Exclusive: Dominic Sherwood Previews ‘Shadowhunters’ Shocking Finale and Teases Season 2

With Shadowhunters set to close the book on its first season, fans are eager and anxious to see how this first chapter of Shadowhunters will conclude. With Valentine closer than ever to retrieving the Mortal Cup and carrying out his plans, it’s up to the Shadowhunters, including his son Jace Wayland Morgenstern, to help bring an end to his villainous ways. But can they accomplish that before it’s too late? And without losing themselves in the process?

We had the chance to chat with Shadowhunters star Dominic Sherwood about what lies in store in Tuesday’s season one finale (“Morning Star”), including a shocking cliffhanger that will leave fans in shambles, the fallout with the sibling revelation between Jace and Clary, and a couple teases about season two involving Jace and Valentine.

“You can expect heartbreak; you can expect a huge cliffhanger; you can expect definitely a big shock,” Sherwood told us of the spring finale. “As far as Jace goes, there’s definitely a change in Jace. He makes a couple of decisions in episode 13 that maybe you wouldn’t have thought of him in episode one. He’s definitely taken a different path.”

A SHOCKING CLIFFHANGER │When it comes to season finales it’s always smart to prepare for a game-changing moment as you transition between seasons. Sherwood teased that Tuesday’s finale will deal with a shocking cliffhanger involving Jace that will divide the fans in terms of their reasoning behind it.

“The way season 1 ends is Jace makes a decision, and the audience won’t know exactly why he’s made that decision,” Sherwood told us.

In fact, Sherwood doesn’t even know why Jace makes the decision he does because he hasn’t been told what happens with that regarding season two. But he does know that Jace’s decision will leave the fans split on Jace’s reasoning.

“I think what happens at the end of episode 13 is going to divide opinion within the fans quite 50-50 on, ‘Did Jace do this because of this? Or did he do this because of this?’”

JACE STRUGGLES WITH DARKNESS │ Jace certainly isn’t the same character that we met in the series premiere as he’s been dealt several blows over this season, especially most recently with the reveals that Valentine is his father and Clary is his sister. Jace certainly sees a darkness within himself that will challenge his character, and from the sound of it it’s something that’s sure to have the fandom talking.

“It’s tough because I want to tell you – I’ve been waiting for almost a year to gossip about what happens in episode 13 and I just can’t give away the ending,” Sherwood told us.

But we were able to get a little something out of the tight-lipped actor, who teased that Jace and the show itself is going to be the darkest it’s been to this point with the season finale.

“[Jace] makes a couple of decisions that are really quite dark,” he said. “Especially one of the scenes kind of in the middle that’s really quite dark that you wouldn’t expect of Jace. You almost wouldn’t expect of this story. It’s kind of darker than anything we’ve done in Shadowhunters so far.”

With the recent revelation that he is Valentine’s son, Jace more than ever is questioning who he is and if he’s essentially destined to be a replica of his father — one that succumbs to the darkness that he assumes is innately within him.

“He’s coming to realize that maybe this darkness has come from Valentine and from the way he was raised for those ten years,” Sherwood said. “Maybe that’s why he is the way he is. You, me, and the fans that have read the books we know otherwise, but he is struggling with this darkness and that has elicited a massive change in who he is and the way he deals with his life. He’s kind of really differentiated himself from the original Jace that we met in episode one.”

THE FALLOUT │ As fans of The Mortal Instruments are well aware, there is a certain revelation at the end of City of Bones that sends Jace spiraling into uncertainty and a bit of darkness. That revelation was recently explored on the show as Jace learned that not only is he the son of Valentine Morgenstern, one of the most horrific Shadowhunters there is, but also Clary is his sister. We’ve seen the awkward fallout as the two grapple with this new reality, but Jace has also lost something else on top of that.

“Not only was Jace dealt this blow of Clary is his sister, but on top of that he lost his father, he lost Michael Wayland as his father, lost 10 years of his upbringing essentially that were all a lie,” Sherwood told us. “He’s not only dealing with the fact that Valentine is his father, which is in it of itself, even if he wasn’t Clary’s father, as well, in it of itself that’s pretty bad. Then you also lost Michael Wayland, lost his upbringing; he was raised by the worst Shadowhunter that we’ve ever come to face. And on top of that Clary is also his sister.”

As for how Jace is dealing with the fallout, in short: not well. Jace has placed an enormous amount of guilt and responsibility on himself regarding what happened with Valentine back at Renwick’s.

“That’s his fault,” Sherwood said. “He let Valentine go, he had the ability to end it all there and then, and Valentine talked his way out of it. So he feels this huge responsibility for what happened at Renwick’s, and the way he’s dealing with things. He needs to right that before anything else. So before he looks at his relationship with Clary or deals with the sibling thing or anything like that he needs to find Valentine and right this wrong and save his friends and save the world.”

HOPES FOR SEASON 2 │ With season one of Shadowhunters set to wrap on Tuesday, we just had to ask about any season two teases. While Sherwood admits that he hasn’t yet seen a script for season two, he did tease something regarding Jace and Valentine’s relationship next season.

“I know Jace, in season 2, is going to explore that relationship in one form or another,” he told us.

Sherwood also hopes that we’ll get to rediscover some elements of early season one Jace that have gotten lost amid the drama and darkness: the confident, cocky, sarcastic, arrogant character.

“I’m hoping Jace explored that and finds that within himself again,” he said. “Because where he’s at right now he’s very broken. He’s kind of a broken character, and that gets worse before it gets better. I’m hoping in season two we get to explore the light side of him more.”

JACE AND ALEC’S RELATIONSHIP │ When it comes to relationships one of the most important in The Mortal Instruments has been Jace and Alec’s relationship, which has introduced us to parabatai and opened us up to a world where friendship runs deeper than the word. This season on Shadowhunters, we’ve seen Jace and Alec’s relationship start off strong but grow strained with Clary’s introduction and later different ideologies. But in the most recent episode (“Malec”) we saw Jace and Alec take a significant step in rebuilding that close bond.

“As far as the relationship goes it’s all about passion,” Sherwood said. “Relationships are all about passion. I know from my point of view, I wouldn’t argue with someone that I didn’t care about because it wouldn’t be worth my time or energy. I think that’s a big thing with Jace and Alec.”

Sherwood says that it was that passion and those arguments between the two characters that has actually made their relationship stronger.

“I think sometimes it was misread by the audience because they were seeing it as this argument, this tear between them,” he said. “But actually what it was is a passionate argument that drew them closer because they’re suffering through the same things and drawing them apart kind of magnetized them back together. It was almost a positive thing that they had these arguments and these blows like brothers. They end up stronger.”

The Shadowhunters spring finale airs Tuesday at 9/8c on Freeform.