Game Over, Charles
"Game Over, Charles" | |
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How Does It Feel " | |
Original air date | August 11, 2015 |
Running time | 42 minutes |
Guest appearances | |
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"Game Over, Charles" is the tenth episode of the
In the episode,
"Game Over, Charles" was watched by 3.09 million viewers and garnered a 1.4 rating, making it the most-watched episode of the sixth season, and the most-watched episode since the fourth season finale "'A' Is for Answers," up from the previous episode.
Plot
This article's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed. (November 2021) |
At the prom,
With everyone in the DiLaurentis family present, CeCe begins to tell them her story. She reveals that she was born as a boy named Charles DiLaurentis. When she was eight years old, she gave Alison a bath, but accidentally dropped her in the scalding water. Kenneth saved Alison, but Charles was admitted to Radley as a consequence. According to CeCe, as a child she asked her mother to purchase her dresses, but Kenneth despised his son for being feminine, so he used the bathtub incident as an excuse to send him away. Jessica paid a visit to Charles as often as she could, in an attempt to make him feel less alienated.
When Charles was 12 years old, Bethany Young pushed Toby's mother, Marion Cavanaugh, off Radley's roof. However, Bethany blamed Charles for Marion's homicide, and everyone believed her word due to Charles sporting a dress at the time of the incident and refusing to be seen in it. Jessica paid off Darren Wilden (Bryce Johnson) to make sure Mrs. Cavanaugh's death was ruled a suicide. Charles was diagnosed with intermittent explosive disorder (IED), although this was actually an accurate diagnosis for Bethany. For the next two years, Charles was heavily medicated with tranquilizers, but he was let out to attend his fake funeral. After the funeral at Aunt Carol's, Jessica finally accepted Charles as her daughter and took her back to Radley, renamed Charlotte.
Charlotte dedicated herself to math as a way to escape reality. She did so well in her studies that she was allowed to attend classes at the University of Pennsylvania. She thought going to school would be fun, but it was easy for her since she already knew what she was being taught. One day, she called in a bomb threat to cancel classes. She used the opportunity to go to Rosewood High for yearbook picture day, where she met Jason, whom she began dating under the CeCe Drake alias in order to get closer to her family. Jessica didn't know that CeCe Drake and Charlotte were the same person until the day the DiLaurentises were leaving for Cape May. Although initially angered at her children's incestuous relationship, Jessica allows Charlotte to go on vacation with the rest of the family. In Cape May, Charlotte became close friends with Alison and even planned to tell her they were related. However, Bethany found out about Mrs. D's affair with her father, thus ruining Charlotte's opportunity to tell her sister the truth. On
Back at the Carissimi Group, Mona tearfully admits that she hit Bethany that night and mistook her for Alison, since they both had blonde hair and were wearing the same clothes.
The medical staff at Radley took away Charlotte's privilege to occasionally leave Radley, but, once Mona was admitted to the sanitarium, Charlotte took advantage of her drugged up state and manipulated her into telling her everything she had done as "A". After Charlotte was released from Radley, she moved to Rosewood, where she purposely met the Liars, and began hating the girls due to their relief over Alison's disappearance. Charlotte kept seeing Alison in the Red Coat and thought she was going crazy at first. So, in order to lure Alison out, she planned the
Sara, dressed as Red Coat, sets a bomb to detonate inside Radley as part of Charlotte's final plan to kill her family and herself. The Liars arrive in time for Spencer to disable the bomb while Emily punches Sara for betraying her. Charlotte runs towards the roof and attempts to commit suicide. However, the Liars arrive in time to persuade her not to do so, and Charlotte, instead, declares the end of her reign as A.
Three Months Later
On Labor Day weekend, the five Liars stand outside Alison's house, with their cars all packed and ready to leave for college. The girls hug each other as they say goodbye, not realizing leaving would be so hard.
Five Years Later
Alison is working as a teacher at Rosewood High. As she writes the name "Mrs. Rollins" on a classroom board, she is interrupted by Aria, Hanna, Emily, and Spencer, who rush into her classroom to inform her that an unknown male is pursuing her.
Production
"Game Over, Charles" was written and directed by showrunner
Executive producer
it was thrilling to watch this mysterious actor "really stretch their legs" as 'A' in Tuesday's summer finale. "They were just fantastic. I’m sorry I can’t be more specific, but that was the best part of this episode."
