He sits there a while, listening to the gentle tick-tick-tick of the clock, focusing on his breathing. His mind starts to wander, his earlier fear fading into a sort of pensive melancholy. Away from the warm bed and even warmer Magnus, he feels the chill begin to creep into his bones – but he can’t quite muster the energy to walk over and grab the blanket from the back of the other couch, so he stubbornly curls up a little tighter, tucking his feet underneath him.

‘Alexander?’ He hears Magnus’ bleary voice come from the bedroom, and feels a pang of guilt that his efforts to be quiet have obviously failed. Should have used a stealth rune, he thinks, only half-joking. Magnus has only just started sleeping properly again after the body switch with Valentine, and Alec hates to be the new reason his boyfriend can’t get a proper night’s rest.

Magnus wanders over to join him on the couch, sitting close with an exaggerated shiver. ‘Why are you out here in the cold?’ he asks, waving a hand absentmindedly, and Alec feels the air around them warm up a little. ‘Couldn’t sleep,’ he says, aiming for a casual tone. Magnus hums thoughtfully. ‘This is the… fourth night? The fifth?’

Alec looks down at the glass in his hands, turning it in a slow rhythm. Apparently, it’s not just tonight that his stealth has been lacking. ‘I didn’t mean to wake you. I’m sorry.’ Magnus waves away the apology. ‘I’m not worried about that. I’m a little worried about you, though.’ Alec shrugs and tries to look nonchalant, the I’m fine implied, but Magnus persists. ‘Alec, if something’s wrong, you can tell me.’ His tone is probing, but gentle.

Alec wants to say It’s nothing, really, but his tiredness makes him more honest than he’d like. ‘No, I can’t.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘You’ve got enough to deal with right now. I don’t wanna add to it.’ They’re quiet for a moment, and Alec’s mind drifts back to Magnus’ confession, how broken he sounded recounting the memory forced on him by the agony rune. Pain that Alec could have spared him if he hadn’t been so blind.

Magnus shuffles closer, lifting Alec’s arm and settling it over his shoulders. He snaps his fingers, and the blanket from the other couch wraps itself around them. ‘I appreciate the thought, Alexander,’ he says, ‘but this isn’t a one-way street. There’s space for both of us to need a little taking care of.’ When he doesn’t get a response, Magnus sighs, and gently reaches up to turn Alec’s face back towards him. ‘Please let me help,’ he says softly.

Alec wants to hold firm, because he can do this, he can shoulder this alone and just be there for the man he loves. But Magnus had said please. Please let me help. No, Alexander, please-! And suddenly, Alec can’t hold it in any longer. ‘What happened in the cell,’ he says, the words tumbling out, and he can’t look at Magnus anymore. ‘I can’t get it out of my head. Because it was you, I was hurting you, and then with the Inquisitor, if Valentine hadn’t shown himself, what if I didn’t stop her from-‘ He cuts himself off, unable to finish, and takes a deep, steadying breath. He forces himself to meet Magnus’ eyes again, because this part’s important, and he needs to make sure Magnus knows. ‘I should have believed you when you told me what had happened. I should have known it was you. And I am so, so sorry.’

Magnus just stares at him for a moment, seeming a little surprised by the outburst but otherwise unreadable, and Alec’s heart beats double-time waiting for him to respond. When he does, it’s with a look of understanding, his hand coming up to Alec’s cheek. ‘I don’t blame you, Alexander,’ he says. ‘It was Valentine. Playing mind games is his modus operandi – just look at what he did to your parabatai. I desperately wanted you to believe me, but I know why you couldn’t.’ His eyes flick away for a moment. ‘What happened was… well, I was going to say difficult, but frankly it was fucking awful. And it’s taking me longer than I’d hoped to bounce back from it.’ He looks back at Alec, his gaze sincere. ‘But I don’t blame you.’

Alec swallows the lump in his throat, tightening his arm around Magnus. ‘Well, I’m glad,’ he says, ‘because I want to help. I want to… be here. For you.’ Magnus smiles, leaning up to kiss his cheek, and it feels like absolution. ‘I know. And you are.’ He stands up, disrupting the cocoon of warmth they’d developed, and Alec makes a small noise of complaint. ‘But neither of us are going to be any good to anyone unless we get some sleep. Come back to bed.’ He takes Alec’s hands, leading him back to the bedroom, and Alec goes willingly.

It’s another few nights before Alec stops seeing those lifeless golden eyes in his dreams, stops waking in fear and grief. But now, instead of leaving, he curls towards Magnus, and he is unfailingly met with a half-aware mumble and an arm flung around his waist, inviting him close. Lying there in the warmth of quiet forgiveness, it’s easy to go back to sleep.

