The Naturals (The Naturals #1) by Jennifer Lynn Barnes | Book Review

Title: The Naturals
Series: The Naturals (Book 1)
Author: Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Genre: Thriller, Mystery
Summary: It's basically a YA version of Criminal Minds, in which a smart girl named Cassie joins the FBI to help catch serial killers
Rating: 9/10 stars
Review: I'll be honest, I think I know everything. I've read countless novels, I watch Criminal Minds religiously, so when I know how bad guys are caught on that show and I know every trope in fiction, it's rather hard to take me by surprise. Which is why I have to give The Naturals such a high rating. I had figured out who the killer was from their first appearance and for the first time in as far as I can remember, I was wrong about a novels' plot twist. While I was reading The Naturals, I saw myself giving it a 6 or 7 starred rating because I thought it was predictable. However, by the end of the novel, I found myself overlooking the pointless love triangle and one dimensional characters because I enjoyed the last third of the novel so much. The plot was easy to follow, moved fairly quickly (I finished this in just a few days), and the story is a lot of fun. There aren't many young adult novels based around criminal profiling so it's refreshing to read something new and unique. The Naturals does have its problems though. The love triangle, for one, is not needed at all. Michael and Cassie have chemistry as friends but whenever things get romantic it's awkward and I feel like they can't relate to each other very well and that this should just remain a friendship. The romance feels thrown in for cheap tension. Dean and Cassie make a lot more sense together romantically and I hope that by the end of the next book, the love triangle has been squashed and we can stop dedicating pages to it when that page time could be given to developing the characters. I feel like too often characters start to blur together, Lia and Sloane, Briggs and Agent Whatsherface. The characters don't feel distinct enough and it makes it hard to get attached to any of them, to the point where someone was on the floor bleeding to death and I was thinking "what am I going to eat for lunch?" There are still at least three more novels in this series and maybe now that we've gotten the first one out of the way, characters can have room to stretch their legs out a bit (and show off their abilities more).

The Naturals is a little rocky in a few places but manages to stick the landing and make the reader eager for book two, Killer Instinct. This is a solid start to what's sure to be a fun series.

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Shadowhunters "Of Men and Angels" Review: Angry Racist White Men Ruin Everything

"Clary, listen, you cannot wear white after labor day! God, it's like you were raised by a demon or Donald Trump." "Magnus, they're the same thing."

Another week, another adventure for Shadowhunters. Well, sorta. This episode was slowed down a lot and jam packed with exposition. "Of Men and Angels" answered a lot of questions nonreaders (and even some readers) have been asking, while setting up plot lines for the second half of the season. For as much exposition that was put into the episode, there was still a lot more fun than I expected.

The good:

• Would you look at that? Another episode with barely any Clace interaction. I love these two taking breaks from each other but still being there for each other. It's a nice breather for the viewers and it's the perfect way to have them hang out with other characters and explore new dynamics.

• I'm glad that Alec has finally had it with all the rules. Whenever a rigid rule-follower goes through a rebellious phase, it's nice to watch. He's followed the rules, kept everyone alive, and tried his best yet he's still going to be forced into a marriage that he doesn't want. So naturally, his response to this is to go flirt with Magnus and try to explore this secret part of himself that his family is unknowingly trying to crush. I can't wait to see Alec grow and learn from Magnus how to stand up to his parents and the Clave.

• Max Lightwood is tiny and sassy and honey, you've got a big storm coming.

• I actually like Robert Lightwood? He's a lot less of a dick than he was in the novels, and though we readers know there's something that he's done in the past that is all sorts of fucked up, he's still a likable character because unlike Maryse, he treats Isabelle like she's actually his daughter and he doesn't make her feel bad for being herself.
• We barely got a glimpse of it, but Alicante (that's the city in Idris where the shadowhunters live) looks really cool (sorta, more on that later). But as far as the landscape (AND THE DEMON TOWERS!), I really want to see more of the land. When I read the books, it was hard to picture the place because it was kind of medieval but there was a city made of glass. I'm from a huge city so I was picturing all of our skyscrapers and businesses as looking like glass but smacked down into a medieval location and it just didn't make sense. From the .5 seconds we saw of the glass city, it's too early to tell how the show is going to mix these two things together, while adding shadowhunter technology on top of it, but I'm going to keep my fingers crossed that it's done well.

