Episode 4, Raising Hell. Sounds like it will be full of action. And look at this screenshot Hulu is using for the episode. FIERCE.

If you remember, we left off with Simon drooling over Clary’s throbbing neck pulse. Doesn’t that sound hot? This one starts with Clary dreaming of losing her memories I guess, though she’s rolling around like she’s doing interpretative dance in her bed. When she wakes with a start, she sees Jace sitting with her. Except it’s actually Simon. Awesome. I’m glad we’re starting with the love triangle nonsense right off the bat.

Does this look like a freshly cleaned cut to you?

Simon has been in the infirmary of the Institute, except from the looks of things, they don’t even know how to clean a simple cut. Clary tells him again how he’s all she has left, and Jace is conveniently hovering outside her door listening. Always a sign of a worthy romance. You have two amazing options here Clary.

We go over whether Jace is trustworthy again.  Clary rambles on in contradictory statements for a while. “I need to know who I really am. I want to put all of this behind me. Maybe I’ll remember where my mom hid the cup. I’m so lost.”  You said it sister. But it’s true, her mom is missing because of this lost cup, so we might as well try to find it.

“Start with what we know. We know that dreams are remnants of memories.” Do we? I mean, sure, lots of them do pull from real life, but I’m fairly certain my reoccurring nightmare about the vampires, werewolves, and mummies taking over the world was not pulling from anything my 6 year old brain had encountered. Regardless, they remember that Magnus Bane took her memories, and suddenly they have their “first real lead.”  We’ll just disregard the fact that they figured this out already in the last episode, and again in the one before that.

Simon is hallucinating blood on his lip and Camille walking up behind him, and his first thought is, “I’ve got to get out of here.” I’m not really sure how that’s the Institute’s fault, but if you want to run around unprotected where vampires can actually get to you, have at it Simon. You’re annoying anyway.

After the title sequence, we come back to Clary walking into Jace’s bedroom unannounced while he’s punching some workout thing. He doesn’t have a shirt on, and so we can see that he has a lot of muscles and no hair, which is no surprise. I think I would die of shock if they had a normal looking human male shirtless on one of these shows. This also means we get to see all of his runes.

Clary is so embarrassed, which I don’t get at all. He helpfully puts a shirt on for her so she can turn back around and actually look at him. I KNOW.  That can’t have been the first time. Though I guess if you have a 17 year old teenage crush, everything embarrasses you. What I find more interesting is the proposed architectural layout of this abandoned church. Jace’s room has glass panel walls, and through them you can see stonework and one of the cusped windows with some stained glass visible. This is actually a fairly common historic preservation approach to very old buildings/dig sites where you don’t want to restore something so much as reuse it while remembering its past. For example, here’s a picture I took while in a subway station in Athens.

You can see the archaeology there, the yellowish bits. It’s all behind glass walls very similar to Jace’s room. I think this is pretty cool set design. It serves the show in that the outside of the building is meant to look abandoned, and so the actual wall is left as is, while also demonstrating real life historic reuse techniques.

I also did some digging and discovered the outside shots of the Institute are actually the Metropolitan United Church of Toronto, a lovely Gothic church that’s still fully in use today. So I guess if you’re super romantic about this show, you could go get married there or something.

I can’t find any evidence that the window in the shot above (with Jace) exists in this church though. However, I did find a full shot of it being built, thanks to shadowhunterstv.com. I’ve never seen a design exactly like this, but you can tell that it takes many elements from traditional Gothic windows.

Okay, back to the show. Sorry, I actually got interested in something there for a minute.

Jace and Clary have a back and forth about trusting Simon (sound familiar yet?whether Clary’s memories will be useful, whether she’s worth the people risking their lives for her. Typical teenage drama stuff.  Isabelle barges in to tell them the “mundie” is leaving. She has a weird braid across the back of her head, layered over only about 3 inches of space before disappearing again under her hair. Someone must have decided it looked dumb, because a second later, in the same scene, it’s gone.

Simon has decided they’re not safe there, where all the superhero powered people and weapons are, the ones that just kept him from being eaten by a vampire. He actupally calls Jace “Captain America” like it’s an insult, and I guess if Jace were a goody goody it might be. Otherwise Captain America is pretty cool. He also challenges Jace with the ever mature, “Come at me bro!” Seriously Simon. Get it together. He decides he can protect his family, and Clary, and himself, even though he’s demonstrated all of that is untrue. So he leaves, and Clary stays.

The whole Rescue Ranger team has gather around a table in front of one of those massive screens that haven’t been super helpful thus far. They’re just using it to look at pictures of Magnus Bane throughout his 300+ years, a la Doctor Who. Hodge is flicking his finger upwards over the tablet controlling the tv in the dumbest way possible. They can’t even make technology we actually have look normal and cool. Clary refers to him as the “Downworld’s David Guetta,” and after a quick GIS, I’m just confused. [not surprised, he’s a musician – B.]

There’s more stupid rune burning from Hodge, and more terrible technology use from Isabelle, but they decide to lure Magnus out of hiding from Valentine by attending a rave. Apparently it’s a big deal. Their bait is a necklace that alerts its wearing to the presence of demons; he had given it to his lover at the time, Camille. Yeah, that Camille. They’re all super impressed with it, but I think it looks super fake and ugly. That might be my lack of class coming out, I don’t know.

Speaking of Valentine, he’s back after being absent all of episode 3.  There are mostly invisible people in his lair, except for their eyes which are strangely obvious. He has the guy that Dot stabbed with a needle in episode 2 blow some kind of green smoke on the Clave scouts that are hiding there, which somehow kills both them and the guy who did it. I don’t understand, but apparently there was some kind of mutation from whatever was in that syringe. Valentine stabs him with the light sword anyway. I don’t know what’s going on. I did notice that he also has that burned circle rune on his neck though, which seems weird considering everyone thought he died in a house fire and the revolt fell apart. I must either be mis-remembering something from the book, or the show is making stuff up again. He tells the other lackey, “Gather the dead Seelies. Their blood could be interesting.”  We start to get a weird idea of what those unseen creatures in cages and the various syringes were for from earlier episodes.