Anyway. Let's talk about Simon, actually. His deal is…brooding at the Hunter's Moon because of what happened at the Seelie Court, getting drunk, refusing to take Clary's calls, you know, all the things you do in healthy relationships.

Quinn shows up, and…remember Quinn? Probably not, especially since I didn't even know he had a name until now. Quinn's the guy who defected from Raphael's vampire clan to pledge fealty to Simon as the Daylighter. And apparently, that involves buying Simon a drink.

"Plasma?" "The hard stuff."

Is he trying to get Simon drunk? Well, even now with the hindsight of everything that happens in the episode, I'm not sure if he's malevolent or just a douchebag who thinks getting blacked-out drunk is a good idea. Either way, I don't particularly like him, so as you can guess, his interactions with Simon mostly leave me wanting to fast forward over them.

Quinn then brings Simon to a "bleeder den", where mundanes who happen to know about vampires can let themselves be bitten.

"Isn't this against the Accords?" "It's kind of a grey area."

Okay, well, the Accords are shitty and Shadowhunters are doing a crap job protecting humans, that's nothing new. Better question, though: don't you feel even a little bad at using literal addicts to your own advantage? I mean, we spent a good chunk of the season highlighting the terrible effects that vampire venom addiction had on Isabelle, and I lost track of whether Simon knows about that, but he should still show some empathy towards those "willing" donors.

Ha, Simon showing empathy. And then what? No, instead he starts feeding on a girl. She has a name, I think it's Heidi, but it doesn't matter since the next time we see her, she's dead.

And I mean, the show's so obviously trying to hint at Simon being her killer that it's an obvious red herring. Seriously. Next time Simon shows up, he's covered in blood. Don't worry, he cleans it up at super speed so he can be pissy at Clary over what happened at the Seelie Court.

"You don't mean ['I love you'] the way I mean it! You never have. Ever since we were kids, I've been in love with you."

"It's [Clary's feelings for Jace] nothing like you and me." "But it's enough."

And, like…I don't know. I can't feel any sympathy for that. I mean, I understand jealousy, but I can't sympathize with it. The point is this: Clary has feelings for two people, and sure, they may not be the same kind of feelings, but she still chose Simon. And she hasn't given any indication that she's regretting that choice, or considering to cheat on him with Jace, or anything like that.

I mean, even if we admit the premise that "Seelie magic is always true" (something Isabelle tells Clary earlier in the episode), all it says is Clary desires Jace the most. Which, considering she's dating Simon and not Jace, isn't that automatically true? You can't really desire what you already have.

Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled that Clary and Simon are on the way to breaking up, but I feel like Simon's self-righteous attitude is just completely undeserved. He's rejecting her because 1) she has feelings for another guy and 2) she "doesn't love him the way he loves her", which doesn't really mean anything? Nobody feels things the exact same way. And, again, she chose him, so clearly she decided he was more important.

Ugh. I can't believe I'm arguing fairy logic and relationships with this show now. Let's jus move on to the next scene, with Simon trashing his shirt while trying to remember what happened at the den (you thought I was exaggerating about blacked-out drunk?). Luke shows up, because he heard about the girl's death and how it's obviously the work of a vampire, and he wanted Simon to help him investigate. Oh, and comfort him about the Clary thing, too.

"What's going on between you two, I'm always here for you. You're the closest thing to a son that I've got."

Aw. That'd be adorable if I cared about Simon!

But just then, Luke's partner Ollie calls to tell Luke that they found Simon's prints on Heidi, which Simon overhears because vampire hearing, and he runs away. As you do.

So Simon's on the run, and Luke tells Clary about the whole thing, including the possibility that Simon might have killed someone. To her credit, she's in denial, but that kind of makes it worse because Luke has to say this:

"Demon blood…it changes a person."

And…like, you know how Downworlders are usually a big allegory for oppression? Yeah, when Downworlders themselves go "yeah, we really are dangerous and out of control", it kind of makes it sound like that oppression is justified. Especially coming from Luke, who's been on the more reasonable end of things. So could you…maybe…not?

Anyway. He's going to find Simon and…I don't know, either arrest him or cover up, it's not clear yet. Clary insists to come along, which Luke eventually caves to, but the real question is: isn't investigating this kind of her job anyway as a Shadowhunter? Is Clary even working officially as a Shadowhunter?

Meanwhile, Simon asks Raphael for help finding Quinn and for shelter. Raphael, being a good guy, naturally agrees and—nah, I'm just fucking with you. Raphael will only help Simon in exchange for the secret to being a Daylighter. Because he's terrible. Lest you forget.

