Episode 50: Aku Cinta Kamu
Episode 50 of The Descent Is Easy discusses Aku Cinta Kamu, Episode 19 of Season 3 of Shadowhunters.
In which we.. have a lot to say, m’kay?!?
The discussed Faejilly meta can be found HERE and Ruth’s selection of choice AU’s can be found HERE
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29th April 2019 @ 10:45 pm
happy 50th episode 🙂
okay no get ready for an incoherent stream of words haha
-the title. it annoys me, but doesn’t anger me? does that make sense? it also reminds me a lot of ‘malec’ (the ep not the ship) tbh- its just blatant fanservice and doesn’t acc work (they srsly need fandom consultants- I am also available haha [might find me a bit too young tho]), but however abrasive ‘malec’ may have been, it made sense in the ep. this was just….confusing, especially with the sneak peek out- why would you do that?! even if the title did have to be malec centric, make it something that either fits with other plot threads or fits with all of the malec plot. or just link it back later in the ep. hgjdfhj
-im…just..i can’t even be bothered to talk about the Jordana anymore (apparently that’s the ship name)
-YES RAPHAEL SANTIAGO
-the ice cream scene notionally gives me joy. the acc scene? it was just weird, but you pointed out all my issues so I’m not gonna repeat them
-YES RAPHAEL SANTIAGO
-on the subject of Tessa and Jem and ‘whats-his-face'(lol), read the books in publication order!! if it messes up your schedule for the next bit of book club, just try to read TID before CoHF
-okay, but if you stab em with glorious (you murderer you), wouldn’t it kill them (according to Izzy)?
-okay but over organizing is like, my jam? you probs don’t care about the following anecdote, but my group (for global goals) missed a meeting today and our final submission is on 1/5, so I spent, like from 5.30 to 10.30 organizing and executing every part of the submission, and I’m just looking back now, like, why did I do that? I have 2 more days? *sigh*
-ALSO 3.20 BETTER NOT MAKE ME SAD cos parts of 3.19 did and its really rare that I cry while consuming media, but I did in this ep(of the show, not the podcast lol) and school is back so ill be watching sh on the way there and /really/ don’t want to be crying on my bus so like…malec? get. back. together. I do not want to be a mess on freaking PUBLIC transport *fingers crossed* (I’m kinda scared)(like, it’s all gonna be fine but 3.20 better be fine)(sighs)
28th April 2019 @ 7:44 pm
I was very confused about the opening scene of this ep. For a minute i thought that I was watching The Walking Dead and that there had been some kind of apocalylse in NY. When have the streets of NY ever been that empty? It was a cool shot but it didn’t make a lot of sense.
I don’t know how I feel about this ep. It certainly wasn’t my favourite. I try to stay away from spoilers as best I can and I avoid all sneak peeks apart from the Malec ones. I know that Aku Cinta Camu is a big deal for the book readers and Malec lovers so i thought that this ep would be more about them and the fallout of Alec’s decission. Nope. I can understand why people are upset and dissapointed. They really should have reconsidered that title.
I loved all of the scenes between Magnus and Asmodeus, they play of each other so well. I’d be interested to know if some part of Asmodeus really cares about his son or if this is all part of some big plan to use Magnus and get back at him for banishing him all those years ago. The flashback with the lock was lovely, the one with Madzie was a bit weird. As much as I love Magnus and feel for him, I was getting annoyed with him halfway through the ep. All he does is mope around feeling sorry for himself. He got his magic back (that was anticlimatic) and doesn’t do anything with it. I know he’s at a low point in his life but are you telling me that Magnus wouldn’t even consider trying to get back with Alec or at least try and talk to him before deciding that the only thing he can do is get rid of all of his memories of Alec? That there is no possible other option? I find that hard to believe. And yes, I wish they had shown a bit more of Alec’s struggle with the situation but I guess his coping mechanism is to concentrate on work and ignore everything else. But him keeping some kind of taps on Magnus would have been nice. But I agree with you, Alec will probably have some big breakdown soon. And it will kill me! 😢 I liked the end scene with Asmodeus. I can totally see him trying to cling onto something, someone familiar while feeling so low. Even when you know nothing good can come from it.
