TV REVIEW: Dominion Season Finale

By Liv Tadesse

Dominion lives up once again to its pilot promise of betrayal and serves more than enough of its share in its season finale “Beware Those Closest to You.”

The series constantly plays on the expectations of the audience, most especially, and most effectively, on the fourth-wall expectations of its female characters. Arika makes her long over-due reappearance and to shocking effect. It’s testament to the writers that they reuse a plot twist to make an even bigger impact, but the revelation of Evelyn posing as Arika was strangely downplayed, given that this is the leader of another country in the lion’s den.

However, with the amount of smokescreen going on with random dead bodies showing up from Helena, she remains quite a mystery, just like Evelyn. Although my faith in the show’s depiction of its female characters did waver in the face of the rather exploitative scene between her and Uriel (granted the scene wasn’t present only for nudity) it was restored by containing  one of the most important plot twists of the finale.

Second to Arika’s revelation, comes the truth of Becca’s feelings towards Michael. Becca’s position as a senator was only touched upon in earlier episodes, before she was revealed to be at the forefront of Vega’s protection. David’s blackmail earlier in the season served to highlight our first impression of Becca, a woman who did nothing but uselessly love Michael, but clues that pointed otherwise had been left behind.

For the role of a woman in love, she broke the stereotype by being oddly accepting of Michael’s apparent voracious sexual appetite and caring towards the other women whom she invited to join her and Michael in bed. Becca’s interest in Michael seemed to lean more towards fascination than the kind of interest shared between Claire and Alex, or even Noma and Alex. With the theme of distrust and betrayal comes loyalty, and Michael’s reaction to Becca’s true loyalty was one of uncomfortable implications.

(Photo by: Ilze Kitshoff/Syfy)

Becca’s projection throughout most of the series has been more or less one-dimensional. She struggled with betraying her kind because she loved Michael, and because she continued to help Michael, there was always a shade of submissiveness to their interactions. With the revelation that not only did Becca pick apart angels but higher angels that were apparently only capable of being killed by other angels, the power dynamics in the relationship between Becca and Michael had turned. The scene in Becca’s laboratory was the best of the night, and for good reasons, as the layered reactions were demonstrated superbly by the actors. It was the revelation to Michael that he had been vulnerable in Becca’s hands all the while that gave him his powerful reaction. Becca’s murder is chilling when the bearings of angels versus humans are stripped away – his vulnerability and her power terrified him to the point of driving him murder. In reality, it’s not an uncommon reaction of misogynistic men when certain illusions are parted, painting an uglier picture of the scene even with the nuances taken in consideration.

Alongside her own rise to power, Claire makes a dramatic visual change. As soon as her marriage is completed, her long hair is slicked and tied up, and her uniform mirrors outfits that today we’ve come to associate with successful businesswomen. Historically, a woman putting her hair up is a sign of adulthood, but in Dominion, it’s also a signifier of revealed truths. Unlike Evelyn’s constant deception, Claire teeters between using truths to her advantage and using outright lies, but unlike Evelyn, she doesn’t have respite from them in the person she loves. When Claire calls for Alex, he accuses her of wanting power and being happier than demonstrated in her current position, as she’s finally about to become the lady of the city.

What’s remarkable about this is that he doesn’t believe her excuses of wanting power for the people, and narratively, the look on Claire’s face that we’re left with after the accusation being one of fear, it’s suggested that his accusation is the truth. Claire makes one more round of acting during the wedding, before she ditches the wedding dress and dons a black dress, and it’s after the secret of Claire’s pregnancy is exposed that she pulls up her hair. While there’s a concerning theme to equating female adulthood with pregnancy, Dominion manages to balance that by having Claire in a position of power in her own right – earned in her own right as well – and by having the child itself a possible pawn for Claire to use in the days to come.

Uriel’s secrets, meanwhile, seem to have been outed as well, but like the motives of most characters on the show, her motives are inherently twofold. Wanting to bring about peace between two warring peoples is not always a matter of superior negotiation, especially so in Dominion, but a matter of wielding the most power. Interestingly, he gives up her sword only when Gabriel confirms that he has convinced the Chosen One to join his side, and the fact that she waits for the confirmation is, in my opinion, yet another example of Uriel continuing to play the field. Despite renewal and cancellation both hanging in the wings for Dominion, it was a great choice to leave Uriel’s loyalty still fairly unclear to both Gabriel and Evelyn.

(Photo by: Ilze Kitshoff/Syfy)

The choice for Uriel’s characterization just highlights an underlying cynicism Dominion refuses to let go of. What started out as a play on separation for Gabriel backfires so tremendously that the closing shot is Alex walking in willingly to Gabriel’s stronghold, a prophecy by Gabriel now fulfilled. Alex ends up perpetuating the abandonment he loathed his father for committing and for largely the same reasons – in the name of understanding his fate.  Michael kills Becca, because her power terrified him. Instead of falling into a jealous rage as the tone of William eavesdropping on Alex and Claire’s fatherhood discussion insinuated, he pledges to be the best father he can be, but has his execution ordered as soon as his religion is brought to light. The mere existence of Gabriel as a threat to humanity when he was their saviour.

The warning Alex’s tattoos wasn’t wisdom confined to Alex alone, but interestingly, David seems to be the exception to this rule. Despite having been tortured by him psychologically and physically, David can’t see his son dead and helps him evade execution out of a sense of matching loyalty. In the end, the moment where they demonstrate their love is their last, and perhaps if David had seen William’s loyalty from the beginning, he might not have turned to pseudo-father figure Gabriel at all. Too little too late, it’s another cementing case for Dominion’s bleakness.

With renewal still up in the air, the series managed to wrap up well. The seeds for the second season have been planted, but enough threads have been tied to leave Dominion’s first season a bleak last one.

Frankly, Dominion sits as a mediocre series with excellent female characters, but it could have been a great one if Syfy had ordered it as a miniseries instead. Had season one been plotted out with this ending as its final one, there might have been tighter plot and characterisation to go along with it.

Nevertheless, here’s to Dominion getting its renewal, if only to see how much more grim the show can possibly get.