Raise your hand if you prefer the mystery side of PLL to the ships

“OKAY. WOW. MARLENE, you really did it. I didn’t expect to be sucked back into this world so quickly. It’s amazing how before this episode, I haven’t been glued to the TV screen like I used to be since the last episode of PLL aired. 

- Let’s start off with the catchy intro scene that played Lady Gaga’s Poker Face and featured a nice little voiceover by Ava. I thought that was a really fun way to introduce us to the three main characters. 

- Torn on whether or not I actually like the new intro + song. I get where they’re coming from; the song is much more darker and a little more edgier. It just sounds a little too autotuned. Something fun that I look forward to though is that during every episode’s opening there’s going to be a fun little easter egg that teases what’s to come in the episode.

- “The reasons I was there escaped me.” Okay, I’m actually kinda cool with this answer. Mary and Alex escaped Mona in France. They have no game to play with the liars anymore so Mona has kinda let them roam Europe. It kinda makes way for a potential reunion/mini-series/film somewhere down the road. 

- “Emily loves me, she just can’t get past the past. We are [happy], then we’re not. It always comes back to trust. But I’m not giving up.” Also kinda cool with this answer. It’s a really logical way for them to have her in Beacon Heights and grow as a person. Marlene didn’t make fans wait 7 seasons to have Emison live on happily ever after, only to come back 2 years later and break them up. Trust me when I say that Emison is and always will be endgame. This is just the way it has to be to have Ali in the spinoff. 

- Beacon Guard. Creepy. Mona talking to herself in the mirror. Creepier. BUT, fun little reference of two Mona’s kinda going back to her Multiple Personalities that were shown in PLL. Also, as if Ali didn’t hear Mona talking in the kitchen and think wtf???

- The introduction to the four characters in Ali’s class was really fun. I enjoyed that. I really like these new characters. 

- By Mona’s calculations Nolan could be dangerous. Genius.

- “Two mums don’t always make a right.” OUCH. 

- It wouldn’t be PLL if you didn’t have a character wonder off into the woods on the phone to a stranger telling them “I need to see you.”

- SHOCK. We were all right. Nolan’s sister Taylor is alive. They’re up to something MAJOR. Nolan sabotaged his relationship with Ava to protect her. 

- Nolan and Taylor are spying on Beacon Guard because they are spying on a select group of students. They’re trying to find out why in order to bring them down. Nolan knows someone who can help but Taylor insists it is too dangerous. 

- Cute trio scene in the woods with our perfs. They joke about the ways they could kill Nolan. Someone is out there with them though, and heard their conversation. Meanwhile, Ali peels off her wallpaper to reveal “someone’s watching.”

- Nolan meets someone on the roof. He apologises to them for being an asshole and tells them that time is running out and that Taylor is alive. He asks them for their help. Cut to Nolan’s body being found THE EXACT SAME WAY Caitlin joked about killing him. Oh-o. 

- Mona walks into the bathroom and tells a girl who looks like a younger Loser Mona to get out. She starts talking to the mirror AGAIN, but this time we learn that Beacon Guard is watching EVERYTHING. They are shocked about Nolan’s death, including Mona herself. 

- LOTS of good things to come. STAY TUNED. 

- Overall, I rate the episode a 9/10. It had all the essentials needed for a pilot episode. Bring on episode 2!

The Perfectionists - What we know:

Episode 1:

•Alex and Mary escaped Mona. Mona originally came to BHU for game design, but now works for admissions.

•Alison and Emily are having problems because of Emily’s trust issues, but Ali wants to work things out and no longer be the mean girl.

•Mona tells Ali that she was the one who got her in at BHU, but Ali finds out that there may be other reasons for her being there.

•Ava has a youtube channel and isn’t a very good student. (Olivia Jade much? lol)

•Dylan was doing Ava and Nolan’s work for them.

•Caitlin is pretending to date Nolan while her real boyfriend is Jeremy.

•Nolan was really daring Ava but he broke up with her.

•Dylan is dating Andrew, but he cheated on him with Nolan and Nolan was using it to blackmail him.

•Nolan was also blackmailing Caitlin with the information that her mom cheated on her other mom.

•Taylor Hotchkiss is known to have committed suicide, but is actually alive and Nolan knows this.

•Claire Hotchkiss wants her son to be under surveillance.

•There’s a surveillance system on campus called Beacon Guard that Mona apparently is working for, and talks to through mirrors?

•Nolan’s killer is someone who knows him well and someone Nolan needed for help, someone he trusted to tell his sister was alive. Maybe their dad?

•Alison looked at Ava, Caitlin, Dylan, and Nolan’s files and knows some of their secrets and wants to help them.

•Ali and Taylor look eerily similar and Ali lives in Taylor’s old house.

•Taylor and Nolan are working together to figure out why “they” are watching everyone.

•Ava, Caitlin, and Dylan talked about how they would kill Nolan, and he ended up dying in the same way Caitlin said.

•According to next weeks preview, someone is going to make it look like Alison killed Nolan.

I wanted to make this into its own separate post, because even though it relates to the one I just posted, in a way it’s kind of a separate issue.

“Go to your safe place.”

I thought that phrase sounded familiar, and now I remember where I remember it from.

Now back to The Perfectionists, take a close look at the girl who Mona kicks out of the bathroom right before freaking out at the mirror.

The glasses, the clothes…that doesn’t seem like it can be a coincidence. And then, right after Mona rushes in, in a state that’s agitated and just short of hysterical, we get this line from the woman behind the monitors:

I’m not sure one way or the other how I feel about this scene yet, but could this be a possible indication that that room with the screens and people with clipboards really is just a figment of her imagination? Or, if it’s real, a sign that she’s close to a breakdown, just like near the end of PLL?