I like Brother Snackariah! And how much do I love Raphael for having the decency and the nerve to come and apologise for what the vampires did to the werewoofs. Who will run the vamps now? I have a bad feeling about Jordan, he’s going to end up getting himself killed. I’m glad that Maia put a stop to anything romantic between her and Jordan, that would have been a bit too uncomfortable.
As for the evil trio, i didn’t really see the point of most of it. Kidnapping the queen seems stupid and where was Meliorn? His survival instinct is on point! 😄 Dark Clary doesn’t strike me as very dark at the moment. I mean, Jonathan and even The Owl were scarier than her. I still don’t really know where they’re going with this storyline. I was kind of hoping for a Jonathan redemption story but I doubt that’s what we’re going to get.
I just want some Malec hapiness in the next ep… 😭
25th April 2019 @ 6:04 am
I have a lot of things to say about this episode. First of which is that I kind of felt….indifferent about this episode. I hate saying that I dislike episodes of Shadowhunters, especially now because I am really trying to just enjoy these episodes, but I was bored for half the episode, uncomfortable for another quarter, and sort of happy, but ultimately disappointed about the rest.
About the title. I was not boiling mad like a lot of the internet, I am just frustrated and a lot of the frustration you covered in the podcast. I don’t really care that the episode wasn’t overwhelmingly Malec or Magnus centric, not every episode is going to be no matter how much we wish they were, but if it isn’t, don’t make the episode title a Malec quote. It’s rude to Malec and its rude to the other characters. In my opinion, all/most of the Malec scenes/episodes in 3B have at the very least lived up to the hype that had been surrounding them for the 9-month hiatus, so the fact that this ep fell short for me was kind of jarring. And because of the name, I was expecting big things and that just… didn’t happen. If they had just called the episode “The Bone Chandelier” or something and I wouldn’t have as much of an issue. But with “Aku Cinta Kamu” you are expecting a lot of good quality Malec moments and based on that title we should have had them. Also, them releasing that Malec scene as the sneak peek really pissed me off, especially after watching the episode and seeing that the “Aku Cinta Kamu” line didn’t go anywhere and probably won’t in the future either. I know a lot of Malec fans were shouting about how we should have had less Clace scenes in this episode(mostly because of pointless ship wars), but I really just want to change the name and I would be fine(with that aspect at least).
Now that I’ve got the title out of the way I don’t even know where to begin with this episode. I feel like all of the storylines this episode were either just ok or really didn’t work for me at all. Or worked for me at the beginning, but by the end didn’t.
The whole Jonathan/Jace/Clary story worked for me a beginning, sort of. I liked some of the dialogue and moments between them, but I think I am kind of done with this storyline already. This team evil thing needed to happen like 4 episodes ago in my opinion. All we have had is Jonathan doing absolutely nothing else but chasing after Clary for 8 episodes and at this point, I’m bored and don’t care. Besides the fact that I have no fucking clue what Jonathan’s goal or purpose is for getting the sword. I literally had to have someone on Twitter tell me that he wanted to summon all the demons to earth with the sword because it was only mentioned like once in an episode and I missed it. We are at what would have been the season finale and Jonathan hasn’t done anything. I have kind of hesitated to complain about this because Luke Baines is adorable and he has been working his ass off and has been really worried about playing Jonathan, but the writing and pacing of Jonathan is so bad. Asmodeous had been on my screen for like a total of 8 minutes and he already outsold Jonathan as a villain, in my opinion.
