first appeared seemed like the writers knew exactly what they were doing then they shot themselves in the foot along the way and had to ditch it. But I think it would make sense if Plan-B united in order to try to out Ali in order to survive her/kill her.

 

By new person you mean Cece right? I think Cece was always gonna betray Ali. No question about that. And I think we were always gonna have two red coats. Cece would very likely have been the evil one. 

Edited by cuddlingcrowley
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I mean they didn't need to add Cece to that night at all if she didn't try to kill Ali or did kill Bethany. It was too stupid to have three yellow tops (thankfully they reneged on that bit), let alone for no reason.

Ian Harding once said he was meant to be A but abcfamily nixed it. I took that to mean three and four were leading somewhere else so they made ShanA happen last second. This sounds mean but I suspect dollhouse only came up after Marlene saw that twilight zone (or was it outer limits) episode to rip-off. I don't agree Ali wasn't meant to be alive. Her visits of the girls were revealing. A stole the body, plus page five. Hanna says in episode one she didn't think Ali was dead.

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I mean they didn't need to add Cece to that night at all if she didn't try to kill Ali or did kill Bethany. It was too stupid to have three yellow tops (thankfully they reneged on that bit), let alone for no reason.

 

 

Bethany was a total last minute add-on to the story, imo. I remember watching the show for the first time, I was sure Melissa had been the one to kill Alison. I would have liked for her and Cece to have been working together.

 

Ian Harding once said he was meant to be A but abcfamily nixed it. I took that to mean three and four were leading somewhere else so they made ShanA happen last second.

 

 

Makes sense!

 

This sounds mean but I suspect dollhouse only came up after Marlene saw that twilight zone (or was it outer limits) episode to rip-off.

 

 

 

Ha! I'm under the opinion the entire dollhouse+charlie thing was entirely made up while they were working on S5. No sooner.

 

I don't agree Ali wasn't meant to be alive. Her visits of the girls were revealing. A stole the body, plus page five. Hanna says in episode one she didn't think Ali was dead.

 

 

I agree the writers gave themselves the option to have Alison be alive since the begining. From her first appearance to Hanna, there's ambiguity over whether she was truly there, with the lipstick mark. I think these writers are very good at leaving themselves options to a lot of things, That's not easy! But I think they only comited to doing a storyline bringing Ali back when they thought they had to, because ABC-family decided to renew the show until S7..

Edited by cuddlingcrowley
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Do we know what Charlotte's relationship with Bethany was after Bethany pushed Marion off the roof? Or am I remembering it correctly that she doesn't come up again until That Night? Because I'd be interested to know how they interacted between those two events.

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Shanna's story was meant for Jenna if the actress hadn't gotten pregnant. But she did so they brought in random new character 25 and tried and failed to make her important to the plot. Most of her scenes would've made a ton more sense if it was Jenna. 

 

I also think CeCe as A was a last minute plan, they knew they needed someone the audience knew about, a random new character like "Charles" wasn't going to cut it. So they just decided to make Charles, CeCe and think they were so clever without thinking about the consequences of that decision. 

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Do we know what Charlotte's relationship with Bethany was after Bethany pushed Marion off the roof? Or am I remembering it correctly that she doesn't come up again until That Night?

 

You're right - so far, we don't know anything about their relationship in that stretch of time, other than Charlotte's mom starting boning Bethany's dad.

 

I'm solidly on the side that the PLL creators planned for Ali to be alive the whole time. There's waaaaayyyyyy too many moments alluding to it throughout, and like the Mona reveal, it was in the books.

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I'm still disappointed on Cece's reasons for tormenting the Liars.  The two reasons she gave : 1. They were happy she was dead (they really weren't) and 2.  For shits and giggles.  I was hoping for some reveal that the Liars had accidentally killed someone or ruined her life in some way.  Instead, it was for the Liars, "wrong place, wrong time".  

 

And another question I have is why Cece started dating Jason.  I understand she wanted to be closer to the DiLaurentis family but for real, there are better ways to do this. 