The other real adult in the show, Luke, also comes back for this one. His partner seems to know who/what he is, and is warning him that his captain is keeping a closer eye on him now that those two witnesses are dead. “Get your act together Luke. Our people need you to keep your shield.”  “If you want me to get the Cup so badly, I need to get Clary alone.”  They’re really painting him as a shifty character here.

Isabelle decides to dress Clary for the party, no surprise there. She gives her a very tight, small black dress, also no surprise. I’m actually more surprised that the first thing she picked up was pink and sparkly and full of tulle.  “You’re so lucky to have such a flat chest. I can never wear that without a bra.” Jace walks in and does some obvious up and down staring, but then they act all embarrassed to be around each other after Isabelle makes an excuse to leave. He gives Clary a “seraph dagger”, which is a smaller light sword.

Elias, a warlock with little forehead horns, doesn’t want Magnus to leave their hideout because it’s too dangerous. Magnus is pretty sure he’s super badass though, and just tells them to all maintain the protective wards until he gets back.

Isabelle finds Alec going over his arrows. He has not dressed for this party. She’s pretty annoyed that he’s not excited about it. As usual, Alec is mad they’re helping Clary, because she’s Valentine’s daughter and everything surrounding her is crap. He’s not wrong. She’s been a cannonball of chaos since she showed up. Ranting cheered him up a little bit though. She warns him to stop bottling things up before he explodes.

Simon gets home, closes all of his blinds because of the vampire thing, and falls into bed just as Maureen storms into his room. Was she just hanging out there waiting for him? He missed rehearsal last night and didn’t call her. He has an excuse about schoolwork, but of course his mom comes in and moms things up. “If you’re going to be out with Clary all night, one of you has to have a phone.” Hahaha, whoops. Maureen’s really only worried that he might be dating Clary, but he admits they’re not. She tells him she’d like to date him, gets flustered, bumps into a picture breaking the glass, and things get weird. There’s a drop of blood on the glass where she cut her finger, and she leaves angry because he’s just staring at it and not answering her. Can you guess what happens next? Yeah, he tasted it.

Apparently they’re back at the club where Jace stole the flying motorcycle; he said that was “vampire night.” There’s stupid banter and sex jokes about Isabelle admiring men’s jewels in reference to the necklace. Inside, people are dancing in a way that does not entice me to ever attend a rave myself.  They’re saying his name awfully loud for a group of people that claim to care whether or not Valentine shows up. Magnus checks that the necklace is authentic, and reads an inscription on the back that they actually showed us wasn’t there. I don’t think anyone proofs this show at all.

Magnus fed Clary’s memories to a “memory demon” so Valentine couldn’t torture the location of the cup out of him. Clary finds out that Dot is dead, and her acting skills are pushed a little too far. But then Magnus does some cool magic to open a portal to his hideout and so I was distracted from her. She refuses to go with him, but then Alec kills someone approaching them with a knife. Magnus does a double take when he sees Alec, which is adorable, but then runs through the portal to escape Valentine’s men.

Clary manages to keep a ring from his finger where she was grasping his hand as he left. She has a bit of a temper tantrum outside, but Jace can use it to track Magnus. Except “the signal isn’t strong enough,” so they have to do “parabatai tracking.” Clary says, “This whole parabatai thing seems oddly intimate if you ask me,” which is funny, because they’re making googly eyes at each other while holding hands. They keep holding and then not holding weapons, and I’m not sure where they’re being stashed from moment to moment…

They get into Magnus’ lair, but it’s already been infiltrated. He’s fighting a shadowhunter who mentions killing Elias and getting his warlock mark. They’re glossing over this a bit, but warlocks always having a distinguishing feature that shows they’re not human. For Elias, it was the horns. Magnus has yellow cat eyes. Alec helps him kill the shadowhunter, which allows them to formally meet and stutter at each other while grinning stupidly. It’s nice to see Alec smile.

Magnus and Clary talk, and he says something about her and her mother helping people from their hearts instead of duty. He’s saying shadowhunters are stuck up assholes. He does some fancy magic that moves the entire lair. Magnus is a little over the top, but his magic is pretty cool.

Simon is trying to call Clary but she’s obviously not answering. He leaves her a message about how he’s sorry and how he hasn’t been feeling right since leaving the vampires. It’s too bad he didn’t say something when he was still with people who could actually help him. “It’s probably just the flu.”  Oh. Keep being dumb Simon.

Back to Magnus. He gives the necklace to Isabelle in thanks for their help defeating Valentine’s men, and takes the opportunity to ask her what Alec likes as gifts. Clary doesn’t have time for this flirting and wants to summon the demon now. Like, right now.

The Best

Magnus warns Clary to trust no one, not even the Clave. That includes him. He gives her a plastic sounding leather holder of colored chalks, because in order to summon the demon she has to draw a fancy pentagram on the floor. He offers his help, but she actually smirks and says, “I got this.” That really annoyed me for some reason.

Jace has to give her a rune because the Memory Demon is a Great Demon. “The rune will be far more powerful than anything you’ve faced so far.” I don’t know what this rune is for, they never bother to tell us. She does scream like a horror movie while he puts it on though.

I have a really hard time believing that she drew that freehand and little enough time has passed that she doesn’t look a bit disheveled. Then again, she wakes up with unsmudged mascara and is supposed to be a magic artist, so maybe I should just go with it.  Magnus compares her to Michelangelo, and mentions he was great in bed while looking pointedly at Alec. Alec is still pretending to not understand what’s happening.

They’re supposed to take their rightful place on the pentagram, but Clary is confused and needs help. Apparently the star point 3 inches from her feet was too hard to find. They’re told they can’t let go of each other’s hands no matter what, which means you know someone will. They also make it super dramatic when they each link up. Or at least, it’s supposed to be, and Isabelle even laughs at them for it, but it’s really unimpressive. Magnus knows that the demon will expect payment, but says he doesn’t know what it will be.

Isabelle seems freaked out that her necklace is pulsing. The one that is supposed to warn her when demons are near. When she’s summoning a demon. As flippant as she is, and as obvious as the necklace lighting up should be, she should have said, “Oh look, it works!” But I guess we’re supposed to be buckling down for the drama now.

