If you’ve watched Pretty Little Liars, then you’ll appreciate its spin-off–Pretty Little Liars; The Perfectionists. Never wanting to leave a mystery unsolved, we followed Alison DiLaurentis (Sasha Pieterse) and Mona Vanderwaal (Janel Parrish) from the notorious Rosewood, to the perfect town of Beacon Heights. They’ve both tried to leave the craziness of their hometown behind them and start fresh at Beacon Heights University; where being anything short of exceptional is unacceptable.
The Perfectionists and Pretty Little Liars have a lot in common, as is expected of originals and their spin- offs. By now, we’ve all become accustomed to the stalker-serial killer theme that the series bases its story upon. The Perfectionists’ fate is just as eerie and equally as thrilling. It’s not a necessity to watch Pretty Little Liars first, since so far, the show seems to have a plot outside of the liars’ drama, but there are certain scenes where the little town of Rosewood is mentioned that might confuse you if you’re not a Pretty Little Liars fan.
In this spin-off, three college students have their not- so perfect lives completely derailed and scrutinized when the leader of their group is murdered and naturally, they’re the main suspects. Ava Jalali, (Sofia Carson), Caitlin Park-Lewis (Sydney Park) and Dylan Walker (Eli Brown) are Beacon Heights University’s overachievers, but surely being so perfect all the time has its side effects. They each have their own secrets to keep locked away, some more pressing than others but they’re all under the same pressure. Who’s keeping their secrets hostage? We’ve played this game before. Yet somehow the mature turn that the show has taken makes me want to watch it even more. The main cast is older, hopefully wiser, and they’ve got quite the experienced council.
How can there be a spin-off, without continuing the stories of our original anti-heroes, Alison DiLaurentis and Mona Vanderwaal? Towards the end of Pretty Little Liars, the time jump helped us to see at least one our protagonists grow from a juvenile delinquent to a mature young woman. We’ve seen Alison move from the teenage bully, to a working mother but we’ve appreciated that Mona has stayed true to her creepy, secretive ways. Obviously, some things never change. But moving from Rosewood was supposed to be their new start, and they’ve unknowingly inserted themselves into another game where they don’t hold all the cards.
It’s Rosewood, 2.0