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being desperate to stretch this story, once again, that they took away so much from S6-A than we were left with almost nothing (that's what my gut says now).

 

 

Was that really necessary though if they're starting a new mystery that's apparently unrelated but for a small connection to the old? There was no reason not to use the episodes to tie up all the loose ends in this season and start completely fresh.

 

 

I'm solidly on the side that the PLL creators planned for Ali to be alive the whole time. There's waaaaayyyyyy too many moments alluding to it throughout, and like the Mona reveal, it was in the books.

 

 I believe Sasha even said that she was told in not so many words that she's most likely alive. As much as the books suck in terms of friendship and likeability between the girls, the show was a lot tighter when it still followed the general plot outline of the books. Maybe they should get Sara Shephard on board to right this ship.

 

The two reasons she gave : 1. They were happy she was dead (they really weren't) and 2.  For shits and giggles.  I was hoping for some reveal that the Liars had accidentally killed someone or ruined her life in some way.  Instead, it was for the Liars, "wrong place, wrong time".

 

 

Yeah...I explain it away in my head with she was overwhelmed with guilt and loneliness until Mona came along and gave her something to live for. She basically projected all of her own guilt of killing Alison onto the liars for not missing her enough even though that's really bs. That's the only way she could crawl out of her depression and start living again. As A.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Was that really necessary though if they're starting a new mystery that's apparently unrelated but for a small connection to the old? There was no reason not to use the episodes to tie up all the loose ends in this season and start completely fresh.

 

 

Heh, I don't really buy this brand new mystery will be all that new. At the very least, I'm calling that they will be using one of the classic players as the Big Bad be it Jenna or Melissa or Lucas or Toby or Ezra. Hence why I have the strong feeling they had to re-plan the end of the A mystery without this person. IMO, they decided they rather use this character for the Big Twist (as they're calling it) in the time jump storyline.

 

Watch this scene and tell me how it works with the Cece reveal having been planned in S3: 

 

The sad thing is that I think MK herself has unwittingly let the truth out of how it partly went down. She said she rewatched all the Cece episode so the reveal would make sense right? I think those are indeed ALL the episodes she rewatched when they decided to change the plan. So they missed the ones like the above, the one with the Alison/Toby flashback, the one with the picture of Cece as a prom queen, etc.

Edited by cuddlingcrowley
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That's pretty sad if that's how it went down...Even if the executive producers didn't remember that stuff, none of the rest of the cast and crew did??! Some small adjustments here and there could've gone a long way.

 

Yeah, that's hard to explain away. I'm sure they had her in mind as a possibility but there's no way they had Cece is Charles planned before season 5. You could always fanwank of course to make it make sense. Mrs. D was just freaked out because Charlotte is involving Alison in the Radley part of her world so she wants them to cut ties. Ali is a digger and could easily find out something that makes the whole secret unravel.

 

I was just thinking about baby Ali drowning in the tub. The origin story of how Ali decided to teach herself how to hold her breath for 2 hours. Or was she born with that skill...

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That's pretty sad if that's how it went down...Even if the executive producers didn't remember that stuff, none of the rest of the cast and crew did??!

Writers rarely listen to the cast and crew for input. Because if there was anybody who remembered, I'd bet $20 that Troian did.

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Sorry I am a little late with this comment.  It took me a while to get caught up on this whole thread.  There is just one more thing that has been bothering me about the Cece reveal...

 

Thanks to all the plot holes everyone pointed out, its probably safe to assume that the writers didn't originally plan to have Cece be A, or at least not have her be transgender.  So I can accept mistakes made back in season three, Cece being prom queen and even that she dated Jason.  There was not much that could be done about those moments, but what on earth was the logic behind the doll house torture scenes?  I assume when they wrote episode 6-1, they knew that they were going to try to redeem Cece in episode 6-10, right?  Why did they go out of their way to make A the most sadistic she has been the entire show?  Considering the mess that the final was (and they had to know it was going to be a little messy at best), why did they make it impossible for us to feel bad for A, right before they were going to try to make us feel bad for A?

