That time jump from when viewers last saw the two original show characters joining the spin-off, Alison DiLaurentis (Pieterse) and Mona Vanderwaal (Janel Parrish), allowed for the characters to grow up a little bit and end up in a new place in their lives and careers. When we last saw Ali, she had just proposed to her girlfriend Emily (Shay Mitchell) and was helping raise their young twin daughters . Mona was living in Paris and working at a doll shop, still up to her old dollhouse games. But when The Perfectionists picks up, Ali has just taken a job far away from Rosewood, Pennsylvania. A trailer shows she's now a teaching assistant at the fictional Beacon Heights University in Oregon , according to The Oregonian. Mona's reason for being in Beacon Heights has something to do with the University, so clearly Paris didn't work out long term for her.