nieyao being trapped in the coffin for the rest of forever (or like 100 years) is infinitely less upsetting to me than lan xichen being trapped alone in his room/life without them for the rest of forever. like nieyao were always going to end up in that coffin together, they were always going to be the end of each other, but lan xichen didn’t have to end up alone like he did and yet

Shadowhunters Season 2 Episode 16 Day of Atonement Review/Discussion

I know, I am soooo far behind on these. I’ve been really busy with work and these episodes as well as the fandom haven’t really been inspiring me to write. But I’m definitely going to get them done. So let’s go back in time to a few weeks ago.

Here we are again with another Shadowhunters review. This time we had Season 2 Episode 16, Day of Atonement. I actually really enjoyed this episode. It had a nice Vampire Diaries feel to it.

This is going to be an honest review of my thoughts and feelings regarding this episode. If you’re the kind of Shadowhunters fan where you only want to hear positive things about the show, this is not the place for you. If you decide to stick around and get offended by what is said, then that’s on you. I warned you. Just know that if you send me any rude comments or messages, I will 100% ignore you. I find that’s the best way to deal with bullies. I work 14 hour days. Do you really think I want to waste my incredibly valuable free time dealing with derogatory comments? Hell no. This review will consist of my honest opinions. Opinions are never right or wrong. I’m not telling you how to think and feel. I’m telling you what I think and feel. So please, let’s discuss with dignity and respect. If I’m critical about the show, it’s only because I want it to get better. There is, in fact, a difference between hating a show and being critical of it. I do not hate Shadowhunters; I am being critical and analyzing the flaws as I would with any other show. There are positives but there are also negatives. It’s great if you want to promote positivity with this show (and I encourage you to do so) but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t acknowledge the things that are legitimately wrong with it. Also, keep in mind that despite the fact that I do love the books, me being critical of this show has nothing to do with my love of the books. I don’t really care if the show deviates from the source material as long as it’s good and it makes sense. My problems with this show are problems that I would have with any show or book for that matter. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to take issue with a show that has plot holes, shoddy world-building, and inconsistent characters. There will be spoilers for the show and spoilers for the books and movie.

I had kind of a nice time with this episode which is really saying something considering how underwhelmed I’ve been with this show lately. It had a really nice Vampire Diaries feel to it which is no surprise considering who was directing it. Paul Wesley can come back to direct at any time. He did a really good job with this episode. There was a nice, balanced tone in this episode that just hasn’t been present in this show before. This felt like a Vampire Diaries episode in the sense that it was all about character dynamics. As much as some people love to hate The Vampire Diaries, I have never been able to get on that band wagon. Yes, sometimes the plots get a little wacky and the timelines don’t always match up and make sense, but that’s never been what The Vampire Diaries is about. It’s always been about the characters and that’s what I love about The Vampire Diaries. The characters and their dynamics make you feel things and that’s something that Shadowhunters has a hard time with sometimes. The Vampire Diaries has moved me to tears countless times and Shadowhunters has never really done that. There’s been a couple of times where I started to get teary-eyed but never to the point where I had a full blown waterfall coming out of my eyes that Vampire Diaries has done to me so many times. I want that to happen with Shadowhunters but they just can’t seem to find the right mixture of tone, dialogue, and music. There’s always something that takes you out of the scene. Now, I know that I compare this show a lot to the Vampire Diaries and there’s a reason for that. It’s that from Day 1, Shadowhunters has been trying to emulate and become the next Vampire Diaries. They’re really trying and in this episode, they finally got really close and I’m happy for them. I love the Vampire Diaries and if they can stick with a Vampire Diaries kind of tone, this show could stick around for a while. People can complain about the Vampire Diaries but guess what, none of that changes the fact that it stuck around for 8 seasons. Not every show can say that. They had to have been doing something that people liked to have gotten that far. Granted, I’m not completely in love with Shadowhunters yet; the plot and characters are far too inconsistent for that. I can only hope that Shadowhunters will keep on improving and eventually find its way to 8 seasons as well.

