The latest victim of
the owl-faced weird demon is Morgan Young, a woman planning a fundraiser - but
also very very handy with pepper spray making her the first to get away.
This is witnessed by
Jace who is now staying up every night using Shadowhunter woo-woo to not sleep
while fighting hallucinations and nightmares about Jonathan (Sebastian) Clary’s
evil brother.
Meanwhile Alec and
Izzy get the dire news that their mother is coming to visit and probably has
bad news. Which worries them because Maryse is very intent and tends to pick on
people to avoid awkward situations and neither wants to be the victim. Also
they don’t want to have their reunion dinner at the Institute since it brings
out her inner Inquisitor. Magnus offers his apartment to play host because you
definitely want a woman known for nitpicking, being all Clavey, and disliking
both Alec’s gay relationship AND downworlders to be hosted at his house. That
makes perfect sense.
To make matters
worse, Izzy, Clary and Jace all bail on dinner so they can join Jace on his
demon hunt. He’s convinced the Owl demon is actually Jonathan because it
reacted to pepper spray which normal demons are immune to.
Alec plans a big
dinner for his mother with a touching history of how he and Izzy once made the
stew for Maryse after she was grieving a dead parent. Touching. But Magnus
realises it’s absolutely terribad awful and uses magic to make it palatable.
Maryse arrives and greets
them with a hug - including Magnus, even calling them “my boys”. And they have
a grand time full of fun and laughs and lots of alcohol and Maryse being the
happy life of the party
This character has
been pretty much completely retconned which seems nice on the surface to have
her be so happy and accepting. And it is. But it also kind of mirrors
the book in having homophobia when it’s useful dramatic tension and dismissing
it when it’s not. Turning prejudice on and off to suit your plotline du jour is not
ideal.
Her bad news has
nothing to do with her divorce: the Clave is investigating former Circle
Members again, retrying them for their past actions. Which I don’t disagree
with since Valentine was back for all of 10 minutes and he had a full army of
loyal Shadowhunters ready to run to his side so clearly they didn’t do that
good a job originally
Except, because
they’re the Clave and terrible at everything, they’ve decided to let a lot of
people off with various deals while they’re throwing the book at Maryse and
stripping her of all her marks. Because really the Clave are terrible, utterly
utterly terrible
It turns out she was
super super awful when she was with the Circle so she accepts it as justice.
And she doesn’t want Alec to lose everything fighting for her. She wants his
generation to be wiser than her’s
That isn’t hard to
achieve. But then Alec’s generation includes Clary… everyone’s doomed.
She leaves with more
decorous hugs and an open invite to come party any time. And I know I harp on
about this - but with all this emotion this is the loving gesture between Alec
and Magnus. Look at that clear daylight between them.
 |
| There are straight men who are more affectionate than this |
Raphael is also having issues - we have a beautiful heartbreaking scene between him and his elderly younger sister, Rosa. It’s one of the genuine beautiful scenes in this show. Raphael you’re going to have to tone down this acting stuff, you’re making everyone else look bad
Raphael is also
keeping a new vampire imprisoned and drugged - Heidi - who plays with her blood
and escapes. I assume this is going to be bad.
Raphael gets the call
that Rosa is dead which leaves him predictably devastated. He calls Izzy and we
have another wonderful scene of support and good acting and really this could
become a habit. Naturally this leaves Raphael in utter bits.
So to Simon - Simon
is not happy having the magic nuke in his forehead. The werewolf who attacked
him who was zapped by the mark is badly injured and not healing properly. Luke
has to go to the angry pack member to try and calm him down. It’s a good speech
which both defends Simon, points out Simon didn’t choose it and has no time for
the werewolf’s prejudice against vampire’s OR his tone towards Luke
Which is nice but
that werewolf asks Luke to pick a side. And… y’know he has a point and it’s
about time that Luke finally focused on the werewolves for once - but this is
the issue we’re going to push it? This will end up making Luke siding with the
werewolves - representing his own people - look like a bad choice. Especially
since he evicts Simon
Simon goes to Clary for
knowledge of the mark on his head… but it’s not Shadowhunter. She suggests the
vampires. So he goes to Raphael - on Raphael’s worst day - to nag him into
talking about daywalkers, not listening when Raphael repeatedly tells him “not
today”. Nor paying much attention when Raphael makes it clear he did offer to
help several times and Simon refuses. Simon keeps pressing and Raphael cracks
and attacks - only to be zapped by the mark
Simon’s last port of
call is the Seelie - but the Seelie Queen is not letting him into her realm
Maia is still super
supportive of course - and she also questions if it’s really that bad that his
mark is protecting him. Simon is pretty sure it is.
Luke is also spending
a lot of time with Olly but Olly is super casual about the dangers of the
downworld, speaking openly, being casual about sharing its secrets. This will
not end well.
Jace, Izzy and Clary
go to Morgan’s fund raiser to look for the Owl demon… and Jace ends up fighting
his hallucinations
Izzy and Clary are
left to fight the demon and a possessed Morgan. Izzy, the far more experienced
fighter, chases the possessed human leaving Clary to fight the owl demon alone.
Because that makes sense. The demon reacts to being called Jonathan - but in
surprise. It isn’t Jonathan. Izzy confirms because the touch of her electrum
whip doesn’t make him react - when it does with actual demons. They do take
Morgan prisoner
The Owl demon returns
to Lillith - and is revealed to be Jace. Oh yay, more angst