For payment, they have to give up a memory of whoever they love the most. Isabelle gives Alec, Clary gives her mother, and then Alec gives Jace. Jace looks confused, and Alec freaks out. They’re parabatai, this shouldn’t be that weird. But Alec makes it weird, and Isabelle tries to reassure him, but he’s really super not ready to come out. Instead, he breaks the circle and the demon gets free. Magnus is trying to contain him, but it grabs Jace. Alec and Isabelle try to pull him free, but they’re failing. Her options are let the demon take Jace, or kill the demon and lose her memories forever. The moment she stabs it is when we get that image of her being fierce that I first posted, though it loses a little of its effect when she’s wobbling on four inch heels and keeping her knees together because her dress is uncomfortably short. Hopefully for her own grace, they’ll let her fight in her own clothes next time.

Clary: Is he going to be alright?
Magnus: I don’t know. Does he normally just lay like that without moving?

She gives him a really dirty look, but considering I have zero emotional attachment to these characters, I found it funny.  They keep telling him to get up until he wakes up.

Magnus: There’s nothing to be ashamed of, Alec.
Alec: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Magnus: You will.

After what looks like a shower and a change of clothes, which is oddly a zip up hoodie that isn’t fully zipped and no shirt underneath, Jace checks on Clary. He compliments himself by telling her she must have had a great sword teacher. When he leaves, she starts trying to call Simon, but now he’s not answering because he’s outside the Hotel DuMort, aka Camille’s lair. She decides to get ready for bed, and stops to touch her ridiculously huge rock necklace. When it glows and shows her her mother, Valentine is leaning over her, and says, “Nice to see you Clary. You want your mother? GIVE ME THE CUP.” She throws the necklace on the bed with the weakest arm I’ve ever seen. And that flippant gesture is our dramatic ending.

In this episode, we start with the Rescue Rangers regrouping at the Institute after Simon has been kidnapped by some vampires. Clary is somehow managing to act in charge while also clueless. She pulls out her teen snark, which is sadly some of her most authentic acting; even that is strained.

Clary: I still don’t understand. How can Shadowhunters be better than […] mundanes?
Isabelle: Because we protect humans.
Clary: You’re right. Humans.

Clary has so much attitude. Hello! Simon is human! Maybe get your head out of your asses and do your damn jobs. Alec of course is standing around like he’s trying to put up with a room full of screaming toddlers and he’s the only mature 12 year old in sight. Jace looks constipated, quickly becoming what I consider his standard look, and Isabelle is trying, but I really think her costumer hates her.

Though, I’m not sure what is up with Alec’s jacket either. Are those plastic buckles for attaching things? A diaper bag maybe?

Clary: Why do they think that? Why does anyone think that? What, my mom lies to me my entire life except, “Oh, by the way, there’s this magic cup I hid on, like, the planet Bongo, but don’t tell anyone.”

There’s that snark I mentioned. It’s almost funny even.

Clary: Listen… when you saved my life… I put my trust in you. And now I need you to put your trust in me. I can’t turn into what you are overnight. [which part of that are we supposed to trust? you make no sense lady!]
Isabelle: It’s true. She was raised as a mundane. [stating the obvious there.. super helpful, thanks.]
Alec: What are you, her spokesman now? [Alec, what is your problem dude.]
Clary: I don’t need a spokesman, I need a plan.

And then she storms off while the rest of them are looking like they were just called out for acting like big bad superheroes when really they’re just sulky teenagers who like to sneak out and can’t even protect a single human without bickering and losing him. Duh guys! Trust her! She’s new and terrible at this! She’ll fix it!

Meanwhile, Simon is screaming through a bronze door with a cross shaped window cut into it. He’s saying every cliche thing you can imagine a nerd would say about how he’s not worth it, he’s nobody, he didn’t even see you, surely you can let him go. It’s terrible. And then a vampire shows up and the show makes you think Simon is getting eaten.

Clary: Look at all this stuff, these screens. I mean, can any of this help me find Simon?

Or, I don’t know, the 20 people standing around that none of you will even visually acknowledge much less ask for help. The other three spend some time joking about how Isabelle likes to make out with fairies. Suddenly, they need permission to leave, and permission to have weapons, even though they’ve been running around willy nilly in the weapons shelf since the show started. But it’s okay, Jace has a plan for getting them that is apparently easier than continuing to pretend the other people in the building don’t exist.

Simon is with the vampire in a room full antiquities. He bumps into a marble statue that bongs like a bell. Simon is a hostage, and the vampires can’t sell her their old stuff because they can’t explain where it came from. Their leader is a lady with absurdly long nails who walks like her hips are attached by rubber bands and impossible to keep in line. All of it is ridiculous.

The Rescue Rangers are digging up the grave of a dead Shadowhunter, because apparently they’re buried with a stash of weapons. Alec continues to try to convince Jace this is a bad idea. They attempt a joke when Jace says “Abracadbra” before opening the above ground tomb, basically the only one you can see in the graveyard, and Clary thinks that it’s something they actually say for their “magic”.  Alec can only use a bow I guess, and there isn’t one there, so he runs back to the Institute to get one. Because now he can? Jace stays behind to teach Clary how to use a light sword in the graveyard, and they play this off as a sexy flirt scene.

He tries to explain why he knows Alec will come back to help. “We’re parabatai.” Let me just throw that out there and expect you to understand! Then he tries to explain, and I *think* he’s supposed to be getting choked up with emotion about how close he is with Alec? But he looks like he’s trying not to throw up. Maybe he was really really sick when he filmed this episode.

The vampires can snap their fingers and freeze humans. That’s neat.

Isabelle is having sex with a fairie to learn how to get into the vampires’ lair. They apparently can’t lie. I am again reminded why Disney realized they needed to change the name of this channel from ABC Family to Freeform. They just can’t make a teen show anymore without copious amounts of bedroom time.

Jace and Clary go to some kind of biker bar, and just walk right in because 17 year olds can do that. He teaches Clary to see through some kind of glamour thing so she can tell who the Downworlders are. He challenges her to compliment a guy on his motorcycle and resist his charms, without telling her that he has the power to mess with her brain. Jace is watching this vampire seduce her, and he looks… excited about it. This show is weird.