Robert Lightwood’s Return

So Team Good is talking about the consequences they may now face from allowing Valentine to escape during the transfer. Clary brings up that what happened wasn’t really their fault but Alec responds with it happened while he was the Head of the Institute so he intends to hold himself accountable for it and Izzy says she plans to hold herself accountable since she was in charge of the prisoner transfer. These two are actually fighting over who’s going to take responsibility. They both want to. See, Clary, this is what actual responsible adults do. They take responsibility. Granted, it’s not really their fault but that’s the hazard of being in a leadership position. When you become a leader, you’re held accountable for everyone under you. Whether they make good decisions or bad decisions, it all reflects back onto you. And that’s why despite this not actually being Izzy or Alec’s fault, it’s why they’re willing to own up to it. They’re good, responsible leaders. Jace and Clary could really learn something from Alec and Izzy. Out of all of the times Clary and Jace went out and did things on their own up to this point, when were they actually held accountable for any of it? Never. When their decisions were called into question, it was Alec and Izzy that paid for it. I may be a little salty towards Clary but this is a big reason that I have for it. She’s being treated like she’s this amazing adult but yet she can’t do something as simple as hold herself accountable for any of her actions. Can you really call her this selfless and wonderful character if her decisions always negatively impact her friends and she never apologizes for it or owns up to it? It’s a little like that in the books too, but the difference is Clary in the books was 16. That’s kind of how everyone is at the age of 16. However, Show Clary has aged up. She’s an actual adult here who still possesses the mindset of a 16-year-old it seems. It would be nice if she even thought about taking responsibility for her actions. In my eyes, that’s what makes a good protagonist but maybe I’m the dumb one.

But as they’re discussing the possible leadership change as Alec is pretty sure he’s going to get fired, Robert Lightwood pops back up and explains that’s not going to happen. He’s bought them a little time. It was interesting having him back I guess, but ultimately, as a character, I much prefer Maryse. That and the way he talks about this affair just rubs me the wrong way. First off, he tries to equate what he did with what Alec has with Magnus. As Alec blatantly said, Magnus wasn’t an affair. You go, Alec. Yes, he was on the altar getting ready to marry Lydia and he might’ve actually gone through with it despite Magnus being there because he’s a good man. But really, when you think about it, what allowed him to go and kiss Magnus was Lydia essentially telling him, “I’ve experienced being with the one I love but you haven’t. I understand that feeling and I’m not going to keep you from it. Go. I’ll be fine.” Lydia was such a great person. I hope someday the show will bring her back. I don’t necessarily like the idea for WHY her character exists but I like what the show ultimately did with her. I just wish she could’ve continued on with the show and we could’ve gotten to know her a little more. Instead, the show keeps on putting in other original characters that I don’t care about like Luke’s partner. But anyway, I was talking about this affair. Robert trying to equate what he did with what Alec did is so not cool on so many different levels. Both as a father to their child and human to human. Honestly, that line really didn’t need to be there. It just made Robert look like an idiot. But hey, who am I kidding? If you’re a shadowhunter and you’re not Clary, Izzy, Alec, or Jace, you’re pretty much the scum of the universe. That’s just how this show rolls. Shadowhunters as a tv show doesn’t do well with shades of grey even though they could if they actually tried. They just don’t care to. And I also didn’t like how Robert was all, “What was I supposed to do? I fell in love.” That is not an acceptable excuse for cheating on your wife. You made an oath to stand by her side until death. I can somewhat be okay with characters who cheat on their boyfriend/girlfriend (it’s still a horrible thing to do but I won’t automatically hate them forever for it) but once marriage is in the picture and you cheat, you’re on my shit list because you made a vow, a promise, and by cheating, you broke that. Your word means absolutely nothing after that. Sorry, I got a little fired up. Cheating while married is a bit of a sore spot for me and Robert explaining the affair wasn’t doing anything to help redeem the character in my eyes. I also absolutely despised that the show implied Luke and Jocelyn had an affair in Season One so this isn’t just a Robert Lightwood thing. I understand with shadowhunters that once they fall in love, it’s a really big deal for them but at the same time they also respect the bonds of marriage. Robert’s entire explanation was incredibly dumb and it didn’t need to be there. I understand that the show is trying to create conflict between Alec and Robert. It just felt like in this moment, the writers were trying a little too hard to slip in some drama. Now, I’m not opposed to drama and conflict in a show. In fact, I love drama and conflict in my shows. However, when it’s written, it should always feel organic and this did not. The way it was written, it felt very forced and very staged. I had much the same issues with the parabatai fight in Season 1. It wasn’t so much the fact that they were fighting that was the problem, it was the fact that it felt staged and didn’t feel organic to the story being told. And besides, I don’t understand the logic of telling your children you cheated on their mother because you fell in love with someone else. You’re essentially telling your kids that their mother and the children themselves weren’t enough for you. What kind of father says that? A douche father, that’s who. Is Robert trying to make his kids hate him?