I actually really liked the Clace scene outside the club where Jace tries to talk sense into Clary and bring her back with memories. I thought it was a nice scene and it actually kind of made me sad when she kissed him and then immediately got all peppy again and ran to follow Jonathan. Sadly, that is where my enjoyment of Clace this episode ends. Now, I know some Malec fans on Twitter are just going out of their way to cause drama and tension with Clace fans, so I am going to say this has nothing to do with Clace themselves, but I genuinely felt uncomfortable watching that dance scene in the club. First of all, as you mentioned, the drugs were stupid in the first place. But with the camera moves and the visual effects for Jace especially, they couldn’t have made it more obvious that they were high and out of their right mind if they tried. And it was almost made worse with the fact that the perspective of the scene came from Jace only if I am remembering correctly. And I know that we saw that Clary did some of the drugs too, but she was already acting strangely throughout the episode anyways and to me, she didn’t seem different enough on the drugs from how evil Clary was already acting for an additional level of discomfort to not settle over the scene for me. I know this is the kind of thing that happens at clubs sometimes, but the writers trying to make it hot and romanticize it just didn’t sit well with me personally. However, I am not going to blame other people for liking it as I think people’s take on this scene are gonna differ based on their own experiences and opinions on, I guess, recreational drug use and I do think my vision is a little bit clouded by a recent experience in my family. Also, for a moment of levity, there was the moment when Clary kind of slid down Jace’s body and for a split second it looked like she was getting down on her knees to do something….inappropriate to him in the middle of that dance floor and I actually balked at my screen…before remembering that this is on Freeform, not HBO😂 And in my defense I was live-tweeting and happened to look up at the screen in exactly the wrong moment😬 🤦♀️
I am now going to(try to) very briefly discuss Maia/Joran and Sizzy. I kind of feel the same way about Jordan and Maia as I do the whole team evil plotline. Like I am so relieved that they decided, at least I hope this is the end of it, to not do the romantic route with them. But it is coming so late into the season and the rest of their story from 3B seems pointless and irrelevant. This moment of Maia kissing Jordan, but immediately stopping it because she can’t go down that road again is a story that I am interested in, but it came after so much bullshit and “cute” flirty stuff that it almost doesn’t make sense at this point. I feel like Maia’s character is all over the place this season and it is so so frustrating. If they had gotten rid of the entire Heidi plot line and just had Maia’s storyline be her actually taking over the pack it would have been so much better. And I am sure they could have come up with a way to do this whole ‘Maia forgives Jordan and thinks maybe they could try again but realizes that she can’t’ storyline some other way.
Sizzy was kinda cute this episode, but again, to me at least, their “relationship” is still not different enough from their friendship for me to suddenly see them in a different light. Though, I have also never seen Superman so that whole reference/conversation kind of went right over my head, so it might actually be my fault this episode😬. I’m not gonna dwell on this anymore. Its gonna happen and I’m not gonna care, unfortunately😔. Although, Izzy was a queen this episode and I loved it!!😍
Also before I forget, unless I am mistaken Constantin Film and therefore the writers have the rights to both the Mortal Instruments books and the Infernal Devices books so nothing in this episode would cause legal issues.
I wanna wrap this up by talking about Magnus, Alec, and Malec. To start off I want to say that I mostly agree with you about the Madzie/Malec scene. I, for the most part, don’t mind the actual script, but when I read a spoiler that the Malec/Mazie with ice cream scene was gonna be them talking about kids, I immediately pictured the scene being in a park with an ice cream truck in the background and them sitting at a picnic table talking and watching Madzie play for something. But the setup for the actual scene was just bizarre. You mentioned how you thought the scene felt a bit like fanservice, and I agree, but I think that it is all in the setup actually. I feel like this is a perfectly legitimate conversation for them to have had at some point. Alec especially brings up stuff like this up all the time and I’m not even gonna bring up the timeline and if having this convo at this point in their relationship is weird because there is no point, but it doesn’t seem out of character for Alec to bring this up to me. Especially since he is not actually asking Magnus to have kids with him right now, but was looking into the future. However, the setup made the scene feel… disingenuous I guess? It didn’t feel natural. It felt like the writers knew fans would freak out about Malec talking about kids, but didn’t put the time or care into doing it properly. And Matt and Harry are trying so hard to make the scene work and it just… doesn’t. I think it had all of the potential to be a legitimate and great scene but with weird editing, camera work, location, and some of the lines it just…failed.
I didn’t really have much issue with Alec this episode and I didn’t get the kind of…extreme anger some people had over how Alec was handling things this ep. Have they not watched the past 3 seasons of this show? Alec throwing himself into work and pushing down and ignoring his pain is exactly what he has always done. I agree that we should have seen him check on Magnus somehow, but I would also have liked to see, in the Parabatai scene after Jace left, Alec kind of lean on his desk for a second, take a deep breath, and then straighten up and get back to work. He had already had a little break when Jace asked about Magnus and I think it would have more clearly shown that, yes he is obviously hurting, but he is gonna push that aside and focus on work.