Hello, I'm here to be dramatic and ruin everything.

• One thing I had been looking forward to with this series was a lengthy flashback about The Circle. In the film, all we got was Valentine looking shady, stealing the Cup, burning his house down, and Jocelyn vanishing, which left a lot of moviegoers (myself included) hella confused. Now, we've got a coherent version of the story and it's dumbed down enough that nonreaders can follow what's going on. There are still some questions (will they ever explain the rest of the Mortal Instruments? Why is it taking so long to make Valentine's Downworlder-human army?)

• The origin of The Circle is told by Magnus and Luke, which is important because Luke told Clary in the novels and he was close to Valentine so obviously he'd be the best person to know all the details. But having Magnus talk about the discrimination and racism is important in a bigger way. Here we have a bisexual man of color talking about how an Angry White Man was so jealous of the racial minorities that he decided to exterminate them, and through his charisma and leadership qualities, he managed to get a lot of good people to support him. And then the story goes to Luke's narration, in which he says the reason Valentine went from B- evil/angry to A+ evil/angry was because he saw Luke and Jocelyn growing closer. Valentine completed his "supernatural Hitler" transformation because he saw a black man "taking what was his"*. I'm not sure if the show meant to go this deep with this, but these writers are smart, and they know what they're doing with their social commentary. They know what they're doing when they show a mean character slut shaming Isabelle, they know what they're doing when they cast actors who are PoC to play this shows' version of minority groups, they know what they're doing when they make Valentine the fantasy version of a white supremacist. I love that this show is not afraid of weaving in these social messages while making them a part of the story. All these people are getting killed, lives are being destroyed, because a white man can't control his rage, and having PoC being the ones to tell a white character (Clary) about it is so much more powerful than white people telling white people about how much white people are fucking up. No one cares what white people have to say about white supremacy because they aren't the victims. The minority voice matters most, the Downworlder voice matters most. It's a very small part of the episode, just a tiny detail, but I'm so happy the writers decided to use this detail to say so much.

"Hey girl, wanna touch my mango?"
"What is it? Like a paperweight?"

The bad:

• I am a sucker for Jace/Simon. Their banter is hilarious, and Dominic Sherwood and Alberto Rosende have great chemistry together. However, I felt like their scenes in this episode were not needed. It was important that they had the "Clary treats you like a lap dog" "that's how you treat Alec" moment but the rest was just pointless? We don't need Jace friendzoning Simon FOR Clary, the audience can already see that Clary has no feelings for Simon, it doesn't have to be spelled out for us. The ending scene where Simon sees Clary and Jace having a moment, and Jace looking sadly at Simon would have been subtle enough, but having them vocally argue about this love triangle just doesn't work. Here's hoping this is the last we see of that.**

• I know they had to have a way to show that some scenes were set in Idris and that's why they had the bluish tint but I am going to be annoyed if that's how all the Idris scenes look, especially since most of book 3 takes place there and I'm sure the show is going to have the gang go to Idris like the books say. It'd be pretty lame if they didn't. But anyway, I thought it looked cheesy. I would've preferred for them to put an "Idris, 1997" caption whenever they did flashbacks, and just kept everything normal looking but oh well. They can't change that now. But for future reference, they need to fix the blue because I don't think anyone wants to see bluish tint for a full season. 

Alec Lightwood trying and failing at containing his thirst

Summary: A solid, emotional episode, this had a little banter, as to be expected from Shadowhunters, yet it was mostly full of the Lightwood parents fucking up their kids, Downworlders being pissed about Valentine, and the early stages of certain plot lines that some fans are looking forward to. "Of Men and Angels" is Shadowhunters at it's most serious but now it seems we're finally going to be getting the Cup, more history about Clary's family, and in a perfect world, skipping the whole "_____ was/is J.C." story and going straight to everyone's favorite piece of angsty garbage, Sebastian. This episode gets an 8.5/10 from me.

* Jocelyn didn't belong to Valentine, people can't BELONG to each other (I mean, they can but I'm 97% sure it's illegal). It's just that Valentine sees her as a possession and got mad when Luke a.k.a Mr. Steal Yo' Girl swooped in.
** This isn't the last we're going to see of it, I know, but let a girl have her dreams, okay?