It was also a little weird to me that Izzy is kind of apathetic to the whole situation considering how close she was with her father. Particularly in Season 1. I really wanted her to get angry but no, the only time she gets moderately angry with him is when she scolds him for yelling at Max. And that was just a weird scene in general. Honestly, that whole thing with Robert yelling at Max off screen was a dumb decision to make. When you write, you always have to make the decision on show vs tell. There are some situations where showing works better and there are other situations where telling works better. The writers made a bad call on this one. They went the telling route when they should’ve gone with show. And I’ll tell you why. I felt nothing in this scene where Izzy is reprimanding Robert about what happened with Max. I wasn’t feeling any drama or angst. It was just a conversation that was there and I was perfectly willing to forget about it once it was over. However, showing this altercation where Robert does yell at Max and showing Izzy witnessing the state Max was in afterwards, would’ve been so much more powerful and it would’ve made the Robert and Izzy scene more impactful. Because it would’ve shown Izzy’s emotional connection to what happened between Max and Robert. But writers making weird writing decisions in this show, nothing new.

Here We Are With Clace Again

With Climon broken up, it means we’re back to Clace now. Oh joy. Now, don’t worry, I’m not a Climon shipper and I don’t actually have a problem with Clace. It’s not even that I don’t like them in the show. I’m just apathetic towards Clace as a couple in the show. There’s nothing interesting about the dynamic these two have in the show. I don’t understand why these two have such strong feelings towards each other. Even their romantic chemistry is off. They’ve always felt more like siblings to me than anything else. Which is probably why I didn’t altogether mind the time period when they thought they were siblings in the show. I wasn’t exactly counting down the days to when they found out the truth. The sibling dynamic they have feels so much more organic. Their chemistry just worked better that way. I really wish I could ship Show Clace in the show but I just can’t. I liked Book Clace perfectly fine. Not as much as Sizzy or Malec but I still cared about them and wanted them to succeed. In the show, I just don’t care. Any scene they try to be romantic in just comes off as, blah. And I’m sorry if you’re a hardcore Show Clace shipper, but I can’t help what I don’t feel.

Now, I did see a post recently that was pretty much stating the blogger felt like the show didn’t really need to give reasons for why Show Clary and Jace are falling in love. Their reasoning behind it is the fact that they share the same angel blood. They’re the only two of their kind and that explains the pull they have to each other. Why Jace was so ready to trust her when he first met her. Now I can kind of see that and I can accept that. However, the issue is that being in love and being in a relationship the way the show is building up Clace to be requires more than some sort of blood link. These two are supposed to be endgame which means the show needs to develop their actual personalities and establish the bonds of their personality and not their blood. In other words, why does Jace love Clary? Why does Clary love Jace? When it comes to an actual relationship and making it work, you need more than blood to handle those trials. You need to like the person’s personality as well and I just don’t feel like these two’s personalities have been established well enough for me to get on the Clace train. Life isn’t easy. It’s filled with trials and tribulations. When you, as a couple, are faced with those trials, it’s your individual life experiences combining together that’s going to enable you to get past it. Neither of them have really explored each other’s minds and hearts. All that a blood link means is that you feel comfortable with each other. It’s not enough for an actual foundation of true love. Keep in mind, that’s my own opinion. Feel free to disagree but don’t belittle me for mine.

