Mundie Moms

Friday, February 17, 2017

ShadowhuntersTV Series, S2; E7: HOW ARE THOU FALLEN / Review #shadowhunters


From Freeform's Shadowhunters webpage.
WOW! A lot happened this week on Shadowhunters. Here are our thoughts on this week's episode:

SOPHIE'S REVIEW

WOWIE. Did this episode start off with a bang. Big Bad Daddy, Valentine, is back and is literally jumping down off of the rafters. I know what you're thinking -- WHAT? WHY? THIS WASN'T IN THE BOOK.


Speaking of Not in the Book, Cleophas. Luke's sister, who will now assume the role of double agent. Every good uprising needs a double agent, right?





Clary (hearing distress calls from Valentine's captured angel, Ithuriel) visits Simon and we have our first shirtless moment of the episode:




And we have Clary's reaction, which mirrors all our feelings:




Clary is only there to reassure Simon he looks hot for his date with Maia. So, basically this is a throwaway Shirtless Scene. Speaking of those, Alec and Magnus are back from their date and they are ready to...wait, why is Jace in bed with a faerie and more importantly, why is he in boxer briefs for that length of time? It was a little Fifty Shade-sy with the close up of a carnival mask and all the mentions of tie ups. Hey, "Fifty Shades Darker" was released this past week, why not work in a tie-in (forgive the pun) promo?


The yin-fen addict plotline with Isabelle is driving me crazy, because there is no reason for it to exist. OH WAIT. There is. Simon is a vampire. Yin-fen is made of vamp venom. Maybe it's the writers' way to give us Sizzy??? If it is, it's a weird way to go about it. But, not weird for Freeform because pretty much every one of their shows contains this very plot. And now, thanks to Magnus, we know there's a yin-fen distribution kingpin. UGH. More nonsensical plot points to tie up later. Yes, I'm still tying things. Also, Magnus mentioned JEM. Don't touch Infernal Devices, Freeform, pretty please.


Let me just wrap up (see I avoided tying!), the good parts of this episode are the actors. Bless them for delivering bits and moments of our beloved characters that we can recognize. The moments of Jace and Simon doing their banter back and forth was awesome (not awesome was Jace using the shapeshifting rune to show Simon how to pick up *Hamilton voice* laaaaaadies). In fact, props to the writers for getting the gist of the relationships between the characters. But sadly, what the writers, Constantin Films and the showrunner can't seem to do is give us a plot that resembles something we recognize from the thousands of pages we've all read.


I'm left with wondering -- is it too late to figure out how to do it right? As usual, please, share your thoughts with us.



EMMALY'S REVIEW

So I'm not seeing any massive improvements but I think this episode gave me a hope. No huge battle scenes or crazy info dumping happened and it wasn't too fast paced. But it gave us a lot more character development that I think us book lovers were missing. 

We got to see a lot more of the sad, snarky and troubled Jace. He has gone back to old habits of hanging out with girls from many walks of life. We know this is a distraction from being kicked out of the Institute, still being in love with Clary and being messed up about being Valentines son. We also see Alec calling him out on this. Again a good representation of their relationship.


I am loving the Alec & Magnus story line. They are getting along well, I wish I could get a portal to Tokyo too! This is such an important relationship for book fans I'm glad they are doing this justice, especially for gay fans watching.


Ah Izzy the Yin Fen is such a horrible drug. Please stay away. We all know what can happen. Even Magnus name dropped to remind us of the terrible things that can happen. Let me just shout Jem Jem Jem!!! Thanks Magnus!! 


When Simon says "Wow is this the only bar in Brooklyn" we were thinking the same thing. But I loved all the scenes here. We had already seen Clary being cute about Simon going out with Maia, and then we see Jace giving Simon some dating advise. BTW Maia, oh we'd like to spit in one of those drinks too. Finally some humour that is actually funny in this show!!


