“Pretty Little Liars” ruined our lives for seven years. The storyline was mysterious enough to keep us tuning in, but by the time each episode started getting so convoluted that we couldn’t even tell which characters were dating versus related, it was too late. We needed to know how it all ended -- even though it wouldn’t even make any sense anymore.
“Pretty Little Liars,” based off the same-name book series by Sara Shepard, succeeded as long as it did because of this whirlpool of unknowns. The show decided to take its liberties from the books with the plotlines and twists (understandably, since it wouldn’t be much of a thriller if we all already knew what became of Ali), and as a result, confused the hell out of us.
Now, the creators of “Pretty Little Liars” are giving us “The Perfectionists,” a spinoff from the Liars’ world with the same dark and twisted impression we followed for seven seasons. A teaser trailer has been released for the spinoff, promising a 2019 premiere and a similar premise: a small-town murder investigation.
It’ll be interesting to see if “The Perfectionists” will be able to hold up after PLL. On the one hand, another Shepard book-to-TV series, “The Lying Game,” only made it two seasons before being cancelled; “Pretty Little Liars” could be the anomaly here. Not only that, but “Ravenswood,” the spinoff following Caleb Rivers and his investigation into a town curse with the help of a friendly ghost, only made it a single, 10-episode miniseason. It was kind of weird, but Tyler Blackburn, amirite?
On the other hand, “The Perfectionists” may have one saving grace -- Mona Vanderwaal.
Mona was probably the most inconsistent character in the entirety of “Pretty Little Liars,” but that’s what made her fun to watch. She went from sweet, to vengeful, to downright crazy, to kind of normal, back to crazy and then, finally, to relatively stable. There was always an air of “will she or won’t she?” attached to Mona that kept her narrative engaging.
All we know about “The Perfectionists” so far is that Sasha Pieterse as Ali and Janel Parrish as Mona will be at the forefront and seemingly the only original PLL favorites to return (though we can always speculate on a few guest appearances -- Lucy Hale is supposedly in talks since her CW show “Life Sentence” wasn’t renewed). Our first peek at Mona finds her wielding a knife with a smile plastered on her face, proclaiming, “I brought pie!” Ah, I did miss her.
Ali, on the other hand, was pretty much always annoying. I think she had one decent detail in that she ended up with Emily and had her babies. But, like, we don’t see Emily in the promo, so that could all be out the window. So, my attention (if the show even has it) will be on Mona.
Basically, we have another small-town whodunnit by Sara Shepard that the jury is still out on. Just give Janel Parrish her own show, maybe?