— Troian Bellisario on the acting of the actor playing 'A'.[10]
King revealed that the Liars will graduate in the mid-season finale, and it will feature a five-year time jump to when the Liars are finished with college.[11] Goldstick commented that "We’ve been talking about [the time jump] for years."[7] Goldstick said in regards to the threats by 'A' and the time jump, that “It gives us an opportunity to see what was the gift of ‘A.’ What was the gift of ‘A’ that edified all of these girls in different ways?”[12] Marlene King expressed her excitement in an interview with Entertainment Tonight to tell more grown-up stories for the characters as she said that the actresses had "outgrown the teenager years".[13] Lucy Hale commented on the five-year time jump as she said “We couldn’t have asked for anything better." Shay Mitchell also commented on how the show is going to be different, as she also added that "This feels like a new beginning".[12]
As a regard to who 'A' is going to be, King said "We knew that Mona was the original "A," but we didn't know how long we were going to be able to go to sustain that story before we gave her up to the audience. We knew there was going to be a "Big A" to follow that story up, and we stayed true to those characters."[8] King revealed in an interview with BuzzFeed that because of the frustration from the audience, the final 'A' reveal was moved from the series finale to the sixth season mid-season finale. She continued saying that "The fans have been really patient, and I feel like we pushed them as far as we could."[12] The story of Charles was pitched by King to the writer's room after the end of the second season, after the reveal of Mona as 'A'. King said -
As we were ending that story, I started to freak out. I was like, I don’t want to write one more episode without knowing who was going to steal the game from her. I will say that for two or three episodes, there were three people who were going to be ‘A,’ and then we got about two episodes in and I pitched to the room this new idea that it wasn’t any of those three and I told the story of Charles and everybody’s mouths dropped. - I. Marlene King to BuzzFeed
Joseph Dougherty, executive producer, expressed his concern over the amount of material the writers had to deal with in the first half of the sixth season in order to reveal who 'A' is when crafting the first ten episodes. He continued to call the season four finale "the previous high-water mark for maximum signal-to-noise information."[12] King revealed in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter that "lots of people" have correctly guessed A's identity", but noted that fans would still be shocked to learn A's motives for living a life devoted to stalking. "The 'who' has been guessed, but the 'how' and 'why'? Not so much."[14] Troian Bellisario said in an interview that "it was thrilling to watch this mysterious actor "really stretch their legs" as 'A' in Tuesday's summer finale. "They were just fantastic. I’m sorry I can’t be more specific, but that was the best part of this episode."[10]
Reception
Broadcasting
"Game Over, Charles" premiered on
Reviews
The episode deeply divided fans, since some viewers expressed considerable dissatisfaction in regards to
Morgan Glennon from
The A.V. Club reviewer LaToya Ferguson wrote that the choice of having CeCe Drake being A/Charles was "the best decision" instead of choosing Wren. To her, it could have turned out worse, alluding to Gossip Girl's reveal. Ferguson applauded Vanessa Ray's emotional performance "reminding the audience (and characters) why they were drawn to CeCe in the first place". She highlighted how Cece manages to make her wrongdoings acceptable, almost redeeming herself. She wrote that Ray "absolutely carries this episode on her back, in a way very few secondary characters could." While she described the episode as "quite sweeping", she felt it was impossible to compare it to previous ones because the Liars only acted as "tertiary characters", which was unusual.[18] Writing for The Washington Post, Bethonie Butler agreed that the identity of A made more sense than Gossip Girl's reveal, although it was, in her opinion, obvious and disappointing. Further, with regards to the flash-forward, Butler wrote: "it’s kind of odd to spend all that time in high school, only to breeze through college and land abruptly into adulthood."[19] Writing for SpoilerTV, Gavin Hetherington wrote of mixed feelings brought about by the mid-season finale, saying "you know when you just don't feel fully happy with something and you just have that little leftover feeling of disappointment? What I love and hate about this show is that it makes me feel like this a lot and I always seem to have mixed feelings when it comes to sharing my opinions on an episode. This was a good, dramatic summer finale but I think the thing I'm most disappointed about was that most of it was just standing and talking."[20] He elaborated and said, "As much as I wasn't shocked to the core about CeCe being A, I do like that she is as her story makes sense and her connections to the girls."
Paul Dailly of TV Fanatic enjoyed the episode, writing that the reveal "surprisingly lived up to the hype. I'm not going to sugarcoat it, it was a bit rough around the edges, but it all made sense and for the first time in ages. [...] We have solid answers and the show is heading off in an exciting direction!" He concluded, saying: "It was an interesting conclusion that's rebooted the show in a lot of ways.[21] Entertainment Weekly's Isabella Biedenharn deemed the reveal "satisfying", saying she did not understand people's disappointment and that Wren or one of the Liars "would have made no sense". Biedenharn called Vanessa Ray "fantastic" and "compelling".[22] She opined that the episode, "the biggest in PLL history", deserved at least two hours.[23]
References
- ^ a b "It's no lie. Only 2 weeks until you come #FaceToFace with A on Tuesday, August 11. #PLL". Instagram. July 29, 2015. Archived from the original on 2021-12-24. Retrieved July 31, 2015.
