Here’s a quick guide to every character who acted as Red Coat in Pretty Little Liars. Based on Sara Shepard’s books of the same name, Pretty Little Liars aired on ABC for seven seasons between 2010 and 2017. The teen mystery drama is set in the fictional Pennsylvania town of Rosewood and follows friends Spencer Hastings (Troian Bellisario), Hanna Marin (Ashley Benson), Aria Montgomery (Lucy Hale) and Emily Fields (Shay Mitchell) – AKA the Liars – as they try to piece together the clues behind the disappearance of missing pal Alison DiLaurentis (Sasha Pieterse).
Throughout the series, the Liars were blackmailed by a succession of mysterious figures going by the alias “A” who threatened to ruin their lives by exposing their most scandalous secrets, all while manipulating the girls for their own nefarious ends. The various “A” characters also recruited crews of underlings – known as The A-Team – to do their bidding for them that over Pretty Little Liars’ seven seasons included characters like detective Darren Wilden (Bryce Johnson), dashing British doctor Wren Kingston (Julian Morris) and Spencer’s sister Melissa Hastings (Torrey DeVitto).
The various “A” characters and their minions weren’t the only forces the Liars had to reckon with. When the first “A” was revealed to be their frenemy Mona Vanderwaal (Janel Parrish) in the season 2 finale, the Pretty Little Liars fandom was hit with a big twist – Mona was actually being manipulated by another mysterious figure known as Red Coat. To complicate matters further, Red Coat – just like “A” – was an alias and disguise used by several people. Read on for a breakdown of every character that acted as Red Coat on Pretty Little Liars.
CeCe Drake/Charlotte DiLaurentis
The first character to be unmasked as Red Coat on Pretty Little Liars was CeCe (Vanessa Ray), who was later revealed to be Alison’s adoptive sister and biological cousin Charlotte DiLaurentis. Also known as “Evil Red Coat,” CeCe/Charlotte’s secret identity was revealed in season 4 episode “Now You See Me, Now You Don’t” shortly after she kidnapped Emily and tried to kill her with an industrial saw.
Alison DiLaurentis
“Now You See Me, Now You Don’t” was a pivotal episode as that was when the Liars learned there was more than one Red Coat and their supposedly deceased pal Alison DiLaurentis could also be disguising herself à la Little Red Riding Hood. In the following episode “Grave New World,” it was confirmed Alison was indeed Red Coat - or at least one of them - and had been using the alias as a ruse to stay undetected by “A.”
Sara Harvey
In Pretty Little Liars’ sixth and penultimate season, it was revealed a third character had also posed as Red Coat. The mid-season finale “Game Over, Charles” saw Charlotte confess she’d used Sara Harvey (Dre Davis) – a girl who went missing around the same time as Alison – as a Red Coat decoy when she needed to.