Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Shadowhunters, Season 2, Episode 12: You Are Not on Your Own



So remember I theorised last week that Azazel had stolen Magnus’s powers? Nah, apparently that would make him too useless. Instead Azazel has swapped Magnus’s and Valentine’s brains for… funsies? I mean he somehow thinks questioning Valentine’s mind in the body of a Warlock with magic powers is going to be easier than doing so while he’s in the body of funky tattoos?

Of course this does serve the purpose of thoroughly derailing Magnus Alec.

Azazel, tries questioning Valentine about where the cup is but apparently he’s hidden it in a place he can’t reach any more and needs some portalling to do it… y’know for a man who hates demons and downworlders, Valentine uses a lot of their powers and abilities.

Inquisitor Herondale who is now in charge of things would rather everyone didn’t summon Greater Demons into the institute, ‘kay thanks. I think the show expects me to think she’s mean and unreasonable for this – but really this isn’t so much as “against the rules” so much as “holy fuck, do we really need a fucking rule for this?!”. This is what Clary does to your rule book. I would say she is the reason “may contain nuts” would appear on a pack of cashews – but in her case it’s more like “do not lick” signs on an iron.

Izzy has returned and dragged Sebastian to the Institute who conveniently knows the art of greater demon banishing. Alec plans the hunt but doesn’t want Complete Stranger Who Conveniently Turned Up And Is Probably Evil and has No Security Clearance to get involved. Izzy, Clary at al act like he’s being completely unreasonable

Ye gods can no-one follow rules or common sense round here?! The whole core of this show, the underlying world building is that Valentine and a group of affiliated evil Shadowhunters are doing Bad Wrong Things. In what circumstances is it ok to invite a completely unknown, uncleared, unchecked Shadowhunter into your planning?! Has anyone even called London to check his credentials?

Why is everyone on this show so damn mindless?! WHYYYYYY?!

Alec instead goes for… I’m not even going to call it Plan B (because Plan B is “Clary/Jace charge off without a plan and are saved by epic plot armour) – it’s Plan A, turn to Magnus and hope he has a spell for this.

Magnus, possessed by Valentine responds reasonably with a “fuck that I’ve got my own life and work to do, toddle on and find another warlock”. Alec realises something is up because Magnus has never been anything but properly subservient. He hurries over to Magnus and Valentine clearly doesn’t realise Alec and Magnus are in a relationship and he desperately tries to bullshit before Azazel appears – to which Alec perfectly shoots him in the special banishing spot.

Well, that removes the greater demon from the plot and leaves Valentine to find a new way to try and swap bodies back.


He gets rid of Alec and calls Dot the Warlock round for a magical crash course.

Meanwhile the Clave wants to experiment on Clary and Jace’s angel blood and that sexual tension is coming back again: on top of that it seems Clary still hasn’t told Simon that Jace isn’t her brother. The whole subtext that Clary would be totally shagging Jace if he weren’t her brother is super super super super creepy.

Magnus/Valentine is busy being tortured in the dungeon and no-one believes he’s actually Magnus. In addition though the Inquisitor has been told not to kill him she decides she’s going to because no-one on this show follows orders. Thankfully Valentine has a better plan – he lures Jace, kidnaps him and then uses his surprisingly-quick-magical-mastery to send a message to Inquisitor Herondale: I got your angel-blooded Shadowhunter who, by the way, is totally your long lost grandson, son of your tragically dead son who I murdered so AAAANGST so bring me back your body or I slice and dice him

Magnetine is released to go to his old home alone so Valenus can switch bodies back again. Clary et al hurry in their wake but are stopped by those hastily mastered wards. Quick Clary, use your Convenient-Plot-Breaking runes! Of course she can’t do that at the moment but Sebastian, after knowing her for a hot minute, thinks he knows the key – these runes need Clary to angst properly; so reminding her of all the terribad awful things happening to her she taps into a well of moping and LO rune of ward-breaking. How terribly useful.

They leap in after the bodies have swapped and Clary manages to push Valentine into a portal that ends up with him back in prison. Seems Valentine had no exit strategy planned.

Magnus is back in his own body – but the torture has affected him deeply so this may mean he’ll be less of a Shadowhunter servant for a while and is certainly going to change the tone of his relationship with Alec.

Inquistor Herondale totally embraces Jace as her son which will last until her angsty-moping tolerance is exceeded.

Do we have room or one more ridiculous plot line? Yes we do! Simon is totally worried that Raphael, knowing he’s a daylighter is going to do terribad things to him. So he goes to Izzy and she advises they go implied threaten Raphael’s elderly sister

Because that won’t backfire

Unsurprisingly Raphael gathers some vampires to attack Simon. But, because this is Shadowhunters he decides to do so DURING THE DAY because everyone on this show has the IQ of algae. This stops them killing him AND reveals his daylighterness to the world which means the vampires are all in we of him now.

Honestly, I find this show exhausting – because I just can’t stand the ridiculously poor decisions everyone makes all the time