Saturday, August 22, 2015

Dominion, Season 2, Episode 7: Lay Thee Before Kings



Michael and Gabriel are now both imprisoned by Julian (which pretty much means their whole trip to New Delphi has been wasted) and are subjected to Julian’s lecture about how humanity has mastered the art of hatred. And the torture of a longwinded villainous recap.

At least Gabriel and Michael do snark the villainous monologue.

Anyway he plans to torture Michael and Gabriel with electricity – apparently electricity is a weakness for angels. To not be killed they have to take it in turns being electrocuted. I’m sure I’ve seen a game show that followed roughly the same premise.

They take turns holding the sparky pole while they consider Lire/Julian’s plans to steal their bodies. They also talk about their immense daddy issues and Gabriel’s belief that this is all Alex’s fault who is, depending on the Archangel, either terribad awful or the chosen one. In case we didn’t get it, Michael outright compares Alex to another special child that Gabriel apparently once looked over

Which means we now get holy land flashbacks when Gabriel was apparently a man looking after a child – the child isn’t (to my surprise) Jesus, but David. He’s dragged to war and fights Goliath. I don’t need to tell you how this story ends (though this one has Michael providing David with a specially selected presumably angelically approved rock – one that goes right through the man’s head like a sniper’s bullet

This causes the other army to flee... Ok the whole going right through and man’s head is creepy, but slings were often by classical armies – them killing someone shouldn’t be shocking.

David was then killed by King Saul and replaced by an imposter that the king could control. In doing so we see the beginnings of Gabriel’s hatred of humanity. Later Gabriel decides to kill his son’s imposter once he’s grown up – him and all his kids and grandkids. Because justice, I guess?

In the present Gabriel now decides he wants Alex to be able to protect his own chosen child as he couldn’t protect his own (hey it would have been nice if you’d remembered this BEFORE destroying the entire world) and sacrifices himself to have Michael (again, would have been nice before causing the apocalypse)

Despite sacrificing himself, Gabriel doesn’t die, he’s just left all weak and helpless for Julian to torment some more.

Julian tries to get David Riesen to give up the location of the Amphora which is still missing. David also tells Julian all about Clementine, his wife/8-Ball who possessed his wife. So, of course, Julian brings the angel who possessed Clementine. Or an angel claiming to be anyway.


Alex’s writings are doing weird thing while Noma tries to sneak out – failing epicly when a random guy grabs her and tells her to bring the Chosen One east. The guy (who has an AWESOME outfit) also burns 8 Balls by pointing at them

See this is me, heading West. West looks really good right now.

Instead they go to find Medical supplies and find a whole colony of 8 Balls who seems to be embracing their own personal hell of working on a checkout. Noma explains that 8 Balls were obsessed with the human lives they possessed (which we saw with Arika’s angel brainwashing) and she speculates that this is where these humans were happiest. Noma has clearly never worked retail. Luckily the 8 Balls hanging around mean that no-one has looted this place because it’s way way way way too creepy. The big pile of bodies in the back may add to that

They decide to act like normal shoppers to fly under the radar. How Noma, an angel and Alex, a man born during the collapse of society, knows how a supermarket works is not explained. Anyway, they end up killing them all anyway and only belatedly address Noma’s grief and pain: she doesn’t know if he can save her and she doesn’t even know what she is any more. He has some trite words of comfort for her along with kisses.

In Vega, Claire and Gates continue to be couply – and someone murders several people in her tower. Arika blames rebel sympathisers (though I suspect Arika). Claire decides she wants to make a deal with Zoe.

Zoe is busy negotiating with various factions when Claire launches her counter to get their attention – and shuts off the electricity to Zoe’s half of the city.

This ends up with a meeting planned – and Gates finally mentions some suspicion about Arika. Zoe and Claire meet, without Arika, a change of plan. Claire’s deal for Zoe is “surrender and trust I’ll let you work with me” or she sends in the soldiers. Zoe says yes (really?) but then a sniper ruins the whole thing and everyone drives away. Claire is shot in the leg.


The sniper was one of David’s people and unknown to Zoe. Of course. When Claire gets back to the compound Gates also agrees that Zoe didn’t know about the shooting when Arika accuses her – and Arika rightfully decides David did it. Despite both agreeing Zoe didn’t arrange the sniper, Gates decides they “gave peace a chance” and now they need to try something else…

…but but but peace worked?! It worked! Some guy tried to derail it, you IDENTIFIED that he was trying to derail it and then let him derail it anyway?!

Claire survives the shooting – but miscarries.

Zoe is hyper pissed off and has the guy who David paid brutally beaten to death without listening to what he said.




I’m pretty sure at some point we lost the focus on this show… I mean, it was about angels trying to wipe out humanity, led by Gabriel. He was the big bad. He was the threat. Yet… killing Gabriel (these last few episodes) when I’m pretty sure they’ve had the chance has been waay waaay down on their priority list. And this whole attempt to redeem Gabriel? He is literally the cause of every bad thing that happened on this show?! He now decides to sacrifice himself so Alex can save his chosen child? Oh that’s nice – shame about the billion kids you massacred but, hey, Michael can now save his chosen one! REDEMPTION!!!!

Tell me again how winged people with swords, no ranged weaponry and an aversion to freaking tasers managed to wipe out humanity? Winged people who, even with just melee weapons, can be dog piled into submission by a dozen people and even now can’t take down a ragged city of survivors who rely on WALLS to keep out said winged beings? Because the longer Dominion goes on the more I think humanity should have beaten the angels so hard that they’d be reduced to being a new designer pet. That wave of possession must have been huge

I think a lot more could have been made of rebel sympathisers in Claire’s camp – after all this is a class war. Who cooks Claire’s meals? Who guards her? Who cleans her floors? There’s got to be a lot of V1s around Claire at any given time.

And can we address Zoe? Either Zoe thinks she can work with Claire – in which case why didn’t she take the chances before? Or she doesn’t – in which case why does she think “you won’t let the soldiers kill your own people” is a reasonable thing to say? Does Zoe think Claire cares about the V1s or not?


Did we really waste that much time on supermarket 8 Balls, saying beep when using a till?