Dominion 1.04 “The Flood”

As unexpected as it might be, this time around Dominion delivered, mainly because it put the focus on character and story development, moving the series forward in what felt like a natural move for both humanity’s supposed savior, Alex Lannen (Christopher Egan), and the Archangel Michael (Tom Wisdom), who’s rooting for the humans against his brother Gabriel (Carl Beukes) and his hordes.

The episode came after a truly forgettable one, and that might have helped to view it in a much better light. The feeling was that the writers were back on track and that maybe they were beginning to understand the middle ground in which this series is going to move better.

The last episode ended with Michael stabbed with an angel sword – supposedly lethal – and this one follows that plot very quickly, as we find Alex delivering the Archangel to Vega’s doctors.

As was expected, Alex is detained for leaving the city in a stolen vehicle, and on a clever move to protect his identity as the savior; he confronts the soldiers, ending on solitary – where none can see his body tattoos.

As I said on previous reviews, this series lacks focus sometimes between its many characters and the subplots they star in. However, another clear conclusion was that the best parts until now had featured Alex, Michael, and their backstory. The writers must have figured that out too, as most of the episode is centered on these two characters, and the consequences of them being who they are.

It was a matter of time that someone learnt about the savior being hidden in plain sight in Vega, and it’s Senator Thomas Frost (Danny Keogh) who, after overhearing Claire Riesen (Roxanne McKee) talk about him, decides to confront the Consul members about the need to reveal who is the savior and where he is hiding. As he cleverly understands, both Senator David Whele (Anthony Head) and General Edward Riesen (Alan Dale) don’t want to share this information because they would lose their grip on the city, as the people would turn to the savior for answers and help.

The core of the episode, after these initial promising scenes, resides in the trap that Frost sets up for Whele and Riesen, in a suicide attempt to make them reveal the savior’s identity or die with him in the process, also destroying the crops needed to feed Vega’s population. Frost eventually meets the savior and gets the proof he needed that he truly is special – Alex’s visions proving crucial to solve the crisis – but only seconds before he is boldly executed by Riesen. And here I thought that the evil and cruel one was Whele…

The other interesting development is regarding the angel side of things, as another player enters the game: Uriel (Katrine De Candole), Michael and Gabriel’s sister, who had been missing during the angel – human war and now returns to make both brothers believe she is going to help them get the savior on their side and win the war. Looks like she just wants both brothers to kill themselves and their respective forces. To what purpose, we still don’t know.

This episode managed to advance things quite a bit, as now both Michael and Alex feel they have a clear purpose in mind. Michael’s is to teach and prepare Alex to become the savior he needs to defeat Gabriel and his hordes, and Alex agrees with this plan, as he now sees clearly that he doesn’t have to run away, but must face who and what he is, like he did before the Senators. So it seems Dominion might be regaining the momentum it seemed to have lost. Let’s see if that proves true in the midterm.

Now it’s training time!