All Shadowhunters reviews can be found here

Shadowhunters "Moo Shu To Go" Review: Who's Up For a Game of Werewolf?

When you meet your girlfriend's mom and she's kind of an asshole

Ladies and gentlemen and everyone else, Shadowhunters has now become a serious show. It now is just intense drama, heartbreaking conversations, and dead main characters at every turn. The campiness of the show was fun while it lasted. It is time for us to put our angst hats on. What's that? There's a Chinese restaurant with 85 cent cocktails and a doggy door for werewolf police officers to enter through? Oh, thank God! I didn't know how I was going to cope with Shadowhunters taking itself too seriously. Guys, "Moo Shu To Go" was a fun episode (wow, what a surprise). We got some character dynamics that we haven't seen much of yet (in the show or the books), some progression in the storylines, and a few mysteries introduced. In true Shadowhunters form, this was a jam-packed hour filled with lots of goodies and weirdness.

The good:

• Up until now, Alec has been off to the side, making grumpy remarks and being a pain in the ass, but in this episode, we finally start to see why he acts the way he does. From his "no homo but very homo" heart-to-heart with a clueless af Jace, to his interactions with his mother, to his job as babysitter of Clary, this was an Alec-centric episode. Alec is not my favorite character from the novels, but a lot of readers love him. Shadowhunters, again, has made me love something that I didn't in the books. Alec's motivations are shown as "first he wants to please his mother, then he wants to protect everyone, then he doesn't like Clary." This is a smart thing for the show to do because it helps the audience understand him better as a character, doesn't put his jealousy of Clary above everything else, and makes him likable enough that the audience doesn't hate him. We see that he's a shadowhunter first and his emotions come second to whatever he does. He may dislike Clary and the trouble she's accidentally causing but he still saves her ass when she needs it. This version of Alec Lightwood is still consistent enough with his book counterpart to keep readers happy but is different enough that those who don't like the book version of him can actually enjoy the way this Alec is written and how well Matthew Daddario is portraying him.

"I can't believe I got stuck babysitting your ass"

• Jace is put on the back burner for Alec to get the spotlight for a little while, and though I love Jace with all my heart, I think it's nice that the show knows that too much of a good thing can be bad. Jace (and the Clace romance) are benched for the majority of the episode so it's nice to know that we can expect breaks from them every now and then. I hate having to compare a YA property to Twilight but I'm gonna break my morals and do it anyway. A problem many people have with the Twilight Saga is that the Bella/Edward romance is 99% of the story, and the interesting side characters and subplots get overlooked in favor of the romance. The Mortal Instruments novels are about 30% Clace and 70% everything and everyone else and it's still too much Clace (especially given that their relationship in the novels was... lacking). But Shadowhunters, while still giving us 2-3 Clace moments per episode, remembers to give us other relationships, other friendships, and, y'know, the entire quest to find the Cup and stop Valentine. It's nice that we can have a teen supernatural show, even one with a bunch of love triangles, that still remembers that romance is not the point of the story and other characters need to breathe.

• I wasn't sure how the show was going to do the werewolves. I've never been a fan of putting makeup on actors and having them be hairy humans rather than actual wolves, but I hadn't heard anything about real live wolves being used on set of the show, so I had accepted my fate: that I would be seeing poorly made up werewolves on my screen for hopefully several seasons of this show. I'm not sure why it never crossed my mind that the show could have CGI wolves, much like the film did, but when I first saw a sneak peek of the wolves a few days before the episode aired, I was convinced the wolves were real and that they just hadn't let fans know the wolves had been on set. When I realized they were CGI, I was impressed. They looked fantastic! These wolves looked so good that I'll forgive the complete nonsense of werewolves being entirely clothed after shifting back to human.

Guys, you're Lightwoods, not Fightwoods

• Probably my favorite part of the episode was Clary putting the rune on the door and it catching fire! Don't you just hate when that happens? I thought that Clary had attempted putting an opening rune on the door and that the rune was too strong and for some reason it caught fire. Clary's face made her look as though she was in a trance or something, which I interpreted as maybe some sort of assistance from up above helping her create a strong rune to escape danger. I thought that a major revelation about Clary from City of Ashes was going to make its way onto the first season of Shadowhunters. Unfortunately, this was actually just a case of Clary mixing up her runes and creating an explosion rune on accident. Oops. I thought this was actually funny because as a Shadowhunter, more so for a newbie for Clary, it'd make sense to get your runes mixed up.

