‘Pretty Little Liars’ summer finale spoilers: Seven possible ‘who is Charles?’ suspects

With the summer finale of “Pretty Little Liars” coming to ABC Family on Tuesday night, we decided to stop for a minute and put on a detective hat in hopes of answering one of the most important questions in the history of the series: Who is Charles? We’ve heard of so many theories; not only that, but we even took the pulse of the internet going into this article.

Before sharing our seven candidates (in no particular order), let’s go ahead and rule a few things out: It’s possible that Charles is actually dead and someone else is just pretending, but we also are ruling out the Liars themselves and their parents as serious candidates. Meanwhile, Ezra and Toby have already been decoys, and we don’t think Caleb would have ever gone to Ravenswood if he was meant to be the Big Bad of the entire series. We’re also buying that on the TV show, Ali does not have a secret twin. With all the talk that we’ve at least seen Charles’ face before, we don’t think he’s a stranger. Andrew and Rhys also feel too obvious.

1. Sara – It’s an understandable theory, given her ties to Radley and her being in that Dollhouse. However, would it be a little bit of a bummer to have the show’s longtime villain someone we’ve only met recently? Also, hasn’t Emily already had her heart smashed enough?

2. Wren – Obviously, a popular theory, and we feel like it would have been even before that infamous Reddit threat. He’s been at Radley, has been a part of the show since the pilot, and very little is known about his backstory. He’s also old enough to be Charles.

3. Jason – Call us crazy, but what if Charles never died, and has instead assumed the life of Jason at some point? It probably doesn’t line up logically, but there are only so many candidates out there.

4. Cece – She is very smart and extremely savvy, and if Charles is really dead she could just have picked this all up as an act. We just do not fully understand the motivation still, and we’ve barely even heard her name mentioned this season.

5. Lucas – Given that Lucas has always been a bit of a creeper, and he has not been around that much lately, maybe he has been up to some other things instead.

6. Melissa – This is along with the “Charles actually died” theory mentioned earlier. We feel like the writers probably would like Charles to be someone who has been around the show a long time and Melissa certainly fits that bill.

7. Ian – Probably the nuttiest theory of them all, given that he had a bullet in him and he also spent time with Jason previously. Yet, there are all sorts of crazy explanations for things in this world. We are not ruling it out.

Who do you think is Charles? Vote in poll below, and head over here to preview Tuesday’s episode even further! Also, you can sign up here to gather up some more TV scoop on everything we cover, sent right in your direction via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: ABC Family.)