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Shadowhunter of the Week: Clary
Previously: Clary creates a rune that takes her and Jace to Valentine’s cabin near Lake Lyn, where Sebastian/Jonathan had recently held Valentine hostage until Valentine convinced Jonathan that they should work together instead; and Valentine’s old journals revealed that he had been experimenting on both Jace and Jonathan.
Since most of the characters aren’t yet aware that Sebastian is Jonathan, I think I’m going to use them interchangeably depending on the context. (For now, anyway. Everyone else, clue in soon so he can go back to having one name!)
What Happened
Clary and Jace follow a hunch that Valentine and Jonathan are gathering the Mortal Instruments in order to summon the angel Raziel and wish for the end of the Downworld. Each pair is trying to locate the last Instrument, the Mortal Mirror, with ‘Sebastian’ playing both sides and intercepting Clary and Jace in his true form. Clary’s on the verge of convincing her brother to join her, until Dot creates an escape portal for the Shadowhunters and tries to fend off Jonathan singlehandedly.
Word of the Soul Sword’s disappearance finally reaches our lycanthrope and warlock leaders, with Magnus super pissed at Alec’s secrecy and outright deceit in service of the Clave. Luke tries to calm him down, but an alliance with the Clave-hating Seelie Queen seems pretty dang good to Magnus right about now.
Meanwhile, Maia’s been keeping Simon at an arm’s length due to bad relationship experience, but she’s def. romantically interested in him. And Izzy’s had to get over her overprotectiveness of Max due to the v. real danger of Valentine… only to have Max stumble into the v. real danger of discovering that Sebastian is Jonathan.
Shadowhighlights
- LOLOLLOLLL, shirtless Jace to the rescue from Clary’s night terrors. (Although I do wonder how rune placement gets decided, since it definitely could have been more artful.)
- Elliott’s bookstore, Ouroboros!
- Luke’s chuckle at Simon pursuing yet another of his surrogate daughters.
- Banner episode for ladies whom I had written off as dead numerous times: Dot and Cleo! Also glad to see Dot looking healthy again.
- The show’s really working at bringing Izzy and Simon closer together, but I can’t say that I’m mad at it. Plus, Simon hamming it up for Max’s training session ranks as one of my favourite moments of his.
Shadowlowlights
- The seriousness of Clary’s underwater nightmare vision was undercut by how much it reminded me of the merman ad in Zoolander. (Minus the drowning bits, anyway.)
- I can’t even with Alec telling Max that he’s ready for his first mission when the two of them barely fit in the same frame together. Matthew Daddario having, like, 2 feet and 15+ years on his screen partner does not help with my impression of Max being super young.
- Gaslighter extraordinaire Valentine telling Elliott that to be grateful that his life was spared. Yeah — because you put it in danger in the first place, asshole.
- All that became of the Jace/Maia hookup was a couple of throwaway lines? Why even put them together in the first place if you’re not going to MINE TEH DRAMZ?!? (But LOLZ at Maia spilling to Izzy unprompted. What a gossip!)
- This is something that’s always bugged me, but why tf does Jade Wolf have to be every freaking Chinese restaurant stereotype? At least drop the ‘WE ARE IN A CHINESE RESTAURANT’ background music, FFS.
- MALEC FIGHTING </3 And not an unreasonable or contrived fight at all, which makes that much scarier of an obstacle. (NGL, Alec’s rationale of shielding Magnus from the burden of the truth is pretty condescending. He’s a grown-ass warlock!)
- OMG CLARY AND JACE, work out your shit AFTER the vital mission! (Or preferably before, since y’all should have really come up with a game plan for dealing with Jonathan ahead of time.)
- OH DAMMIT Simon is singing again. I appreciate the hustle and it’s not like the music is offensively awful, but these scenes take me out of the show entirely.
Shadowhunter of the Week
Poor Clary practically spent the entire episode in tears. Despite all that she’s been through (and it is A LOT), she manages to hang onto her compassion for her long-lost, demon-blooded brother. I was so hoping that she’d get through to Jonathan and not have her faith in others completely shattered, ’cause girlfriend really needs to catch a break. (She might yet still, though!)
Say What?
Alec: “All the legends are true.”
OH, GROAN — the show made Alec say the tagline. (I feel like this may have also happened before with someone else?)
Clary: “It’s Jonathan, my brother.”
Clary says, just as Sebastian walks into frame. SO SUBTLE.
Valentine: “Which you? Jonathan or Sebastian?”
Valentine keeps asking all my questions for me, I swear.
Simon: “Look, after the Seelie Court business, I’m done chasing girls who only want to be my friend.”
Isabelle: “I didn’t take you for a quitter.”
Simon: “Easy for you to say. When was the last time you got shot down?”
Isabelle: “You’d be surprised.”
WHAT. What kind of Lloyd Dobler bullshit is this Simon and Izzy convo?!? (Also, RAPHAEL </3)
Maia: “I know this is going to be difficult, but I’m going to ask you to not speak, OK?”
… and then Simon promptly fails to fulfill the request.
Swimfan Says
Here’s Shadowhunter Chronicles expert and co-host of The Parabatai Podcast, Meredith (@legallyblonde), with her thoughts!
- While there was important exposition going on, let’s focus on Jace’s extended shirtlessness for a moment before everything gets terrible, okay?
- There’s a scene in City of Glass where Sebastian kisses Clary, and I’ve been wondering if the show was going to go there. And they did, because Sebastian’s demon blood has done all sorts of things to him, in addition to the special powers. I’m looking forward to seeing how that continues to develop.
- Luke laughing when Simon arrived at the bar to see Maia was probably one of my favorite moments, and the scenes between the two of them were great this week.
- The final scene between Alec and Magnus was incredibly heartbreaking: Alec is between a rock and a hard place of being the Institute Head and Magnus’ boyfriend, while Magnus feels betrayed when their relationship has been huge on honesty. Magnus’ further reaction, when talking to Luke, had me yelling at the TV not to make any rash decisions while heartbroken. (I can’t believe he didn’t listen to me.)
- P.S. I’m really concerned about Max and Dot.
Burning Questions
- Does Dot survive? I’ve been prematurely calling her death since her first appearance, so I’m sitting this one out.
- Was I seeing things, or did Valentine’s serum make Cleo a little demon-y? It kind of looked like she was turning, if not for her resistant Iron Sister blood.
- How did Jocelyn manage to keep two Mortal Instruments AND Clary hidden for so long? The woman we met did not seem capable of much, let alone THAT much.
- SEBASTIAN WHUT WHY IS THIS SHOW OBSESSED WITH INCEST?!?!? Just because Cersei used to be your mom doesn’t mean you have to go full Lannister, Jonathan.
- But most importantly, when will Malec kiss and makeup?!?