• I like these subtle hints that the show is dropping about what exactly the Circle ideology is, and how some Shadowhunters think of the Downworlders. Maryse's comments about them needing to stay separate and Meliorn pointing out that Shadowhunters don't protect Downworlders like they protect everyone else are good at hinting at what the Circle really is but not telling the viewers what's really happening. I'm loving that the writers are showing the viewers that this Shadowhunters vs Downworlders conflict is a metaphor for race relations and the show is doing it so well without throwing it at the audience's face or making it seem out of place. I can't wait to see how far they're going to go to in showing the audience how awful Shadowhunters can be.

• Simon is showing signs of being a vampire and he thinks he is catching a cold.

The bad:

• I don't like that the show will wait multiple episodes to explain the smallest of things. If Clary saw Dot in episode two and Jocelyn in the pilot, why wouldn't she tell the Lightwoods that the necklace lets her see them? They could have told her a long time ago that the necklace was part Portal. It doesn't change the plot that these answers are coming late but it's irritating. After spending several books not getting answers for plot holes or non-explained happenings in the novels, I'd thought the show would be different. And while I don't have to wait as long for answers, I'm still having to wait. At least we found out what the deal is with Alec's arrows, though.

Shouldn't we call the cops? The real ones?

The Leftovers:

• I'm not sure if it's intentional but every time Alec and Jace parabatai track, it just looks extremely gay. They literally gaze into each other's eyes and start leaning in like they're going to kiss. It's equally funny and sad because Alec will likely never get to kiss Jace.

• Clary thinks Jace is straight. After Jace told Simon his comments about demons in New York is " the first correct thing [he's] said all day" just minutes after Simon said he wasn't Jace's type. I'm not saying Jace is bisexual but Jace is bisexual.

• Seriously what the fuck is Valentine doing? I do like the detail about him speaking Russian to the newborn Forsaken so we know that even if he is just killing mundane New Yorkers, he's at least smart enough not to do all his crimes in the same spot. But really though what is going on? He's creating an army to fight the Clave with, that much we know, but he's collecting different types of blood and creating Forsaken? Are the Forsaken going to be his army? Is he putting Seelie blood and warlock blood in them? Why was he taking blood of people who have the Sight? Is he giving that blood plus the Downworlder blood to the new Forsaken? Will we ever reinstate Pluto as a planet? These are important questions and I demand answers ASAP Rocky.

In the end, "Moo Shu To Go" was wonderful, allowed the show to stretch its wings a bit, gave us a lot of new stuff to analyze and theorize about, and had A+ CGI werewolves walking through a doggy door of a Chinese restaurant. Shadowhunters may not be everyone's 85 cent cocktail, but it's one hell of a fun show. Television is meant to be entertainment and in an age where almost anything vaguely supernatural or science fiction must be full of darkness and gloom, it's refreshing to see a series that knows when to be Batman and when to be Guardians of the Galaxy. "Moo Shu To Go" gets a 9/10 from me.

Isabelle Lightwood, "Shadowhunters", and Why Millennial Feminism Is Needed in Today's Fiction

Emeraude Toubia as Isabelle Lightwood in Freeform's Shadowhunters

A little background for those who don't know what exactly is going on. The Mortal Instruments is a young adult novel series about teens who hunt demons. One of the demon hunters (or shadowhunters) is sixteen year old Isabelle Lightwood, a smart, cool, tough, and sexually confident girl. Now, there is a television series, Shadowhunters, in which Isabelle is a young adult (somewhere between ages eighteen and twenty-something). Isabelle is still smart and sexy, but since she is older, we get to see her be more explicitly sexual, rather than how the books had her sexuality only be hinted at due to her being a teenager (I don't think I need to explain why sexually explicit content about a sixteen year old is gross). A Latina had been cast in the role and when we see a Latina being sexy, it makes sense to automatically think "oh no, they're going for the one dimensional fiery Latina stereotype" which is awful and unfortunately does happen in Hollywood. Fans were pretty taken aback by Isabelle's very revealing attire in behind the scenes photos and her being described as "exotic," because we were afraid that Isabelle was going to be reduced to a sex object. But Emeraude Toubia (who plays Isabelle on Shadowhunters) said in interview after interview that Isabelle is intelligent and caring as well as being sexy, so some fans jumped off the "they're going to ruin Isabelle" train. Those fans who were still worried had their worries squashed within the first few episodes of the series, in which the show literally defended Isabelle's revealing wardrobe with "she's very comfortable with her body" and having Isabelle show feelings of guilt when someone under her protection is kidnapped, having her give pep talks and defend Clary, the female protagonist. Fans saw her have a loving, though filled with sibling bickering, relationship with her brother, as well as using sex as a tool to get information. But fans were okay with this because it was either in character or a positive change from the books (Clary and Isabelle hate each other in the novels). That is, the fans who aren't misogynists were okay with this. Unfortunately, some fans who have a lot of sway over the fandom and even has sometimes gotten their way in how the show is made, do not have their feminists hats on. But that's okay. We can't all be automatically "woke." That's why people like me are here: to educate the uneducated.

