A strong mix of heartfelt drama and action this time around. Dominion’s turning out to be a lot less wacky and a lot more grown-up that we expected. But that’s a good thing.
We begin with Alex shootin’ at an angel and getting his ass kicked. (The angel-wings CGI rally is pretty nice here. Wish we had us some.) Michael taunts Alex, who’s pretty out of control after the death of little Gobbledegoo (Okay, Bixby. She’s dead, for God’s sake, show a little respoect!) And Michael knows it. So he gives some good advice: keep your eyes on the shadows, not the sun. Dickhead.
Next: a room full of terrified humans are hiding from some eight-balls (we’re assuming outside the walls of Vega). But of course the bad angels in the possessed bodies find them and .. oh, wow. It’s a flashback into the nightmarish wartime life of Whele. That is a shock. It’s nice to see a villain who’s not only complex, but deeply screwed up and unhappy.
Anyway: Alex and Claire have an extended scene, mourning the death of Bixby and mutually dealing with her own promise to marry William Whele for all the right reasons. It’s actually rather touching, especially after the violence of Michael’s “life lesson” and Whele’s flashback. Later, Claire chats with Noma, the gorgeous soldier-lady, further propogating the myth of the fairy-tale marriage, and is visited by Whele (and poor Anthony Head is still struggling with that accent). His real reason for visiting: to pump her for information about her Dad’s heart condition. Seems one of the Senators has found out about Reisen’s heart condition and is pushing for his resignation. Whele himself is doing some pushing: of Claire, expecting her to take her ailing Daddy’s place sooner rather than later: to become Lady of the City. She doesn’t like that prospect as all.
Down on the streets of Vega, the vampire-eight-ball-paramour of Reisen, wrapped up like it’s the dead of winter, is shopping for…something. She chooses an antique music box and in the process accidentally reveals herself to a shopkeeper. Who, of course, she kills dead.
Later that night, Michael’s back counseling Alex, trying to force him to meditate and envisionalate. He has actually a kind of spooky viison of the dead girl Bixby, who pleads with him to keep them from hurting anyone else. Michael asks him what he sees: “Who I’m fighting for,” he says, and takes off. Oh, a tough guy, eh?
It’s not long after that dirty ol Gen. Riesen visits his eight-ball call girl, and he gets it: she’s been outside the hotel where she hides, using the tunnels into Vega that only she and Riesen know about. But she’s scared; she needs someone to take care of her…like Claire. Riesen won’t let that happen, but the eight-ball keeps pushing. She’s scared, and she’s got nowhere else to go.
Back in Vega, Whele has his heart set on bringing Riesen down; he’s willing to blackmail Rebecca Thorn to get what he wants, threatening to expose her affair with Michael and his “little harem” if she doesn’t back his ouster of the General. Man, that guy is evil. And he loves being evil so much.
Meanwhile William – remember, the obsequious little weasel is also Gabriel’s head spy in Vega, the son of a bitch – is still playing at being Good Guy Priest of the Chosen One for the general public. After bullying one of his Gabrielists who dares to show his face out in the open, Claire shows up and presses “good” William to make his Dad back off. Yeah, that’ll work. Is there anything William can give her to blackmail Old Man Whele? Of course, traitor bastard William says he has nothing, but he’ll talk to Daddy that night. Why do we doubt this?
Back in his aerie, Michael indulges in a little sword-practice and Senator Thorn shows up, presumably to play a game of celestial slap and tickle. But that’s not why she’s here, she says. She’s breaking up with him, which he’s long expected. Heartless bastard!
Noma and Mack meet Alex back in the solider-y locker room, and Alex makes it clear: he’s on the prowl for the damn eight-ball that killed the shopkeeper. All this while that killer, the eight-ball lover of Reisen, sneaks into Claire’s room…where Reisen finds her. He knows the eight-ball killed that shopkeeper. She threatens to come and go as she pleases, and Riesen drives her out, into the night sky. Y’see what comes from dating outside your heavenly species?
Turncoat Gabrielist Spy Traitor William is, oddly, as good as his word: he talks with his Dad about backing off on the Riesen resignation, and Whele pulls the J.R. Ewing card: “I’m doing what’s best for our family,” and he thinks Sonny Bill is a weakling who’s going to need to hold Daddy’s hand forever, he says. Claire is “playing him like a fiddle,” he tells his son. “You owe me, boy,” he said. “Just how much, you’ll never know.” Old Whele has no idea what a monster he’s bred, but William himself knows: “I am the man you made me, Father,” he says agonized at his own evil, and leaves. Ooh, all so Shakespearean and shit.
Risen and Michael meet: Michael knows all about Riesen’s eight-ball lover, and has for a long time. Michael will capture her safely, he says, but Riesen knows it has to end: “I need her taken down,” he tells a shocked Michael, whether he loves her our not.
The eight-ball wanders the streets and alleys. Alex and Noma have a confrontation in the darkened streets themselves, and an old secret comes out: their own romantic history, and why Noma ended it – to avoid Alex being kicked from the Corp. “You met Claire right after,” Noma says with no small amount of bitterness, “so it all worked out.” An incoming call about nearby violence is almost a relief. They uncover a dead cops,clearly killed by the dark angel in a poor woman’s body. “She’s still inside these walls,” Alex declare rather unnecessarily.
After the commercial, we see Rebecca sending her Michael-lovin’ orgy-buddies off to the sex nuns for safekeeping: no more fun with Michael. And downstairs (upstairs?) (Elsewhere?) the engagement party for Claire and William begins, while Claire herself starts rifling Whele’s office in search of anything she can use to blackmail him. She finds what she’s looking for, but we don’s get to see it. And she makes it downstairs to the party in a beautiful red dress.
But as the party progresses, she quietly confronts Whele: she found proof in his study that he’s in league with Gabriel himself. Either Whele is an even better actor than we thought, or he’s as shocked as she was: he seems to think she planted the evidence, to frame him. Because he’s no … hey, wait a minute. My son…
Alex and Noma track the eight ball; Alex corners her and she pleads for her life. She didn’t fight Gabriel’s war, she says. Yeah, but you’re still a butthole black angel who stole some innocent woman’s body. You deserve to die. “Please don’t kill me,” she says. “I have a daughter.” Whuhhh? By Riesen, maybe? Whuuh?
Back at the engagement party, it all starts to come together. Claire – who’s turning out to be much more than the starry-eyed shmeeb she was in the first episode – toasts her Dad and her poor dead mom .. who is, of course, the eightball. That damn dark angel took her mother’s body…who knows how long ago?
Waaaaw… Cool revelatoins, some action that was integral to the story, and again: no circling the airport, figurately or literally. Stuff actually happens, though admittedly not always good stuff.