 

I am not trying to rant, but I just really can't comprehend what went on during the meetings with the writers and producers.

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1 week later and I've come to the conclusion that they were sick of the A storyline and trying to pretend the actresses weren't pushing 30, so they just picked a name from a hat and went with it. I've stopped trying to make any real sense of it because I'm too old to be this mad about a tv show.

Edited by Spencer Hastings
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Yea, I think it's all about execution.

 

Personally, for a lot of reasons..if they really wanted to tell this story, I think it might have been a good idea to maybe..do the reveal at the end of this season, then spend the entire next half of the season on CeCe's story..instead of rushing to explain it in 40 minutes. In order to do it right, it needed more time.

 

They also made a lot of careless mistakes. Like the ages..they didn't HAVE to screw that up for the story to work, but because of their laziness they did. I think CeCe was meant to be A..or was at least a possibility since there are tons of clues..but this story..something about it seems off.  

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Yea, I think it's all about execution.

Bingo. The trans story doesn't bother me and I could live with CeCe being A, but the execution was poor. It was like they really wanted to push this particular outcome but didn't work out the minor details that add up into big things. The lack of planning and follow through makes the trans story seem like something they did to be trendy.

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I was reading through a few old episode discussion threads from this season and realized that they probably aged Jason down so the whole forgotten sibling story would be more believable to people. When they first showed us Charles, people asked how an 8 year old Jason wouldn't remember his brother, and the show's answer was that Jason was really a 3-4 year old when Charles was sent away.

Edited by Perfect Xero
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Sorry I am a little late with this comment. It took me a while to get caught up on this whole thread. There is just one more thing that has been bothering me about the Cece reveal...

Thanks to all the plot holes everyone pointed out, its probably safe to assume that the writers didn't originally plan to have Cece be A, or at least not have her be transgender. So I can accept mistakes made back in season three, Cece being prom queen and even that she dated Jason. There was not much that could be done about those moments, but what on earth was the logic behind the doll house torture scenes? I assume when they wrote episode 6-1, they knew that they were going to try to redeem Cece in episode 6-10, right? Why did they go out of their way to make A the most sadistic she has been the entire show? Considering the mess that the final was (and they had to know it was going to be a little messy at best), why did they make it impossible for us to feel bad for A, right before they were going to try to make us feel bad for A?

I am not trying to rant, but I just really can't comprehend what went on during the meetings with the writers and producers.

Great point! Why escalate to this extreme (and the Caleb, Aria and Spencer murder attempts) if sympathy was the goal? Marlene was saying we WOULD feel bad for A before that stuff happened too. I think she thought pll was big with women and all you have to do is tell women what to feel and think.

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Yeah, those girls were emotionally tortured, they were terrified! We're supposed to forget that because Charles had a bad upbringing? Lots of serial killers had bad upbringings. Should we feel sorry for them too? Because I don't. And while I do feel a little for that little boy that was Charles DiLaurentis, I feel nothing but loathing and rage at the bitch he became, CeCe Drake. Perhaps, if CeCe had been tormenting and torturing Mr. & Mrs. D all this time, had locked them in a weird prison and made them think they were hurting each other, fine, they are the ones who messed Charles up in the first place. But these girls did nothing. They didn't "take Ali away" because Ali was taken back when they were babies, when he nearly drown her. The whole thing just makes no sense and no amount of back peddling will make it make sense or make me sympathize with this psycho who prayed on helpless teenagers because she's too chicken shit to go over the people who really hurt her.

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It's ludicrous that the writers expect us to believe that Cece went so far as to drive to drive Caleb's mother off the road thousands of kilometers away from Rosewood (among other similar exploits), yet never bothered to punish her parents (until the bomb plot in the finale) or any of the Radley staff (as far as we know). She not only went after the Liars but harmed so many people that had nothing whatsoever to do with Alison, let alone with Cece herself. She targeted her brother and her sister who had never done anything to her. I always knew A's motive was going to be nonsensical but I didn't expect that we would be supposed to sympathize with A that much.