The biggest problem I think fans are having is that they're still seeing Isabelle as a sixteen year old kid, but you can look at the television version of Isabelle and obviously see she's an adult. If the show is showing her as being grown and you're just not understanding that, sweetheart, that's your fucking problem. If you still want to think she's sixteen, go right ahead. You do what you want to do. However, when you are in a position of power, you cannot displace your own internalized misogyny onto a team of writers and an actress who have done nothing but send pro-feminist messages with a character.

Wow, look at how this show completely disrespects
Isabelle's sexuality!

What's that? You don't have any internalized misogyny? Then, my sweet summer child, please explain why you're hating on Isabelle for using sex to get information but you're not saying a damn word about Meliorn doing the exact same thing in the same fucking scene? Or better yet, why are you upset about Isabelle being an undercover stripper and that being "too sexy" or "wrong" but you haven't said anything about the men who were watching her dance? Why are all of you applauding Jace and Simon being shirtless but when Isabelle shows skin, it's not okay and she needs to cover up? Why is it when Magnus makes sex jokes, you laugh, but when Isabelle does it, you say it's tasteless or bad? Why do you criticize female characters for literally doing what male characters are doing? Hint: it's because you're a misogynist.

And then there are my favorite comments in which viewers complain about Isabelle being reduced to "the sexy one" when we've been shown that she is emotional, loving, brave, fierce, and a fleshed out female character who happens to also being attractive or sexual. Sound familiar?

I could list 90% of the heroines in Hollywood but we don't have time for that. My point is that you can't overlook the majority of characterization and personality so you can just focus on a woman as a sexual being and then turn around and accuse the show runners of doing that very thing. They're the ones who are making Isabelle a rounded out character. YOU are the ones who keep reducing her to her sexuality.

But IF they were doing wrong by Isabelle's wardrobe, if they were dressing her in a revealing way just for the hell of it, I could understand the outrage of book purists. I, personally, think it's dumb as hell when people are upset that adaptations aren't 100% like the source material, but I'm going to look at this from a purists point of view. Because in their minds, Isabelle was not dressed in short, tight dresses, or fighting demons while wearing heels. Which is fucking stupid because the books literally say she wears sexy stuff all the time.

"Under the coat she was wearing one of what Clary called her "typical Isabelle outfits": a tight short velvet dress, fishnet stockings, and boots." - (City of Fallen Angels, page 4)

"She [Isabelle] was wearing a long silvery skirt and a sequined top, and her nails were painted like glittering coins. strands of silver beads were caught in her dark hair." - (City of Bones, page 208)

"She [Isabelle]… was wearing a long red dress, slit up the side to show most of her leg… She was covered in Marks. They twined up her arms, threaded their way up her thigh, necklaced her throat, and decorated her chest, a great deal of which was visible, thanks to the plunging neckline of her dress." - (City of Fallen Angels, page 290). And by the way, she proceeds to fight in this dress, so any talk about these clothes being impractical for demon hunting? Yeah that's all bullshit.

