Dominion - S1E6 - Black Eyes Blue
Previously on Dominion, ‘Something Borrowed’
This week’s Dominion was all about victories being snatched away in the three arenas of Vega life.
Politics
Riesen tells Claire her blackmail against Whele didn’t work, so he invites her to join him in a meeting with Arika later that day. Arika glides right past him to talk woman to woman with Claire, saying she doesn’t much care for David, just his promises. Just then, Alex calls Claire away, so Riesen and Arika continue in private, where he whips out a trump card: he knew the colonel over the air force before Helena took charge of it, and all but 2 helicopters and a B-52 were destroyed, so her “leverage” is crap. He brokers a new deal: he’ll back her coup, if Helena’s B-52 will drop Vega’s next nuke on Gabriel.
When Whele strolls into the Senate for the no confidence vote, he finds only Riesen, the other Senators having already met. Whele knows he’s in for it, pacing while Riesen dresses him down over his half-worthless deal and presents him with the revised terms: equal Senate oversight of the deal AND partial control of Helena. Whele growls, “I hope your sick heart beats long enough for you to enjoy your new city of crazy women.” Before he can leave, Riesen offers to take his ballot for the no confidence vote now. Whele of course votes for confidence. Then it’s unanimous.
Riesen has himself a little victory dinner and starts to brag to Claire, but then he sees her face… and that music box she thought was from him. She says she thinks she understands why he couldn’t let her mother go because she couldn’t either. The thing is, she can’t trust him to lead properly and neither would anyone else if they knew, so he’ll be stepping down after the wedding. He tries to laugh her off, but she’s all, “Uh no, this isn’t negotiable,” slamming the music box down. Instead of blackmailing Whele, she ended up blackmailing her own father.
Religion
Before a service at the Chosen One monument, Whele confronts William with the black blindfold, testing him with compliments and clues. He watches, a host of emotions running across both their faces. William knows he knows, but he’s too fervent to completely mask the truth. David promises that he will find them and END THEM.
So William runs to Paul, the hotheaded Black Acolyte, telling him to disband the group immediately because his father is coming for them. Paul exhorts them to go into hiding, but a hit squad finds them first. When William comes back to their meeting place, he finds not only his followers’ bodies but dead guards as well. This means trouble, and Paul wants to tell Gabriel, but William says he’ll handle it.
By handle it, he means he’ll have another crazy-eyes standoff with David in the office. “My acolytes need protecting at all costs,” he seethes. Whele says he’s always known William was a curse, weak, and useless from his birth. How charming. William cocks a gun, and David pours on the crazy, saying he’s proud that William has the guts to “put the wounded animal down.” As David laughs into the barrel like the looney tunes he is, William pistol whips him right in the forehead.
Turns out, he would’ve been better off dead, because David wakes up in a meeting of the Black Acolytes. “Your time of darkness has ended. I’m going to help you come into the light,” William intones. David tries bargaining, rage, and apologies, but two acolytes hold his arms while William places the golden sash, chanting with the blindfolded acolytes as he breaks David’s ribs, inducting him into the order. William cradles him, cooing that he’ll be ok. That is straight up disturbing.
Love
Alex has Clementine chained up in a casino vault and Michael furiously lectures him over the dangers of attempted “eviction” (exorcism). But if anyone can do it, the Chosen One can, and that’s all Alex needs to hear because he is always up for deadly stupidity. So, Michael offers Uriel a trade: a Vermeer for the Apocrypha which contains prayers written by the only person to ever successfully evict an angel from a human body in all the millennia. She’s not so sure she wants to encourage that kind of thing, but agrees if she can give Alex’s tats a one-over. Alex lets her check him out but when she gets handsy, he demands the book. Annoyingly it’s faded and charred, but when he concentrates, a new band of tattoos creeps over his back, down his arms, and into the pages. The ancient Greek words appear, and he can read them.
Michael reams Clementine out for taking a human body if she really wasn’t involved in the war. She panicked, she says, and ever since then she has tried to fix her mistake by respecting the vessel she lives in, living a life of love and redemption. She can’t resist getting a little crazy though and he draws his sword before stomping out. Next he visits Uriel, who is scribbling like a whirling dervish trying to get the markings down onto paper. Michael tries to tell her it’s useless because they change all the time, but she’s convinced their Father would never have meant them only for one person. Michael presses for her discretion—keep them from Gabriel and he’ll still give her the painting. She agrees and he tosses it down like his kid drew it. I think it’s safe to say she’s a lying liar who lies.
Claire has a meltdown at the sight of Clementine crying for her little girl and over the realization that her father has had a relationship with her “mother” all these years. Alex begs her to at least talk to Clementine because he feels that her mother is still in there. She refuses at first, but he swears there’s a chance. So she agrees, and as Clementine tries desperately to connect, Claire realizes it was her that left the music box. Clementine pleads that she and her mom have “been together a long time” and that she could love her too. It’s simultaneously sweet and creepy. It’s sweepy. Claire finally cracks when Clem calls her “Izzie,” their private nickname.
Later when Michael, Alex, and Claire walk back into the vault with the Apocrypha, Clementine is despondent when she understands they’re trying to exorcise her. “You’ll kill us both!” she screams, climbing the ceiling as Michael holds the tether. Alex prays from the Apocrypha, “Leave this body, burn away. Sanctify.” Finally it begins to work. “Forgive me,” Clementine says as the veins dissipate slowly and her eyes clear to blue. She laughs, relieved, crying happily with Claire, but Michael’s face says there’s more sadness to come. Clementine seizes and drops to the ground, her eyes clouding as the remaining wisp of her spirit leaves her body. Claire of course blames Michael first, then Alex, and runs out.
Fresh off of blackmailing her father, Claire returns to the shell of Clementine’s body, now gasping in a half-life on the ground of the vault. She echoes William’s words, “It’s ok, it’s ok…” humming the music box song, covering her mother’s mouth and nose until she dies.
In summary, the two future leaders of Vega have major mommy and daddy issues.
Next week: Everyone’s mad at Michael and we delve into his dark, long-haired past.
