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SHADOWHUNTERS Episode 2.08 Recap and Review – “Love is a Devil”

Lots of stuff happens in this episode of SHADOWHUNTERS, “Love is a Devil,” including an awesome warlock fight! 

In this recap of last night’s Shadowhunters episode, titled “Love is a Devil,” we start off where we left off with Isabelle in last week’s episode. Isabelle is surrounded by vampires and asks for venom. She changes her mind when she realizes she’s a little in over her head. But when they’re about to attack, Raphael stops them and tells them all to release her. They take off like bats outta hell.

She pleads with Raphael to bite her to relieve her withdrawal pain. At first he tells her to sweat it out, but she pleads some more and he relents, but only this once. Yeah, suuuuuure!

Jace and Clary are at the Jade Wolf, and Luke is upset that he only now knows what Valentine wants with the Soul Sword. They then tell him that the angel Ithuriel showed a vision of a demon that could destroy the Soul Sword. So, that’s what that vision was about! Seriously, I wouldn’t have been able to guess that on the first try. Luke wants them to go find that demon.

At the Institute, Isabelle tries to ask Alec if he took her advice about Magnus and what happened, but he won’t say. Yeah, like he’s just going to spit it out. She does realize this is her brother Alec she’s talking to, right?

The youngest Lightwood sibling, Max, runs in to greet Alec and Izzy. Maryse enters as well, but they’re not giving her any warm receptions. They’re kinda still mad about the trying to kill Jace thing. Max then announces that he’s ready for his Rune Ceremony. Maryse tells them that Robert won’t be there for it, so Alec will be in charge of Max’s ceremonial party.

Max and Alec have a moment alone and Alec finds out from Max that their parents have been fighting. Max reveals that Maryse isn’t happy with Alec dating Magnus, a warlock/Downworlder.

Alec goes to Magnus’ and asks him to host the ceremonial party. Magnus is reluctant, because of Maryse, but Alec wants to prove to her that this relationship isn’t going away and basically she needs to deal with it. Magnus likes the sound of that and agrees to do it.

Valentine visits Iris, the warlock that tried to get Clary pregnant with a demon and also who Clary made a blood oath with, at a park where she’s watching her little girl, Madzie. She’s nervous around him. He reveals Clary is his daughter, which makes Iris even more nervous, and agrees to do anything for him to prevent Madzie from being harmed.

Later that night, Simon is mumbling to himself when Clary meets him at the pier per Simon’s request, and Simon finally confesses his love for her. She kisses him and he kisses her back. It looks like they’re together now! It’s….cute.

Alec shows Maryse the invitation for Max’s Rune Ceremony and they get into an argument about Magnus hosting it. She tells him that it should be about family, but then he reminds her that she tried to kill Jace – seems they’re not letting that go so quickly. She again says she was following orders. Hmm…he doesn’t really care. She relents and agrees to the party.

On Magnus’ patio area, Jace is searching through books about where to find the demon (possibly?) when several cats surround him, bothering his work. When Magnus comes to feed them, Jace is irritated with him and protective of Alec, hinting that he knows about Magnus and Alec’s “sex step.” Some humor ensues because of Magnus’ misunderstanding on how he knows that he and Alec had sex. You’d think Magnus would know that this isn’t the case with parabatai, though.

But they both agree that Maryse has been a pain in their side as of late.

At the party, Clary and Simon enter the apartment together. Aww, their first official outing as a couple.

Maia is tending bar for the party and she admits to Jace that she’s glad she didn’t kill him since he didn’t kill Gretel. Please more Jace and Maia scenes like this! But both seem slightly bothered at seeing Climon.

Jace goes to congratulate Clary, while Simon goes to the bar to thank Maia for her advice. Clary is watching Simon, but is concerned when she sees them walking away together, and excuses herself from Jace’s presence to follow them.

Max and Maryse arrive and she offers Magnus a bottle of some kind of alcohol. Magnus says he gave the party a Spanish theme in honor of Robert proposing to Maryse in Barcelona. She thanks him rather passive-aggressively, which doesn’t go over Magnus’ head.

Clary looks for Simon and she sees him and Maia kissing on the fire escape.

As Clary is walking away, Simon stops her and says that Maia kissed him, but then he says that Clary will never understand what it’s like to be like he is, but that Maia will. Clary is heartbroken and is about to leave when Magnus convinces her to stay for Max and Alec and Izzy.

Izzy is walking the alleys and Raphael meets up with her per her request. Raphael admits that vampire blood is stronger than yin fen. He tries to encourage her to get through it on her own. She pleads for just a drop, but when he says no, she cuts herself, and he kinda goes rabid and bites into her arm. Oh Izzy!

Magnus presents Max with a gift, and asks to see Magnus’ warlock mark. When Magnus shows it, Max asks a rude question, to which Jace demands he apologize. Max argues with Jace, saying that he’s not even his brother, and that Maryse stated he’s not even part of their family. *gasp* Magnus, Jace, and Max leave.