But anyway, Jace suspects that Valentine might be at a cabin they used to live at when Jace was younger. But the Clave is disapproving the request. So while Clary and Jace are looking at a map, Clary sees a rune in her mind that allows her to create a portal to Idris and she and Jace jump through. And thus, the Clace adventure begins. Clary gets dumped into the lake and for whatever reason, she can’t seem to swim to the surface and Jace has to save her. Again, a very forced plot development so the writers can force some Clace feelings on to me that I really don’t feel. I don’t know why Clary wasn’t able to swim to the surface. Girls typically are rather buoyant in water. It depends on the girl but usually girls can float to the surface pretty quickly. Maybe Clary not being able to swim up is going to play a part later. Who knows? But Clary and Jace start their trek through the woods to this cabin. And once again, Clary does something stupid without thinking of the consequences and no one yells at her for it. She just saw that she could write a rune and create a portal and just did it. She didn’t bother to think about asking if whether she should. She made the portal and pushed Jace in with her not even thinking of the consequence. Of where they could end up. And I’m sure she’ll never face any consequences for this because that’s how this show is. Make Clary feel bad about her actions? Please, this is Shadowhunters, you guys. They need their Mary Sue to be the fullest Mary Sue she can possibly be after all. Now, this scene does exist in the books as well except it’s Luke with her. The only difference is that Luke actually does call her out on behaving like a petulant child throwing a tantrum because she couldn’t get her way. I’m not saying Jace should’ve gone that far with Clary but he should’ve reprimanded her a little for this. It just adds on more that Clary is never going to hold herself accountable for her actions. If she isn’t going to hold herself accountable, can you really call her selfless? For the Clary character, there needs to be a balance between being impulsive and being selfless. It’s a hard balance to strike but if the show can find it, they’ll finally be on their way to making Clary a likeable character in my eyes. Right now, she’s only selfless if it benefits her to be.

As Clary and Jace are trekking through, Clary starts feeling unwell and decides she needs to activate her healing rune but realizes she lost her stele in the lake she was dumped into. Then we have a Clace interaction that I personally cringed at. Clary asks Jace to use his own angelic ability to activate her healing rune and Jace reveals that he’s not sure if he can. And Clary gets bratty and is all, “and you got on me about using my abilities?” I don’t understand this interaction they have. How does Clary using her powers dumbly have anything to do with Jace not using his? Show Clace banter is just so weird and not cute and not romantic. Also, this moment is a prime example of my dislike on how Clary is portrayed. This line couldn’t have been all that bad but when Kat delivered the line, she came off incredibly condescending and that’s another issue I have with the Clary character in this show. I’m not even sure if Kat realizes it when she delivers her lines sometimes, but she cannot pull off sarcasm. Every time she does, she comes off condescending and it really takes me away from her as a character. For sarcasm, you have to have a certain kind of tone for it to work and Kat just cannot find that tone. I’m not saying she’s a bad actress. She’s perfectly fine in a lot of her line delivery. This is just something she’s not good at. But they decide to go back to the lake and see if they can find the stele. Somehow, Jace loses sight of her. I don’t know how (plot convenience, I guess) and she starts running through the woods. She has a weird vision of an angel that tells her that Jonathon is still alive. She thinks he’s talking about Jace. But book readers know he’s referring to Sebastian. This was also weird to me. When she realizes that the angel was actually referring to her real brother, how hasn’t she at least suspect that her brother could actually still be alive before? We all know at this point that Valentine is a liar. But oh well. These characters being idiots for plot convenience, nothing new there.