I don’t really know how I feel about Magnus and his story in this episode, to be honest. I have really loved Magnus and Malec’s storyline in 3B and I understand why Magnus just getting his magic back so easily could seem frustrating, but I personally didn’t for a second think that he was gonna go very long without it anyways and I honestly think that he got it back a lot later in the story than I was expecting. Magnus’ storyline has been the most well written and drawn out plot of season 3, in my opinion, but something was missing for me in this episode and I’m not sure what it was. I do wish that a little more time could have passed so that Magnus didn’t seem like he was making rash decisions because of fresh pain and heartbreak, but I personally didn’t really have a problem with Magnus being so distressed over losing Alec. And it’s not just because I love Malec, but because I don’t know enough about Magnus and his past relationships to blatantly say that ‘no Alec is not different you’re just grieving. You’ve loved deeply before you’ll get over it in a few years’. What Magnus and the script is telling me is that this break up with Alec is affecting him differently and hurting him more than any other ones and I am going to kind of take that at its word because honestly what do I know?
I also didn’t mind the hug at the end with Asmodeous. I just think that where Magnus’ mental state has been and is in this episode, would absolutely leave him vulnerable enough to accept his fathers comfort at that moment. I also don’t think that hug means anything about their relationship going forward. I seem to be the only one who doesn’t think we are getting dark!Magnus next episode. I think the promo is cut together to be misleading and that Magnus is going to turn on him pretty quickly. And if we do get it, it is going to be very short because apparently, 3×20 is Asmodeus’ last episode so dark!Magnus is going to be anticlimactic if it happens. For this episode, in particular, I don’t mind Magnus just being utterly broken and a mess as long as he starts figuring things out and saving himself next episode and based on the promo I think he will, but fingers crossed!
All-in-all I didn’t particularly like this episode. To me, the Magnus stuff was the best part, but it had its issues and I still don’t know exactly what was missing from that storyline, but something was. Also, Harry did amazing, particularly in that last scene. His facial expressions killed me😢
I am finishing this at midnight so I apologize for any rambling and gibberish!! Especially since this is so long🙈
14th May 2019 @ 1:49 pm
I’m with you on being disappointed with this episode. And I TOTALLY agree that there really wouldn’t be an issue with the amount of Malec/Clace if the title was less Malec specific. Seems like they were setting themselves up for failure really…
“This team evil thing needed to happen like 4 episodes ago in my opinion […]the writing and pacing of Jonathan is so bad. Asmodeous had been on my screen for like a total of 8 minutes and he already outsold Jonathan as a villain, in my opinion.”
My god totally all of this. The pacing for 3b generally was totally whacked, and throw in the complete failure to set up clear goals for Jonathan or cement his threat… I just can’t even. Asmodeus I feel like works better as a villainy type because we have a better idea of his scope maybe? Also I think Jack Yang won himself a lot of villainy heavy weight points in his scenes in 3a – he demonstrated so much raw menace and power that it carried through 3b a bit, even if I didn’t feel it particularly in his 3b scenes.
In regards to the club sequence… I feel your discomfort but didn’t have an issue with the scene because I’m quite sure that was all intentional, and I can’t say I see the romanticism of the scene at all. Jace was pushed into doing drugs when he didn’t want to (irritation about him not managing to avoid taking them aside I guess?) and he was not having a nice time, and was unable to properly consent to Clary’s advances. For me the “What are you doing?” “You could ask me to stop, but you won’t” lines are pretty clearly textualising this. He can’t ask her to stop. He’s not in control. I have no issue with a story making me uncomfortable if it’s doing it deliberately. Theres a subsequent issue of there not being enough follow through on the consequence of this but that come under the heading of ‘This show 100% fails to deal with Jace’s trauma’ and this is one of a very very long list.
Maia is so disappointing and frustrating and also super badly paced. I agree that the place we landed with this was good, and that we totally could have been telling an interesting story to get there, but ultimately didn’t. And yeah, the tonality of their relationship has been all over the freaking place which makes it feel even more fragmented.
