Well, Shadowhunters was certainly interesting this week. In last week’s episode we were shocked by the death of Jocelyn Fray, which was quite unexpected for fans of the book series. With that, we knew this episode would heavily focus on the passing of Jocelyn and how Clary would cope with the loss of her mother.

The episode opens with Alec firing aimlessly with his bow and arrow, and you can easily see he isn’t handling it well. Since Jocelyn’s blood is now somewhat on his hands, as he was possessed by the demon which resulted in her death, he isn’t sure exactly how to feel. He runs from Jace and the Institute and turns up at Magnus’ place, which was sweet as it show their relationship is developing.

Then there’s Clary. With Simon by her side, he tries to help but it’s not working. Another upsetting problem is the two can’t get on to Luke, who needs to know, especially after that kiss last week! Whilst chatting to Simon, Clary comes up with the idea to bring her mother back from the dead, and we all know, that never ends well. She runs to Magnus, since he is the only warlock she knows, but Magnus doesn’t dabble in this dark magic. Since he can’t giver her what she wants, he instead gives Clary a memory of his in the form of a photo from the first time he met Clary with Jocelyn.

Naturally she’s not happy. She turns to the Institute’s files and discovers a local warlock named Iris, who of course emits a creepy vibe from the second she opens the door. Iris tells Clary she can do it, in exchange for a favour she will collect one day—has Clary never read a single fairytale? Favours never end well. Plus there’s also a creepy child in the window, where are the alarm bells?

Meanwhile, Izzy and Jace traing together since Aldertree has benched Jace. The scene was pleasant and fun, as the two don’t get much one-on-one time. Unfortunately Izzy’s wound isn’t healing well, and with a trip to the Iron Sisters coming up, she wants in.

Izzy goes to Aldertree to ask to join the Iron Sisters mission, but Aldertree sees her wound and denies the request. However, Izzy is desperate to go and so, Aldertree offers her a medicine to help heal it, which turns out to be yin fen. What is yin fen, you may ask? The drug originates from The Infernal Devices series and is a highly addictive warlock drug and demonic poison, which gives the users an energetic high. It’s interesting that Shadowhunters keeps introducing more elements from the TID series, could this all be leading to a much bigger plot? With the casting announcement of Sebastian last week, the show also announced he would be from the London Institute instead and would come into play via a character we already know. Perhaps Aldertree is in fact Sebastian? Surely not, it feels too obvious. Or perhaps the two are friends and he calls Sebastian to the Institute? However, giving Izzy the yin fen feels like something book-Sebastian would do….

Alec runs into Clary and he decides to join her on the mission to bring Jocelyn back, which felt slightly out of character, but at the warlock’s house he increasingly becomes suspicious and much more Alec-like. Clary decides to stop the spell after finally realising something is amiss, but Iris still wants her favour. Iris decrees she will impregnate Clary with a demon she has to create hybrid Shadowhunter-warlocks, as Valentine is killing their race.

She traps Clary in the basement with the demon, and this episode just took a serious turn. A black-writhing figure comes out and while it looks visually cool, this feels a bit too extreme. At least when warlock babies are usually made, the demons are in the form of a male and it’s usually somewhat consensual?

Luckily Jace realises what Clary and Alec are up to, so himself and Izzy race to help them. But have no fear, Clary and her stele are here! While attempting to fight back with no weapons, a rune appears on the wall, so she copies it down on the palm of her hand and out pours a burst of light, which instantly kills the demon. Jace catches the end of the display, and tells her to keep it a secret.

The Shadowhunters return to the Institute for the funeral of Jocelyn and the Silent Brothers (Cool band name, Simon?). It was strange the dead Silent Brothers were there, shouldn’t they do something different for their kind? The way they distributed their essence into the sky was sweet, and the emotions were definitely felt again at the end of this episode so at least the acting is gradually becoming better. While Jocelyn hasn’t been the most important, or greatest, character, let’s hope she returns somehow.

Oh, how could we forget. Whilst all this was happening, Simon returned home and we saw lots of him and his family. Simon tells his mother he is a vamp, which of course means she’s going to call a doctor, but when she finds him draining a bag of blood, maybe he was telling the truth. It feels strange Simon would return to his home as he will endanger his family, surely someone can find him a suitable place to live?

At the end of the episode, we find Luke lying butt-naked on the ground staring at the sky, maybe a full moon or did something happen? Hopefully we find out next week when Izzy and Clary make a trip to the Iron Sisters to meet his mother and sister.

Shadowhunters returns next week with ‘Iron Sisters’.