- ^ King, I. Marlene (May 12, 2015). "This is what writing the PLL summer finale looks like. Dueling computers. One to watch. One to write. #GameOverCharles #FeelingALittleSad #FeelingWayExcited #WTFOMG #Yep". Instagram. Archived from the original on 2021-12-24. Retrieved May 20, 2015.
- ^ King, I. Marlene (May 13, 2015). "The next episode I write for PLL will be titled "Game Over, Charles" #PrettyLittleSummer". Twitter. Retrieved May 13, 2015.
- ^ King, I. Marlene (June 11, 2015). "@AdenaAnn nope. Only day two. So far I am blown away by how passionate the cast and crew is. Everyone was crying today. Me the most!". Twitter. Retrieved June 27, 2015.
- ^ King, I. Marlene (March 24, 2015). "The next episode I write for PLL will be titled "Game Over, Charles" #PrettyLittleSummer". Twitter. Retrieved June 27, 2015.
- ^ "So here's a scoop. "A" finally knows "A" is "A." #SeasonOfAnwsers". Twitter. June 4, 2015. Retrieved June 27, 2015.
- ^ a b Swift, Andy (March 25, 2015). "Pretty Little Liars Post Mortem: EP on Mona's Next Move, Charles' Agenda and the 'Juicy' Season 6 Time Jump". TVLine. Retrieved June 27, 2015.
- ^ Popsugar. Retrieved June 27, 2015.
- ^ Dos Santos, Kristin (March 31, 2015). "Spoiler Chat: Scoop on Game of Thrones, Pretty Little Liars, The Flash, Outlander and More!". E! Online. Retrieved May 20, 2015.
- ^ a b Aguilera, Leanne (August 10, 2015). "EXCLUSIVE! 'Pretty Little Liars': Troian Bellisario & Shay Mitchell React to 'A's Identity: 'I Was Shocked!'". Entertainment Tonight. Retrieved August 10, 2015.
- ^ Bricker, Tierney (March 25, 2015). "NEWS/ Pretty Little Liars Will Stage a Major Time-Jump in Season 6!". E! Online. Retrieved June 27, 2015.
- ^ a b c d Wieselman, Jarett (June 2, 2015). "It's The Beginning Of The End For "Pretty Little Liars"". BuzzFeed. Retrieved June 27, 2015.
- ^ Aguilera, Leanne (June 23, 2015). "EXCLUSIVE! 'Pretty Little Liars' Boss Talks Time-Jump Weddings & Revealing 'A': 'There Were a Lot of Tears!'". Entertainment Tonight. Retrieved June 28, 2015.
- ^ Gajewski, Ryan (August 10, 2015). "'Pretty Little Liars' Creator, Star on Finale's "Dead People," "Absolute Closure" in "A" Reveal". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved August 10, 2015.
- ^ Kondolojy, Amanda (August 12, 2015). "Tuesday Cable Ratings: 'Pretty Little Liars' Tops Night + 'The Haves and the Have Nots', 'Deadliest Catch', 'Ink Master' & More". TV by the Numbers. Archived from the original on August 13, 2015. Retrieved August 12, 2015.
- ^ Glennon, Morgan (August 11, 2015). "'Pretty Little Liars' Season 6 Mid-Season Finale Recap: The Liars Come Face to Face with 'A'". BuddyTV. Archived from the original on November 22, 2015. Retrieved August 12, 2015.
- ^ Campbell, Nick (August 12, 2015). "Pretty Little Liars Season 6A Finale Review: The Lying and Crying Game". TV.com. Retrieved August 13, 2015.
- ^ Ferguson, LaToya (August 12, 2015). "Pretty Little Liars: "Game Over, Charles"". The A.V. Club. Retrieved August 12, 2015.
- ^ Butler, Bethonie (August 12, 2015). "'Pretty Little Liars' Season 6 summer finale recap: A is finally revealed in 'Game Over, Charles'". The Washington Post. Retrieved August 13, 2015.
- ^ Hetherington, Gavin (August 12, 2015). "Pretty Little Liars - Game Over, Charles (Summer Finale) - Review: "Are You Happy That _____ Is A?"". SpoilerTV. Retrieved March 16, 2016.
- ^ Dailly, Paul (August 11, 2015). "Pretty Little Liars Season 6 Episode 10 Review: Game Over, Charles". TV Fanatic. Retrieved August 13, 2015.
- ^ Biedenharn, Isabella (August 12, 2015). "'Game Over, Charles'". Entertainment Weekly. p. 1. Retrieved August 13, 2015.
- ^ Biedenharn, Isabella (August 12, 2015). "'Game Over, Charles'". Entertainment Weekly. p. 3. Retrieved August 13, 2015.
External links
- "Game Over, Charles" at IMDb