Shadowhunters Discussion: Episode 3

Hi guys,

Today I’m here to talk about the third episode of the TV show Shadowhunters ‘Dead Man’s Party’. Shadowhunters is an adaptation of The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare. As I said in my discussion posts for episode 1 and 2 I probably won’t do a review of each episode but I have some free time today and I have a LOT I want to talk about.

This is probably my least favourite episode of the show so far. Since episode 2 was better than episode 1 I had higher expectations for episode 3 which I probably shouldn’t have had. Most of the events in this episode seemed completely irrelevant to the main plot line and basically none of the events in the episode occurred in the book. I feel like this episode attempted to fix up some questions people had from the first few episodes such as explaining what Parabati was but I personally felt it was done so badly. This episode really lacked the humour and funny lines that I enjoyed from the first two episodes also leading to me liking it less. On an entertainment level I’m going to rate this episode 2 out of 5 stars. I don’t even know how to rate this episode critically so I’m just going to leave it for this week. I know that’s quite harsh but I just really didn’t like this episode and found myself cringing during 80% of it.

Just as with my previous discussions I’ll be going into spoilers now. Again this next part is probably going to be filled with long rants so please prepare yourself! I’m going to be quite picky but please don’t think I’m saying you shouldn’t like this episode since I’m sure many people did still enjoy it. I just want to share my personal opinions and talk about it with you guys! 🙂 Let’s begin why don’t we…

Characters

• I was pleasantly surprised to see that Raphael Santiago would appear already on the show. His character was really interesting and I hope at one point they discuss his back story as they did in the Bane Chronicles. I do kind of like where they are going with his character so far as being bad but not entirely bad if you get what I mean…

• So they also brought Meliorn’s character into the first season. I guess his character had somewhat of an importance in this episode but I don’t see why his character will be needed in later episodes…
• Unfortunately Simon was hypnotised for a good part of the episode but when he wasn’t his awkwardness was quite funny. I can never really picture him though, being able to throw a knife at someone…
• I have no idea why they decided to add Camille to the show already but I’m curious as to how they will weave her character into the story. She was also a lot younger in the show then I pictured in the books.

• It’s only the start of the show and Hodge is already starting to act a little creepy. I’m not sure whether this is something I like or not since as much as I like foreshadowing it just seems a little too early at this stage.
• Kat’s acting as Clary in this episode was really up and down. At the start I thought she was portraying Clary so well but then toward the end it all completely fell apart and I just, I can’t even right now…
• Isabelle’s character…I understand the fact that she uses her beauty as a weapon but some of the lines she said were really unlike what book Izzy would say. For example, ‘The only thing I have to do is you,’ and ‘I don’t mind being the distraction.’ I feel like if these were balanced out with more scenes of Izzy fighting and being bad-ass I wouldn’t mind so much but her ratio of flirting to fighting is growing out of balance…

• Can I just mention that a LOT of characters were missing from this episode. Such as Magnus, Valentine and Luke?? Where were they at?

Dialogue

• For me personally, Jace’s and Alec’s Parabati chemistry felt very forced. It literally got to the point where Alec called Jace ‘Parabati’ in order to show the audience that they were actually Parabati. *cringe* In the end it really just felt like they were creating some sort of bromance between them that wasn’t even done properly.
• There was really no proper explanation for what Parabati is and how it benefits the Shadowhunters. The line ‘In battle our hearts beat as one,’ got me cringing so badly…
• Pretty much every line Clary says to Jace while teaching her to use the Seraph blades was so cheesy.

• I did like how Simon and Raphael slipped in the fact that vampires normally can’t say the word ‘God’ since this plays a small part later on in the series between them.

Scenes

• The opening credits are okay but they really remind me of the opening credits for the TV show Blindspot. I also don’t like the random ‘This is the hunt’ sung at the end. I’m hoping that maybe if there is a next season we’ll get a badass Teen Wolf opening credits.
• I’m struggling to understand why they had to leave the Institute to get weapons from a random grave? In the book they got weapons from the Church right? Not dig up someone’s grave to find it!
• I loved how outside Hotel Dumort was the sign saying ‘Live your way not and forever.’ I get the pun 😉
• Why did Camille have to make out with Simon for half the episode? Was it so she could eat blood? Cause couldn’t she just do that without having to make out with him or was it just to have more fun and make the show look more ‘steamy’ in order to attract a wider audience…

• The whole scene where Jace and Clary go to that random club where vampires hang out was totally unnecessary and I don’t understand why it had to be added into the show. I also can never imagine Jace allowing Clary to go off and flirt with a vampire in order to get a stupid motorbike. This whole scene just really made me want to bang my head against the wall multiple times.
• The effects of Clary and Jace on the motorbike were so cheesy and fake-looking I could barely watch. I understand there is a limited budget but still couldn’t they somehow fix this…

Props/Costumes

• The Seraph blades continued to look like plastic glow in the dark sticks in this episode. On top of that bad lightsaber sound effects were added on making everything worse… 😦

Changes To The Book

• Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t Camille and Raphael hate each other in the books since they both wanted to be leader of the vampire clan. I did pick up hints of it but I don’t think there was enough for non-readers of the book to really understand the feelings between these two.
• In the TV show I felt like the vampires had so many more powers then they did in the books. Vampires can’t freeze people right? Why did the show have to add this? In fact, when the vampires were trying to fight the Shadowhunters why didn’t they just freeze them? Or is there a rune that stops that too?? Don’t even get me started on what the hell ‘Encanto’ is…

• Where do I even start with the fact that the Shadowhunters were killing all the vampires? This was the number one issue I had with the movie. So far Shadowhunters had followed the laws of the world from the book so well and then BAM let’s go kill all the vampires. If this wasn’t bad enough the effects for when vampires die was the absolute worst. Why did the vampires have to turn into skeletons that burst into flames? Why waste the special effects budget on that? I know vampires have a demon disease injected into them making them what they are BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN THEY HAVE TO BE DESTROYED IN THE SAME WAY DEMONS ARE!

• I also just have to complain about the fact that a slight ray of sunshine MADE A VAMPIRE BURST INTO FLAMES INSTANTLY!? WHAT?? But later Raphael is almost in direct sunlight, yet he’s totally fine! SOMEONE EXPLAIN PLEASE!
• Don’t even get me started on why Raphael allowed Simon to escape. I actually have no idea why this had to happen. It made zero sense and was so unlike Raphael’s character.

So that’s all I have to rant about for episode 3 of Shadowhunters! I’m dearly hoping that I’ll like episode 4 better but from what I saw in the promo about a ‘memory demon’ my expectations are already quite low. Please leave a comment letting me know what you thought of the episode. Please don’t tell me I’m not the only one feeling all these things! But thank you so much for reading my post I’ll catch you all later!

Gabby The Dauntless Warlock xx