Charles DiLaurentis Can't Be A

Pretty Little Liars is changing the game entirely with the Season 5 finale. Fans have been promised a major A reveal, which is something that the writers have been working up to all season long. So it's no surprise that fans are working meticulously to crack the clues left behind before Tuesday's episode "Welcome To The Dollhouse" — especially the one that seems to be the biggest clue of them all. As Pretty Little Liars superfans quickly discovered, Each sentence in Mona's three-line anagram can be rearranged to spell out Charles DiLaurentis, a yet-unknown person who clearly shares a familial relationship to the currently imprisoned Alison. Now the big question — could Charles DiLaurentis be A?

I'm not so sure. This person is sure to be a major indicator of things to come on Pretty Little Liars (something that writer Bryan Holdman basically confirmed with this tweet) but I'm not convinced that Charles himself should be our top suspect for A. Though we'll find out major clues about the ultimate A this season, the writers haven't promised us that person's identity just yet — discovering that Charles himself is A would just be way too easy. Here's why Charles might not be A, even if he is an integral part of the mystery.

He's Alison's Child

Alison was away from Rosewood for an entire year before anyone even discovered what was presumed to be Ali's body in the grave, so the theory that Ali had a child in the time she was away from home is entirely plausible. We know that Ali thought she was pregnant the summer she ran away, and she could have theoretically been pregnant when she left for a life on the run. In fact, that might have made Ali's decision to run away from A (with Mona's help) even easier — she could leave to protect her baby from A or to give it up for adoption. Perhaps Mona left this clue because she knew that A was connected to Charles — perhaps A was the father of Ali's baby, or even a person who knew Ali was pregnant and held it over her head.

Ali Caused His Death

We know that Ali has a vicious side, even if right now she seems defeated by A. Ali has done plenty of terrible things, and though she claims to have never killed anyone, she did say that she let "a lot of things happen" that she shouldn't have — could that mean that she allowed someone to kill Charles, or didn't stop an accident from happening that claimed Charles life? We know that Ali blinded Jenna unintentionally with the fire cracker incident and felt little remorse — perhaps she did something similar to Charles. A dead guy can't be A, right?

Charles DiLaurentis Is Bethany Young's Father

I'm not sure even Mona knew for sure who A is, but there's a chance that she was getting closer to connecting the puzzle. Perhaps the anagram was just a clue that would indicate who the liars should look for next to find out the truth, and that was one of Bethany's parents. We know that Bethany looked a lot like Ali — enough for people to confuse Bethany with Ali and vice versa. It's safe to assume that Bethany and Ali aren't twins (they aren't the same age), but maybe Bethany was related to Ali after all — as her cousin on her father's side. Charles DiLaurentis could be Bethany's father, which would make Jessica Bethany's aunt by her marriage to Ali's dad. That would explain why, when Spencer goes to the stables, she learns that Jessica told Bethany to call her "Aunt Jessie."

Hopefully we'll find out the truth about Charles DiLaurentis in the Season 5 finale — if he's not A, he's at least a major player in this story I want to know more about.

Image: ABC Family (screenshot); Giphy (3)