***WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS LIE AHEAD IF YOU HAVE NOT YET SEEN THE PRETTY LITTLE LIARS MIDSEASON FINALE “GAME OVER, CHARLES”! IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO KNOW THE IDENTITY OF -A BEFORE SEEING–IT STOP READING NOW!***

It was an epic moment five years in the making. After all the lies and mystery, fans of the show Pretty Little Liars finally came face to face with the masked villain of the series, -A, in the midseason finale “Game Over, Charles.” Who turned out to be the evil mastermind in the iconic black hoodie? None other than (drum roll please) Cece Drake! Say what?!

Commence freak out!

But how could this be? We were told that -A was Charles! Well it seems Miss Drake was more than she appeared to be. Turns out that Cece is transgender and was actually born Charles DiLaurentis. That’s right, they went there. Thanks Marlene King. I, for one, never trusted Cece ever since the girls met her in season three.

I’m proud to say that I actually predicted the transgender storyline from the moment the name Charles was revealed to us. I had that idea that it would make a great plot twist to have him turn out to be transgender because that way we wouldn’t be able to predict who it was actually going to be. All the fans would be combing through the male characters narrowing down the suspects only to have to be a woman. That’s exactly what happened.

Many criticized the villainizing of a transgender person saying that transgender people are persecuted enough as it is. While I can understand that point I personally didn’t see it that way at all. It wasn’t like “Of course the main villain would be transgender!” I just saw it as a very creative plot twist meant for strictly entertainment purposes; one that I happened to like very much.

Besides answering the biggest question of the series, the summer finale also addressed some other burning questions fans have had for a while. We found out that the infamous Red Coat was Sara Harvey. I actually wasn’t too thrilled about this because Red Coat has been almost as big of a mystery as -A, and I didn’t like that they gave such an important role to a character that we just met at the beginning of this season. Honestly, I was thinking she was going to turn out to be Cece or Jenna.

The finale also told us the truth about how Toby’s mother died. She didn’t commit suicide like everyone was led to believe but in fact was pushed off roof of Radley Sanitarium by Bethany Young who was also a patient at the time. Speaking of Bethany we also found out how she died too. Mona confessed that she was the one who hit Bethany thinking she was Alison.

All in all I thought the finale was pretty great. My only issue with it was that some plot points were inconsistent with fact we had already established previously. Like that fact that when we see Bethany push Toby’s mom she was a child but yet we saw a flashback with Toby and his mom when she was alive and he was a teenager BUT he and Bethany were supposed to be the same age. Also the who thing with Mona killing Bethany was confusing since Spencer’s sister Melissa swore she saw Spencer hit her and she buried the body to cover it up. How could she have mixed up Mona with her own sister? Not really buying that.

The other thing bothering me about the finale is the still unanswered questions that it left! We still don’t know who killed Mrs. DiLaurentis. Did the liars’ moms ever get freed from the DiLaurentis basement? Are we really supposed to just forget about the fact that Leslie stone was Bethany’s friend and roommate at Radley? What happened to Cece after being caught by the police? What kind of hospital was Sara put in according to a comment made by Emily? Did Mr. DiLaurentis and Jason ever return to normal after being drugged? As well as numerous unresolved issues that weren’t even touched in the finale like who the heck’s bone fragments were in the barrel in the storage unit if Mona is alive? WE NEED ANSWERS MARLENE!

Now that the big -A mystery has been solved I fear the show will never be the same. Wondering who was in the hoodie was what made Pretty Little Liars what it was. How are they going to have a show without threatening texts and other various messages from -A? The final moments of the finale give me hope though. We are making a large time jump skipping ahead five years where the girls are grown up and apparently facing some new threat. All we know is that this person is apparently a he and he’s after Alison. Whether she is the only one he’s interested in remains to be seen. Another exciting tidbit we could pick up in the 30 second glimpse we got into the future is that Ali became a teacher and got a husband. I can’t wait to find out who she deemed worthy enough for her hand in marriage.

Here’s to hoping that things are just as exciting as ever on Pretty Little Liars post -A. Now off to binge watch the entire series on Netflix while waiting for the winter premier in January.