I was totally taken aback by how well the Sizzy ended up working for me over all, and a lot of that might just have been me getting so over excited about how boss Isabelle has been thorough 3b that the Simon sort of got swept along with it? but whatever, I’m happy to be happy so I won’t interrogate too hard.
“Also before I forget, unless I am mistaken Constantin Film and therefore the writers have the rights to both the Mortal Instruments books and the Infernal Devices books so nothing in this episode would cause legal issues.”
Yeah, we figured that out in the end. We were being silly forgetful people.
Re Magnus and Alec – absolutely 100% on the ice-cream scene. The set up and lead in is absolutely the main issue. Harry and Matt are almost never part of the issue. They do the absolute best they can and have saved many scenes of clumsy writing or weird pacing by being as emotionally honest as they are. As with most of the issues of Shadowhunters, it comes down to writing.
On Alec – yeah I really don’t get the failure to recognise consistant stoicism. That’s kinda his thing.
“I would also have liked to see, in the Parabatai scene after Jace left, Alec kind of lean on his desk for a second, take a deep breath, and then straighten up and get back to work. ”
Yes. That would have healed a lot.
“I don’t know enough about Magnus and his past relationships to blatantly say that ‘no Alec is not different you’re just grieving. You’ve loved deeply before you’ll get over it in a few years’. What Magnus and the script is telling me is that this break up with Alec is affecting him differently and hurting him more than any other ones and I am going to kind of take that at its word because honestly what do I know?”
That’s totally fair. I think for me the problem is that up til this episode they’ve had Magnus behave as if he was the latest in a string of people he has loved and lost. The memory box and that whole series of events told us that. I am absolutely on board with the idea that Magnus may have come to the realisation that that is not the case, that Alec was different and that losing him was effecting him differently, but that isn’t something I got from the text – at least not until this episode which means for me it all felt a little weird? But my fundamental issue with the Magnus story like this season has been Magnus’ lack of proactivity within it rather than the emotional beats. I kinda can’t forgive the show for not letting him make choices and take action in this storyline.
“Harry did amazing, particularly in that last scene. His facial expressions killed me”
He was gorgeous.
24th May 2019 @ 5:30 am
Wow, I just saw this reply sorry!
I totally get what you are saying about the scene in the club and if the intention of the scene had been to make me uncomfortable than I totally get that and I would be fine with it. The problem is that I really don’t think that was the intention. Based on what some of the writers and even Kat have said in regards to the scene on Twitter, it seems like it was just a hot, sexy Clace scene from the books that they really wanted to include in the show because Clace fans and they wanted to see it. The problems there is that the scene was even more uncomfortable in the books in my opinion and shouldn’t have been something they wanted to include anyways. And on top of that, the whole team evil thing is so short and pointless that it makes me think the only reason they did “evil Clary” was so they could include this “hot” book scene where Clary and Jace dry hump each other on the dance floor because that is kind of all she did. I mean they captured the Seelie Queen, but Clary had very little to do with that story moving forward and she was normal Clary again in the next episode. If Clary had done more than just seduce Jace into dirty dancing with her than I might be able to forgive the scene because like I said I felt uncomfortable, but I don’t really care if other people liked it, but that’s all she did and to make Clary evil for almost literally nothing else than that is kind of atrocious in my opinion. I actually think that is my biggest problem with that scene. They made Clary evil so she could seduce Jace to dirty dance and make out with her and she did very little before or after that. I also would have preferred there to be no drug use, but what can you do. And this could have been fixed if team evil had started about 4 episodes earlier, but no.
Yeah it would have been great for Magnus to come to the realization about Alec over the course of a few episodes, but I guess I just don’t have a particular issue with the breakup being the thing that triggered this reaction/realization in Magnus especially since he was already in a very messed up, vulnerable headspace at the time. And I totally get your frustration with Magnus’ storyline this season and while I absolutely agree with a lot of the points you’ve made, especially about Magnus needing to be more proactive in his own story, it is still the story that worked the best for me, which isn’t saying much because none of the storylines in 3B really worked for me. And my Magnus and Alec bias is definitely coming into play here haha. Individual scenes and moments is what saved 3B for me, is the conclusion that I’ve come to.
It’s been like 6 weeks and I still have a lot of feelings about 3×19 I guess.