We Were Liars Season 1 Episode 8: My Friends Are Lying in the Sun

The season finale finally reveals the night of Cadence's accident in Summer 16. After Harris was taken to hospital with a head injury and the parents left with him, the Liars were alone on Beechwood Island; they tidied the Clairmont house and gathered around the fire. Before leaving, Penny had told Cadence to toss Harris's will if it did not favour them — but as it turned out, it did, in a way.

The will left Penny and Carrie a quarterly stipend on the condition that they remained unmarried, gave Bess the Boston property, and left the entire Beechwood Island to Cadence, with nothing for Mirren and Johnny. Cadence disclosed the details but hid the clause about her inheriting Beechwood, then threw the will into the fire.

Cadence then devised a bold, risky plan: to set the Clairmont alight as a rebellion. Fed up with the adults' obsession with money and inheritance, the Liars believed that burning the house would destroy the symbol of the family's greed and force real change. Cadence was to ignite the ground floor, Johnny and Mirren were to set the upper floors ablaze, and Gat was to ensure their escape once the house was burning.

When the clock struck midnight the house went up in flames, and only Cadence made it out alive. Johnny and Mirren did not escape in time before the gas line burst and blew up the whole house — Mirren was distracted trying to save her painting, and Johnny spent too long destroying Harris's personal belongings. Gat would have made it had he not run back inside to save Cadence, not knowing she had already come out. Cadence watched the Clairmont explode, the blast throwing her backward into the water.

The finale then confirms that the Liars were ghosts all along: since Johnny, Mirren and Gat died in the fire that summer, Cadence was never really talking to them in the present, but to their spirits, which is why they did not want her to learn what happened. The episode flashes back to earlier moments — including Mirren's younger sister asking for a ghost story and calling Cadence's suggestion that Mirren tell it "hilarious", because she knew Mirren was not there.

Bittersweet as it is, Cadence gets one last chance to speak with them: she talks to Johnny about heaven, comforts Mirren, and reflects with Gat on the life he might have had, and all three reassure her she was not solely to blame.

A year later, Harris — who has lost his dogs and two grandchildren in the fire — is still no better. He gives Cadence Tipper's old pearl necklace, and she returns it because she understands what he means by it: he is about to retire and wants her to step into the role of family leader. He even tries to blackmail her, threatening to tell her mother, aunts and Ed the truth about the fire unless she agrees. In that moment it emerges that Harris invented a version of that night to protect Cadence and cast her as the family's hero.

Cadence refuses to accept his terms. The next day, reporters from TIME arrive to cover Harris and the Sinclair family, and though Harris meant to use the interview to announce that Cadence would take over, she instead leaves the island, hopping on a boat and driving off into the sunset — wearing the necklace Gat had given her for her sixteenth birthday.

The episode also notes that Penny revealed she too had cheated on Cadence's father, that Bess found a way to have Mirren's art displayed at a local gallery, and that Penny, Bess and Carrie had something to do with their sister Rosemary's death when they were children. The season closes on the biggest open question: as everyone packs up to leave, Carrie runs back inside, takes pills from a bottle, and hears coughing — turning to find Johnny sitting on the counter in the same suit he wore the night of the fire. When she says she thought he had gone, he replies that he does not think he can.

As of S1E8, Johnny appears to Carrie after his death; the recap notes he may genuinely be alive or a product of her grief and pills, and the episode leaves it unclear.

As of S1E8, the finale reveals they had something to do with their sister Rosemary's death as children, but the details are not given.

As of S1E8, Cadence inherits Beechwood under the burned will but leaves the island, and the outcome is not resolved.