This week finally brought us the Season 3 premiere of Freeform’s Shadowhunters and it proved to be a horror-filled hour featuring an astounding degree of truth-skirting, Malec being nerdy in love, Jace tripping balls, and Simon having the weirdest day ever. You can read our full review here, but below are some of our bite-size bests from episode 3×01.
1: Most Shady:
Raphael wearing shades and doing shady things.
There was a lot of lying going on this week, but we were privy to most of the secrets…except when it came to Raphael. We don’t want to cast judgment here, but, Raphael, you appear to have a young woman held captive in your basement. We just want to talk. And lying about his emotional turmoil over his “last living relative” right to his Downworld dad’s face? Ouch. He appeared to be burning his subject with UV rays? We’ve had enough trouble with these types of scientific experiments in the Shadow World, thank you. Finally, as to whether the whole point of this superlative is just so we could make this pun, you bet your ass it is.
2: Biggest Nerds:
Malec (of course they are).
Malec invented quoting each other to each other. We don’t make the rules. Magnus and Alec continue to be two nerds too much in love. But it’s a work in progress. Magnus tried to hide his devastation over losing his position as High Warlock and Alec seemed to be indirectly trying to gauge how Magnus truly feels about him by dangling the possibility of moving to Idris. They did have their patented Malec Heart to Heart™ later on in the episode. And the love confessions were back in full force as well. Gut-wrenchingly romantic statements like, “I’ve always dreamed of meeting someone like you,” have apparently just become par for the course with these two lovebirds. But we’re interested to see just how much more married these two can get before they actually are married.
3: Scary as Hell:
Lilith and her posse of bug people.
Blood, and guts, and gore – oh my! The arrival of Lilith and her bug people took this already dark show and cranked the horror up to 11 (Netflix has taken to calling them “owl-faced demons,” but we think the moniker chosen by the writers better captures the ickiness of it all). We don’t think we’ll ever be able to shake that image of hellfire CPR being performed on poor Tim. All in all, we are pretty nervous about what Lilith and Co. have planned for when they come face-to-bug-face with our heroes. Don’t puke in anyone’s mouth, please.
4: Worst Trip:
Zombie!Jace adds hallucinations to his list of secrets.
Jace and Clary are finally free to be together, but now every time things get intimate between them, he hallucinates her demented brother telling him to stab her to death. It was impossible for Jace to sleep as well (we don’t blame him, what with that disturbing image of Jonathan manically licking a bloody seraph blade constantly popping into his head). These visions even bled into reality (the pun opportunities just keep presenting themselves this week; you’re welcome) when Jace accidentally cut Clary’s arm during training. Something tells us the Worst Trip of Jace’s life isn’t going to be ending any time soon.
5: Weirdest Day Ever:
Simon and the Seelie Queen have to stop meeting like this.
Simon really seems to be on the receiving end of “What can go wrong in the Downworld?” He began his day serenading the Seelie Queen in Seelieville – sorry, in her Court – and ended up tied to a tree and branded with the Mark of Cain. That escalated quickly. Can things stop happening to him, please? There’s only so many times Simon can redefine his new normal before things just reach an all-time weird. #LeaveSimonAlone2018
Shadowhunters airs Tuesdays 8/7c on Freeform and Wednesdays internationally on Netflix.
