Those of Demon Blood - Shadowhunters Review

Spoilers ahead.

This week's shadowhunters starts with a date between lovebirds Simon and Clary, in the hunter's moon, and the redhead surprise her lovable boyfriend telling him she kinda booked him a music gig there. But as previous episodes let us know, Simon's band is D-O-N-E, and he is a lone panda, however Clary is sure Simon is ready to do the gig alone, and tries convince him to do it with kisses. They are being closely observed by both Maia and Jace who are clearly bonding over their jealousy of the couple, (Isn't Maia great at reading people? you go girl).

Jace is still dealing with this new revelation that he is basically shadowhunter royalty, but when cute girl asks Maia for a drink he obviously tries to make a move on her (long time, no see), however, Kaelie is having none of it and drops the entire drink on Jace's pants. And while Maia laughs at him, she also gives him a word of advice, abstain to use his charm on downworlders, he inadvertently killed a lot of them after all.

As Maia walks away, Jace catch a glimpse of Climon being all romantic. Clary sees Jace and asks her boyfriend to go somewhere else.

As they go out, Simon catches the smell of blood, and they find pieces of flesh on the ground, flesh with runes on it. They follow the smell and find the dead body of a fellow shadowhunter, whose skin has been bitten out by a werewolf.

Jace and Clary bring the news and the body to the institute where Jace's grandma has a pretty good idea of which werewolf killed the shadowhunter.

As Simon is going home he is ambushed by Raphael's former minions, who now that they know Simon is a daylighter, they want him to be their leader, something he rejects.

Of course he talks about it with his dad, Luke, who between one topic and other started talking about Clary and if she and Simon are being safe. Hilarity ensues, as Simon thinks he is talking about sex, when he is actually talking about bloodlust. Is a really short laugh as Jace and Alec come to the Jade Wolf to bring Luke back to the institute as Imogen is certain Luke was the one who killed the shadowhunter. Luke offers DNA proof and he is later cleared of the murder.

Jace bonds for a minute with his grandmother, who appoints him as the new head of the institute once she leaves for Idris. Something he disagrees on, as he thinks Alec is the one who should be the leader. Alec tells Jace to get used to the perks of being a Herondale, just as Izzie and Clary arrive with two new bodies, these shadowhunter were killed by a vampire and a seelie. They're apparently facing a downworlder uprising. Meanwhile another shadowhunter is being murdered, this time by a warlock, apparently.

Imogen informs the entire staff of her decision to make Jace the new head on the institute and you can clearly see Alec and Isabelle's pride, like true siblings to Jace. Of course they tease him about it, and Izzie let Jace know about her addiction to yin fen. Jace offer his support but they don't talk much about it as they need to go on the mission to find these downworlders who are rebelling, but first they need to clear they friends and significant others of the crimes.

Alec goes with Magnus, who is clearly still trying to cope with his body swapping experience, and asks for a strand of hair to clear him up from the murders. The warlock doesn't takes this request well, as he thinks it means Alec doesn't trust his word. However he complies, but he doesn't want to know anything else of Alec.

Clary is facing the same problem with Simon, who tells her the story of his grandma on the holocaust, when at first she had to put a star on her window, and then wear white armbands, couldn't ride the train, and then take the train to the concentration camps, and how she was the only of her family to survive. This episode was high on social commentary (This scene, one of Dot talking about the Salem witch hunts and one later when Maia says she has been stopped by police before only for being black) but it was a way to relate the ridiculousness of the topics of the show to the real world.

Simon refuses to give any DNA because of his grandmother and Clary understand.

As she is walking home she is attacked by whoever is killing the shadowhunters, but as she was talking with Simon over her phone, he get there fast enough to rescue her.

Max is welcomed at the institute by his sister who will be in charge of his training, of course he is ready to start right away but Isabelle's has to go on mission and talk to Raphael, so she asks her little brother to stay at the institute, something he of course doesn't do.

