Thursday, January 10, 2019

Shadowhunters Talk: 2x20 “Beside Still Water”

Look at me finally getting around to talking about the season two finale more than a year after it aired! I knew I'd get there eventually.

We quickly learn in this episode that Sebastian isn’t dead, which wasn’t a surprise. Like I mentioned when talking about episode 2x19, there was no way they were going to get rid of Sebastian that suddenly. There’s so much more drama for him to stir up, and there was no way they were throwing him away without playing more with what he does in the books.

Someone who does die in this episode, though, is Jace. This also wasn’t surprising to anyone who read the books. I’d like to say that I felt emotional despite knowing Clary was going to bring him back to life, but I can’t. For the most part, while I liked how they handled that part of the story, I wasn’t anywhere close to tears despite crying rather easily in response to books and movies.

That’s something I blame on the lack of connection I feel with Jace as a character. I know Jace often gets more backlash than he deserves, so I want to emphasize that I don’t hate him or even dislike him. I just don’t connect with him as a character in the same way I do many of the other characters, and I think that was what led to my not-very-emotional response to his death.

Clary’s reaction to Jace’s death was more powerful to me than the death itself. My favorite part about that storyline was seeing her confront Valentine. Clary was a BAMF in this scene, and it was great to see. This was the climax of the original trilogy of books (before the last three books were added on), and I think the show was able to live up to that.

This episode ends with cliffhangers, of course, but I think I’m going to avoid talking about them because I'd just get into season three spoilers.

I remember being pretty stoked about Lilith appearing, since it plays out differently in the books, and I was intrigued by the direction they were taking. That's something I'll talk a lot more about as I talk about the season three episodes.

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