SHADOWHUNTERS Wear White to Funerals
Season 2, Episode 5 “Dust and Shadows”
Written by Zac Hug
Directed by Salli Richardson
[All images courtesy of Freeform]
On last week’s episode of Shadowhunters, Jace (Dominic Sherwood) was imprisoned in the City of Bones, and he pushed Clary (Katherine McNamara) away because he still loves her. He also later admitted to Aldertree (Nick Sagar) that he doesn’t just love her like a sister. Aldertree tortured Raphael (David Castro) in order to get to Camille (Kaitlyn Leeb), but it’s Magnus (Harry Shum Jr.) who ended up being the one to turn her over to the Clave. Valentine (Alan Van Sprang) broke Jace out while a demon rampaged through the Institute. In the end, a handful of Silent Brothers and some Shadowhunters, including Jocelyn (Maxim Roy) ended up being killed. For my full recap and review of last episode, you can you here. This week’s is below!
This week starts off with a mopey Alec (Matthew Daddario). He blames himself for killing Clary and Jace’s mom, as well as for not being able to save Jace the numerous times he’s gotten into bad situations lately. This version of Alec is only slightly different from normal, moody Alec in that he now self-deprecates instead of lashing out at others. I can’t help it, though, I still love Alec.
Clary and Simon (Alberto Rosende) get a little bonding time, again. They’re such close friends, but we hardly get to see them spend much time together. Even though they’re praying after her mother’s death, it’s still nice to see them with each other again. I like how close they are, even though part of that closeness is based on Simon wanting to date Clary.
It’s through their interaction that we find out Luke (Isaiah Mustafa) has left since Jocelyn’s passing. It’s also here that Clary gets the idea to try and bring her mom back, since she was able to do so with Simon. Even though the only reason Simon was able to be brought back was because of the vampire blood, it doesn’t stop Clary from solidifying the idea in her mind. When they go see Magnus for help on this endeavor, he turns them down and admits he wouldn’t even have brought his own mom back. We also finally learn why that dagger from Camille’s that he and Simon found was so important. It’s the dagger his mom used to kill herself with!
In order to try and help alleviate some of the sadness Clary feels, Magnus creates a picture for her from his own memories, since many of hers were erased. I’m not going to lie, I was not impressed with the picture at all. It looked poorly done and very unrealistic to me.
Back over at the Institute, we find out Jace has been exonerated of his traitor charges because of his part in saving Aldertree. Lydia (Stephanie Bennett) is also healing after her demon attack, and Izzy (Emeraude Toubia) is still sore from her encounter, as well.
For the first time, the Mortal Instruments are actually mentioned by their collective names. Of course, the book series itself is called The Mortal Instruments, but until now, we’ve only heard of the Mortal Cup, and it wasn’t in the context of being part of a set of items. The Soul Sword is the other element that’s mentioned, as both are now in Valentine’s possession. This is really bad news.
While Clary is regretting not leaving with her mom to go to Idris, Jace comes in to comfort her. I loved the way he looked at her while she was talking about her feelings. Sherwood is such a great actor, and I really enjoy all of his scenes! It’s his subtleties and reactions that he really does well.
When Clary sneaks off to find a warlock who can bring her mom back, Iris (Stephanie Belding) is the one who she chooses. She seems nice, other than her bluntness, but when she brings the dead bird back to life, I really started questioning her abilities. I originally thought it was a trick and that she hadn’t really brought the bird back, but we later find out she had succeeded, just not 100%.
Iris ends up needing something of Jocelyn’s and a fee. You can tell it’s not safe to trust her when she says she’ll wave her fee in lieu of a favor. It’s never good to agree to do a favor for someone when they’re bringing a loved one back from the dead. That’s an obvious rule of thumb.
Aldertree debriefs with Jace, but it doesn’t go as well as Jace probably expected. Aldertree says Jace is undisciplined, which is why he decided to save Aldertree instead of stopping Valentine from getting away with the Soul Sword. He also mentioned that his one death would’ve been preferable over the countless number of additional people who will now die trying to get it back. When he puts it that way, he does have a point. Regardless, Jace gets taken off field duty because of his actions, and he won’t be allowed to go to the Adamas Citadel to talk to the Iron Sisters about the Soul Sword situation.
We get another small sliver of Malec, again. Alec shows up at Magnus’s apartment because he can’t bear to be around the Institute and Clary. Like the wise warlock he is, Magnus realizes Alec is refusing to heal himself because he’d rather feel physical pain in order to cover up the emotional pain. He also reassures him that he’ll be able to handle it. These little snippets just make me want more Malec, because we’re not getting much of them together right now. Maybe we’ll see their first date soon, finally! I would really love more development on some of the romantic relationships in this series. While this one is my priority, there are so many in the series that are great.
When we see Clary snipping off a lock of Jocelyn’s hair, it really made me think something would go wrong with the spell because she got someone’s else’s hair. The way the bodies were all lined up and covered, it seemed like it could easily follow that plot line. I assume, though, that Clary probably would’ve been able to tell which one was her mother, especially with the hair color, but it was just my first instinct. Jace also tries to talk Clary out of her reckless quest to raise the dead, but Clary is pretty stubborn and doesn’t seem to like to listen to others’ advice.
