Shadowhunters - Advance Preview - This Guilty Blood

Happy New Year everyone! Today we’re looking at Shadowhunters’ season season premiere, “This Guilty Blood” and there is a lot to love in this opener. For those worried about this being a premiere that feels disjointed because of a huge time jump, you can put those fears to rest because this episode picks up right where the season 1 finale ended: Jace is with now Valentine and The Institute is in war mode. This episode also deals with Jocelyn’s perspective on everything that has happened while she was in her coma.

The most important thing to note is that the show is just plain stronger. Now, I never was in the boat of people that thought season 1 was bad. It was just evident the writers were still finding their voice and figuring out exactly what vibe they wanted for the show, similar to Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s first season. This premiere takes a huge step forward in that regard as the story is paced well and the performances are much stronger than last season. Katherine McNamara has shown a lot of improvement in her portrayal of Clary. She has reeled in some of the melodrama and is very grounded and invested in what Clary is going through.

We also get to see a lot of Valentine’s manipulations through his scenes with Jace. Some light is shed on his backstory and a few of his questionable actions are revealed, which does wonders in developing his character. One of my favorite parts of the book series is how Cassandra Clare develops Valentine and Shadowhunters definitely continues that in the premiere.

Shadowhunters is still not life changing TV, nor does it need to be, but this premiere is a strong step in the right direction as the writers get even closer to identifying what vibe they want for the show. I definitely enjoyed the premiere a lot and think it set us up for a really strong second season!

Spoiler-y Tidbits:
-There’s a really fun hallucination sequence
-Look for some Malec tension
-New character Victor Aldertree definitely makes his presence known
-Simon tries to use his vampire compulsion power with hilarious results

Shadowhunters’ second season begins tomorrow, January 2 at 8:00 PM on Freeform! Let me know in the comments what your hopes for the second season are!