When Jace is giving Simon a pep talk it was so spot on for their personalities. I was waiting for them to discuss Mangos! Poor Simon we just love him. I thought it was very clever when Jace impersonates Simon. 


I found the Luke/Clary/Cleophis story very similar to many we have already seen in this show that just seem predictable and fall flat. It was the sideline story in this episode thankfully. 


But we get a glimpse of the captive angel story. Poor Etherial. I'm hoping this angel story keeps going and we learn more about Clary & Jace's background soon. 


Keep up the good work writers. Going back to the source material if what we want, and you know what, we will love you more for it.


KATIE'S THOUGHTS


Kudos to this awesome cast for their acting ability, because the writing is horrible. Once again I'm left wondering why out of the hundreds of pages many of us fans have read, can't anyone pull something out of them, and use it in the plot. That would at least help out the series a lot (ratings are at an all time low right now). It would make what we're watching that much more exciting, and not leave us wondering why we're still turning in every week. 


This week's episode was a hot mess. Yes, there were some great elements, but sadly the bad out weighs the good. Let's talk about the good.... The Jace / Simon pep talk was spot on. We got a glimpse of book Jace and Simon, and I loved it. Plus, Simon is, well Simon. I love the way Alberto just gets him. I absolutely adore TV series Simon, maybe a little more so than I did at the beginning of the book series. Another good thing, we get more Malec (more on that in a moment), we see more of the Clary & Simon chemistry, and we have some good Alec and Jace moments. Simon is my favorite vampire, but Raphael is definitely becoming a close second when it comes to favorites.

The bad... Am I the only one who's having a hard time with Izzy being addicted to Yin Fen? I'm not liking the road she's heading down. I'm also having a hard time accepting Izzy doing drugs. Speaking of Yin Fen, Freeform, please do NOT touch The Infernal Devices. This show is already bad enough, screwing up TID would be even worse. 

Speaking of screwing things up, I am beyond disappointed with Freeform, and the show runners, as well as the writers for the Malec scene. NO, I'm not disappointed we got a Malec scene. I'm mad about what the scene entailed (as are many other fans, see here & here). How is it okay for there to be no consent? I'm so tired of our society's view of consent, and what the lack of saying yes means, also called CONSENT. Tonight Freeform proved how they felt about it too. What transpired during the Malec scene was not okay. It is NOT something that Magnus or Alec would ever do to each other.  Not to mention, why is it okay to show Jace having a moment (okay more than a moment, which I didn't need to see any of that), and not Malec? Tonight we saw why ABC Family became Freeform. 

Though lack of consent is the biggest problem with the Malec scenes and will taint every scene they have going forward, part of the reason it likely happened is that they were given so little screen time. They had three sentences to establish what Jace and a nameless faerie girl had ten minutes to establish as Jace and the girl rolled around naked and affectionate. 

Speaking of couples sidelined on this show, Clace continues to be a hot mess as the showrunners have no clue how to let us know Clary cares about Jace. It appears to be entirely one sided on Jace's part, rendering Clary totally unsympathetic for her clueless cruelty and making forbidden love once again into boring love. I really wish the writers would stick to the book content, or at least consult with Cassie to help make a better adaptation (see her interview here talking about the show). 


**  **  **  **  **

As always, we'd love to hear your thoughts on this week's episode. If you missed it, be sure to catch up with it here on Shadowhunterstv.com.  
SaveSave

3 comments:

  1. Yea I am watching the series I don't know why but I am I think of it like a alternate universe because free-form has completely butchered the books yin fin is demon iccor not vampire venom it's why it is so expensive in the book and rare then Mia does date Simon for a while and same time Simon dates Izzy things get intresting I don't think the producer even read past the first book or read the books of infernal devices I have read them all about 5 times I love and yea max going off on jayce no the boy idols jayce

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh and forgot clary her mother never died in the book -.- what the hell come on freeform get it right

      Delete
    2. I posted the first blog on here its why I am posting this lol

      Delete

Labels