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Shadowhunters stepped up last week with a decent episode, and this continued on with their latest episode, which was full of some surprising twists and turns.

Last week ended with Jace saving Alec from the effects of the Parabatai stone, but Jacec was quickly taken by the Clave. The show opens with Clary visiting the City of Bones to see Jace. The new showrunners talked about broadening the sets this season to make it feel more realistic and come across as more of a ‘larger world’, so we get to see the City on a much larger scale. However, the City seems much darker and full of screaming, which felt like a little too much and felt more like the pits of Hell.

Clary speaks to Jace who is held captive in a cell, and he tells her to leave. The chemistry between the two is still there, but unlike last season, it doesn’t feel as forced. Later on we also discover Hodge is next-door prisoner with Jace, and the two chat a little with Hodge admitting he did the wrong thing.

Magnus and Alec are attempting to plan their first date, which is something fans are very excited to see as this wasn’t included in the books until The Bane Chronicles. But alas, demons are getting in the way and they most postpone their date, but only until next week. It was great to see Alec not being as harsh towards Magnus since Jace isn’t at large anymore, hopefully their relationship will continue to blossom as lovely as it does in the book series.

With a demon attack in the city, the gang must go hunting, except their down one team member. Despite Alec’s reluctance, Clary will be joining them on her first official hunt. The scene is quite amusing with Alec taking point and training Clary how to see the heat signatures of demons, whilst she has to run after him because of Daddario’s long legs.

Somehow the demon makes its way into the Institute within the dead body they bring with them, and it moves on as a black smoke through an air vent, which is very reminiscent of Supernatural. 

Apparently due to Valentine dabbling in demon business, demons now have an advanced cloaking ability making it impossible for their devices to detect them… The black smoke inhabits the body of Raj (the awfully awkward Shadowhunter from last week) and he tries to kill Lydia, but Alec saves the day with his faithful bow and arrow.

The next person to be taken over is Alec, and it doesn’t end well as Clary finds him covered in blood and very confused.  She enters the room to discover her mother in a pool of blood. With Jocelyn dead, Clary holds some anger towards Alec, but it sets her on a mission to find the demon and kill it herself.

Meanwhile, why have one death when they can have multiple? Valentine enters the City of Bones with his minions in order to get the Mortal Sword and Jace. In his path of destruction, he kills at least one Silent Brother and Hodge!

Back at the Institute, Clary is on the hunt and discovers the demon now possesses Isabelle. Alec attempts to take Izzy down without hurting her too much. But Alec becomes pinned to the ground and Clary stabs her in the back, which releases the demon from her. With a slow swipe of her blade, she kills the demon.

The episode ends with Jace returning to the Institute and seeing the group bloody and sad. He goes to console Clary, but Simon pushes in front of him and gets to her first.

While the episode was better in most aspects, such as acting, dialogue and in visuals, the plot raised some questions. Since it’s very obvious the show has gone off on a tangent from the book series in order to keep it fresh and interesting for everyone, it felt wrong to kill off Jocelyn. While it will most likely play a key role in developing Clary’s character, it cancels out a few plots which occurred in later books. There’s also nothing more annoying than seeing two characters get together, only to be ripped apart from one another. Luke is going to be utterly heartbroken, which means there will eventually be a new love interest for him.

Next week’s episode is title ‘Dust and Shadows’, and Clary attempts to bring Jocelyn back from the dead, which never ends well in any TV series.

What did you think of the episode?

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Shadowhunters has certainly stepped up in this episode and possibly delivered one of the best episodes of the series so far. But as usual, there are always some flaws.

Last week we saw quite a few cringe-worthy moments—from the baby Sebastian killing flowers flashback to introducing yet another tracking method into the show, along with the usual cheesy or overly explanatory dialogue and odd camerawork. But this week the show seemed better, which is interesting because Shadowhunters is scheduled to change writers starting next week and it feels like they’ve only just found their footing.

The episode opens with a flashback scene starring young Alec and Jace, as Alec is still suffering the effects of the Adamas stone from the previous episode. Despite past Shadowhunters flashbacks, this one seemed to work. The young actors may not have been the best, but the dialogue reflected the character’s well and these kids actually looked a little like their older selves. The Alec-Jace flashbacks continue throughout the episode, and for some bizarre reason, they choose to use a different set of actors who look to be about 16.

Why is this odd? Well towards the end of the episode we see the Parabatai ritual with the two older actors. The ritual can be taken up until the age of 19, but Jace and Alec became Parabatai not long after they met. It felt rather unnecessary and a little confusing to use different actors when the younger versions could have been used. Also, Izzy’s younger self didn’t look right. It feels like they didn’t try very hard to find someone who looked like Emeraude.