Alec tells his mom that she needs to make things right with Jace. But when Maryse goes to see Jace, she is accusatory and calls him a demon and throws an ax at his head and then a sword, trying to kill him. Jace knocks her out.

As Raphael walks Izzy to Magnus’, he tells her to find the strength to get over her addiction, and he tells her about how Magnus helped him to control his craving for human blood. She kisses him on the cheek and thanks him before heading up to the party.

When Izzy enters the party, Clary apologizes to Izzy, and she accepts. She wants to talk to Izzy about her situation with Simon, but Izzy interrupts her and excuses herself.

Clary sees Simon and Maia getting flirty with each other, but Magnus blocks Clary from confronting Simon and realizes that she’s hallucinating, because Simon is actually talking to Raj. And apparently she’s not the only one.

“The Real Housewives of Idris!?”

Magnus sees Jace and Izzy standing over an unconscious Maryse. Magnus needs to see what’s going on there, too. When he does, Clary tries to leave again, when Alec attempts to talk to her. The only problem is that Alec is hallucinating as well, and Clary is blaming Alec for her mom’s death in this hallucination.

Magnus finds Jace has hallucinated the whole thing about what Maryse said and what she did. When Maryse wakes, she tells them she was trying to apologize, but that’s not what Jace hears. Magnus tells them someone’s playing with their minds.

Alec is on the ledge now. While Clary is trying to convince him to get off the ledge, he’s hearing her calling him a murderer and weak. Alec falls backward off the ledge.

Magnus uses his power to save Alec from his jump. While they’re all there on the ledge arguing, Magnus uses his counterspells book to erase the spell. The hallucinations are now gone. Suddenly, Magnus’ counterspells book disappears from his hand, so he immediately puts the wards up on his apartment.

After some searching, he realizes it’s one of the cats and the cat turns out to be Iris. She freezes the gang, except Magnus. They have an all-out warlock battle before he finally bests her.

She reveals that Valentine has Magnus’ counterspells book.

Iris begs him to let her go because of Madzie. He sends her to the Clave, but not before she activates the blood oath on Clary to order her to find Madzie, the young girl that was with Iris.

Clary finally reveals that Valentine was going to use Ithuriel to activate the Soul Sword, that he needed pure angel blood to do so, and destroy all Downworlders. Jace talks about the vision, and Clary also tells them she was able to create new runes through what the angel showed her. They realize that Clary may have angel blood in her and that Valentine might know this and that he can use her to activate the Soul Sword.

As they walk back home, Clary is kinda freaked out, but Simon reassures her and they kiss.

Max has his Rune Ceremony with his family there, including Jace and Clary.
Jace vows to never let Clary out of his sight now that they know how much danger she’s in from Valentine.

Clary and Maryse make amends with Alec and Jace. It’s a sweet moment.

Maryse confesses to Alec and Jace that Robert has been cheating, but she doesn’t want Isabelle to know since Izzy admires her father and that it would destroy her. She would like to stay there at the Institute, but duty comes over personal/family issues.

We see Madzie with Valentine, and he’s being creepy, telling her that she and Clary are going to get along so well.

Recap

The story drifts very much from the books as they often have been this season, but despite that, I like where they’ve been taking the series. We get a more detailed look into the lives of not just Clary and Jace, which the books were highly focused on, but we do get more interesting subplots, including Izzy’s addiction, and we even get to see Max doing his Rune ceremony, which I thought was a nice little something that’s not in the books. The Maryse and Robert situation is somewhat similar to the source material, however, it’s interesting that the showrunners decided to have Alec and Jace know about Robert’s infidelity instead of Izzy knowing about it. Of course, Robert  and Izzy’s father/daughter relationship seemed more closer from season 1 than what was revealed in the books.

But again, I stress the open willingness to not follow the books so literally, but more in essence. I found the spell that the Shadowhunters were experiencing during the party was a nice subplot for the episode as it dealt with character development in dealing with their insecurities.

One other thing that we don’t get to see happen is that of warlocks battling each other, and we got to see a taste of that, and Magnus’ powerful magical abilities. It was a great battle scene and I hope we get to see more of them in action, not just in training.

My one concern is where they’re going with this “thing” between Isabelle and Raphael. Now I’m more open for change than many book readers are, but I’m more unsure about creating new relationships when there’s going on in the series already. I rather liked the idea of seeing a sort of loner-type Raphael from the books than to couple him up. Is there such a thing as too many ships? It gives the character a unique trait about him.

The actors did quite well, and just seem to be getting better and better in their roles. I especially liked the banter between Dominic Sherwood’s Jace and Alisha Wainwright’s Maia, and I’d love to see more of that type of interaction between Dom and any of the rest of them. Just like Dom did with Alberto Rosende in last week’s episode, he certainly has a way to bringing out the snark in all of them and I love it.

By Nat, the Geek Girl

Southern California native who likes movies, books (Shadowhunter Chronicles, NA, YA fantasy, Red Rising series), TV shows (The Sandman), and San Diego Comic-Con. I also like to write, but don't get to do much of that aside from on here. I fell into the BTS rabbit hole, and I refuse to leave.