‘We Were Liars’ Recapped, Ending Explained – Cady’s Summer 16 Revisited
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Adapted from a bestselling novel by E. Lockhart, “We Were Liars” is a drama series set on a private island owned by the wealthy Sinclair family, who gather there every summer. The story centers on Cadence, the eldest granddaughter, who returns to the island after a mysterious accident two summers prior left her with memory loss and debilitating migraines. As she reconnects with her cousins and family members, Cadence struggles to fill in the blanks about what happened the summer of her injury.
The narrative in “We Were Liars” unfolds through fragmented flashbacks and Cadence’s unreliable perspective, gradually revealing the dysfunction within the Sinclair family – particularly the toxic relationships between her mother and aunts, who compete for their father’s approval and inheritance. The story builds toward a twist meant to reframe everything Cadence and the viewer thought they understood about the events leading up to her accident.
We Were Liars Review: We Were Gratingly One-Dimensional
Despite its central mystery of ‘We Were Liars’, the series is slow-paced and leans heavily on melodrama, with much of the dialogue and character interaction revolving around privilege, family tension, and vague philosophical reflections. The overall tone is somber, and the payoff relies entirely on its final reveal. Which some of us thoughts was a total cheat code!
Here’s a recap on the primary characters of “We Were Liars”:
Cadence Sinclair Eastman (Cady)
The protagonist. Intelligent, sensitive, and emotionally fragile, Cady is trying to recover from a traumatic accident and piece together the mystery of what happened one fateful summer. Her journey is about memory, guilt, and rediscovering truth.
Gat Patil
The outsider. Gat is the nephew of Cadence’s aunt’s boyfriend, not blood-related to the Sinclairs, but part of the “Liars” crew. Smart, thoughtful, politically aware, he challenges the Sinclair family’s privilege and Cady’s worldview. Also, he’s her love interest.
Mirren Sinclair
Cadence’s cousin. Sweet, stylish, and sensitive, Mirren plays the role of the “golden girl” but struggles under the weight of family expectations. She’s part of the Liars and shares a close bond with Cady.
Johnny Sinclair
Another cousin and Liar. Charismatic and fun-loving, Johnny brings humor and energy to the group. He’s loyal to the core, but like the others, he’s hiding something beneath his sunny exterior.
Harris Sinclair
Cady’s grandfather. Patriarch of the Sinclair family. He’s rich, controlling, and obsessed with the family legacy, often pitting his daughters against each other in twisted power plays.
Penny, Carrie & Bess
Harris’s three daughters (Cady’s mom and aunts). They’re constantly fighting over inheritance and family status, using their kids as pawns. Toxic AF and quite annoying in the series.
The eight episodes of “We Were Liars” alternate between past and present, easily distinguished by Cady’s hairstyle. In the flashbacks, she’s the golden Sinclair child with the family’s signature blonde hair. In the present, she’s dyed it black, part rebellion, part rejection of her racist grandfather. Every summer, Cady usually meets her cousins and Gat at her family’s private island. But after the accident in her “Summer 16,” she returns to the island hoping to reconnect and recover her lost memories.
Weirdly, her cousins Johnny and Mirren refuse to tell her anything about the accident, why she washed up on the shore alone or why they completely ghosted her for a year. Even Gat is frustratingly evasive. They all hint that Cady’s mother has instructed them not to trigger her and to let her piece things together on her own.
Oddly enough, we rarely see “The Liars” interact with any adults in the present timeline of “We Were Liars”. The flashbacks reveal how deeply smitten Cady was with Gat, and how he seemed to reciprocate. Johnny, noticing their growing closeness, subtly warns them not to mess up the group dynamic, hinting that a breakup could ruin things. But Cady and Gat don’t care. That is, until Gat starts acting hot and cold, and then Cady finds out he already has a girlfriend. He gives her a vague excuse about never being accepted by the Sinclair family because of his background. Sure, whatever.
As fragments of memory return, Cady recalls Johnny having issues at school, Mirren grappling with her mother’s affair, and all three mothers constantly fighting for their father Harris’s attention. Things spiral further after Cady’s grandmother dies, sparking a ridiculous fight over who will inherit her pearls. Then Johnny’s mother abruptly breaks up with her long-time boyfriend Ed (Gat’s uncle). Turns out, Harris made her choose between her inheritance and her Indian-origin partner. Charming. At the funeral, Cady tries giving Gat the cold shoulder, but they eventually reconcile. Still, Cady knows her grandfather will never approve of them being together.
Episode 7 of “We Were Liars” reaches a turning point: Cady argues with her grandfather, he falls and is rushed to the hospital. Everyone goes, except “The Liars”: Cady, Johnny, Mirren, and Gat. Then, in an incredibly misguided move, Cady comes up with a plan to burn down her grandfather’s house, along with his will, so he’ll stop manipulating his daughters. Because, apparently, destroying property is the solution. Only a privileged, arrogant teen would think arson is a fix for generational trauma. But somehow, the others agree.
They set the house on fire. And in Episode 8 of “We Were Liars”, it’s revealed that everyone except Cady dies in the fire. Cady, Johnny, and Mirren were supposed to light the place, while Gat waited with a boat. But Johnny and Mirren don’t make it out. Cady tries to save the family’s golden retrievers, and then wastes precious time retrieving her grandmother’s pearls. Gat, seeing the fire spread and no one coming out, runs back into the house.
Cady finally understands why no one contacted her for a year: they were all dead. She has been hallucinating their presence, aided by the meds she’s been on. The adults never mention the truth, trying to shield her from more trauma. Maybe in the novel, this ending must have been a lot more emotional, but in the live-action adaptation, it feels more of a cheat-code, where viewers of “We Were Liars” are constantly deceived over some big mystery of might’ve happened to Cady, only to reveal that she is responsible for her own ordeal.
Although, sure, the climactic events of “We Were Liars” also makes sense. After all, who could’ve dared to hurt the wealthy, golden child of the Sinclair family? Not any outsider for sure.
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