my thoughts on cece being -A
my problem with the -A reveal wasn't the actual reveal, it was the way everything was handled. do I think that other theories were a lot better and had more continuity than cece being A? yes, but nonetheless, cece was one of the characters I wanted as A. it's the way cece was revealed, which was honestly anti climatic as hell. when mona, ezra, spencer, and toby were revealed it was very dramatic and intense. I remember how betrayed everyone felt when toby and ezra were -A. the actors were so phenomenal, especially troian and janel who gave me the chills during their respective roles as -A. the cece reveal however, was just so nonchalant which made it dull and flat. this was supposed to be the big bad, the moment we were all waiting for. cece should have been sinister and diabolical, but her tragic backstory would have made us feel sorry for her, sort of like when heath ledger played the joker in the dark knight. from the holograph in that weird futuristic room the liars were in, to the bland acting, this episode flopped hard. it felt cheap and I honestly had no reaction watching it. the finale felt like 6 seasons of material was just thrown into one episode which made it so rushed. it really felt like that episode was put together last minute which leads me to believe that wren was the first (the safe and predictable) choice and cece was the risky backup.
again, cece could've worked and although she was one of my favorite A suspects, I honestly didn't think the writers would actually go with her being charles. I also think that a character that's been in the show since s1 would have been a bigger betrayal. that would help the audience because it would've been a character that we could have guessed back in s1, but then again it makes sense for her to come in s3 since that's when A stole the game from mona. if you re-watch s3, all the clues were there with cece but the reveal felt like they chose another character (wren) but then changed it to cece. there were enough clues for both characters, but the problem with the writing is that they made too many people seem like -A that one definite person wouldn't have made sense. I believe that the writers put in seeds for both wren and cece in s3 which meant they could choose either or at any given time. cece makes sense as -A and wren makes sense as -A but at the same time they don't. for example ms. d buying two dresses (for ali and -A) makes sense for cece but not wren. or how spencer said something about charles felt familiar and how that ties in with the campbell farm applies to wren (since he had a relationship with spencer and was seen coloring a drawing of a family in a farm) but not cece. either reveal would have had plot holes, but from watching the way the reveal was executed, I believe that julian would have been a better choice because the audience has a stronger connection with wren than cece. I also think julian would have put more into his performance than vanessa, especially with his british accent dropping mid sentence. that would have given us that "oh my god" moment we were all waiting for. it would have been creepy and shocking, and intense, and that's what we wanted. but instead -A was so calm and collected and trying to be sassy which was boring to watch. -A is not just a villain but THE villain. there's no excuse that the faux reveals were way more dramatic than the actual reveal. I shouldn't have been more shocked and mindblown over ezrA and toby than the actual -A reveal.
also, cece's reasoning for being -A was SO terrible and that was another big reason why the reveal didn't work. it's obvious that -A had an obsession with alison and wanted to be alison. that could have been her motive. she was jealous that ali had the life that she never did, and she resents ali for choosing the liars. even when ali was gone, the liars kept her reign alive: everyone referred to them as ali's group and cece felt she should've been the queen bee not ali. cece's endgame could have been to get rid of ali altogether and replace her, so she could own the liars and pull their strings like dolls whenever she wanted to. she wanted to control them, obtain their secrets, and if they don't comply they'll be punished because they were hers not ali's. i'm no executive producer, but I think a motive like this would explain why someone would go to extreme lengths to do what -A has done. because she hated ali yet wanted to be her. that's why mona was her favorite, because mona felt the same and she related to her from that.
it would also validate -A's obsessive and controlling tendencies from s3 and beyond. cece's reveal didn't feel like it was related to what we saw, -A has been shown to be ruthless and cutthroat, and we didn't see that. we just got a sob story and cece claiming she didn't want to hurt the liars, and how much she loved ali. that was unrealistic because -A literally tried setting them all up for murder just last season. on many occasions she has tried to harm the liars and ali. why take a risky bet like cece if you’re just going to devalue it all during the reveal? If I would have known it was going to be like this, I would have preferred the predictable choice: wren. say what you will about a predictable reveal being boring..hell, I said it too, but when it comes to the safe bet you know what you’e getting, therefore it can never really go wrong. I could honestly go on and on with this topic, but you get the gist.
