This Is When We'll Find Out Who 'PLL's "He" Is

You can say what you want about I Marlene King and the Big A Reveal in Season 6A, but you can't say that the PLL showrunner isn't consistent. In the flash-forward at the end of the Season 6A finale, fans were introduced to the new big bad in Rosewood — the ominously dubbed, "He" — but we shouldn't expect any more concrete information when Pretty Little Liars Season 6B premieres on Jan. 12. In fact, I Marlene King confirmed that fans won't find out who "He" is until Pretty Little Liars Season 7 during the ABC Family panel at NYCC on Friday. "You don't get the answer in the upcoming season," King told fans, which really shouldn't surprise us — it took more than five seasons for the series to reveal that CeCe is A, after all.

"You have to wait until Season 7," the showrunner said, before she was cut off by Troian Bellisario, Lucy Hale, Sasha Pieterse, Ashley Benson, and Shay Mitchell, who also attended the panel. Apparently, much like the situation with the Big A reveal earlier this season, fans will probably be able to put the pieces together to figure out who the mysterious, new character is. "You might kind of know who it is," King said after the stars chimed in, "You'll know who it is, but you won't see the scene until Season 7." Am I the only PLL fan getting deja vu right about now? Doesn't this sound exactly like the schtick King pulled when the Big A Reveal was on the horizon? And for more on that reveal, check out Bustle's PLL podcast, Taking This One To The Grave.

If it's entirely possible that we already know who "He" is, when do we start looking for clues? At the panel, Sasha Pieterse revealed that, when PLL returns in January, that the series will be a "totally different show in the best way" and that fans don't necessarily need to worry about what happened before the time jump. "It's a new story and we're bringing you in with new secrets," Pieterse said. So, maybe the answers will be in PLL 's special time jump episode, airing on Nov. 24? I can feel myself falling into another deep, dark hole of PLL theorizing already — just when I was starting to get over my sleep deprivation from trying to figure out who A was for six seasons.

Image: screengrab/ABC Family