Simon is making out with the head vampire lady, and she’s trying to get information out of him. Obviously, the only way to question someone in this world is to sex them up. Everyone is doing it. Most of it is not consensual. The vampire finds out that Magnus Bane took Clary’s memories and is angry. She offers Simon a Bloody Mary, which I guess is a vampire joke.

Isabelle’s fairie knows how to get into the vampire lair because he’s been having sex with the head lady.  I’m not sure how her really obvious and over the top questioning session actually got that information out of him. Even he didn’t look like he was falling for it, and he made it clear he doesn’t trust her.

Alec is using his stele, their little LED wands, to look at his arrow shaft. He had mentioned something about runed arrows before, but I guess the special effects people forgot to add them in here. He’s caught by Hodge. “Don’t tell me. I don’t wanna have to report you.” Because that’s not weird. You’re on probation for some really terrible traitor stuff, but sure, let’s encourage the teenagers to continue to break rules. That won’t look weird. He tries to say Clary is Valentine’s daughter, but even that makes his rune burn. He slaps it very dramatically, turning his head so you see it lighting up clearly, just in case you forgot his excellent overacting skills from the last episode. He can say “the monster’s daughter” though, because somehow that’s different.

Hodge: You remind of me of me, Alec. A loyal friend standing in the shadow of the chosen one. Hey.. Don’t make the same mistakes I did. Look where it got me.

Now, maybe it’s just me, but doesn’t this sound like he’s antagonizing Alec into defying Jace and risking everyone?

The vampire and Clary look like they’re about to have sex on the motorcycle, which, if I didn’t mention it, is parked inside the bar. Jace finally decides to intervene. We get a glimpse of how cool the fight scenes in the show could be if they weren’t so incredibly inept at writing it. There are some fun noises when they move supersonic fast. All of this was just to steal the keys for the motorcycle, which runs on demon energy and can fly.  The music swells as they lift off, and she giggles and holds him.  I got a sick feeling in my stomach as I had a flashback to Edward calling Bella his little spider monkey…

Simon and his vampire are still making out. Is it supposed to be hot? It’s really not. So much so that it’s uncomfortable to watch. But they are drawing blood, which is going to work out great for him, I can tell.

Alec and Isabelle are in the basement I guess?

Alec: Okay.
Isabelle: Okay? It was hard work interrogating Meliorn (MEE’-lee-orn) to get this intel.
Alec: Great job Izzy. You have faerie dust on your dress. And I hate being the distraction.
Isabelle: I don’t.

He’s being sarcastic here, but I have to admit, I think he’s rather nice looking when he smiles.

She’s very proud of herself. Own it.

Here’s what I don’t understand. Why are the runes red and black? Why do they look like marker? Why aren’t they all varying shades of burn scars? Why do they have to be HUGE? Why did her makeup artist do such a lazy job with her fairie dust? I have so many questions.

Simon and the vampire are still making out, until she does a really horribly stupid-looking thing where she smells the Shadowhunters.

Seriously, I think one of the biggest problems this show is that it took cues from the first Twilight movie. That really wasn’t something anyone should aspire toward. Though even if they were, at least Twilight is amusingly terrible. Usually this show is not even that. This is where vampire-lady’s acting skills start falling apart. She sounds really silly bossing everyone around. I’m still reminded of bad high school plays. I think Simon is pretending to be drunk now that he realizes Clary is there to get him? Though I don’t think he was pretending to suck face.

It burrrns.

Jace and Clary are on the roof, where he’s giving her two new runes: one to protect her from the “encanto” the biker vampire was doing, and one to make her silent when she moves. These are actually pretty good looking. Clary must have a better makeup artist. Well, for the new ones. The one on her neck still looks like lip gloss.

Jace decides now would be a good time to chitchat about the human fascination with vampires.

Jace: The mundane world is all into vampires. I don’t get it. They see everyone else as an animated sack of meat.
Clary: Yeah, I certainly don’t see the romance.
Jace: That’s ’cause now you know it’s all real. [Dude. You JUST said you didn’t get it. And now you’re explaining to her why she doesn’t?]
Jace: Still, you gotta hand it to them, though. They know how to frame a narrative.

I swear, this is the funniest thing this show has ever done. I’m certain they were not attempting to make fun of themselves, and yet…

Clary asks about the chances of Simon becoming a vampire, and we learn that you have to drink vampire blood, and… other stuff. He doesn’t specify. Don’t be too vague in your foreshadowing now, you wouldn’t want us to miss it. Vampire bites make the victim feel high, “like they’re in love.” Clary says that’s awful, and instead of agreeing that yes, having your emotions stolen from you and controlled is a horrible kind of coercion, Jace decides now is a good time to lay on the “woe is me” shtick because he’s never been in love. Oh boo hoo. Jace seems to believe that love is something that wears off, and then deflects his baby feelings by insulting Simon.

Isabelle is accusing Alec of hiding his feelings from himself, and he wisely points out that maybe it’s not such a good idea to have some kind of deep conversation about our feels while we’re walking into a lair of vampires who want to kill us. “I don’t know, it looks pretty smooth so far.” And so now we know it won’t be any longer.

They open a door and find a clump of vampires standing there that look surprised to see them. It’s like they weren’t even down there looking for intruders. Alec tries to put a rune on the door, but it doesn’t take, so Izzy uses his light sword to cut off a pipe and stick it through the door handle as a kind of lock. Then she makes a stupid joke about the pen not being mightier than the sword. Who writes this? I need to make a list so I never watch anything else they make.

Alec and Izzy are enjoying taking the vampires out one by one. The bow is pretty cool. The vampires explode into what looks like the embers that float into the air when you burn paper. Izzy is using her snake bracelet-turned-whip to drag them to her before she stabs them with the light sword. Her moves are a series of step, pose, special effect. It’s very blocky and boring. This is a good example of how most of the fight scenes are NOT cool.