Jace washes up on a beach after jumping off Valentine’s ship with Clary and without his stele, the Mundanes see him! They assume he has killed the werewolf girl who washed up on the shore with him—funny that Clary and Jace got separated, but the dead werewolf ended up at the same place as him.

With the Clave hot on Jace’s tail, he heads to the Hunter’s Moon to call Izzy. We also get to see a not very realistic set, anyone want to work at Any Product Inc? It is here we meet Maia, who works as a bartender. Maia’s character was introduced in City of Ashes and she becomes quite prominent throughout the books. Visually, she fits Maia’s description and as for her dialogue so far, she has the sass and the anger of her book counterpart. What was Jace thinking heading to a Downworlder’s bar… He quickly ends up in a fight and now has the werewolves after him too.

Meanwhile, Magnus is trying to help save Alec and feels quite frustrated with himself that his magic can’t help. What about the Silent Brothers? With it being runic-based magic, wouldn’t they be able to help? Magnus has a few run-ins with Jocelyn, Aldertree and a Shadowhunter named Raj (please don’t come back).

Jace ends up in a mundie hospital where they discover he has unusual blood. Luke and Maia soon track him to the hospital and the two go about searching for him. Maia is the first to track him down and she decides to shift. This is possibly one of the best changes in the show. We knew there would be special effects changes, but making the werewolf transformation more gruesome and painful was certainly excellent to see.

As they continue to save Alec, he is moved to Magnus’ apartment. It seems as though he tries to wake Alec with a kiss, which seemed sweet if not a little cheesy. Izzy finds Jace and brings him to the apartment where we see Jace speak the words of the Parabatai ritual along with the flashback of their ritual together. He brings Alec back, but Jace is soon taken by Aldertree and the Clave.

The highlights of the episode would have to be Maia shifting and Shadowhunters finally creating an emotional scene where it felt raw and genuine, rather than cheesy.

Shadowhunters returns next week with ‘Day of Wrath’ where the Institute is infiltrated once again, Hodge returns and there appears to be a Lucelyn kiss!

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Shadowhunters returned after last week’s average premiere and fell short yet again due to the same reoccurring issues. The episode picks up right after the premiere’s shocking ending where Jocelyn attempted to shoot Jace, except Valentine stepped in the way to take the hit.

Clary and the gang return to the Institute where herself and Jocelyn get into an argument over Jocelyn’s actions. Jocelyn explains Valentine’s experiments to Clary, and then uses the cringe-worthy memory sharing rune. In the flashback, we see Jocelyn with baby Jonathan, who has completely demonic black eyes, which would be an obvious sign to anyone as to whether they are good or evil. Baby Jonathan then makes a flower shrivel, just to show how truly evil he is. Since this wasn’t in the books, as the show has gone off on its own path, it’s unclear if they are setting Jonathan up to have some evil magical power.

As mentioned in last week’s recap, the show comes across disjointed with its plot and camerawork. For example, the scene between Clary and Jocelyn ended awkwardly as it cuts to the title sequence or even shots not lining up properly and making scenes feel very jumpy. Victor Aldertree questions Simon about the vampires and maybe it’s the British accent, but the scenes he has been in so far feel quite genuine.

The conflict between Alec and Clary feels very reminiscent of their book counterparts. With that being said, it feels as though Alec could have been a little more forceful in his words, or perhaps because of Magnus, he is being a little more restrained.

Cut to new scene at a random dojo with flickering lights and disappearing people. We then find out Valentine is taking people who are young and athletic, because they’re better soldiers. Also, hooray for Aldertree finally acknowledging Clary’s lack of training.

Due to the past few scenes, Clary is feeling sad and this is quite clear with the slightly overly dramatic music playing. Isabelle comes to attempt to comfort her, but Clary realises what has become of her life and decides to leave. Who knew orange hair stood out so much in New York and that its inhabitants only wear monochrome clothing?

Raphael returns in this episode as the Clave wishes to speak to him about Camille and this was a highlight as the exchange between himself and Simon just felt good. Another highlight scene features both Alec and Isabelle at a fight club, where Izzy then kicks ass. Both the characters came across more themselves with Alec being protective and Izzy being utterly sassy.

While Magnus and Simon are both lovable characters, having the two sharing the same scene for so long becomes a little tedious. Simon learns to finally encanto, which now means he can also control animals. However, it was nice to receive more background on Magnus’ character and his desire to help fresh Downworlders, just as he helped Raphael in The Bane Chronicles.