Simon learns that moving back home with his family might not have been a good choice after his sister finds his blood stash and flushes it. That’s what siblings are for, I suppose. She seems really sweet. It makes me wonder what their relationship would be like in real life.
Jace and Izzy end up training together, and, as usual, I loved the music that went with this scene. The hits from the batons timed well with the beat of the music, and it just pumps up the scene for me. Even play fighting is fun to watch, especially when Sherwood is involved. Though there weren’t any real fights in this episode, per se, this made up for that lack of physical action in an emotional chapter.
During the training, though, we learn that Izzy’s demon wound isn’t healing. Jace also tells her about the expedition to the Iron Sisters, so she heads straight to Aldertree to request to lead the team. He also realizes she isn’t healing, and requests to look at her wound before allowing her to go, since he was a medic.
This whole scene gave off a really creepy vibe from Aldertree for me. The way it played out gave it a very “adult” feel, and given the age and authority difference between the two, it just didn’t feel right. It got even worse when he gave her the medicine, which acted almost like a street drug on her. It took Aldertree’s character from strict upholder of the Clave’s law to someone who uses his authority against people in a more unethical way.
When Alec finally confronts Clary to apologize, he’s all too eager to make it up to her. I think that’s the only reason he agrees to help her try to bring her mom back. That and if she was brought back, then he would be absolved of her death. It would normally be out of his character, I think, to do something as drastic and desperate as going to a warlock in this manner.
He does at least somewhat keep his training in mind when he refuses to stay in the waiting room and requests to see Iris’s warlock credentials, but then he backs down with little protest when Clary tells him to. You can really tell his relationship with her is and will be changing as they deal with the death of her mother. I enjoyed their snide attitudes toward each other from previous episodes, so we’ll see how they evolve and if that snarkiness comes back.
Simon ends up confessing to his mom that he’s a vampire, and after some convincing she says she believes him. I’m not really sure why I thought she actually might believe him, but I did. I feel so bad for him in that he’s so excited to finally have this huge secret off his chest, but she doesn’t actually think it’s true.
While Clary and Iris are working on their spell, Alec is downstairs talking to Madzie (uncredited), Iris’s goddaughter. Upstairs, the bird that Iris brought back earlier starts knocking on the window and eventually breaks in before Iris kills it again. It’s at this time that Clary realizes something isn’t right and tells her to stop the spell.
Alec also notices gills on Madzie’s neck and then hears a baby crying upstairs. The gills make me so curious to learn more about Madzie. I’m hoping she is reintroduced later, since she and Iris escape later in this episode. While Alec goes to investigate, Clary gets trapped by Iris, which was pretty much expected after she said she wanted her favor from Clary now. She wants to force Clary to have a half warlock, half shadowhunter baby then erase her memories so she doesn’t remember any of it happening. At the same time, Alec finds a woman holding a baby whose eyes turn black.
When Alec gets the woman to take him to Clary, she’s gone. He learns that the baby the woman was holding may have been one of hers, but that she doesn’t remember because of the memory wipe. The babies are all placed in homes to be raised and the mothers leave after forgetting. It’s heartbreaking, though, because she actually does remember bits and pieces of the babies she’s had. Iris is definitely not a good lady. Her intentions might be in the right direction, since Valentine is killing off warlocks, but her methods are far from ethical. She essentially uses the same type of method that Valentine does in order to get the best possible shadowhunter that she can. Both of them experiment on women and babies, yet both consider each other enemies. It’s an interesting dynamic.
This episode gets even creepier when Clary wakes up down in the basement. A small door opens and a slimy, black demon crawls in. Luckily, she beats it before anything happens to her by drawing a rune that she randomly envisions and shooting it with sunlight. Jace tells her not to tell anyone, which makes me wonder how bad of a gift that is.
Simon also has some bad luck as his mom walks in on him eating a rat. I know how she handles the situation in the books, but I’m really not sure how she’ll handle it here. She certainly didn’t look pleased, and I can’t imagine it’d be easy to accept, but I’m really hoping she’s accepting and understanding!
Then it’s time for the funeral over at the Institute. The shadowhunters wear white to funerals, since black is their everyday color choice. During the process, the survivors say the dead’s name out loud, but when it gets to Clary’s turn, she just breaks down and says, “mom” instead. Seriously, my heart absolutely broke. I wasn’t that upset when Jocelyn died, but I was more shocked by the huge change from the books at the time. But seeing people react to death always gets me, and I couldn’t help it when Jace hugged her and said Jocelyn’s name for her.
We also catch a glimpse of Luke, who was absent this episode. He’s apparently been out as a werewolf, and when the spirits of the fallen float above him, he transforms again. He had just rekindled his relationship with Jocelyn, so it’s also heartbreaking to see him lose her so soon after.
It was such a hugely emotional episode as it dealt with the aftermath of death. Overall, it was an excellent show. The music was beautiful, the acting was great, and the writing really helped solidify those emotions of the characters.
Shadowhunters airs on Mondays at 8/7c on Freeform. You can watch all of the episodes on the Freeform app or site, and don’t forget to come back each week for my recap and review!