The four of them meet up, and Clary has to fight the biker dude whose bike she stole. There are more bad jokes, and she kills her first vampire and everyone is proud that she “did awesome”. It’s a bit of an overstatement really, but I guess she’s new. Their expectations might be low. At one point she’s held hostage, and Alec decides to just shoot a hole in the wall so that sunlight will pour in and burn up the vampire holding her. Alec could be so cool if he wanted to be.

Simon is trying to get away when the lackey vampire grabs him. That guy convinces the head vampire, I’ve just realized her name is Camille, she needs to escape while she can. She nearly dislocates her hip as she storms off.

We get a slow-mo shot of the Rescue Rangers walking through the building, flicking their swords, trying to look badass. It’s pretty funny. They come into the room where Simon has a knife to his throat, and now suddenly Alec can’t shoot a hole in the wall and they all put their weapons away. The vampire forces them all out of the building, Clary puts up her best “let me at him!” front, but in the end everyone gets out safely. The vampire asks Jace to remember who his friends are; he’s worried about Valentine and wants to stay on the Shadowhunters’ good side.

Jace is very rude to Simon, who is terrified and thinks they still need to run. But it’s daylight, and Jace points out it means they’re safe. Very rudely. Clary looks like she finally realizes Simon is there, and runs to him.

Clary: I couldn’t live without you.
Simon: Say that again. [He’s very hopeful and excited looking.]
Clary: I couldn’t live without you Simon. You’re all I have left. […] You’re my best friend. *cheek kiss*

Simon is, of course, brokenhearted. Izzy thinks now is a good time to apply lip gloss on her definitely still fully lipsticked lips.

Isabelle: Well… No accounting for taste.
Alec: Yeah, you should talk.

Alec and Jace argue about Clary again, but Jace yells for him to stop, catching everyone’s attention. Alec points out that he’s older, and not in Jace’s shadow. Obviously, Hodge’s little seeds of resentment are sprouting. Jace asks why he bothered to help, but Alec just walks off.

Clary stares at Jace. Jace stares at Clary. Simon stares at Clary’s heartbeat in the vein in her neck. Didn’t expect that at all.

This is what it feels like when I watch this show. Nothing they’re saying translates as real. It’s almost as if they were given the script that morning and told to do their best. We might as well be watching a daily soap opera. And that’s weird, because you would think that Disney money could have gotten better people.  At any rate, I’m very bored watching this. It took me 3 days to make it through 41 minutes of TV.  I’ll try to make this at interesting as possible, but there’s not as much to work with as I had with Reign. I never thought I’d say that when I started watching that show, but here I am still enjoying how nuts it can be three seasons in, and so far Shadowhunters just makes me want to take a nap.

We ended episode one with Clary standing over a dead man, flanked by her “mundane” best friend and the Shadowhunter representing her new life. She convinces Simon to join them in the church, which requires Jace to use his stele to mark a rune on his skin so a mundane can see through the glamour protecting their hideout (“Institute”).

Clary: I know, trust me.
Simon: He’s like, burning himself!

Clary is surprisingly calm considering this is probably the first time she’s seen a rune applied. She was unconscious when she received her healing rune, and so far the other Shadowhunters have just been activating runes they already had. Jace has to touch Simon to bring him inside, and Simon freaks out that Jace is hitting on him or something. It’s not cute or funny.

Ew! Boys!

It turns out, they’re inside to hide from the police, who have shown up because of the dead guy outside. Luckily, the police don’t have Jace’s hand to hold to see through the church glamour. Alec, our resident complainer (Was he this lame in the book? I don’t remember him being this lame. What a wet noodle. [actually- he was lamer. -Beth]), is upset that Simon is in the Institute. This provides a reason for some information dropping, and we learn that the current batch of young Shadowhunters aren’t allowed to know about the Circle. All we find out is that there was a revolt and some Shadowhunters died.

Jace says there is someone who can help, but Simon can’t go with him because the floor will kill him. We find out later that this is a lie, but you can tell that picking on the human is going to be one of the shows sources of “humor.” We also get more love triangle awkwardness: “He’s/I’m not her boyfriend! … We’re friends. Best friends” *googly eyes*  And then Simon is immediately rendered stupid by Isabelle activating one of her runes. It turns out he’s not repulsed by it when a half-clad woman does it. Isabelle offers to feed Simon while Jace and Clary do their thing, but apparently the others think her food is deadly. Haha, humans die either way!

This is an odd choice of clothing for fighting, but then, it seems to follow the uniform guidelines for the women who fight in this show. I’m also not entirely sure it fits properly, and it’s not the first time I’ve thought this about an outfit in this series. I think perhaps we can add costuming and/or seamstress to the list of things that were inexplicably left off the budget.

Luke shows up to protect this random warlock from this Circle member, who is one of the “witnesses” he was interrogating when Clary was losing her shit in the first episode.  He offers to protect her in exchange for secrets, but they fight instead and she pulls out one of those glow swords. To preserve the air of mystery they have surrounding Luke and his identity and allegiances, the camera pans out so they’re hidden behind a truck. You hear a beast growing, and then flesh ripping, and then what seems like a mini explosion that shoves the truck back a foot.

Next we meet Hodge, a former Circle member that is now chained to the Institute as a weapons trainer who can’t leave. He’s fighting with his shirt off, because of course he is, and then puts a tank top on over his sweaty self to go to talk Clary and Jace. Why bother? If you took your shirt off so it wouldn’t get gross, you just got it gross, and it’s not like that tight tank top was impeding your movement.  His rune makeup looks terrible. How many people are working on this show, and did any of them compare notes at all? No consistency.

He mistakes Clary for her mother, because I guess he assumes Jocelyn didn’t age in 18 years? And also that he’s blind? Seriously, these two people would not be mistaken for each other.

Hodge: She was Jocelyn Fairchild when I knew her. And she was one of my best friends.

You’d think you’d remember what your best friend looked like.

They ask Hodge a bunch of questions about the Circle, and everything he says causes a circle-shaped rune (*eye roll*) to burn in his neck. He tells her, with increasing dramatics, that the Circle had good intentions but basically did not realize that Valentine was crazy until it was too late. Also, her mother has been brought into this because she was also in the Circle, which upsets Clary quite a bit. Funny how he doesn’t mention that Valentine was also her husband! She has to go all the way to City of Bones for that bit of information. Though we do learn that the Mortal Cup is used to make Shadowhunters and control demons, and that Jocelyn was probably hiding the cup from Valentine and his followers. Also, everyone thought Valentine died in a fire ages ago.

