#pllthoughts

Alex was was hit by the girls and buried that night, that’s why she wants revenge. She was buried by Melissa before Alison, hence the shallower grave. Bethany Young was buried afterwards.

Alex has been leading this from the beginning- Mona and CeCe were working for her. Mona's reasons why were the truth, CeCe’s were a vast exaggeration. She was actually a lot older than she said she was on the roof in 6x10, fixing a lot of age-related plot holes.

Here’s the story:

Alex found out about Spencer online and decided to go and meet her, buying a blonde wig so she wasn’t mistaken for being Spencer. CeCe was currently annoyed about being RECENTLY accused of pushing Marion off the roof, so was heading to Rosewood to see Mrs D and finally meet her sister and cousin. She had met Mary Drake in Radley and had seen pics of Spencer (as Mary had been in and out of Radley several times, and had already snuck into the Hastings house before the events of that night), so knew who Alex was as soon as she saw her due to being told by Mary that Spencer had a twin somewhere. She had 2 yellow tops as Mrs D had been uncertain of the size, though both fitted so she took a spare one incase one got dirty and she wanted to take pics of this family reunion. When she saw Alex on the bus, she gave her one of the yellow tops, and planned to ask Alison to put hers on when she got there. Bethany also had a yellow top as Mrs D had been having an affair with her father, and nothing says love like bulk buying clothing for all your potential teenage relatives.

So CeCe and Alex both wanted to meet their families. Sounds innocent enough right? This is where the girls come in.

It was already dark by the time they got to Rosewood, and they were unaware that Alison, Spencer and their friends were in Spencer’s barn. They decided that CeCe would find Alison, Alex would find Spencer and then they’d meet up. On her way to find Alison, CeCe ran into Melissa and, recognising her from the pictures, explained who she was and asked if she knew where Alison was. Melissa said they were in the barn and then went on a rant about Ian.

When Alex found Spencer, she was fighting with Alison. Alex watched and then followed Spencer about halfway across the DiLaurentis-Hastings backyard area before trying to talk to her. Spencer got freaked out, hit Alex with the shovel, and went back to the barn. Melissa saw all of this, realised Alex must be Spencer’s twin (she had already been told Spencer was Peter’s but not Veronica’s, as she had initially thought Spencer must be adopted due to being old enough to know Veronica had not been pregnant). Melissa buried Alex, and when CeCe came back across that part of the garden, she saw Alex’s hand and pulled her out. Both were now angry at Spencer.

Alison had planned to fake her death in an attempt to find out who A was (at the time, Alison’s A was Mona), and enlisted Grunwald to come and pick her up at a certain time.

CeCe found Mrs D, who informed her that Bethany had found out about the affair and escaped from Radley. CeCe knew that Bethany loved that yellow top, despite hating Mrs D, but didn’t know Alison was also wearing it that night. When she saw a person wearing that top from the back, she hit them to protect Mrs D whilst Alex hid and watched. Mrs D buried Ali and Wilden came to take CeCe back to Radley, though Alex was still hiding.

Mrs Grunwald showed up at the dedicated time, saw Alison’s hand, pulled her out and took her to the hospital.

Whilst this was happening, the real Bethany showed up, as did Mona, who saw her from behind and hit her thinking she was Alison. Alex saw this, and buried the body for her as she knew this was the person CeCe actually wanted dead. When she was talking to her, it became apparent that Mona thought this was Alison, and Alex didn’t tell her otherwise. Alex shared her anger at Spencer with Mona, and Mona told her about how Alison and the girls bullied her, and offered to share her revenge game. When Mona was driving home, she saw Alison, who had run from the hospital as they’d wanted to keep her overnight and call the police about what happened when she really just wanted to escape, and so Mona helped her escape and phoned Alex to tell her that Ali was alive (which Alex already knew). Before going back to London, Alex switched Bethany and Alison’s dental records to ensure that the body would be identified as Alison’s should it ever be found (as Mona didn’t actually know there was another body, she thought the only person to get hit was Ali and that she’d got out).

Mona and Alex told CeCe about their revenge plan, and CeCe wanted to join in because of what Spencer did to Alex. She then started receiving emails from Lucas, who she used to be friends with, detailing the bullying he received at the hands of Alison and the girls, and her wish to torment the girls increased further.

