Pretty Little Liars: Every Person That Was A, Explained (2024)

The 2010s left a legacy of teen shows that marked many teenagers who grew up watching them. The Vampire Diaries, Teen Wolf, and Pretty Little Liars were just some of the most popular options to watch every week. Mystery and romance dominated the small screen and created fun narratives to follow before binge-watching and streaming were so popular.

Pretty Little Liars was a thriller story based on the book series by Sara Shepard. The story follows a group of four teenagers who had a falling out after the friend that glued them together, Alison (Sasha Pieterse), goes missing. After they find Alison’s body, they receive an encrypted text message from A. The Liars, as the ensemble is called by the fans, start to get tormented and harassed by this person.

There was a lot of build-up to the (multiple) reveals of who was behind the texts. Here is an explanation of who became A throughout the series.

How The A Team Works

From the very beginning of the series, there was a lot of mystery and misleading red herrings that confused a lot of the viewers, just like the characters. Everyone at one point was a possible A, and that led to some confusion about theories that were true and false. What started as a single person trying to hurt the group of teen girls ended up becoming a much larger organization.

The main goal of this team is to harm Spencer (Troian Bellisario), Aria (Lucy Hale), Hanna (Ashley Benson), and Emily (Shay Mitchell). They use a pseudonymous: A. This was so that they didn’t reveal their identity as well as initially making them think it could be their dead friend, Alison. Alison turned out not to be dead later on, but she was not A. There were characters that became a part of the A team but were not the ones in charge. Some had personal reasons to want harm to the Liars, and others were blackmailed into helping A.

While many were accused and even framed for being A, there were three people who took the lead as A at different points in the show. They each had a different style of how they wanted to torture the main characters and the motivation behind their actions, but they all had the same goal.

The Original A - Mona Vanderwaal

The first A, and considered by most the original one, is Mona Vanderwaal (Janel Parrish). Mona was present in the series since the very pilot and was Hanna’s best friend. She hated Alison and the girls for bullying her. She also became jealous when Hanna reconnected with her former friends.

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Mona was the one behind the text messages and sometimes even physical threats, controlling people to do her bidding via blackmail. She stopped being A when she was placed inside a mental hospital at the end of Season 2. The only people who helped Mona was because she blackmailed them, not like the other As, who most helped them for personal reasons.

Big A - Charlotte DiLaurentis

The second person revealed as A was in charge of continuing the harassment for most seasons, and because of it is called Big A, is Charlotte DiLaurentis (Vanessa Ray). Charlotte explained to the Liars that she was transgender and was Alison’s brother, Charles.

She wanted to torture the girls for being glad her sister was dead. Charlotte even kidnapped Mona and tortured her for an entire season. She played the role of A from Season 3 all the way into Season 6. Charlotte worked with Noah (Brant Daugherty) and mostly with Sara (Dre Davis), who were Red Coat and The Black Widow.

Uber A - Alex Drake

Alex Drake was Spencer Hastings’ twin sister, whom Spencer didn’t know existed. Alex was confirmed as being Uber A in the seventh and final season of the show. It is important to remember that there was a time jump in Season 6 when she took control. Alex wanted to avenge Charlotte’s death, as she is also her sister, so she became Uber A and started to torment the group.

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There were mixed reviews about this particular A, as Alex lived in England, didn’t really know the characters, and hadn’t appeared on the show before. Alex's list of people that helped her is the biggest one of all the As and includes Wren Kingston (Julian Morris), Jenna Marshal (Tammin Sursok), Mary Drake (Andrea Parker), and the OG herself, Mona, who was a double agent.

The Story Continues

Pretty Little Liars had seven seasons with many twists and turns. While on air, the series had a spin-off show that only had one season called Ravenswood. It featured some of the characters from the original show.

The series had a new spin-off in 2019 called Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionist. Even if the cast included the original A, Mona Vanderall, and the center of all the mystery of the previous show, Alison DiLaurentis, the series was canceled after one season.

But fans of the show can be happy as the newest spin-off released in 2022, Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin, has finished shooting the second season. So, there’s still a lot to come from this world of fashion, drama, and murder.