Dot reappears in this episode, and for some reason, Clary isn’t concerned to see her again, let alone her being covered in black veins. So naturally, she follows Dot through a portal leading to Valentine’s ship. Don’t forget the utter relief upon discovering Clary couldn’t actually see the future and instead was spelled by Dot. Hopefully she was spelled to deliver that awful line ‘You took me on my first motorcycle ride’.

Another tracking method for Shadowhunters, how many are there now? Fans of the book may be aware Luke’s mother is Sister Cleophas, one of the Iron Sisters, but it seems odd she would break the Law to give Luke a piece of Adamas. Typically they join the Iron Sisters and don’t see their family again. The Adamas is then used by Alec to track and see Jace through their parabatai bond, but there can be serious repercussions.

The fight scenes remain impressive, but the inclusion of slow-mo effects ruins them. The episode then ends abruptly and on a sub-par note with Valentine killing the female werewolf. It felt like there should have been another scene, but there wasn’t.

Overall, the episode missed the mark again, more so than last week. There were a few scenes where it became a little confusing and may have needed a rewind to make sense of it all.

Shadowhunters returns next week with ‘Parabatai Lost’, where we will be introduced to Maia and see the team attempt to save Jace and Alec from the effects of the Adamas stone.

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The first episode picks up right where it left off as Jace leaves with Valentine to protect his friends. Clary seems to have acclimated quite well to discovering the guy she shared passionate kisses with is actually her brother. On the other hand, Jace appears a little more confused, which seems like the more appropriate response.

Changes to the show are immediately noticeable in the first scene with Jace and Valentine fighting. If the blades they used in this scene are seraph blades, they have changed both visually and in sound, as they sound more like swords rather than lightsabers. These small, but necessary, changes can be accredited to the new showrunners, Darren Swimmer and Todd Slavkin. The overall feel and appearance of the show has changed immensely. The visual effects gets a big thumbs up as the portals have turned from an awful glittery purple haze into more of a walk-through whirlpool.

While these can be chalked up as the positives, there are some new negatives. Only fifteen minutes into the show, it becomes quite jarring with a continual back and forth between character close-ups. Not only this, but the director has attempted to make the settings feel more realistic by using wider angle and panning shots, with many of them feeling quite unnecessary and awkward. The sets have been expanded so this can be done, but one thing that remains frustrating is how some sets still look fake, such as the rooms in the Institute.

The episode plot and dialogue still feel off. The scene where Clary and Jocelyn reunite lacks chemistry, although Jocelyn does come across as overprotective just like her book counterpart. This scene is a clear example of the issues with the plot as Jocelyn replies with ‘that’s impossible’ which then cuts to a new scene with different characters, and then back to Jocelyn and Clary again. The scene in between provided no substance to the conversation and these disruptive or abruptly ending scenes appear to happen quite often in the show.

It was great to see more intense fight scenes, although the camera work could have been a little better. The training scene between Isabelle and Clary was fun to watch, especially when you think about how duration of the show is only over a few weeks and Clary really hasn’t had that much training. But alas, during the fight sequences, the music becomes a little too overbearing, especially in the last fight sequence with Jace and the vampires.

The vampires! We have more realistic vampires! The slow-mo effect added to the killing of each vampire wasn’t necessary as it wasn’t a fight sequence which will leave you in awe (think Arrow and The Flash). Simon has had a few tweaks to his character which will be exciting to see as he grows (or doesn’t) as a vampire. Simon is definitely the character who provides the comedic relief, but sometimes it just feels like he is there to fill in the blanks to get another character from point A to B.

The same can be said for Magnus with his witty remarks, or even when the show needs a bit ‘oomph’ they can just throw in a shirtless scene where he is doing tai chi magic on the balcony. It seems like Magnus and Alec’s growing relationship will be a big part of the season as Alec is struggling coming to terms with kissing Magnus.

Honourable mention to Nick Sagar on his character, Victor Aldertree. His acting and lines felt genuine and not forced, the same can be said for Alan Van Sprang, the master of evil and manipulative characters.

Dishonourable mention to the following: the bizarre memory sharing rune, which felt a little extreme, and it’s time for the shapeshifting rune to disappear as it feels odd that it can be used and Shadowhunters not see through it like a glamour. Also, 3D maps, luscious wigs and unrealistic night backdrops.

Bonus points for a proper title sequence instead of the five second clip in season one.

Shadowhunters will be back after its dramatic and surprising ending on January 9th with ‘A Door Into the Dark’.

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