Entertainment

Does The NAT Club Know About Charles On 'PLL'?

by Sara Steinfeld

One question has been on every Pretty Little Liars fan's mind since the #BigAReveal in the Season 5 finale: What's the deal with Charles? The most popular theory is that Charles is Jason DiLaurentis' twin. If that's true, then does the N.A.T. Club know about Charles? It would be a serious game-changer if they did — it would explain how Charles got so good at surveillance, it would likely give us an idea of how old Charles is, and it would strengthen his relationship with Rosewood's finest by a mile.

Let's look at the basic facts here. For those of you who don't remember, the N.A.T. Club consisted of Jason, Ian Thomas, and Garrett Reynolds, two of whom are long dead. The initials stood for "Nos Animadverto Totus," which is Latin for "We See All." Prior to Ali's initial disappearance, they would spend hours filming Rosewood residents, mostly teenage girls. What do these things and Charles have in common? Well, other than the fact that both Charles and the N.A.T. club are decidedly creepy as hell, it seems that Charles is singlehandedly carrying on the N.A.T. club's legacy. He seems to see everything, and as we learned from his lair at the Old Campbell Farm, we know he's got a knack for spying on teenage girls.

But those seem pretty obvious. It's easy enough to speculate that Charles is the same age as the original members of the NAT Club after Spencer figured out that he was trying to re-create the prom from that year. But if Charles and the club are actually connected, then what did they really know about him?

For one thing, we know that the NAT Club was making some sort of movie, and planted video cameras in Alison's room the night she disappeared. We also know that Ali had copies of the NAT club's videos, that Melissa desperately wanted them back (for reasons that are still unclear, as Tumblr user analyzinga points out), and that, toward the end of Season 4, Ian revealed via flashbacks that there were things in the videos that would "destroy" the DiLaurentis family. Tumblr user cathzeta10 thinks that all of this hooplah about the videos had to do with the fact that the NAT club had evidence about A's identity. Assuming we're accepting the theory that Charles and Jason are related, then Jason would likely have recognized his brother, and the NAT club would have known just how dangerous Charles was. Given the trail of bodies he's left behind, it's safe to assume that he would stop at nothing to prevent the incriminating videos from coming to light. So, rather than being a member of the NAT club, Charles may have seen himself as a victim of it.

Tumblr user Rosewood Spy, though, has another theory. It's a little complicated, so try to stay with me here. We know that Jessica DiLaurentis and Spencer's father had an affair that resulted in Jason being born, and the DiLaurentis' lived in Atlanta until Jason was five years old. Essentially, Rosewood Spy's theory goes like this: Charles is Jason's brother, they were separated at birth by Jessica, but she facilitated a friendship between the two boys to keep them in each others' lives. Eventually, the two of them got caught up in something that would ultimately cause them to be separated. Charles got sent off to Radley, and Jason had considerable resources at his disposal via the Hastings family to get off relatively scot-free.

So, what could this mean for the connection between Charles and the NAT Club? If Charles and Jason were friendly growing up, it's fair to assume that Charles knew about the NAT Club and what they were doing. Jason said he left the NAT Club when he went to college because he thought that Ian was setting girls up and because he felt like Ian was filming things for other people. Well, what if Ian was filming things for Charles about the DiLaurentis family? If Charles got locked up in Radley and considered the DiLaurentis family to blame, maybe he was getting the NAT Club to spy on them to exact his revenge? Things certainly could have spiraled out of control from there, especially if he were trying to keep what he was doing a secret, and felt that his anonymity were threatened.

Long story short: Charles was either part of the NAT Club with Jason, or he was the reason Jason quit. Either way, there's no way the two aren't connected — Charles's surveillance skills are just way too good.

Images: Eric McCandless/ABC Family (2); romirockstar (2), jason-dilaurentis/Tumblr