They offered Melissa the chance to join them on multiple occasions due to knowing she was angry that Ali kissed Ian, and then after finding out about Spencer kissing Wren and Ian. Melissa always declined due to her love for her sister, but was occasionally blackmailed into doing what they wanted. She couldn’t tell the police what she knew as she had found out that the police were corrupt and that Mrs D had paid Wilden to protect CeCe multiple times, so she knew that if she went to the police, the A Team would make things worse for Spencer and the girls. The A Team also knew that she’d buried Alex to protect Spencer, so didn’t want to get herself or Spencer into any legal trouble. She therefore had to find a way of protecting Spencer without turning the A Team in, which often involved following them around and sending people to spy on them, or even doing A-Team jobs which would hurt the girls, but not as much as if an actual member of the A-Team had done it. This is why Melissa said she’d been protecting Spencer since before it started and that ’[blood] can also be VERY slippery.’

Speaking of Wilden, making CeCe older on the roof means it’s possible that Wilden was a police officer at that time. CeCe lied about how old she was when Marion was pushed to make Ali feel sorry for her. Additionally, (and all credit goes to a Reddit user for this, I can’t remember who it was but it’s brilliant), Wilden was both in the class of 1996 as Hanna said in season 1, and went to high school with Melissa, as he graduated in 96 but went back when Melissa was there as an undercover cop to investigate something else (maybe something relating to Jason and drugs?) and this is how he became acquainted with Melissa.

Mona, CeCe and Alex had planned to start the A Game immediately, but then Alison helped Mona become popular, and Mona became friends with Hanna, so Mona asked them to leave it because she wanted a chance at being popular and having friends like she’d always wanted. CeCe and Alex couldn’t do anything without having Mona on board, as CeCe was locked in Radley and Alex was living in London, so they needed Mona’s inside knowledge. However, when Aria returned, Mona was reminded of all the bullying, saw the way Ezra looked at her in class and sent the first text. She then found a reason to text the others, both as revenge and in an attempt to scare them away from each other so she could keep Hanna to herself. However, her actions had the opposite effect, Hanna got closer to the girls, Mona got angry and her A actions escalated.

After a year of Mona keeping CeCe and Alex up to date on how it was going, Alex decided that she wanted to give Spencer another chance, as she was understandably confused when she saw another version of herself looking back at her. So she asked Mona to reveal herself to Spencer and offer Spencer the chance to join them. She did, and Spencer refused. Mona was committed to Radley, where her and CeCe were able to plan more easily and where Alex came to visit on a regular basis. It was Alex who Mona spoke to at the end of 2x25, as it was her that asked her to reveal herself to Spencer.

Whilst this was happening, Alex met Wren in London, fell in love with him, and realised that he knew Spencer and Melissa and often volunteered in Radley. She convinced him to talk to her and CeCe, and they convinced him to create a visitor’s pass for CeCe, which she could use with certain members of staff who didn’t know her as Charlotte in order to get both in and out of Radley as a visitor, as it is likely that not every member of staff knows every patient. This allowed CeCe to watch and interact with the girls, gaining more information for their revenge game.

After a while, the game became too dangerous, as CeCe and Alex kept wanting to pull bigger stunts. Mona realised that actually she just wanted to be friends with these girls and didn’t want to put them in danger any more. She left the game, and CeCe and Alex made her another of their victims.

Eventually, CeCe and Alex decided that the girls were getting too close, as the trail of people they’d paid to do things for them had started to backfire as the Liars began to discover the truth. They decided that if one of them confessed before they were discovered, then the subsequent apology and sob story would seem more believable, allowing one of both of them to pick up the game again when they were least expecting it if they deemed it necessary. CeCe exaggerated her story, making herself seem younger as a victim rather than the 20-something year old woman she actually was when Bethany pushed Marion off the roof. It worked, and the game ended until Alex got angry that CeCe was killed and wanted to know who did it, and then became obsessed with Spencer’s life and wanted to take her place.

All the money came from CeCe’s investments and money Alex stole from the rich adoptive parents who gave her up again (she went back years later and stole it out of anger).

The stuff done to Spencer when she was in London (such as the blood in the bag) was Alex.