Warning: SPOILERS IF YOU HAVE NOT WATCHED, although if you haven't watched by this point, I'm gonna have to kick your ass for slacking. I say this as if I haven't procrastinated writing this.
Episode 7 was the Valentine's Day episode everyone looked forward to, yet ultimately ended in disappointment. Magnus and Alec have started talking having sex (!!!) - at least, according to the promos. What we instead got was irrelevant hetero couples getting to have intimate scenes, while Magnus and Alec's supposed first time fades out to blackness, with an unclear status of consent. Even websites that don't normally talk about the show picked up on it, and the writers had to calm down angry and concerned fans. At this point, I've basically erased the entire fiasco from my mind, and refuse to accept it as canon. That awkward moment when Harry and Matthew's ad-libs at the beginning of the episode are more in character than the script...
Meanwhile, Cleophas returns to Valentine's side, informing him that Clary can create runes. Cleophas seems to regret this move when she sees that Valentine will go as far as to torturing angels to achieve his goal. Clary hears noises that nobody else can hear, and it turns out that it's that fallen angel crying out for help. She ends up tasing Luke to get to the angel, and...wow. There's a lot of things wrong there that I could talk about, but it's too tiring to get angry about this again. Luke, bless his soul (a father figure Clary doesn't deserve), confronts his former parabatai to save his loved ones. Luke, despite being betrayed by his surrogate daughter, proves he will continue to do anything for her, a move that proves problematic in the subsequent episodes. Anyways, Clary and Jace manage to free the angel, who shows them a possible future vision of death and destruction.
Speaking of Jace, he was uncharacteristically dick-ish this episode. He brings girls back to MAGNUS' loft, no shame about it, and nearly ruins Simon's date with Maia. I personally love Jimon, but their scenes kind of tainted the ship for me this episode. I mean, why would I want to ship Simon with someone who tells him to basically not be himself? And why was Simon listening to that crappy advice when him being himself literally got him that date with Maia? And even worse, why was Maia's only purpose to tell Simon to confess his feelings for Clary???? What a mess!! Simon and Maia, particularly Maia, deserve better! And I know Jace isn't like this, especially after escaping the abuse of Valentine, so again, sh*tty writing on the writers' part.
If you're thinking the episode can't get any worse, it does. Izzy's yin fen addiction storyline escalates, and she straight up lies to Magnus' face about why she wants yin fen. Do I even need to point out (again) how gross the storyline is? I won't, for your sake and mine.
Moving on - episode 8 sees the return of the youngest Lightwood sibling, Max. He rushes to the Institute with his first rune! He's on his way to becoming a Shadowhunter like his older siblings! Robert's cheating ass stays behind in Idris, and Alec, being the oldest, must throw the party. With Magnus' help, the party is actually a success - unless, of course, you ignore Iris Rouse ruining everything again. Disguising herself as one of Magnus' many stray cats, Iris plays with everyone's minds, exposing their deepest, darkest fears. It also exposes some Lightwood family drama - Max reveals that Maryse doesn't fully consider Jace a son, which results in Jace hallucinating his foster mother trying to kill him. Alec sees Clary taunting him for bringing about her mother's death, culminating in an actual suicide attempt. Let it be known - Alec is canonically depressed and very mentally ill, and the writers need to bring it up again soon.
Magnus, being the intelligent person that he is, manages to save the day with BAMF magic. He's the High Warlock of Brooklyn for a reason, and it's important to remember he isn't obligated to be the shadowhunters' pet warlock for mundane chores. The downside is that Valentine now has his spellbook, and Madzie and Clary are both in danger.
If you ignore the Climon and Rizzy scenes (which I did, obviously), this episode was a step up from the previous. However, if we're comparing its quality to the first half of 2A, then...it was kind of a mess. Thanks to the white nonsense Clary pulled earlier during the season, she now has to find and save Madzie or else she dies. Fun, right? Too bad it didn't have to happen if Clary had just listened to Magnus in the first place. Then again, it wouldn't be Clary to do a good deed and protect an innocent black girl who didn't deserve to be in this mess.
They find Madzie, and all is well. Ha, who am I kidding? The episode ends with Madzie taken back by Valentine and a new addition - Simon. Clary has no choice but to confront him in the Institute.
