Shadowhunters Season 3, Episode 11 review: Lost Souls

Politics in the Shadow World post-Valentine’s death (again)

While we don’t know exactly how much time has passed since Lilith’s apartment exploded at the end of the Shadowhunters midseason finale, we do get several clues throughout the premiere, and we’re fairly certain that it’s been less than a week.

As the head of the New York Institute, Alec Lightwood is tasked with helping the Clave (his favorite people) track down all of the escapees from the Gard. Of course Isabelle and Jace also taken on the responsibility of finding the remaining criminals in New York, and as we’ve seen from one of the official sneak-peeks, this involves capturing a Seelie warrior (played by Jason Gosbee) guilty of killing guards during Valentine’s short-lived resurrection, who leads the Lightwood trio into the sewers.

Though the storyline might seem to be less important than the problems directly affecting the main characters at first, we will say that you shouldn’t sleep on the information we gather throughout the episode about happenings at the Clave. There’s also an interesting use of Seelie magic that is worked back into the story in a creative way. Overall, we really enjoyed seeing how this story will affect Alec and Isabelle’s political relationship with the Clave throughout the season, and there are some set-ups here that hint at how this conflict will likely escalate.

We of course know that the Clave has been plagued with internal corruption in the past, but Shadowhunters Season 3B will examine further internal issues and hidden evils that have extreme, chilling consequences — and we really hope that this inevitable investigation helps develop and strengthen the Lightwoods’ leaderships roles.