The Heartbreaking Truth: Unraveling the Devastating Character Death in ‘We Were Liars’ That Still Haunts

Candice King, Caitlin Fitzgerald and Mamie Gummer on 'We Were Liars'

Spoiler Alert

Prime Video

[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for We Were Liars Season 1 and Family of Liars by E. Lockhart.]

The shocking finale of Prime Video’s We Were Liars solved many of the Sinclair family mysteries, but one massive question remains: What happened to Rosemary?

During the second episode of We Were Liars, Carrie (Mamie Gummer) reveals that there was once a fourth Sinclair sister. Following their Father’s Day celebration, Penny (Caitlin FitzGerald) asks who came out on top as the favorite daughter, to which Carrie argues, “Let’s be real, none of us stand a chance.” Voicing over a shot of Harris (David Morse) picking up a framed photo of a young girl, she continues, “None of us is going to be his favorite daughter. We grew up, we got messy, and Harris hates mess. So his favorite is always going to be the daughter that didn’t grow up.” The picture frame is then revealed to say “Rosemary – 8th Birthday.”

David Morse as Harris Sinclair holds a photo of Rosemary Sinclair in We Were Liars

E. Lockhart first mentions Rosemary in Family of Liars, which serves as both a prequel and sequel to We Were Liars. During Family of Liars, Lockhart reveals that the youngest Sinclair sister died at only 10 years old. Carrie, who serves as the narrator for Family of Liars, recalls her sister’s untimely death, stating, “It happened at the end of August. Rosemary was swimming at the beach by Goose Cottage. We call it the Tiny Beach. She wore a green bathing suit with little denim pockets on it. Ridiculous pockets. You couldn’t put anything in them. It was her favorite.” She adds, “I wasn’t there. No one in the family was. She was with the au pair we had that year, a twenty-year-old woman from Poland. Agata.”

According to Carrie, Agata had gone inside to fetch some sweaters for her and Rosemary, trusting that Rosemary was a strong swimmer. “When Agata came back outside, Rosemary was far out and struggling. She was beyond the wicked black rocks that line the cove. Agata wasn’t a lifeguard. She didn’t know CPR. She wasn’t even a fast enough swimmer to reach Rosemary in time,” Carrie reveals.

As we now know, present-day Carrie can see the ghost of her late son, Johnny (Joseph Zada).

However, Johnny isn’t the first ghost to haunt Carrie on the island. Throughout Family of Liars, Carrie spends the majority of her time on Beechwood Island comforting the ghost of her youngest sister, while the rest of her family refuses to even mourn her.

During a recent interview with Swooon, We Were Liars creators Julie Plec and Carina Adly MacKenzie revealed that they intend on featuring the plot of Family of Liars in a potential second season. MacKenzie told Swooon, “One of our big intentions in building out the sisters the way that we did was that hopefully viewers will want to know how these villainous women became [the people that they are],” adding that (much like the second book) Season 2 would serve as “the Sinclair sister villain origin story,” while still featuring the present-day cast.

Seeing as the first season of We Were Liars introduced Rosemary’s death as a canon event in the adaptation, we’re fairly certain that her ghost will make an appearance in Season 2, if the show gets renewed. Now, the only question is: Will Rosemary only exist in flashbacks, or will Carrie come face-to-face with two ghosts during the present day?

We Were Liars, Season 1, Prime Video, Streaming Now