In the 6x04 synopsis, we learned that Charles was indeed sent to Radley as a young boy. Why? Though we can’t make a for-sure estimate, we guess that it might be because he hurt Alison, possibly causing her fractured elbow that we heard of during the trial. However, he wasn’t alone in that children’s ward… Around the same time, another young girl was sent to Radley. Her name? CeCe Drake.
In 2x13, Alison told Hanna a story, a story about twin girls. In the story, there are two identical blonde twins, the two girls are at a table playing with their dolls. Everything is going well until the two girls fight over a single doll.
If those dolls look familiar to you, they should… Each doll represents one of the liars, the one the twins fight over? The doll that looks the most like Alison. The two tug back and forth until one finally snatched it out of the other’s hands, the losing twin then gets up from her chair and stabs her sister in the chest. The parents then arrive home to find their other daughter in a pool of blood, a sick smile accross the other twins face- as a result, she was sent to Radley.
While CeCe and Charles were in Radley, they became friends, it’s safe to assume they loved one another- whether as friends or as a brother/sister relationship. Jessica joined the board at Radley to keep an eye on her son Charles… but she didn’t tell Kenneth. In the 6x02 promo, you can tell Kenneth hated Charles for whatever he had done to Alison, if he found out that Jessica was seeing him, Ken would leave them. This is where the two yellow dresses from episode 5x13 come in, Mrs. DiLaurentis bought that second yellow dress for CeCe, Charles’ friend in Radley. Jessica was still fulfilling her duties as a mother with Charles and even extended some to CeCe since they were so close. She bought it for her as a Christmas gift. Jessica said that if Kenneth found out about the yellow dress he will leave the family. Why? Because that yellow dress is what links Jessica to Charles. If Kenneth found out, Jessica would’ve had to confess that she got that dress for a young girl that was Charles’ friend in Radley.
Everything Goes Back to Radley
While CeCe and Charles were in Radley, something tragic happened that resulted in Charles death, which is most likely why the Children’s Ward got shut down. This destroyed Cece. Flash forward years later, it’s Halloween in Rosewood (2x13 - “The First Secret”). The Liars stop in front of a creepy looking house, Emily immediately jumps back and says she saw someone in the house, the liars brush it off thinking it was probably a kid playing around. Aria expresses that she feels like something bad happened there. As the liars walk past the house we see a car, the car was from Radley Sanitarium. I’m assuming that the creepy house was CeCe’s, the house where she stabbed her twin, and she either snuck out of Radley that day, or was released. Convinently, both the twin story AND “The First Secret” were told in 2x13, the two are definitely related and Cece was the one to tell Alison that twin story… HER story. Cece was the one that sent the first text to Alison. Cece was the one wearing the baby doll mask in the Halloween store. Cece was the one that lured Alison to that haunted house and was the one that attacked her. And CeCe wanted Alison as her doll.
Now we get to Marion Cavanaugh. Marion was a nurse at Radley, she cared for Cece and Charles while they were in Radley, they all became very close. Since Marion cared for Cece and Charles and acted as a guardian, when news came around of Marions death- it further destroyed Cece. Now, in episode 4x10 “The Mirror Has Three Faces” Hanna and Spencer talk to Jessica about Dr. Palmer (Marion’s Doctor in Radley). They ask Jessica if Dr. Palmer was her doctor, she replies “If it’s the guy I’m thinking of, I have only met the one time” They then go back in a flashback.
Knowing Marion the way Cece did, and hearing that Marion’s death was ruled a suicide from jumping off the roof, and knowing Radley like she did… Cece knew something was definitely wrong. So, Cece dressed up as Alison and went to Radley calling herself “Alison DiLaurentis” and since the Childrens ward had been down for a while, no one would recognize Cece. There… She met Bethany Young. This brings me to a scene between Dr. Palmer and Toby in 4x04, when Toby was trying to figure out what happened to his mom. Something that always struck me as odd was that Big A had actually been HELPING Toby figure out what happened to Marion. They knew very personal things about Marion, like which songs she used to play on the piano… This means A loved Marion as well. Big A doesn’t help ANYONE but for some reason they help Toby figure out what happened to Marion. So, in this scene Toby gets discouraged when he doesnt get any answers from Dr. Palmer about his mothers death…
Dr. Palmer asks Toby to tell Marion to “Stay away from that blonde girl. There’s something wrong with the air around that one. Very troubling.” For a long time, I had thought Dr. Palmer was referring to Cece, but then I realized there was someone else in Radley during the time Marion was in Radley, and Cece was NOT in Radley around the time Marion was murdered… But there WAS a blonde patient who was. Her name? Bethany Young.
