Author’s Note: This post has been updated to remove all spoilers. 

Long ago, in a town populated by hooded killers, possessed trains, tech-hacking ghosts, sentient school buildings, puppet devils, feckless fathers, wine moms in basements, pedophiles, homicidal clowns, face-swappers, resurrected youths, Cheeto-eating raccoons, and a law requiring every yard to have at least three barns a teenager could have sex or get axe-murdered in, a star was born. And that star was Mona Vanderwaal. On March 20th, my favorite little papier-mâché-ing psychopath will return to Freeform, in a different spooky town, in the same universe. Joining her will be airplane pilot Alison DiLaurentis, most famous for being pulled from her grave by an elderly, ice-eyed witch. The town is Beacon Heights. The show is Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists.

Now wait a dang second, you’re saying. You just wait an entire dang second. I thought that Alison DiLaurentis was part of #EmisonEndgame and she, like all the straight Liars in Rosewood, was the recipient of a happily ever after. Did she and Emily not rub their bare ankles together in bed in that series finale while their friends were seen having actual sex? And did Alison not wear a sweatshirt with a pug face on it while proposing to Emily with some surely-haunted family heirloom? And did Alison not give birth to the babies comprised of Emily’s stolen ovarian eggs and the sperm of a fake psychiatrist who was murdered by the chimney-sweepin’ secret British twin of their best friend?

Yes, all of those things happened. And yet! Alison has moved halfway across the country without her, in this new Perfectionists trailer. She still loves her family, though, and she pulls out a picture of those twins and puts it in the living room of her new eerie house to prove it.

They’re not living together, but at least Emily’s still alive? She was already pushing her luck, being a lesbian and a woman of color in Rosewood, PA. Marlene King says maybe Emily will make a guest appearance on the show, but that the core four Liars were ready to move on after seven seasons on PLL. For sure, though, you’re getting those babies.

Beacon Heights University is three time zones and thousands of miles away from Rosewood, but Alison’s luck follows her and dead bodies start piling up as soon she arrives. There’s a group of New Liars and they’ve all got secrets too.

I’d say The Perfectionists feels like PLL meets Gossip Girl meets Vampire Diaries meets How to Get Away With Murder. If Ezra Fitz came to town to do a guest lecture and got knifed straight to death, I might actually watch it. Alas, that will never happen and I won’t be able to get invested in it for the reasons I’ve already written ten hundred billion words about over these many years — but I thought you’d like to see this trailer. Only two can keep a secret, after all, if one of them is dead.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdP8tZ09Xfw

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