 

And I still can't get over the notion of the villain finally being revealed for no reason other than because she apparently got bored and decided to spill the beans. What kind of a mystery is that?

Edited by Jack Shaftoe
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After 5 1/2 years they decided to go with an A that had no motive whatsoever to terrorize the girls. Of course no one would've been able to solve a mystery being perpetrated by someone we didn't even know existed until the 6th season.

 

At this point, I'd rather A was Jenna, yes, it would've been obvious but at least she had a motive to go after the girls that stood around while their psycho friend threw a firecracker at her face, blinding her. I suppose Jenna was getting her own revenge on the Liars without being A and only targeted them not the entire town like CeCe. 

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And I still can't get over the notion of the villain finally being revealed for no reason other than because she apparently got bored and decided to spill the beans. What kind of a mystery is that?

 

 

There has to be something up with those cops who were carrying out the bags of evidence... Maybe Charlotte was running a fraudulous business (rather than legitimately making millions of dollars in a year) and Rhys was the whistleblower. That's why he was meeting up with Clark and wanted to having a secret rendez-vous with Kenneth to warn him about what was going on and that the Dilaurentis's may be implicated. The jig was up at her company, the dollhouse was discovered, the school year is over so it's time for the villainous monologue.

 

At this point, I'd rather A was Jenna

 

I don't because I really like that weird dynamic between the liars and Jenna where she's their victim but they threat her as if she were the villain. It's so fascinating because the liars are awful horrible shits from her pov but she's so frickin shady from the liars pov and we as the audience can understand why both sides behave the way they do. I wanna know why A has tried to blow her up like a dozen times though...

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After 5 1/2 years they decided to go with an A that had no motive whatsoever to terrorize the girls

This is one of my big issues with the whole reveal. After all this, there is hardly a real reason why the Liars were terrorized by Cece for so long. I hate when writers give characters no motivation that really makes any sense other than "they're mentally unstable". What does that mean? What has been the point of this mystery? How could we have figured out what A`s motivation is, if A`s motivation is just "she`s cray cray and thinks that Ali`s friends don't appreciate her". Yeah, I didn't see it coming, but I wouldn't have seen it coming if A was an alien either, that wouldn't have made it good.

 

In fact, with her Doctor Doom lair, A being an alien actually makes MORE sense.  

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In fact, with her Doctor Doom lair, A being an alien actually makes MORE sense.  

 

I could get behind that. A's an alien that just decided to randomly mess with some Rosewood teens because of their space-time continuum and ability to be the only town in the East Coast to have West Coast weather. 

Edited by Sakura12
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I'm just finally catching up on the thread and am trying to process all my feelings from the finale. I was so unenthused by the reveal for many of the reasons that have already been pointed out. I hate that A was transgender. I hate that Cece was A because it doesn't make any sense. The whole thing just felt like lazy storytelling. I read in an interview with Vanessa Ray that she found out she was A at the beginning of June. IIRC, that's around the time the spoilers came out on Reddit saying that Wren was Charles. I really just feel like the writers were pissed that their plan was revealed and they slapped together the Cece reveal so there would be some sort of surprise. For me, Wren being A always made a lot more sense and what I really wanted (other than it being EzrA, which ABC Family never would have let happen). 

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What really kills me about this episode is the damn hologram screen.  Marlene just didn't fucking care.

I know right?!?! That scene seemed straight out of a sci fi movie or something. That was the craziest part for me. Like, Cece has this super lair, like this is Battlestar Galactica! It just looked so bizarre, and no one seemed to be reacting to it. Like, why did no one say "holy shit, this place has freaking holograms! Holograms!"! 

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I know right?!?! That scene seemed straight out of a sci fi movie or something. That was the craziest part for me. Like, Cece has this super lair, like this is Battlestar Galactica! It just looked so bizarre, and no one seemed to be reacting to it. Like, why did no one say "holy shit, this place has freaking holograms! Holograms!"! 

It honestly felt like the actresses were just placed in front of a green screen and told something vague like they were 'in A's high tech lair'.  That's my theory why no one was reacting to the lair, because the no one knew they were on a space ship. 

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