Shadowhunters recap: Of Men and Angels

I’ll be the first to admit that “Of Men and Angels” was not as thrilling as previous episodes in the series. I do understand the importance of a backstory and how we need certain details to connect the dots. But give us at least a little action, please! Thank goodness Isaiah Mustafa spent the entire hour with his impressive bare torso bandaged. Otherwise, I might have been bored.

Luke is bandaged up because he was bitten by a wolf when he inadvertently started a pack fight to save Clary’s life. Jace, Clary, and Simon rush him to Magnus Bane’s house, and while he thrashes about, we witness the first of many flashbacks. Luke sees Jocelyn. She tells him that he has to tell Clary everything because she is the key to finding the Mortal Cup. Luke questions, “The key to saving you?” No. The key to stopping Valentine.

Magnus explains that Luke is experiencing a side effect of the poison from the Alpha wolf bite. He needs ingredients for a super fancy antidote, and he needs them NOW. Jace and Simon argue over who gets to go downworld pharmacy shopping on Clary’s behalf. Sorry, Simon. Jace knows a guy. He wins. Magnus also asks them to call Alec because he needs virgin shadowhunter energy. Sure he does.

Jace makes the call, even though he is still ticked at Alec for his dangerous escapade with Clary. Simon scurries after him so he can be Clary’s knight in shining armor, too. He pokes fun at Jace’s relationship with Alec, and Jace pulls the parabatai bro card. Simon bets Jace that Alec won’t show up. He claims Jace treats Alec like a lap dog. But Jace laughs, telling Simon he acts the exact same way around Clary. That’s when Simon loses it and shoves Jace against a brick wall holding a knife to his throat. In one motion, Simon is on the ground as Jace hovers above him, peppering questions. What happened at the vampire hotel? What is going on? Where did you get the frames for your hip glasses? Okay, maybe he didn’t ask that last one, but Jace knows something is not right with Simon.

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Back at the Institute, Mama Lightwood struts around with a permanent frown on her face. She’s mad that the seelies are switching sides to go against the Clave because they assume Valentine is about to go to war and they want to be on the winning side. Her husband, Robert, is back in town with Max (the youngest Lightwood) in tow. Robert is pretty upset that Clary is MIA and demands that Izzy and Alec retrieve her immediately.

Alec suspects something is going on with his parents when he finds his mom crying. Apparently the Lightwoods need to adapt and present a united front. Thanks to the unsanctioned missions during which the Lightwood kids broke several rules by going rogue for the Fairchild girl, sacrifices need to be made in order to restore the family name. That means Alec needs to marry for political reasons and Izzy needs to convince the seelies to stay on the side of the Clave. I���m confident that if Alec’s face showed any sort of emotion, it would have been one that read, “Death to Clary.”

Izzy makes Alec promise not to marry for political alliance. They will restore the family name on their own. She’s not going to placate the seelies, either. But she is going to start dressing less hoochie and more like her mother — severe ponytail included. A frustrated Alec storms out of the training room for a quick shower and to musk up. He’s going to see a warlock about a werewolf.

NEXT: A walk down Valentine Memory Lane

Magnus needs Alec to hurry up. His blue magic is working, but the poison in Luke’s system is spreading. Magnus encourages Clary to draw out her feelings to see if she can remember anything about the Mortal Cup. I guess he didn’t have any adult coloring books to help ease her stress.

Clary sketches as Magnus gives her a history lesson in Daddy 101. Young Valentine thought downwolders should be killed, even though they are only half demons. This became an obsession, and he developed some severe anger issues. He wanted to create a new shadowhunter army, and he needed the Mortal Cup to do it. He killed a lot of people to secure that cup, and if it hadn’t been for Luke and Jocelyn, he would have succeeded. Luke and Jocelyn fought valiantly. She was able to grab the cup and disappear.

Suddenly, Luke starts to have a seizure. Alec swoops in to help. Magnus asks if he can siphon his energy? Alec gives him a sultry look and says, “Take all you need.” Jace and Simon arrive with the last ingredient for the potion. They only had to fight one demon to get it. Sure, Simon saw a dead version of himself on the ground as Jace was shouting for him to run away, but that’s a story for next week: It’s time to save Luke! Magnus and Alec channel each other as Clary pours the potion down Luke’s throat. He comes out of the haze, the lights turn on, and Magnus conveniently falls weak into Alec’s arms. I can’t really blame him. Have you seen those arms? Magnus later admits to Alec that he has unlocked something in him. Someone’s got a crush!

Clary thanks Alec for helping out. She mentions that she’s glad he and Jace are back on good terms. Alec actually grins and says, “I didn’t do this for Jace.” Did Alec just come out of the closet? Jace comes in to give Alec a parabatai bro hug. Then he intimately touches Clary’s face and hair just as Simon walks through the door. Awkward.

Magnus sets Luke up in his pimped out bed with a thousand pillows. Clary begs him for the rest of the story. She has to have ALL the information in order to unlock her mom’s annoying riddles. What is he not telling her? Luke concedes. The reason Valentine went crazy is because he and Jocelyn betrayed him. They fell in love. And Val got angry.

Valentine became obsessed with winning her back. He wanted to be the best soldier for her and even experimented with drinking downworlder blood. Once he crossed that line, he was gone. He became fixated on finding the Mortal Cup and creating more shadowhunters. This is, of course, forbidden.

If that wasn’t enough, Valentine also asked Luke, his parabatai, to join him on a mission in the midst of his madness. He locked Luke in a warehouse where he was attacked by werewolves. Valentine was surprised to see Luke the day he stole the Mortal Cup. He assumed he would have killed himself for being an abomination. Just as he was about to deliver a deathly blow to Luke’s neck, Jocelyn hurled a knife into Valentine’s back. That’s when she grabbed the cup and ran, with Valentine close on her heels. Luke assumed she was dead because Valentine was that bad. It turns out, Jocelyn is a fighter.

Clary still has no clue where her mother would have hidden the cup. She digs around in her bag and pulls out the mysterious box with “JC” engraved on the side. Luke looks like he’s about to hurl. He swallows and calmly tells Clary that JC stands for Jonathan Christopher — her brother. He died in a fire. A fire that Valentine started.

Clary slams her hand down on the box, and it magically becomes a drawing on her sketch pad. Luke is mesmerized by the fact that she clearly has angelic powers. Clary looks him in the eyes, exhales, and says, “I know where my mother hid the cup.”

GLORY HALLELUJAH! It’s about time! Now, who wants to take bets on how long it will take them to find it?