Cece had done some digging and figured out that Bethany had murdered Marion, Bethany was in fact the fragile patient Dr. Palmer warned about. We saw in Bethany’s sketch book, that she had in fact witnessed Marion’s death. What we didn’t realize was that she had actually killed her. Enraged, Cece begins to come up with a plan, a plan that would solve all of her problems and get her exactly what she wanted in one night. She was going to murder Bethany for what she did to Marion and then she was going to kidnap Alison and put her in the dollhouse she had created, leaving Bethany’s body to be identified as Alison. Cece had befriended Bethany, she began feeding Bethany lies about Jessica and slowly her rage towards Jessica got so bad she would express them in her sketchbook. Cece told Jessica that she was dating Mr. Young (Bethany’s father), that Jessica was going to break up her family. As the plan was coming together Cece bought Bethany a yellow top and Alison bracelet- identical to the one Alison was going to have that night. Everything was coming together.
Cece had shown Bethany how to escape Radley, just as she did for Mona when she stole the game from her. Bethany’s rage for Jessica worked to Cece’s advantege, when Jessica got the call from Radley saying that Bethany escaped, Jessica told Alison to stay inside in fear that Bethany would go after her and Alison. Cece bought herself, Bethany, and Alison the exact same yellow ruffled top- so that when Cece knocked Alison and Bethany out, should anyone see, they wouldn’t know who was who. And, when Bethany’s body was to ever be found, the yellow ruffled top and Alison bracelet would be all that anyone needed to identify Alison’s body. So the way Cece planned it, while Bethany was dead, Alison would be in Cece’s dollhouse.
CeCe even switched the dental records beforehand so nobody would know. But CeCe’s plan went awry. Here’s what happened: CeCe planted Bethany and Alison the exact same clothing so her plan could work out even better. Bethany snuck out of Radley, as she was told to. Once she arrived in the DiLaurentis’ backyard, CeCe hit her over the head with a shovel and knocked her out. CeCe then heard Alison and Spencer fighting right after and went to see what was going on. Once the argument was over, she, just like Melissa, saw Spencer walking back with a shovel in her hand. Melissa then finds Bethany and assumes that it was Alison and that Spencer killed her, so she buries her to protect Spencer. CeCe then came back to where she had left Bethany’s body, but she was gone, Melissa had moved the body and buried it before anyone saw. Thinking that Bethany regained consciousness and was wandering about, CeCe tried to go find her and again and this time knock her out… For good. During this time, Alison was walking back to her house from the barn, she hadn’t gotten a message and she thought she won. Jessica saw Alison walking back and was relieved that she was safe since she found Bethany had escaped from Radley. All of a sudden, CeCe hit Alison with the closest thing at her disposal, a rock. Cece saw Alison walking to the house and from behind, Alison looked like Bethany, so Cece hit Alison over the head as hard as she could. This is when CeCe’s plan got screwed up… Not only was Bethany dead, but she thought she had just killed Alison by mistake. Jessica witnesses the mistake and CeCe forced Jessica to bury Alison, from then on CeCe had been blackmailing Jessica, and when she found out Alison was alive- Cece had nothing over her anymore… So, she killed her to keep the secret.
So what did CeCe do the next day? After she broke up with Jason randomly, she kidnapped the person that was like Alison the most: Sara Harvey. If you looked at the tallies that Sara made in her little room in the dollhouse, it’s apparent that she was there since the day she was kidnapped. CeCe made Sara act like she was Alison by wearing the yellow top (which further proves Cece is A… She’s literally the only one who hada yellow shirt left after that night), etc. A few years later, the Liars are on the hunt for answers and the truth regarding Alison and her death. They find a number in Alison’s Vivian Darkbloom coat and call it. The woman who answered was CeCe. This is how she found out that the Liars were digging up the truth, and she was going to get exposed. This is when she began her comeback to Rosewood to steal the game back from Mona. In 2x25, CeCe made her first appearance at the Masquerade Ball by wearing a long red dress and covering her face with a golden sun mask. At the end of the episode, CeCe visits Mona in Radley as Red Coat and steals the game from her officially. Season 3 is when CeCe really moved back to Rosewood, which is why we see ‘A’ in the 'A’ endings moving into an apartment and buying things. Season 3 is when CeCe started adding onto her dollhouse to now include the Liars… And now that the Liars, Mona, Sara, and Alison are gone, and her memory room for Charles is burned down… Cece has nothing left but to go full throttle, and I think the girls are going to finally figure it out after they realize Charles is in fact dead and Cece had been in the Childrens ward in Radley.
