Shadowhunters - Morning Star - Review

This week the season finale of Shadowhunters aired. Hodge’s betrayal was discovered but they didn’t manage to find him before he could hand over the Cup to Valentine. Jace went rogue and eventually joined Valentine, who created an army of Shadowhunters with the Mortal Cup. Clary, Izzy, Simon and Alec found the Book of the White and was able to wake up her mother. To do so, they had to free Camille which got Simon in trouble with the vampires. 

Most important development: I didn’t really talk about Jace last week because I knew there would be a lot more to say this week. While I haven’t been very sympathetic towards him this season, it’s hard not to feel for him in his current predicament. His whole world has been turned upside down. His feelings for Clary, the kind of feelings he’d never let himself feel before, are now suddenly forbidden. But just because you find out you’re related to someone, that doesn’t mean that those feelings just vanish. And while he should be able to talk about this to Alec, after everything their relationship has gone through, he doesn’t feel like he can. On top of that, he’s now dealing with the question “If you’re raised by someone who’s evil, does that make you evil”. He’s completely questioning his entire belief system. Everything his father thought him about right and wrong might not be true. Because of this, he believes himself to be evil. And why not validate what he’s feeling by doing what someone evil would do, by joining Valentine. Regardless of this, I expect Jace to go back to his friends very quickly. I believe his main storyline next season will be both figuring out who he is and what he feels while dealing with the new scrutiny he’ll be under from the Clave for being Valentine’s son. He'll really need the support of his friends next season.

Biggest snake: I’m glad won’t be seeing Hodge for a while. I wouldn’t be surprised if his betrayal leads to more scrutiny for the Lightwoods. The fact that they didn’t notice he was working with Valentine won’t do them any favors where the Clave’s trust is concerned. Maryse can be angry at Alec all she wants but it were her actions that destroyed their reputation in the first place. Though perhaps her anger comes from a place of fear for her son. I recently started reading Lady Midnight and I was reminded of what happens to Shadowhunters who are different from the Clave’s ideal (dyslexic, gay, half-faerie, I can keep going). They are often exiled, in some rare cases even stripped from their marks. And while this show is trying very hard to not focus on the Clave’s homophobia, it’s still not a factor that can be ignored. 

Least favorite character: While I’m not a fan of Hodge, he hasn’t quite reached the level of dislike I feel for Camille. She’s basically the typical troublemaker character. Her presence, unfortunately, doesn’t add much to the storyline other that the fact that it causes friction between the characters. Because of her, Simon is now on Raphael’s bad side while Magnus and Alec were abruptly pushed out of their honeymoon phase. I’m a bit disappointed in the way her character was used this season. Camille comes off as a lot weaker than she’s supposed to be. There also seemed to be something off about her history with Magnus. He mentioned that it had been 138 years since they’d last spoken. But anyone who’s read the Bane Chronicles knows that their last contact was in the 70’s. It seems odd that they would change something so irrelevant. 

That’s just lazy: Vampires cannot enter the Institute. It doesn’t matter what religion they are, they simply cannot. And yet, we saw Simon walking around in the Institute and not a single Shadowhunter found that weird. I assume the reason that this short conversation was held there, is because they didn’t want to use another set for something so short. I sincerely hope I’m wrong, because that’s just lazy. 

Color me confused: This week we got a much larger glimpse at what Valentine is planning. However, it doesn’t seem to add up with his plans in the books. We saw Valentine use the Cup to create an army of Shadowhunters and while this was his intention in the books, the execution was very different. Valentine keeps talking about a new race of Shadowhunters, but they’re not a new race. Unless Valentine has been experimenting on the people he turned, they are exactly the same as any other Shadowhunters. There has been zero mention of the other two Mortal Instruments. Does this mean he has no intention of searching for them? Since his search for the Mortal Sword and the Mortal Mirror is a large part of the next two books’ plotline, does this mean the show will start to veer away from the books? For those of you who haven’t read the books, Valentine’s plan was to use the 3 Mortal Instruments to summon an angel and ask him to create a new race of Shadowhunters. Now of course it’s still possible that he’ll start focusing on the Mortal Sword next season but since he already seems to think that he has a new race of Shadowhunters, what would be his goal? 

Expectations for season 2: If they decide to follow the major book plots, I expect them to reach the end of book two around half way through the season. We could already see that Alec will have trouble with the immortality aspect of his relationship with Magnus. I have a feeling Jace will rejoin his friends within the first two episodes. There will undoubtedly be more awkwardness between Jace and Clary. I read in an interview that Maureen will undergo a lot of development. It remains to be seen if they’ll give her Maia’s storyline from the books or if they’ll keep her on the character’s original path. There will also be more worldbuilding which could refer either to the Faerie world or Idris, though I’m guessing the former since the Seelie Queen will be appearing next season as well. And let us not forget the blossoming romance between Jocelyn and Luke which the end of this episode clearly hinted at. 

Best quotes: Jace: “You need to stop thinking with your Stele, Alec.” 
Izzy: “Oh, typical vampire. Always underestimating a Shadowhunter. Adios.” 
Camille: “This place gives me the freedom to indulge in certain proclivities.” Simon: “I hear the mayor has the same problem.” 

That’s it for this season. Do not check in again next week because there won’t be a new episode but do let me know in the comments what you thought of the season finale and this show’s first season.

About the Author - Belle333Black

Jamie Coudeville (Belle333Black) writes reviews for The Originals and Shadowhunters. She's 21, lives in Belgium and her favorite shows are The Originals, Vampire Diaries, Orphan Black, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., ...

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