Izzy eventually joins the party when Jace cuts himself on the hand in an attempt to contact Alec. It was at first weird to me because that’s not really how parabatai works. If you get injured, your parabatai shouldn’t feel your injury. That kind of puts you at a bit of a disadvantage during a fight. If your parabatai gets scratched and you feel it, it could distract you from the fight. That could be the difference between life and death. But on the other side, I also understand why they’re portraying parabatai like this. In the books, so much of the parabatai dynamic is portrayed through the thoughts of whoever’s narrating at the time. However, in film, it’s not the narrator who’s telling the story. Film is at a disadvantage because it has to rely on the characters and their interactions with each other to tell the story. It would be very difficult to really portray parabatai in the show as it is in the books when so much of it is inferred by the narrator. This is just part of the burden of the art of adaptation. Somethings just can’t transfer well over from medium to medium. Sometimes when making an adaptation, change is necessary. So as weird as this is, I can tell the show really wants to tell a parabatai story so they need to change certain aspects of the parabatai mythology to be able to effectively do that. And I want them to tell a parabatai story. The parabatai bond is one of the things I love the most about the books so I want the show to get neck deep into that plot whenever possible. So Alec feels the pain in his palm and realizes that Jace and Clary went through a portal to Idris. He picks up a shard of the portal that shows the lake Clary was dumped into. Alec tells Izzy to go find Jace and Clary. He really wanted to go but also recognized that he’s the head of the NYC Institute so he can’t just up and leave. Robert also tells Izzy that if you drink the water from the lake, it causes you to hallucinate and it will eventually drive you to insanity. So Izzy makes it to Jace and they find Clary but they can’t get close enough to Clary to activate her rune. Clary, for whatever reason, doesn’t recognize them and is fighting back. This would’ve been so much more believable if we had gotten an angle from the perception of Clary on how she was perceiving Izzy and Jace in that moment. Paul Wesley dropped the ball a little on this one. It just felt weird that all of the sudden, she didn’t recognize them -- particularly since we only saw her have one hallucination with the angel that may not have been an hallucination. And that particular hallucination didn’t have anything to do with her not recognizing Jace and Izzy. But plot convenience, you know. We need to have another forced Clace interaction after all. I don’t know how someone who’s only been training for a month at the most can best supposedly the two best shadowhunters of their generation but like I said, plot convenience. Jace eventually gets to her and he’s able to use his angelic power to activate her healing rune that takes away the hallucinations before she goes insane. Shame, I would’ve liked to have seen Clary go insane for a little bit. Again, I’m never a big fan of Clace scenes but I was okay with this one. The tone was nice, the music was inserted very nicely. It just worked as a romantic scene barring the cheesy dialogue, of course.

“Are you okay?”

“Now that you are.”

Sorry, there’s no way you can deliver those lines and it not sound cheesy. But the tone of the scene really helped sell it.

The Atoning Part of the Episode

Maia and Simon had some really great scenes with Simon’s family. I really enjoyed those. Valentine and Sebastian/Jonathon had some great scenes as well. I kind of liked the symmetry of these two plot points. Finding atonement and finding forgiveness. It was really nice.

Also, I love that Sebastian/Jonathon and Valentine are now in scenes together. Separately, as villains, they’re very over the top and it can be difficult to take them seriously but on the other side, when they’re together, it kind of humanizes them in a way and I enjoy seeing that dynamic. There were some plot issues with Sebastian/Jonathon being sent to Edom that didn’t really make much sense. So Valentine takes Sebastian/Jonathon to the woods because they need the isolation and while Sebastian/Jonathon is there, he kills a boy. Okay, earlier in the episode, it was revealed that these woods are frequented by feral werewolves. I understand why Valentine would risk his children’s lives but where did this other boy come from? Why would you take your child to a place where it’s known to have feral werewolves? Who was this boy? Where was this boy living? Where were his parents? To me, it would’ve made more sense if Sebastian had tried to kill Jace when they were kids and that is what spurred Valentine to send Sebastian to Edom. He realized that Sebastian was far too unstable. This plot is also weird in the sense that he sends Sebastian to Edom. I’m assuming Valentine did it to result in Sebastian’s death but still, why wouldn’t he just kill him outright? Is killing a child too low for even him? I don’t know. He’s responsible for Jocelyn’s death and didn’t even bat an eye.

Ultimately, this felt like a B- episode. It was really more filler than anything else. Regardless, I still kind of enjoyed it. As always, weird things afoot that take you out of the episode but there’s still plenty of things to enjoy. It had a nice balanced tone that I enjoyed. Some people have complained that they didn’t like Paul Wesley as a director in this episode but whenever I talk to those people, it feels like they have more of an issue with the script than anything else. The director does not write the script, people. Much like the actors, if the script’s trash, then there’s only so much a director can do. I think Paul Wesley did just fine with the material he was given. He could’ve definitely done more with the whole hallucination bit, but he created a really nice tone for the episode that I enjoyed. I feel like this was kind of a bland review. Not a lot happened so there’s not really a whole lot to talk about, you know?

Well, that’s all I have for you. Again, I’m so sorry I’m so behind on all of these but I’m working to catch up. I’d love to hear your thoughts and opinions on this show. Just remember to respect everyone’s opinions.