TV Review: Shadowhunters (1×13) “Morning Star”

DOMINIC SHERWOOD, MATTHEW DADDARIO, EMERAUDE TOUBIA, KATHERINE MCNAMARA

The Shadowhunters finale was an exciting ride. It may have not been the best episode of the season, but it surely had some interesting moments.

Hodge completely messed up his chances for a nice life. He shouldn’t have trusted Valentine to begin with, but he had to learn that the hard way. Not to mention now he’s down a hand thanks to Jace. If that wasn’t bad enough, he’s currently a prisoner to The Clave. If only he hadn’t betrayed his friends. What was interesting about his situation was that he said he was trapped in The Institute. The show didn’t stress how he wasn’t able to leave of his own free will. If that detail would’ve been inserted more into the season then his cause would’ve made more sense. His betray also would’ve hit harder if he had more screen time during the season.

A character that got a lot more screen time than he usually does is Valentine. He finally seems to have things going his way. He has the cup in hand and a new army to go against all his enemies. He also has Jace working as what seems like his right hand man. This all seems good, but Valentine’s character still isn’t menacing enough. He feels like a generic bad guy and not the boogeyman that everyone makes him out to be. Surely season two will work to resolve that issue.

Now let’s talk about Jace. It was nice to see him go to the darkside, but his switch to that made no sense. It felt extremely forced that all of the sudden Jace believed that he was suppose to be evil. Despite the reasoning he kept giving Clary, his character felt like it did a 360 overnight. There needed to be a different logic as to why he switched teams. A dark rune would’ve made more sense.

Clary stayed true to her character. It was nice to see how far she has come since the beginning of the season. She knew what she’s working towards and was not indecisive like she use to be in the first couple episodes. Also her character always displayed the right emotions. Yes, she can be over dramatic about things, but her emotional choices felt correct, especially when she told her mom that they would talk about things later because she was just glad to have her back. It’s also nice that she finally has her mom back and that the show didn’t stretch out her waking up her mom into season two.

The next season will need to explain what Simon is going to do. He’s no longer aligned with Raphael and now Camille is back. On top of that, he just figured out that he’s connected to her and who knows what that means for him. She might try to use him for any of her future plans. Simon also doesn’t have a place to stay now that he’s been kicked out of the hotel. He can’t stay in The Institute because he’s a Downworlder and he can’t stay with Luke because werewolves hate vampires. This episode didn’t get to focus on all of this, but the first episode of the next season should elaborate on what he’s going to do.

Camille also poses a problem for Malec. If it wasn’t enough trying to deal with the Lightwood parents now the couple has to deal with exs. Alec already saw Magnus and Camille kiss which didn’t settle with him of course. It also brought up the problem of Magnus being immortal. The two of them need to get it together before they already fall apart. On a side note, it was nice that Alec’s mom was cool with him being gay. It was a small detail, but it means a lot.

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Even though Morning Star wasn’t the greatest, it still displays how the show can provide good episodes. Not everyone got to shine this time around, but there’s still time to get to know these characters better. Season two always has the potential to improve from season one. It’ll be interesting to see what the next chapter will take Shadowhunters.

8/10

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