Shadowhunters: Dominic Sherwood on Jace's journey and channeling the horror genre in season 2

When Shadowhunters‘ first season came to an end, Clary had been reunited with her mother only to lose Jace to Valentine. So when season 2 picks up a few minutes later, fans will get to see the direct consequence of Jace’s decision, and needless to say, things aren’t looking good for him.

EW spoke with Dominic Sherwood about what fans should expect with the new season.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Will we get to see much of Jace’s time with Valentine?
DOMINIC SHERWOOD: For sure. The first two episodes for Jace and Valentine are very much laden with their relationship and what Valentine wants from Jace and what Jace wants and Jace being tortured. Valentine basically is trying to break him in the beginning of our season.

The showrunners have talked about how season 2 willfocus more on relationships. Is there a relationship you’re hoping to get to explore a bit more?
My favorite relationship in the show is the parabatai relationship between Alec and Jace. Obviously Alec has his things going on and Jace has his things going on, so it’s tough for the two of them to come together so I’m hoping in the future that we don’t forget about the importance of that relationship because I really do think it’s written even in the books as the most profound relationship within this world, this unbreakable bond that’s for life. So hopefully we get to focus on that a little bit more in the future.

And we’re getting a flashback to the paratabai ceremony, right?
Yeah I saw it the other day. It’s really great. My girlfriend was with me at the time and she cried.

Now that you’ve lived with this character for a year, how do you feel Jace has evolved, particularly at the beginning of season 2?
Jace is so lost that all he has to ground himself in is who he knows he is. No matter what new information or new twists that come his way, he knows who he is, he knows who he was raised to be, he knows his responsibilities. I’ve always seen Jace as the kind of Jack Bauer of this world — he knows what has to be done and he’ll really do whatever it takes no matter how he ends up looking. To him, the most important thing is his duty and his job and the people he cares about and anything else kind of falls by the wayside. That’s where we find Jace, grounded in his sense of loyalty and his sense of duty.

How much interaction are we going to get with Jace and Joslyn?
Fans are expecting a certain thing to happen [with Jace and Joslyn] because of what’s written in the stories, and it’s kind of followed to a certain extent but not thoroughly. Yes, they definitely do have a dynamic and there’s definitely a part of Jace that’s like, I want to know my mom. There were times in his life when he desperately needed a mother and she wasn’t there and now she is. There’s definitely a part of him that’s like I want to explore this relationship. You’ll see what happens.

You all have new showrunners this season. Is there a distinct feel? Does it feel different than season 1?
You’ll absolutely be able to tell there’s someone else at the helm. It’s more grounded in reality, so the issues and the danger that we face do seem more real. Hopefully the audience will be able to empathize with that because it’s something you can watch and go man, these problems they really do seem like life or death now. We’ve based this show much more in the horror genre rather than teen sci-fi, so some of the stuff that we had on set was actually quite terrifying.

Shadowhunters returns Monday, Jan. 2 at 8 p.m. ET on Freeform.