Theory: Alison killed Charlotte.
Alison killed Charlotte. And she did so to get her friends back in her life again.
Ali has been the center of this show, and these girls’ lives, since day one. First, she was the leader of their group, the one who knew all their secrets, the one who was always in the middle. Then she went missing, and for the next two years, Spencer, Aria, Emily, and Hanna’s lives revolved around trying to find out who killed her. Once they found out she was alive, they were focused on making Rosewood safe so she could come home. After she returned to Rosewood, the girls were primarily worried about protecting her and keeping her safe. When she went to jail, after they decided that she wasn’t A, they were focused on proving her innocence and getting her out. After the dollhouse, their goal was finding out who her brother was.
See the pattern? Who is the one person who has completely dominated the lives of these four girls for over four years? Alison.
But after the Charlotte reveal…things changed. The girls went off to college. And Ali stayed behind to take care of Charlotte and try to repair her family.
I’m not trying to say that Ali never loved Charlotte or had nefarious intentions from the start. She didn’t. She was perfectly content to remain in Rosewood…at first. But five years is a long time, and over those years, she started to get bitter. Spencer was off working as a successful lobbyist in Washington. Aria was in Boston with a publishing company. Hanna was splitting her time between New York and whatever glamorous European city she was flying off to. And Emily was all the way across the country in California. From what we know, Alison didn’t have too much contact with any of them, aside from social media and the occasional visit, during this time. And it doesn’t look like she made any new friends, Elliott aside, or even changed much over those five years. Notice how she still sleeps in her exact same childhood bedroom?
Who wouldn’t start to feel a little resentful of the person tying you down to the town you’ve always hated? While Ali is being the bigger person by forgiving Charlotte and trying to start over, her “best friends” are all over the country. She is no longer the center of their worlds. They have all but left her behind, forgotten her.
So when discussion opened up about Charlotte’s release from the institution, Ali jumped on the chance to send a plea to her friends, begging them to come back to Rosewood. She didn’t just want their help. She wanted them back in Rosewood, back under her influence, like they’d been for so many years. So she used that letter as a ploy for sympathy.
But her plan didn’t work as she’d hoped. Sure, Spencer, Hanna, and Emily all lied for her, as she’d asked. But her sphere of influence clearly wasn’t as great as it used to be. Her friends weren’t willing to immediately comply with what she was asking. And her attempts to get sympathy for Charlotte and for herself didn’t work. As Spencer said, “We’re not on the playground anymore, Alison.”
Once again, Ali was losing her friends. They might have been back in Rosewood, but they weren’t dedicated to her in the way that they’d once been. So she went to drastic measures to get them back on her side – permanently.
She either lured Charlotte to the church that night or followed her there. That girl that Aria and Ezra saw entering the church wasn’t Charlotte. It was Ali. She killed Charlotte, then pushed her off the bell tower because she knew that her sister being murdered would both keep her friends in town and get their sympathy. And it worked.
What clues support this? Let’s see –
There are parallels between Charlotte’s death and Ian’s. They were both pushed off of the bell tower at the church. Who pushed Ian off of the tower? Alison.
There must be a reason why they showed us the purple roses that Ali was setting out before Charlotte’s arrival. What was the point of that scene other than to show us that the exact same flower that was clutched in Charlotte’s hand when she died was in Ali’s living room? Ali did love Charlotte. The rose symbolizes that.
Finally, Ali’s behavior following Charlotte’s death is strange, is it not? In the episode after her death, she shows a normal reaction to the death of a loved one. She’s crying, grieving, and determined to find out who killed Charlotte, even if it means turning against her so-called best friends. All of that seems reasonable for someone who just lost the family member she’s spent years helping.
But then Ali goes away for two episodes, and when she comes back, it’s like Charlotte’s death never happened. She’s devoted to Rollins, back on good terms with her friends, and never seems to give another thought to finding out what happened to her sister (or cousin, I suppose). Why would Alison have such a sudden change in attitude? Perhaps because she was putting on an act, the way that we know she can do. She adopted the attitude of a grieving sister for only so long, to throw everyone off her trail and continue to get the sympathy of her friends, making sure they’re really on her side.
My last point comes all the way to the 6B finale. When Ali is hiding in the church from what she thinks are the ghosts of her mother and Wilden, she tells Emily, “I knew they wouldn’t follow me here. I deserve it. This is my punishment.” Why does Ali seem so guilty? Are we really supposed to believe that she’s still reeling with remorse over how she treated people back in high school? Based on her continued selfish behavior throughout the time jump, I find that unlikely. Maybe she’s professing so much strange guilt because she’s really Charlotte’s killer.
So there you have it. Alison killed Charlotte to get her friends back in her life and take back control. And it worked. Now, I won’t say that there aren’t problems with this theory, but from what I’ve seen of Ali’s actions and behavior these past ten episodes, this is the most sound theory for Charlotte’s killer that I can find. And it doesn’t contradict anything that’s happened to her, either – including checking herself into the institution. She’s not involved at all with Mary, Elliot, or A.D. She really does think that she’s going crazy.
Let me know what you think!