I know what you may be thinking by now. "Leigh, this isn't even that big of a deal! It's a television show." And if it was just a group of fans doing this, I probably wouldn't be making such a big deal out of it. However, the one person who should be sticking up for Isabelle is also jumping on the "Izzy's a slut, she's too sexy" bandwagon, and that person is the always delightful Cassandra Clare. Yes, the person who created Isabelle Lightwood, who wrote her dressing sexy and being a sexual girl, is now saying Isabelle would never dress this way, despite writing that Isabelle would, in fact, dress this way. There's also the problem of Ms. Clare liking tweets saying that Isabelle looks like "one of Sebastian's girls" (a reference to the novels in which a character had young women with him who were written to be ~trashy~). There are other mean tweets about Isabelle that she has agreed with, but I'm too lazy to list them, you can go through her tweets and likes for those. The feminist in me wants to scream because how can you write a character who is meant to be comfortable with how she looks, and be confident in being sexy and badass, how can you write these things and then turn around and act like there's an issue with her being portrayed that way in an adaptation? As a feminist and as a fellow author, I feel that too many authors are stuck in that "sexy therefore not valid" mindset about female characters that 80's and 90's feminism taught them. But they end up drilling these ideas into their readers. The fans who think it's alright to slut shame Isabelle think this because they see the creator of Isabelle doing the same thing. Sure, there are other factors, the feminists those fans are friends and family with, the other books, music, and other forms of entertainment those fans take in. But, as a fan, I know how much fans look up to the creator of source material. So if J.K. Rowling says "it's totally fine that Hermione is black!" that's going to make fans be more accepting because the creator has the most important opinion to fans. It's the same principle here. If Ms. Clare says "Isabelle wouldn't wear that" or agrees with slut shaming comments, she's just telling young impressionable fans that it's okay to think of a woman as being less of a person simply because she's sexy. The Shadowhunters television show is already trying very hard to undo some the toxic parts of the books (*cough* Clary and Isabelle hating each other simply for being women*, *Isabelle only being "the hot one" until the later novels*). They're giving us Clary and Isabelle being friends, giving Isabelle a personality beyond her hemline and innuendos.

"You know, it’s really funny ‘cause usually when two girls meet and someone trespasses their territory, girls wanna be mean to each other and they wanna put the stop right there. But it’s really nice because Clary and Isabelle, you know, she embraces Clary. She plays dress up with Clary, she lends her her skirts and her high heels and she does her makeup. So it’s a really nice relationship with a very friendly relationship. She’s there for Clary. She fights for Clary. She’s willing to risk everything for Clary. And it’s really nice to show girls out there that you can actually be friends with girls. You don’t have to be mean girls or bully girls. You can actually be friends and that’s really nice." - Toubia about Isabelle's positive relationship with Clary, the only other major female character on Shadowhunters

This situation creates a clash between old feminism and millennial feminism. Millennials who are feminists do not care if a woman wears a short skirt, a long dress, jeans, or nothing at all. We don't base a woman's value on her cleavage. And while, in the books, it's nice that Isabelle is sexy (no matter how much the author tries to say she isn't), and that she does eventually get something to do other than standing around looking hot, it doesn't make sense to write her as being sexy and fun and a character that current feminists can get behind but then turn around and impose old feminist ideas on her. You can't have a sexy character on purpose and then slut shame her. This just doesn't make any sense.

Talking about Ms. Clare and her legion of blind followers is making my head hurt, but now I want to get to the main reason I actually created this post. It's not just because the feminist and the author in me respects women and characters. It's me, as a WoC.

When Emeraude Toubia was cast as Isabelle, I, just like many fans, was happy. They could have easily given the role to a white girl but instead they racebent her and made one of the most kickass girls in YA fiction a Latina. I'm black, for those of you who don't know, and we get roles in television and film... every now and then, but Latinx people get even fewer roles than black people do. Since I know Latinix representation in Hollywood is very, very low, I knew that even if it felt cool for me to see a Latina as Isabelle, it meant more to other fans who are Latinix and hardly ever see themselves as anything other than a drug dealer or a fiery Latina in Hollywood. Watching the show, I feel good knowing that there's a smart, powerful, funny, sexy, and just plain awesome Latina on my screen and that other young girls, especially those who are Latina, can see a character worth looking up to. And I'm glad that Toubia was given this role because she's absolutely nailing it. Which is why I feel bad for her. Imagine doing all this hard work, the fight training, the dieting, the actual acting, having to do emotional scenes, having to bring a beloved character to life, having to deal with the racism of a small group of fans who are upset their white fave has become Latina, having to go through all this shit, getting the final product out there for people to see your hard work, and then the woman responsible for creating your character and the entire story your job is centered around, as well as her followers, have reduced you to nothing but a "problematic sex object". This happens to women ALL the time. We work hard, we do great things, and all people think we're worth talking about is our bodies. I know this isn't just a problem with Shadowhunters, the fans, and this character in particular. It happens all the time in Hollywood, and in society in general. And it's fucking terrible. It really is. And what makes me even more upset about this is that it's women who are saying these things about each other. If it were men saying it, it'd obviously be bad, but women have to stop treating each other like shit just for being sexual. We can't expect men to respect us when we don't respect each other.

