Shadowhunters - A Door Into the Dark - Review + POLL

This week on Shadowhunters, we begin to see more pieces of Valentine’s (psycho) plan. Simon is tasked with finding Camille so he teams up with Magnus. Clary is upset with her mother after she tried to kill Jace and misses her old life. She is kidnapped by Dot and taken to Valentine. She and Jace manage to escape the boat at the end of the episode. Meanwhile, Izzy and Alec try their best to find Jace which leads Alec to take a huge risk that could put his own life in danger. 

Most dynamic duo: While Magnus may not have shared any scenes with Alec this week, I’m very grateful that we got to discover the new friendship (even though Magnus would deny it) between Magnus and Simon. These two are gold together. I really hope we get to see more of their relationship, Magnus is going to need a lot of patience as Simon’s ‘Downworld sponsor’. But did you see his face after Simon said he encanto’ed (is that how it’s spelled?) the snake? He looked so proud. 

Character that needs a hug: At this point, they all need one. Simon has nowhere to go. He’s not welcome at the Institute (where all his friends live), the vampires don’t want him, he can’t stay with Luke because of the werewolves and he can’t go home either. How is it that Simon, probably the nicest guy on the show, ended up in the worst situation? And then there’s the Lightwoods. Izzy is trying to hold everything together. Her parents have left, her brother is missing and no one other than a few people seem to be interested in trying to save him. On top of that, Alec is slowly falling apart without Jace. There’s no one around who has a parabatai bond, so no one really gets what Alec is going through. Jace is a part of him, so not being able to feel him is like not being able to feel a part of himself. It’s why he keeps lashing out at everyone, this time Clary. From his point of view, everything was fine until she came along. That’s when everything went to hell. 

Best friendship: As I said, Izzy is trying to hold everyone together. That includes Clary. I think their friendship is really important for both of them. Clary needs a friend inside the institute right now. No one really trusts her there. She’s Valentine’s daughter who has suddenly shown up out of nowhere. Look at how they're treating Jace now that they know his lineage. One misstep and they’ll treat her the same way. For Izzy, it must get lonely sometimes at the institute. We never really see her with anyone other than Jace and Alec. Now one is missing, the other is falling apart. But Alec isn’t the only one who lost a brother. She needs someone to lean on too. 

Biggest plot hole: I saw somewhat of a discussion in last week’s thread about whether or not the direction the show takes, will be the same as the one the book took. While I do agree that the show will probably change a lot of things, I highly doubt they’ll completely change the major storylines. There’s a certain spoiler from the books that I’ll be trying to talk around in this review, and probably every review that is to come. I had some issues with Jocelyn’s reasoning behind trying to kill Jace. Seeing a baby do that would freak out any mother, but in that moment she decided that when it comes to nature versus nurture, nature wins. She never even bothered to talk to Jace before trying to shoot him. She has no way of knowing how that power developed over the years. What also bothered me was that after Jocelyn finished her story, no one bothered to mention that they’ve never seen Jace do any of that stuff. Might have been relevant to point out that Jace hasn’t been walking around killing people with a simple touch. Just a suggestion. 

The music: Sometimes the music fits wonderfully, but then there are those fight scenes. MTV does this on Teen Wolf, I don’t like it there either, and now Freeform seems to have taken a page out of their book. I’m not a fan. There are so many badass songs they could be using instead. I will gladly give suggestions. 

Best quotes: Simon: “Which body part? No, don’t answer that.” 
Izzy: “Still wanna take me home?” 
Simon: “You didn’t tell me portal-travel was going to make me want to barf.” 
Magnus: “Of course I recognize it. It’s mine.” 
Magnus: “What are you so afraid of?” Simon: “Where do I start? Elevators, snakes (!), clowns, Raphael trying to burn my junk off.” 

That’s it for this week. Check in again next week for an all-new review and let me know in the comments what you thought of this week’s episode.