Simon brings an unconscious Clary to the institute where he refuses to leave her side, but as the place is on lockout, Imogen puts him in a cell, while Jace does nothing. Another body has been found (5th in the first 20 min, wow) and grandma Herondale asks Jace to put GPS trackers on all downworlders. Something Alec is completely against and refuses to do it.

Jace goes to the hunter moon's where he tries to put the GPS trackers on the downworlders something they of course don't take well, and Maia kicks the living crap out of Jace, but Jace's partner manages to put the tracker on her. As Luke stops the fight and get some sense on Jace, he goes back to the institute.

Clary wakes up and is livid when she founds out Simon has been incarcerated. She tries to visit him but, Duncan informs her inquisitor Herondale has revoked her clearance (Also hello, Shannon Kook).

Jace is confronted by a pissed off Clary, about doing nothing to stop his grandma from locking up Simon. As they are arguing, Imogen arrives with Maia in handcuffs, as she is being accused of murdering another shadowhunter, because she was walking home and the tracker puts her a block away from the murder. Clary is even more angry at Jace for putting Maia the tracker. As she points out, Imogen is acting out of fear, but the inquisitor thinks Clary is just a naive idealist. Shortly after she is called back to Idris, which immediately makes Jace the head of the institute. However the redhead reminds him that not long ago, everyone thought he had demon blood, and if that he weren't a Herondale, his grandma would be locking him up too.

Isabelle finally gets to Raphael, who claims innocence, and he tells her a story of how before the accords, shadowhunters used to hunt downworlders and remove vampire fangs, werewolf claws and warlock marks and use them as trophies, and the vampires sworn to never let something like that happen to anyone. However, Raphael tells Isabelle that back in the 80's, the downworld came together and make some demands to the clave, and one seelie said the only way to get the shadowhunters respect was to show them how dangerous they were by taking their runes.

Dot and Magnus are taking a few drinks and remembering the good times, and flirt a little, but as Dot does her move while they are dancing, the warlock tells her he's in love with Alec, something she already knows. (Kudos to the screenwriter for putting Harry Shum Jr. moves on display)

Maia and Simon talk while being locked up, until Clary and Jace let them walk, and Jace apologizes to the werewolf for being a dick.

Isabelle and Raphael track down Meliorn, who was the seelie that proposed to skin shadowhunters, but finding Max instead who followed his sister, she tells him to stay hidden. Raphael and Izzie find Meliorn with his hands on another dead shadowhunter (7), however he claims that he's there trying to find the actual killer, something Isabelle believes to be true. She asks Raphael to get Max back to the institute but when they go back to where he was, he is no longer there.

Max has been abducted by Kaelie, who is in a vendetta because when Jace ignited the soul-sword he killed her brother. As she is about to skin the kid alive, Isabelle, Meliorn and Raphael arrive. They fight for a hot second before Isabelle kills the seelie.

She reports back to Jace, whose first act as head of the institute is to appoint Alec as the boss.

And he assigns Jace to remove the tracker from Maia's neck.

Simon goes to his music gig on the bar which is full of vampires wanting to be on his clan, while Clary supports him, first row. Isabelle, Luke and surprisingly Raphael is also there.

Alec goes to Magnus to asks for forgivenness. Jace catches Maia on the alley next to the bar and helps her with a few boxes. He removes the tracker and also asks for her to forgive him, but Maia is a little over the edge, and snaps at him for his willingness to let the entire downworld go to hell because he's still in love with Clary, something he denies. Maia dares him to prove it. And they get hot and heavy right there in the alley, damn girl.

At the end, this episode while it was good, it was just a filler episode, the overall plot of the season didn't move at all. The highlights of the episode were the social commentaries, the few funny seconds between Luke and Simon, Dot and Magnus one liners about Freddie Mercury and Mark Twain. And Jace and Maia's chemestry, let's hope they stick with this pairing for a little longer before they try to push Clace down our throats.

Score: 3.7/5

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