Last week's excellent episode focused on the trials and tribulations of the Valentine/Magnus body swap. This week's episode mainly focuses on multiple deaths of Shadowhunters at the hands of what appears to be Downworlders, and how the Clave and the New York Institute choose to react to these deaths. From this main storyline, the episode splits into two main parts; the investigation of the murders, and the safeguarding of communities as a result of it. Somehow they also manage to cram in a few kidnappings, a few deaths, a few imprisonments, and a few kisses.
Two of the main characters discover the first known Shadowhunter death in this episode, which the Institute swiftly investigates, with two other characters then trying to get to the bottom of the events of the first death, and the murders which follow. With the differing methods used to kill the Shadowhunters, suspicion is placed on every Downworlder in New York, and causes Shadowhunters to distrust those around them. In order to figure out exactly who is committing these murders, the Shadowhunters involved in the case may have to gain outside help from some familiar faces.
At the heart of it, though the show never really goes there in actually and properly addressing it, Shadowhunters is an incredibly political concept. This episode shines a bit of a light on that but never that deep, which is a shame. Maia does say that the Clave treats Downworlders like they're pets, and she puts up a fight to what can definitely be seen as unfair treatment, but this show could probably benefit from having at least one episode that truly explores how Shadowhunters as a whole usually treat Downworlders as secondary citizens.
As part of the main storyline running throughout this episode, we're allowed us to see a side of Jace that we haven't seen much of before, which was a nice treat. For me, Jace is a character that is hugely loyal to those he sees as family, but also has a lot of issues surrounding his sense of belonging, and this episode really played into that. He makes some decisions that people might not agree with or like, and some other decisions that people may like, but everything he does for the majority of the episode seems to born out of his sense of loyalty. This is a bit of a big episode for Jace, but once again, he seems to let his stubbornness get the better of him, and that might influence a decision he makes in the last scene we see...
In other scenes this week, Luke gets to be the caring father figure that everyone would want, Izzy steps up in order to be a tutor to a young Shadowhunter, and Simon gains some interesting admirers.
A couple of little teasers:
- One character sings in this episode whilst two others dance (though not at the same time).
- A ship, or two, could possibly be born.
- A change in power occurs at the Institute.
- A team up happens between a couple of Downworlders.
- The very first scene features a voiceover and a pretty cool montage.