So Simon's out on his own, and he decides to retrace his steps from the previous night and hopefully figure out what happened. Which immediately gets him caught by Ollie, because…no duh, cops keep an eye on the scene of a crime. Who'd have thought?

But wait, it gets stupider. See, while she's talking to Simon (who immediately confessed) in her car, Ollie lets it slip that Heidi's bite mark is on her feet. And…like, Simon is grossed out by feet, so he totally never would have done that! Because people never do things that would normally gross them out when they're inebriated, right?

Well, the logic's sound enough for Simon, at least, who breaks out of Ollie's car, because I guess potentially being a murderer is horrible, but actually revealing the Shadow World to a policewoman is just a-okay!

He goes back to the den again, and lo and behold, Quinn's here, biting some other girl on the feet, which totally proves he's the murderer. Well, that and he confesses on the spot.

"It was an accident. Accidents happen, don't worry about it."

Simon threatens to turn him in, which leads to Quinn trying to kill him, because that's how deep his devotion to Simon was. No big loss, right?

I should mention that Clary and Luke track Simon down to the den, and Raphael's also on the case and reaches the den on his own. I should, because it's an attempt at generating tension, and it falls exceptionally flat when Simon…kills Quinn by himself just before the other three enter the den. Congratulations, one of your main characters and two of your main supporting cast were utterly useless.

Well, actually, Luke and Raphael do one more thing, which is hypnotize Ollie into forgetting the whole thing ever happened. So once again, Clary's stuck alone in being more or less useless. Oh, she does get a moment of wrap-up where Simon visits her at the Institute and angsts all over her, but says he'll remain friends with her but just needs time to heal. So…even that scene was all about Simon. You know, for a supposed protagonist who narrates the show's opening, Clary's shoved in the background pretty regularly.

Speaking of which, the episode's other plotline is the one that actually matters, as you might have gathered. And it opens with Sebastian being creepy on purpose some more, down to and including ironing his own hand.

Does this serve a point? We already saw him hold his hand on an open flame, and also, you know, he's holding someone captive. I think the latter qualifies as a better proof that he's a bad guy. We don't need this shit, you guys.

The actual plot, by the way, is that Alec is organizing the transfer of Valentine to the Gard in Idris. I don't know why he wasn't sent straight there when he was first captured, by the way, but okay, good. He's dealing with Magnus's angst over the memories of his past that were triggered when he was tortured as Valentine a few episodes ago, and…I'll skip straight to the resolution of that, because it's what matters the least.

Basically, the memory in question is of Magnus's mom, who (seemingly) killed herself in shame over her son being a warlock. Since the only proof we have of that is Magnus's human dad's word, and that she died from being stabbed in the heart, I have some doubts, but okay. The bad (worse?) part of the memory is that said human dad yelled at Magnus about it, and Magnus lashed out with magic, killing him.

Magnus feels bad, because even at that age, he was in control of his magic and should have known better, and he feels like a monster undeserving of Alec's love. The solution is…kind of obvious.

"There's nothing ugly about you."

Wow. So profound. Also I should remind everyone that this is happening because Alec sanctioned torture of Magnus. Unwittingly, sure, but the fact that Magnus basically has to ask for Alec's acceptance as a consequence of that is a little bit jarring. To say the least.

Meanwhile on the actual plot side of things, Isabelle's tasked with organizing security for Valentine's transfer. The Magnus thing is basically just a delay since he's the only warlock with clearance to open a Portal for something this high-profile. And the show's going to use that delay, fear not.

I'll skip over the scene of Jace removing Valentine's Circle rune. The show says it's because the new wards in Idris won't let him through if he has the rune, but honestly, that scene is nothing but Jace rehashing all the ways Valentine fucked him up emotionally, and then inflicting violence on Valentine (because removing a rune is painful, not because he's actually beating him up, but it's still violence). It's just utterly pointless.

What does matter is that Aline shows up in the meantime. Yeah, Aline is in the show now. Turns out, she heard that her cousin (you know, Sebastian) had resurfaced in New York after going MIA for a while, and she came to check up on him. Cue our Sebastian going back home to his prisoner, who, in a completely unsurprising twist, is the real Sebastian Verlac.

"Tell me [everything about her] or she dies!"

Well, I'll give it to our fake Sebastian: at least he knows how to come up with a decent threat that he can actually carry out.

