E. Lockhart’s We Were Liars is famous in large part for a significant last-minute twist which completely recontextualises the entire story, and fans of the book will be pleased to see that this shocking ending has been preserved in the Prime Video adaptation. But it’s not enough. Episode 8 delivers the obligatory Big Twist with real enthusiasm, but it’s too little too late for a meandering YA series that is much too long and boring for its own good.
To understand the twist, though, that means thoroughly understanding the premise. So, we’ll start there. But you should also be aware that there’s another last-minute revelation that isn’t featured in the book, which is present, one assumes, to set up Season 2 if this one proves to be a streaming success. Since that’s virtually guaranteed, expect the adaptation of the Carrie-focused prequel to land sometime in the next year or two.
Anyway, on with it.
Summer Of Love
We Were Liars is about extremely rich people doing extremely rich things, and one of them is an annual summer vacation to the private New England island of Beechwood. Our protagonist, Cadence Sinclair Eastman, chronicles these weeks-long holidays as Summer 1, Summer 2, etc., all the way up to Summer 16, which is the important one.
Cadence is the grandchild of Harris Sinclair, a flagrantly abusive, uber-wealthy mogul, and the daughter of Penny. Penny and her sisters Bess and Carrie – they’re all remarkably similar-looking, and all in the catty running for Harris’s considerable inheritance when he and his wife Tipper inevitably pop their clogs – all bring their children to the island every year, so the “Liars”, as they call themselves, have grown up together. There’s Carrie’s son Johnny, Bess’s daughter Mirren, and Carrie’s boyfriend’s nephew, Gat, who is an outsider in the sense that he isn’t blood related and isn’t white, but has been joining the gang on their annual trips since Summer 8.
During Summer 16, Cadence and Gat realize they have very strong feelings for one another and strike up something of a relationship until it’s revealed that Gat – in the midst of a sociopolitical awakening after a trip to India – reveals that he already has a girlfriend whom he has technically been cheating on. Then something happens. An accident occurs that leaves Cadence with a head injury and selective amnesia, and nobody seems willing to explain to her precisely what happened or why.
Summer 17 and the Big Twist
A year after the accident, Cadence, who has been ostracised from the other Liars ever since, returns to Beechwood to try and figure out what went down. However, her mother has sworn everyone in the know to secrecy under strict doctor’s orders. Apparently, it’ll be better for her to figure things out at her own pace. And the other Liars are deliberately cagey for this reason. Or what we think is this reason, but that the ending of We Were Liars reveals to be another reason entirely.
Eventually, Cadence reaches a startling realisation, which is that during Summer 16, she and the other Liars conspired to burn down Harris’s mansion, which they were evidently successful in doing, given it has all been totally rebuilt. The idea was that by destroying the family’s worldly possessions, their parents would hopefully stop bickering over who would inherit them. After all, there wouldn’t be anything left to inherit.
But this isn’t the Big Twist. That turns out to be Cadence’s eventual realisation that all of the other Liars died in the fire. All throughout Summer 17, she has been communicating with their ghosts – or, perhaps, her trauma-addled mind’s projections of them. But a later reveal suggests ghosts, so that’s what we’re going to run with.
Joseph Zada in We Were Liars | Image via Prime Video
Throwing Off the Shackles
Cadence feels particularly guilty about the death of Gat, since the delay that caused her to miss the midnight escape meeting was caused by her looking for Tipper’s black pearl necklace, an object of considerable family bickering which she was selfishly trying to pilfer for herself. That moment of greed caused Gat to come looking for her and die in the attempt, but luckily, his ghost absolves her of any guilt.
Harris knows what happened to the mansion, but he reckons he can buy Cadence’s silence by making her the heir to his empire if only she’ll maintain the lie that the house went up in flames due to faulty wiring and not a family curse. Cadence has learned her lesson about greed, though, and refuses to do so, walking away from Harris’s wealth to forge her own path instead.
Setting Up Season 2
We Were Liars technically ends with a totally new twist. This one isn’t as gonzo and attention-grabbing as the main one, but it’s likely important to Amazon’s long-term plans for the property since it sets up a second season (while also pretty much confirming that the Liars are ghosts, not hallucinations).
Anyway, after all this, Carrie returns home. However, her long-time sobriety has come to an end, and she has also been communing with Johnny’s ghost. Through dialogue, it’s implied that Johnny’s ghost can’t leave, aka venture to the other side, but it’s not entirely clear whether this is to be taken literally or metaphorically. It could be the case that Carrie’s drinking is giving her similar delusions to what Cadence was experiencing, and there are no ghosts after all, but what would the fun in that be?
Either way, Carrie is the focus of the prequel novel, Family of Liars, so I think we can see what’s going on here. I’ll see you back on Beechwood for that.
