Shadowhunters aired its midseason finale with episode ten “By the Light of Day” and will not be returning with the second part of season two until early June. The midseason finale surprised me in good ways and bad, but left me wanting more. It’s going to be a bit of a wait.

“By the Light of Day” followed our beloved characters coming together to bring down Valentine, who has infiltrated the Institute to use the Soul Sword to wipe out Downworlders. How the Institute, which is supposedly a highly secured church, keeps getting broken into is beyond me.

But regardless, Valentine breaks in with the help of a warlock child who seems to have too much power given her age. Valentine has captured Simon, and if Clary doesn’t turn herself in, Simon will be killed. Although this plot didn’t follow the book exactly, I was relieved it was still similar. Though I have no idea how on earth Valentine managed to figure out Facetime.

This whole episode was sprinkled with elements from the books, which pleased me enough to enjoy the episode. However, there were some changes that made sense and others that didn’t. For one thing, the show introduced Maia as a stubborn and passionate werewolf, but all of a sudden her character became reckless and hot-headed and started to border on annoying.

The shapeshifting rune is nothing but a nuisance. It should not even exist, and not just because it was not canon in the books. It makes things confusing by suggesting “anyone can be anyone,” and it causes problems for a character who is known to have shapeshifting abilities.

If Shadowhunters have runes for shapeshifting, then what makes this character’s abilities so special? Although I was annoyed, this episode was the first time I was relieved someone was not who they appeared to be, especially since it consisted of a great scene from the books between two major characters.

My favorite things about this episode were the interactions between characters and a few elements from the books. There are more scenes between Jace and Simon, two characters that had it out for each other in the beginning and are now slowly beginning to build trust in one another.

Speaking of Simon, one scene I was starting to think we’d never see from the books was the Daylighter sequence. Although it was not as dramatic as the book, the revelation of Simon’s Daylighter abilities made me smile, and I was relieved when the scene ended with clarity that Jace would not tell Clary the secret about his heritage he learned from Valentine.

But perhaps my favorite moment of the whole episode was the very end, when we received a sneak peek at the second half of the season, which is when my favorite villain of the series comes in and creates complications.

All in all, the midseason finale made up for the disappointing elements of the previous episodes and has me pumped up for the rest of the season.

Especially with the knowledge that I will be seeing a personal favorite character soon, I can’t wait to get back into the show. Although this season had some downs, it mostly had ups that have improved the adaption of this fantastic book series.

(5 / 5)