If you want to be a feminist, act like it. You can't say "women deserve equal pay" but not agree with women being just as sexual as men. You can't say "women should be sexually free" but then hate women for being sexual. You can't say "OMG he's shirtless! Yay!" and then hate a girl for also being shirtless. Feminism is equality. It's is either all inclusive, or it's not feminism. So if you're going to have a problem with Isabelle's sexiness, you better be ready to talk about Jace, Simon, Alec, Hodge, all the male characters being sexier than they were in the novel series. If you want to write a sexy character, you better be ready to defend her against slut shaming and not pull out your feminist card only when it suits you.

Toubia is doing a damn good job at being Isabelle, and Isabelle is a great character. It's possible for Toubia to be a great actress and be sexy, just like it's possible for Isabelle to be one of the best Shadowhunters in the world and be sexy. We've got a rounded, wonderful character, and an actress who was pretty much born for the role, and she's LATINA, and the first thoughts some of you have is to be assholes, to completely shit on all the work Toubia has done to fit your own sexist view of the world. The show's writing, the wardrobe department, even Toubia herself, are paying respect to all aspects of Isabelle. Don't blame them when you're salty about Isabelle's sexuality just because you had an extra cup of misogyny today.

Shadowhunters "Raising Hell" Review: The Demon Deceived Me!

Harry Shum Jr. as Magnus Bane in Freeform's Shadowhunters

See? Filler episodes can be fun! Filler episodes, for those of you who don't know, are normally put into shows that have over 20 episodes per season, where they have the time to slow down, explore characters, and set up new plot lines. These episodes are notoriously boring, and aren't common in shows that have limited episodes. The first season of Shadowhunters only has thirteen episodes to get through roughly the first book of The Mortal Instruments series so it doesn't make much sense to have filler episodes when every minute is crucial to the complicated world of Shadowhunters. So when a show like this gets a filler episode, it can make viewers wary. But of course, Shadowhunters continues to show viewers why it's one of the best shows on television: even when nothing happens, it's still gripping. Let's jump into this review! *minor spoilers for The Mortal Instruments books will follow*

The good:

• "Raising Hell" gave us our first real look at Magnus Bane - the High Warlock of Brooklyn. He'd had a few minutes of screen time up until now but this is when he truly arrived as massive improvement on his book and film counterparts (like pretty much every aspect of this show). He was kind of a dick, which he has every right to dislike Shadowhunters (if you know about his relation to the ideology of the Circle... it's really hard not to majorly spoil this). Magnus is a warlock who has spent hundreds of years putting up with a bunch of bratty Shadowhunters so it's understandable why he'd be so antagonistic towards them. But we also get to see that he has a soft side and is a protector of other warlocks, especially those younger than he is. He's funny, obviously very powerful, and surprisingly emotional, which brings him a step up from the sparkly caricature he often came off as in the novels. Harry Shum Jr is perfect in the role, giving subtle facial expressions, showing the swagger of an ancient warlock, and being over the top without being laughable. This version of Magnus is the fun guy that long time fans of The Mortal Instruments know and love, but there's an extra aura of intrigue surrounding him that is going to keep viewers that haven't read the books interested in his character.

• I've said it before and I'll say it again: the slow burn revealing about Alec is so well done. TV shows that have LGBT+ characters like to jump out of the gate with telling the audience the character is queer as soon as the character appears because they're pretty much trying to say "hey look at our representation, keep watching because we're progressive!" And while, of course, representation is important and shows are allowed to let the audience know early on that a character is queer, the way Shadowhunters is doing Alec's characterization is preferable to me because they're letting the audience like (or dislike) him as a person before bringing up the fact that he's gay. It's just important that in an age when fiction is trying to be inclusive of the LGBT+ community, writers understand that a character being queer is not more important than them being a person.