Rune Burn

Clary: You might be some kind of emotionless G.I. Joe but…
Jace: What’s a G.I. Joe?

The dialogue…

Clary can’t remember if her mom hid the cup because of her mind wipe. She realizes Dot is a warlock, so these teenage Rescue Rangers have decided to track her down. She goes from being “frail frightened bunny” Clary to “snappy leather in charge” Clary in the blink of an eye again.

Dot runs into Luke, and they don’t trust each other. They’re both looking for Clary and Jocelyn. Luke is gathering up Clary’s things, including a drawing of a cup on a card. *gasp*! There’s a whole stack of them, and I think they’re Dot’s tarot cards.

Isabelle feeds Simon breakfast in her bedroom, which is massive, from a tray on her bed. She’s so subtle I’m not sure how anyone ever understands her. She’s also blunt in her descriptions of Shadowhunter things, which Simon finds unsettling, mostly because all of it involves him dying. She moves super fast, like Twilight fast, which isn’t helping my brain separate her from Rosalie.

Luke’s captain asks about Clary, and he finds out that she isn’t stuck in a portal limbo after all.

Luke: You know guys that age. They’re idiots.
Captain: Just that age?
Luke: Well, some of us transform ourselves and hide the idiot within.

So heavy handed. HEY EVERYONE! LUKE TRANSFORMS!

Clary is given Isabelle’s most solid piece of clothing, which is still to little fabric for her liking. They have some girl talk about Jace (Isabelle thinks he’s a brother, and Simon is “nerd hot”), and Clary gets a blunt Isabelle not-a-pep-talk. It doesn’t seem to be making the right impression on Simon though, because he’s still angling to get Clary to run off on their own.

What the hell is this hand slapping shit?

Alec, of course, does not approve, but they’re all going to help anyway. Could someone please explain to me how they’re doing everything alone and the Clave seems forever away and nearly unreachable, and yet the Institute is always full of people?

Clary is playing with the necklace when she gets a vision of Dot. She’s gone to Pan-Demon-ium looking for Magnus. He’s sending all his warlock buddies through a portal to hide from Valentine and refuses to help Dot. The Rescue Rangers are too late, and Valentine’s men get Dot in an alley. In the dark. It’s always dark. For some reason they run into the club looking for her even though the last vision Clary had was of Dot being jumped in the alley.

They all decide their last option is visiting the Silent Brothers in the City of Bones so Clary can retrieve her wiped memories. Alec and Isabelle freak out, and so you’d think the whole sequence of them going into the graveyard and underground would be more fraught and tense, but as usual, it’s bland and boring. Though their makeup is decent. The places where this show does and does not try are mind boggling. This episode is named The Descent into Hell Isn’t Easy, and yet, it was. Even the words Clary finds there say so. “For Shadowhunters, the descent into hell is easy.”

Jace: You should know, the pain will be excruciating.

You could have fooled me.

Jace: Clary, you don’t keep the silent hunters waiting.

Oh, did we make an appointment? No. No they did not.

Luke’s captain is getting suspicious when that Circle member’s body shows up with massive claw marks. Alaric, the guy I’ve mostly ignored up to now, tells him he needs to find Clary before their “friends” doubt him.

Jace and Clary pause on their strenuous hell journey of walking down a hallway to have some bonding time, and we learn that Jace’s dad died in the Circle revolt. They hold hands into the Silent Brother’s room and they all appear around them. They use the Soul Sword to retrieve her memories, and it can kill her if she’s not strong enough, and since we know there’s no chance she’s dying in episode 2, this entire scene is not even a little tense. The sword comes down and barely touches her head, and we watch one memory of overhearing her mother mention Valentine is her father. Perhaps this is more shocking to the people who have no knowledge of this series, but it fell very flat for me.

Simon and Isabelle are doing their awkward/forward thing in his van to “listen to his band’s music”, and because it’s a teen show, band member Maureen, the other love triangle, starts texting him. And then Isabelle hears something and Simon is snatched by something with gross fingernails while she’s investigating.

Valentine questions Dot, drugs her, in an attempt to get her to help reverse the potion Jocelyn took to sleep. Later she uses her magic to break the locks on her cell.  She’s actually one of the few decent actors in this trash heap. Her struggles actually seem difficult. Valentine’s lackey attacks her after she gets out, and defends herself by stabbing him with one of the syringes he has lying around. Valentine finishes pushing the plunger and it’s implied that he stabs Dot with his glow sword.

Let’s all take a moment to mourn sweet Dot. You were too good for this world.

Back with the Rescue Rangers, Alec thinks Clary must be a Valentine spy, and it turns out Simon has been taken by some “Night Children”, or vampires. They want to exchange him for the Mortal Cup. Everyone seems to think they should keep it safe from everyone else, instead of working together to keep it from Valentine. The talking vampire looks like my brother. Somehow, this makes sense to me.

And that’s it. Will there be a next time? I honestly don’t know. I’ll have to give Episode 3 a whirl and see if I can even finish watching it. Wish me luck. [At this point there is a limit to what I will make my recappers endure – maybe during sweeps week – b.] 

It’s always great when people can do backflips off overpasses without anyone noticing. Oh right, no one can notice. Except our star, who is *special*.

Meet Clary. It’s her 18th birthday and she’s applying to attend the Brooklyn Academy of Art. They’re not impressed with her presented portfolio, but whoops! She’s sketched images for her and her friend’s graphic novel all over her portfolio by “mistake” and now she’s in the advanced program.

She has a guy friend, Simon, who is our classic “adorable invisible nerd who’s obviously in love with her but she doesn’t know it”. And his bandmate, Maureen, is also in love with him without his noticing. Is it really a YA show if there isn’t a love triangle of some kind? (Seriously, does that exist? Let me know if it does.) While they discuss this love blindness, Clary sets down her biscotti on the table, which appears to be covered in white paper. When she looks back down at it, the biscotti has been replaced with a detailed, realistic drawing of biscotti.