So Aline and not-Sebastian (and yes, I still need to figure out how to call him) spend the evening together, and he somehow manages to trick her into thinking she's really her cousin. I mean, she does express some suspicions, but overall, it works. However, twist of all twists, the real Sebastian manages to break free from his bonds and escape Sebastian's apartment! Ooh, how tense, I wonder if he'll manage to alert anyone!

Yeah, don't get excited. He reaches the Institute just as Aline is saying goodbye to Isabelle after fake-Sebastian convinced her to go check up on their aunt Elodie, the woman who was taking care of real-Sebastian. And just before real-Sebastian reaches them, fake-Sebastian stabs him in the back. See, his landlord saw his apartment door open, and called him because he thought there was a break-in, so he was already hunting for real-Sebastian, and because dramatic timing rules all, he found him at the very last moment.

What about Valentine's transfer, you may ask? Well, yeah, actually, that wasn't really relevant to the plot of the episode, was it? It just comes back up at the very end of the episode, so you already know it's going to be our cliffhanger. And indeed, just before Valentine walks into Magnus's Portal, another Shadowhunter (Duncan Armstrong, who had been previously seen criticizing Alec's leadership) grabs him, and they never show up on the other side of the Portal.

And then, surprise! We find out that fake-Sebastian is the one who orchestrated that by threatening Duncan's family. He kills Duncan immediately, because \~evil\~, and greets Valentine by revealing who he really is.

And a "hello, Father" for good measure, if there were people in the audience who hadn't understood who he was yet.

And that's the end of the episode. The Simon stuff is trash, but I actually want to talk more about the dual Sebastian plot line. Because it should have been a tense plot, but it's so by-the-numbers that I doubt it would surprise anyone. However, it could easily have been salvaged, and I'm going to propose a version of events that would probably have worked much better (maybe even for people who read the books).

See, the issue here is twofold. One, we the audience already know that Jonathan Morgenstern is impersonating Sebastian, that he's evil, and that he has him captive. Two, we see Sebastian get his way in literally everything he does, so seeing real-Sebastian escape, when we're still halfway through this story arc, isn't really a tense moment. We know Sebastian won't be outed. So that shouldn't be the stakes here, because it makes the conclusion (fake-Sebastian killing real-Sebastian) the safe, predictable decision, and makes real-Sebastian being alive completely irrelevant.

So I propose this instead: everything unfolds as it does up until this episode, without the scenes of fake-Sebastian being obviously evil and creepy by gratuitously burning himself and also having a captive that we know about. Then, in this episode, someone (say, Aline) finds real-Sebastian captive. In his own (supposed) home or elsewhere, it doesn't matter. But real-Sebastian doesn't know that someone's impersonating him; maybe he's only seen Jonathan in his burned appearance we saw at the end of the episode. Based on something Jonathan says next episode, that form is actually stronger, so it would even make sense for him to use it.

Sebastian is rescued, but he's too weak to give too many details (and crucially, reveal he's been captive for a long time while a fake was going around). Aline investigates his capture, and finds Jonathan, still in his burned form, probably trying to get to real-Sebastian and make him disappear before he can spill too much information. Have all the action you want, Jonathan vanishes in the midst of it, having seemingly given up. Real-Sebastian, importantly, must be out of sight during all of this.

So cut to Aline going to check on her cousin, and he acts a little weird and maybe doesn't even know she's his cousin, but oh well, he's still pretty shaken up, so she dismisses it. Of course, it's actually fake-Sebastian again, but the characters don't know that, and we the audience don't either. Well, you can guess it is, but it's left uncertain enough. Maybe Aline found something that hinted at a long captivity, but fake-Sebastian denies being captive for more than a day, comes up with a theory that there may have been other captives, and she takes it at face value and leaves.

That creates mystery, and more importantly, some desperately-needed tension in the form of uncertainty—not for the characters, but for us, the audience. You can even keep the end of the episode intact, except Jonathan doesn't reveal to Valentine that he's in disguise as Sebastian yet. It doubles as a red herring, since now it looks like Jonathan was at the Insitute to (successfully) interfere with Valentine's transfer to Idris, rather than his actual goal of replacing Sebastian.

You can then reveal that real-Sebastian is dead…whenever the show will actually reveal it to the characters (I assume it will eventually). And now we, the audience, share the impact of that twist with the characters.

Of course, there are practical issues with this. In particular, it means having Will Tudor in the burned make-up (and having to make a different voice for Jonathan Morgenstern). And I realize it's easy to make a fix-fic after the fact to improve on a story that already exists. But…well, this was such an easy fix, and one that should have been obvious. Don't give the audience more information than the characters, and then treat the issue like a mystery. It's simple.