Emeraude Toubia and those other people as Isabelle
Lightwood and those other characters in
Freeform's "Shadowhunters"

• Clary and Isabelle continue to be cute and supportive of each other while making not-so-subtle comments about the other's naughty bits and, honestly, this show could just be a series of Clary and Isabelle flirting and I would be totally cool with that.

• I know that I talk a lot of shit about The Mortal Instruments books but one thing that is really nice about them is the humor. It's pretty hit or miss but when it does hit, it's very funny. So imagine my surprise when direct quotes from the novels started making their way onto my screen. It made me so gleeful, and the only things I typically get gleeful about are cupcakes and Chris Hemsworth.

• Speaking of novel references, there were a few easter eggs in this episode, and one in particular that likely gave a few fans heart palpations. First, we have the cautious warlock Elias, who meets a different fate in the book series. He isn't a major character but it was nice that they are using the book characters in new ways such as they've done with Elias and Maureen (she was a thirteen year old who was stalking Simon in the books). Second, that kid Kirk that Simon said Jace is like? In the novels, Kirk is the lead singer of Simon's band before he is replaced by an actual piece of shit named Jungle Kool-aid, which I'm sure is why the writers of the show gave Simon the "Kool-aid" line while he argues with Clary. Third, and this is the big one, Magnus name dropped Tessa, as in Tessa Gray, as in the protagonist of the prequel to The Mortal Instruments, as in the protagonist of The Many Adventures of Tessa Gray and Her Sweetheart Jem Carstairs The Infernal Devices. Word has been going around that if Shadowhunters proves to be a successful enough show, Freeform will start production on a spin off based on The Infernal Devices, which is pretty much Shadowhunters mixed with steampunk and automatons. So yeah, name dropping Tessa so casually may be a hint of a future adaptation of her story and that's something the world needs to be blessed with.

Emeraude Toubia as Isabelle Lightwood in Freeform's Shadowhunters

The bad:

• The show seems to be flipping between good and bad effects which makes it even more noticeable. If it's 100 degrees outside and someone drops a bucket of ice on you, you're going to notice. That's how I feel about the effects here. Magnus's magic looks amazing, the Portals look good, and I love it when demons and vampires die and they explode into the golden orange lava. It just looks aweseome. But the demons... could be better. The entire memory demon scene was unintentionally hilarious because the demon looked like a tornado and Jace's flying was strange. It just wasn't as good as previous effects on the show have been. However, this is a television series on Freeform, and it's just on the first season and doesn't have a huge budget, so I will give it the benefit of the doubt. It's still funny though.

• Simon's subplot was disruptive. It only happened two or three times but it was still so removed from the main action that it just didn't gel right. We had most of the episode being about Clary, Magnus, and Alec and how their development all goes together, but we'd take breaks to check in on Simon and his vampire drama. They have to get Simon's symptoms into the plot somehow, but I feel like that could have been saved for the next episode. 

• Clary is wearing a very tight, short dress, she doesn't have a bag to put anything in, so she doesn't have anywhere she could be hiding the handle of an unlit Seraph Blade yet she miraculously has it when they get to Magnus's? Alec's bow and arrows disappear after he kills Valentine's assassin? And then they reappear later? Weapons pop up when needed and it's confusing. Isabelle's whip is always on her as a bracelet and Jace has pockets he can hide weapons in but Clary and Alec don't have these luxuries so where are these weapons coming from? This is a minor thing and doesn't really affect the story but it's still irritating because while I could see perhaps Clary strapping her blade to her thigh, or Jace carrying it in his pocket for her, Alec can't strap a big ass bow and a bunch of arrows to his thighs. And they're certainly not going to fit in Jace's pockets. 

• Valentine actually sent just one assassin to find Magnus the first time. He sent ONE person after the High Warlock of Brooklyn. He did send more later on but still. He originally sent one person to kill one of, if not the most powerful warlock in the world.

Overall summary:

"Raising Hell" was a filler episode and nothing much changed in the plot except that Clary's memories are forever gone and Alec is almost completely out of the closet. But despite the lack of the plot moving a lot forward, and a few things not making much sense, there was still a lot of fun to be had in this episode. "Raising Hell" gets an 8/10 intricately drawn pentagrams stars from me.

Shadowhunters airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on Freeform (formerly ABC Family)