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What I loved is that fans got an answer but so many more questions. We'll finally get to find out why Charles became "A."

The motivation of this "A" has excited me as much as the identity and having these last 10 episodes to find out about the why—it's important. We've been so invested for so long in the who that it's time to start asking 'why?'

I think my favorite line in the finale was "'A' has a soul," because we've never really thought of "A" as a person so much as an evil entity.

Even how Mona calls "A," an "it," she's stripped "A" of any identity and then for her, the first person who calls "A" "it," to say "'A' has a soul"...Thank you for saying that, it's my favorite line, too.

So "A"'s name is Charles DiLaurentis. Was this always your plan, to have Charles be "A," or has it evolved as the show has gone on over the last first years?

I started dropped references in some of my earlier episodes, like if you go back to season three where the girls see the mime and the mime's name is Charlemagne, which is the root name for Charles. So we've been dropping little nuggets along the way. And those anagrams that came out a couple episodes ago—it means a lot of different things, but one of the six or seven things it means is Charles DiLaurentis. I want to say that I had this idea in the back of my mind and I played with it for a couple of months before I pitched it to the room, sort of saying, ‘Is this going to work?' And I didn't get one negative reaction. But we did not tell the studio or the network until not too long ago. [Laughs.]