Somehow, neither of them question the drawing’s appearance, only the her memory that she had a real one at all. “Hm, that’s weird… I thought I had a biscotti, but now I just see a drawing of a biscotti. But it’s totally not weird at all that this tablecloth has a single drawing of biscotti on it right where I put mine.”  Oh, and it’s her 18th birthday, which she immediately curses by declaring it “the greatest 18th birthday I ever had.” She’s bright, this one.

I’m on a horse!

Oooh! It’s the soap guy. I’m looking forward to imaging his every scene with a hidden white horse under him. This is Luke, Jocelyn’s (Clary’s mother) boyfriend. He seems to be some kind of detective investigating corpses that have been drained of blood and artfully covered in satin sheets before being abandoned.

Does she look exsanguinated to you?

His captain urges him to marry Jocelyn, but he delivers the line, “We’re.. different.” like he’s mocking someone that would have that line on a soap opera. Also, his eyes glow green and dogs just stop barking. That’s a skill I think a lot of people would love to have.

When Clary gets home, we see that her house is fronted by Greenpoint Antiques, which either includes or is next to a tarot reading/psychic shop. Inside is Dot, who I guess works there? She’s playing with tarot cards and joking about her ability to “see the future”. Pretending she didn’t just turn over what appears to be a death card and that she’s not acting weird at all. We get some ominous music there as Dot flips the shop sign to Closed.

Clary heads upstairs and we meet Jocelyn, her mother.

Jocelyn: You did it, yay!!
Clary: You also follow Simon?
Jocelyn: He only has 92 followers. He needs the retweets. Congratulations.
Clary: Thank you. Hashtag, stalker mom.

Just shoot me now. If things don’t get better once all the magic and sword fighting pick up, I’m not sure I’ll be able to stomach this even for the laughs.

Jocelyn gives Clary a stele, which looks like a little crystal tipped wand. Clary has apparently been doodling the symbols that are sculpted on the handle. Her mother obviously wants to tell her some family secret, but clueless Clary [Clueless Clary] doesn’t pick up on it and is angling to get out as fast as possible to celebrate with Simon and Maureen. S&M (lol, perfect) have a band together currently called Champagne Enema. Seriously. This show is great.

While Clary dresses, Jocelyn is daydreaming about 10 years earlier, when some pond monster nearly ate Clary until Jocelyn kicked its ass.  Terrified, she takes Clary to Magnus, a warlock, to take away her memories of the shadowhunter world. Only Jocelyn thinks this is a good idea. Magnus has glowing yellow eyes. Glowing eyes are obviously a thing here.  When Luke gets home (is this his home? I can’t tell), he gives her a set of spray paints, which she accepts as if they were socks even though her words suggest it’s what she wanted. She has the emotional range of a lamp. Luke tries to breach the Family Secret conversation again, and Clary again chooses to believe nothing her parental units could say would be important and cuts them off. Simon shows up then to take her to his gig. He has an interaction with Luke that I think suggests he’s supposed to be a funny character? Instead, I’m just confused as to why he’s pointing at his nose.

For this night out, Clary dresses in her gift from Dot, a striped black tee where with alternating see through fishnet blocks. She puts a plain zip-up hoodie on over it to tone it down and I assume hide it from her mother. She hugs her mom bye, pointing out that she’s “biologically and legally an adult now” and presumably able to make sound decisions regarding her safety in the city late at night, and then illustrates that maturity by getting a piggy back ride from Simon out of the house.

Maureen questions Clary about her family background, skeptical when Clary says her mom doesn’t have any family and her dad died, so it’s just the two of them. “You guys don’t think that’s a little bit suspicious? You not knowing anything about your family? Your mom could be hiding some deep, dark secret.”  Yeah! Like the one she just tried to tell you! When she gave you the family heirloom crystal wand. “My mother is incapable of concealing anything from me.” Seriously, this chick is dumb. You obviously had no idea that a crystal wand was an important family heirloom Clueless Clary! Did you forget that already?? Probably. They drive home the point by showing Jocelyn getting out her shadowhunter sword before dramatically going to commercial.

Shadowhunter central is teeming with people, (and I know this show is already taking liberty with the books, but wasn’t that place basically a ghost town?) and complete with massive hi-tech touch screens. Alex and Isabelle are brother and sister. She’s dressed like an extra out of call girl portions of Pretty Woman, her runes glistening on her bare skin in a way that makes them look like lip gloss. I’m not sure they’re supposed to do that? Alec is giving her crap about her outfit, especially the wig, which is a platinum bob. She explains it’s what demons like, and Jace, our apparent ring leader who walks like a he really really wants you to know he’s the brawn to Alec’s brains, agrees with her. They leave one screen to walk through the house to another one that has a picture of their shapeshifting demon in his current guise. Maybe these screens aren’t as hi tech as I thought if they can’t even pull that picture up on the screen where they started. These demons are responsible for the now 7 murders of “mundanes” that are showing up with all of their blood drained, which confuses the trio because “isn’t that vampire territory?”  Isabelle is sure she can find out why they want it if she can get a sample. They head out to do whatever it is they do after shutting down Alec when he mentioned getting permission for the mission.

Sure, just rudely leave this door of swords wide open.

Next we get to see the end of the gig, complete with lots of awkward ogling from all of the lovebirds, followed by awkward staring when Simon changes shirts by the van later. They’ve decided to rename the band Rock Solid Panda, and so Clary gets out her new spray paints to decorate the van. Instead, she mysteriously paints another rune. This does not scare her nearly as much as it should. She has no memory of doing it, doesn’t know why she did, and it’s even in three different colors so it wasn’t like a small unnoticed hand movement. “Weird, I didn’t even mean to draw that.” Maureen again points out how weird that is.

Jace ends up bumping into Clary on his way into Pandemonium, where he’s following the shapeshifter. She tells him to watch where he’s going, and he’s surprised she can see him. They have a weird conversation where she accuses him of flirting and he’s mostly flabbergasted, while Simon and Maureen watch her talk to thin air. Finally, Clueless Clary realizes something is off about herself, and chooses to confront the issue by going after Jace to prove he’s real.