Meanwhile, Magnus puts two and two together, and discovers Izzy is getting her Yin Fen supply straight from the source - which she had lied about to Magnus' face earlier in the season. He finds this out through a Downworlder meeting, which was one of the highlights of the episode. Four different types of species were present, all played by men of color - of different races too! Downworlder unity is important, and I'm so glad the show made an effort to show some of it.
Anyways, back to the Yin Fen - Alec, being the protective big brother he is, is enraged when he finds out about Izzy's addiction, but also suffers feelings of guilt for not noticing anything wrong earlier. It's okay, Alec - you deserve to take time off for yourself and your happiness.
Another thing about this episode and the season in general - Luke has been underutilized, and when he does make an appearance, it doesn't help move his character forward (with the exception of 2.06). Luke has spent most of the season protecting and prioritizing Clary, and it's wrong, especially since he's expected to lead his pack. I'm going to need the writers to stop shoving Luke up the shadowhunters' asses for a moment and let him actually, properly lead his werewolves. His worst moment is locking Maia in a small, dark room up to prevent her from being a threat, despite knowing about her claustrophobia. It's disrespectful and disheartening to see their bonding flashbacks from episode 6 invalidated, as well as borderline racist (and misogynistic towards Maia). Also, it's out of character - Luke, having suffered at the hands of people he trusted, would NEVER, in a million years, pull that kind of bullshit.
At last, we arrive at episode 10, also known as the midseason finale. Valentine infiltrates the Institute by using Madzie to break the wards. Half of me is impressed at her incredible abilities as a mere child, and the other half is annoyed that they trivialized Magnus' strength, since he is the one who put up and reinforced said wards. Since Clary is (supposedly) the one with pure angel blood, she can't go to the Institute and risk the lives of the downworlders present. However, if she doesn't go, Valentine will kill Simon. They come up with a plan - Jace, glamoured as Clary, will go in her place, and touch the Mortal Sword to destroy is, as he (supposedly) has demon blood.
The plan works - only it turns out that that was Valentine intended all along. Jace actually has the angel blood, and he ends up activating the sword, killing every unfortunate downworlder around, including Alaric. FGS, Freeform, stop killing off everyone Luke loves!!!! Simon survives, and even more surprisingly, discovers he can be exposed to sunlight with dying, like all the other vampires! Daylighter!Simon seems like a good thing, but he'll soon realize that vampires are willing to torture and kill him for those abilities. It's clear that Simon is different because he drank Jace's blood, which has already been established to have unusual angelic traits.
Valentine is apprehended, but the sword disappears - the last shot of the episode is a dark disguised figure walking away with the sword. C'mon guys, we get it. It's Sebastian, Clary's actual brother. Speaking of brothers, Clary and Jace turned out to have never been siblings in the first place! Jace goes to tell her, but sees her happy with Simon and changes his mind. It's the classic heterosexual "I like you but you're happy with him so I'll accept it" trope. Honestly, this love triangle is full of shit, and you'll have to pry my "Jace and Simon dump Clary for each other"
Meanwhile, Magnus and Alec oh so casually say "I love you" for the first time - nah, who am I kidding. That scene was life-changing, brilliant, revolutionary, fantastic, showstopping, jawdropping, and perfect. It's clear that Matt and Harry work really hard to portray their characters as well as they can, and their hard work succeeded. Many others have already waxed poetic about the scene, so I'll refrain from doing the same, but I'm eagerly looking forward to see where their relationship will go next in 2B.
This recap took me a good three months to finish, and thank god I am! My loves are returning to me in less than a month, with promises of more Magnus and Alec relationship development, Izzy and Luke returning to their BAMF season 1 personalities, and even flashbacks of young Magnus! I truly hope the writers took the criticism of 2A and worked to improve for the second half. At least when 2B ends, we'll have at least another season to look forward to.
Extras that didn't make it in: No extras! I'm just so proud of myself for even getting through this.
Rating for 2.07: 7
Rating for 2.08: 8
Rating for 2.09: 7
Rating for 2.10: 9
*My next review will be a surprise. Also, I'll be changing up the format of my reviews, so be on the lookout for that! See you then!
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