I always loved that about their relationship. He’s a self-loathing, melodramatic guy who needs to talk about his feelings with someone, and Clary is really good at reassuring him. Jace is at a low point right now, and in the books, Clary was always the one to drag him out of those. This whole episode, I kept wishing Jace and Clary could be back together, or at least on better terms than they are now. Instead, he’s learning about the greatness of the Herondales from the horrible Inquisidor, and already feeling like his name something he needs to live up to. A big part of his journey throughout the books is that of finding out about his family and deciding that he wants to be a part of it. He has no reason to want to be a Herondale, because at that point in the story, he doesn’t know anything about that family. In the books, it’s kind of heartbreaking because as much as he wants to know who his real parents were, he has so few connections to them. One of the storylines I was really excited for at the beginning of this half-season was Jace learning more about his heritage. Just… write it with a little more depth and nuance next time. It’s horrifying, but it’s true.Īnd if this is going to be the main storyline of this season, I am so on board. The things the Clave was saying about downworlders, and the solutions they were proposing to this problem, were all things that people actually do say after terrorist attacks. Of course, I get that this is supposed to show how people can be so blinded by their hatred of one group of people that they ignore logic and look for reasons to validate that hatred. You’d think they’d at least be a bit skeptical, especially considering how much Valentine and his followers hate downworlders. It was a bit of a stretch for me to believe that the Clave actually thought a few rogue downworlders, all of different species, had all had the same idea to carve out shadowhunters’ marks. On the other hand, the part of me that appreciates good storytelling is really bothered by how obvious it was that the murders of shadowhunters were all being committed by one person. Shadowhunters has had a lot of trouble finding its stride over the first two seasons, but at this point, we know we can at least count on it to try its best to be progressive. Cassandra Clare’s books have always been very political, and though the parallels have been a lot more heavy handed and harder to miss in the show, I like that that element has been preserved.
The part of me that loves my stories to be political and important is so happy that Shadowhunters has been addressing real-world issues through its treatment of the downworlder/shadowhunter relationship. I’m of two minds about this shadowhunter/downworlder storyline. I don’t see a clear arc for this season yet, but the individual episodes aren’t really doing it for me either. I’m seeing a few book storylines thrown together without much care, and an overarching plot that doesn’t seem to have much direction or substance at the moment. When showrunners make the decision to diverge so much from their source material, they have to be really confident that the original stuff they’re coming up with is interesting enough to keep people watching.
#Shadow hunter season 1 episode 13 series#
If Shadowhunters had stayed close to the books, I wouldn’t care that I already knew what was going to happen, because I’d be entertained by the fact that one of my favourite book series would be coming to life on screen. No, it wouldn’t, because I have different expectations for adaptations. And I know what you’re all thinking: but you wanted the show to stick to the books! Wouldn’t that be even more boring for you? Everything is either way too heavily foreshadowed, or comes completely out of nowhere. Whenever I do get excited about a storyline that I think is going to be really interesting, it lasts about an episode before being dropped. I can tell where the relationships are going.
I always know what’s going to happen, and if I don’t, I don’t really care. There has been little to complain about, honestly.īut the thing is, I’ve also found them so predictable. They’ve had some decent themes, addressed a few important issues. In terms of actual production value, they’ve been pretty good. These last few episodes have not been bad, exactly. And what Those of Demon Blood made me realize is that, in these first three episodes of season 2B, I have been bored. What I have never felt before, though, is boredom. Pride when it actually gets something right. Frustration and disappointment, mainly, but also anticipation. Shadowhunters has been me feel a lot of different things in the last year and a half.