Subtle Guys

Inside the night club, where Clary has removed her hoodie, she follows Jace through a very large and crowded space. We see Magnus, surrounded by followers on a corner couch, react to what seems to be seeing Clary, but when he moves it’s to force two members of “Circle” to leave his club. Isabelle starts dancing on a table to lure demons, taking off her ill-fitting coat and wig. Why did she need that wig again? Clary sees one of the light swords and attempts to push the shapeshifter out of the way in some of the world’s worse action effects. Then have a choreographed fight scene where demons explode into little bits like the floating embers from burning paper. At one point, Clary picks up a dropped sword, which had gone out (why didn’t they go out in storage?), and it comes back to life right as a demon happens to fall on it. She ends up running away, catching a cab home, leaving her underage friends there with their martinis.

She is frantically retelling all of this to her mother, who is not that surprised. Somehow, despite describing how people were sprouting tentacles from their faces and being vaporized, Clueless Clary is fixated on the idea that she might have killed someone. Is she drugged? Is she going insane? Maybe she should shut up for 10 seconds so her mom can answer their questions. Before she can explain, Dot runs in to let them know the Circle has found them. Jocelyn puts a necklace on Clary, has Dot open a portal, and then pushes her through it to get her to Luke and safety. Dot gives Jocelyn a potion to use “only if you need it.”

While Clary waits for Luke at the police station, Jocelyn sets fire to Clary’s room and heads through the house to fight. Dot has been pushed out the window and is presumably dead. Sorry Dot. We learn that the Circle is looking for the Mortal Cup for Valentine, who she thought (hoped?) was dead. Jocelyn takes the potion and collapses. Clary is listening in on Luke’s “interrogation”, where two people from the Circle are confronting Luke about hiding the Cup with Jocelyn. Clary is confused by that they refer to her mother as Jocelyn Fairchild, because everything confuses her. Luke tells them they can kill Jocelyn and Clary, but if he finds the cup he’s keeping it for himself. Despite what her mother told her about only trusting Luke, Clary is now, perhaps understandably for once, confused and frightened and runs away again. Luke toward where she was hiding like he knows she’s there, but if so they don’t follow up on it.

In Chernobyl (because radiation’s fun!), a man we learn is Valentine is overseeing some growling creatures in cages that we can’t see while holding a syringe of blood. Jocelyn is brought back with the teleporting Circle in some kind of stasis, and Valentine sort of moons over her like a deranged person. One of the people who brought her chides her decision to run from the circle and Valentine kills him with a smile. You have no idea how much I love it that this crazy is played by the same person who humped a woman out a window to her death as crazy King Henry II in Reign.

Mad is what I do!

Clary runs home through some dramatic rain to find her house in ruins. Dot shows up asking about the cup, and when Clary fails to answer her, she turns into a demon. Clueless Clary just stands there and stares. I think she has a death wish. Jace shows up to save her, but Clary was scratched by the demon and faints.

She wakes up to Isabelle sitting on her bed, which is a little creepy. Isabelle is worried about Jace being distracted by a mundane, but as Jace points out, she can’t be a mundane because the seraph blade lit up when she touched it. Isabelle reminds me strongly of Rosalie from Twilight. She walks Alec out of the room because he’s very upset that Clary is there. He claims he’s worried about the mission failing and them not knowing who the blood was for.

Jace stays behind to talk to Clary. She doesn’t understand anything he says to her, and their conversation pretty much goes like this:

Clary: I’m miraculously healed and all of you have magical powers?
Jace: I’m not a warlock.
Clary: Huh?
Jace: I’m a shadowhunter.
Clary: What?
Jace: We fight downworlders.
Clary: Huh?

Poor Clueless Clary. Her listening comprehension is terrible. All she cares about is her kidnapped mother, and she tells us this with her usual lamp emotions.

This is my confused face. And my cry face. And my mad face.

Simon comes looking for her by tracing her phone signal. He’s worried to hear that she needs to get dressed before leaving an “abandoned church.”  We get another glimpse at the potential for Simon to be a comedic character.

Jace started looking through her sketchbook, because that’s just something you do without permission. Clary puts on a tight leather ensemble of Isabelle’s. “She’s very comfortable with her body.” CC’s hair looks like it’s just been styled for the runway, which is crazy, because she was in a fight and ran through rain, and then was apparently passed out for two days. They walk outside together, Jace hiding his sword behind his back while he explains to Clary about his invisibility rune, so I have no idea *why* he’s hiding it. Surely any real threat would notice his awkward “I’m hiding something big behind my back” stance. Naturally, the rune is place so that he can show off his abs when he points it out, and then he makes a joke about how it’s shame no one gets to see him because “of all this.” And then we see that Jace definitely shouldn’t be the comedic relief.

Clary’s suddenly calm and collected like it’s totally fine her house is destroyed when Simon comes to take her home. He’s really worried about her outfit, even though it covers more than her fishnet shirt did. This guy probably should be made the funny friend, because he doesn’t do pearl clutching very well. The guy from the police station comes to get Clary, but Jace takes him out, so now Simon is freaked and really wants to take her away and call Luke. Clary really doesn’t want to do that, but she doesn’t seem to explain why.

After all of this, Valentine has Jocelyn, but not the Mortal Cup, which is what he was after.  One of his minions tells him it wasn’t there, but he replies, “Just because you couldn’t see it, doesn’t mean it wasn’t there.” Is it just me immediately thinking about Clary’s weird ability to accidentally and unknowingly turn real objects into art? The underling is worried about his failure and tries to save himself by bringing up the daughter.  Valentine didn’t know she existed, and he’s weirdly excited and has decided to meet her.

And that’s it! Bad makeup runes, seraph blades that come and go based on rules they don’t even seem to understand, annoying always perfect hair that’s so perfect it looks like a wig, stupid love triangles, bad acting, jokes that may or may not be jokes? I can’t help but compare it to the plethora of similar fare on the CW, though there was less of the “hey! we listen to young, hip music!” that I saw in Reign. We’re in for some terrible fun. See you next time!