TV REVIEW: Dominion “Something Borrowed”

By Liv Tadesse

Dominion doesn’t shy from giving meat to its supporting characters, and to great effect.

The end to last week’s episode proved David’s ignorance didn’t lessen him as a threat, but his target in this week’s “Something Borrowed” was a little more formidable than an injured bedridden girl.

As enjoyable as it was to watch Claire take public power, there was something more impressive in seeing her calculate and manipulate the Wheles. It rang in Michael’s slightly anvilicious advice to Alex at the beginning, “Watch the shadows. Not the sun.” While David picks up on Claire’s hidden ambitions to less beneficial effect, she picks up on even subtler cues and manages to say exactly what she needs to convince William.

Of course, the biggest snake in the grass is William. His religion is the perfect cover to his deception, because he truly does believe in it. The nuances to his characterization are handled, to date, the best of the majority of the ensemble. In making William’s affections for Claire as real as his struggle to balance worshipping the Chosen One and following Gabriel, he doesn’t come off as the typical political genre’s double agent. Just as testament as it is to the writing, his actor, Luke Allen-Gale, is owed just as much credit. He will undoubtedly swing to Gabriel’s side by the end of the season, but without much dread, as Allen-Gale plays Wheele’s stifled anger to great degree.

After applauding the decision to delve into the 8-ball who sleeps with Riesen, the climax of this week’s episode deserved nothing but a standing ovation. Dominion continues to prove itself well above others in its genre in terms of nuanced female characters. It’s still unclear by the end of the episode whether or not the 8-ball shares the body with Claire’s mother, if the 8-ball is Claire’s mother or if it has simply inherited her memories through the possession to her great distress, but that tangle doesn’t seem to be left to the audience for the sake of it, as next week’s frontrunner story seems to be untangle the 8-ball’s mystery. Not only does this complexity lend to the 8-ball, it also provides more depth and originality to the question now surrounding Riesen. Was it more ethical for him to sleep with an angel possessing his wife’s body than just sleeping with an angel?

The bookend of the death of David’s wife with the revelation of Claire’s mother was done masterfully. Although an inversion of tropes does not necessarily need tropes to be played straight in the first place, the fact remains that it helped confirm the Dominion’s writers know what they’re doing with the women they are writing and, if I may repeat myself, what a breath of fresh air that is.