After losing her mother to a demon in last week’s episode of “Shadowhunters,” Clary decides to take matters into her own hands. She seeks out a warlock to bring her mother back to the dead while Jace tries to fit back in at the Institute and Alec deals with the consequences of his actions.
Alec holds a lot of guilt
Opening the episode isn’t a scene with Clary mourning her mother or Jace having conflict with the other Shadowhunters as you might expect. Instead, it’s Alec shooting arrows off a rooftop in anger. Being the one possessed by a demon who killed Jocelyn cut him deeply.
It’s nice to see Alec hurting, as much of an oxymoron as that sounds like. He’s someone who feels deeply, but masks it with sarcastic quips and angry fights most of the time. Seeing him punishing himself instead of lashing out is an interesting turn for him, especially when he later seeks out Magnus to help him deal with his pain. This is an Alec who is learning how to deal with his emotions.
Simon moves back home
Over the last few weeks, Simon has had a lot of trouble adjusting to his new vampire life. With Joceyln’s death, he’s feeling even more guilty about leaving his family behind and lying to his mother, so he makes the impulsive decision to move back home.
This decision is bad on so many levels!
For one thing, it’s hard to hide that he doesn’t go out during the day, that he’s not eating, and that he’s keeping blood around. All of these things come up when he’s in close quarters with his mother and sister, and it’s less than a day before he’s telling his mother he’s a vampire. You’d think he would have had contingency plans or at least forced himself to hold out a little longer.
Simon, like a lot of the characters on the show, is too impulsive when it comes to getting what he wants, and that’s going to come back to bite him, no pun intended. His mother doesn’t believe that he’s a vampire, though she believes he believes, which should make for some interesting conflict at the very least.
Aldertree is still hard on Jace
To no one’s surprise except for possibly Jace, Aldertree benches Jace. Even though he saved Aldertree’s life, the acting leader of the Institute still doesn’t trust him. Why? Because he saved Aldertree instead of keeping the soul sword from Valentine. From Aldertree’s point of view, this makes sense. The Shadowhunters have to be willing to do whatever it takes -- even sacrifice their own -- for the greater good. Sorry, Jace fans. I’m with Aldertree on this one.
Clary decides to resurrect Jocelyn
Though Clary tells Jace she doesn’t feel anything, she clearly is feeling something, even though she doesn’t realize it until the very end. If she wasn’t, she wouldn’t be so dead-set on bringing her mother back to life.
She finds herself a shady warlock and even gets Alec as an escort. But, of course, nothing goes according to plan.
As it turns out, this warlock is trying to keep her “breed” from dying out. She’s got her own personal demon she’s using to impregnate young women so that they’ll give birth to warlocks and her people can live on. Her methods are awful, but it does make you wonder how many warlocks are out there and just how much danger they’re in. We also haven’t seen the last of her since she escapes while Clary creates a new rune that comes to her in a vision.
The verdict and what’s next
There was a lot of story packed into this episode, but it managed to feel like it was much better balanced than the previous episodes.
Though I’ll keep complaining that there’s not enough Izzy, I’m looking forward to see where her use of a new Shadowhunter drug takes her, in addition to Clary’s newfound ability.
3.5 out of 5 stars.
Clary and Izzy will pay a visit to the “Iron Sisters” next week in an effort to get ahead of Valentine, while Alec and Magnus will finally go on that first date.
