Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Dominion: The Bromance of Alex & Michael


Some rocky roads ahead
              It seems that the Michael and Alex bromance was in a good place with Alex accepting his role as the Chosen One and Michael training him but I see dark clouds ahead. 


I'm not your enemy, Alex...

         From the start there was friction between Alex and Michael. Although Alex was serving in the Archangel Corps, a unit of soldiers that served the senate under Michael, Alex showed nothing but disdain for the uptight angel. In the Pilot we plainly see that Alex had little respect for Michael and Michael being the disciplined warrior that he is he responded with even more friction. Yet despite this I saw that even though he wasn't Michael's biggest fan, during the angel attack Alex was ready to go out into the chaos to help him. Michael described Alex as being good albeit thick headed and rebellious. Alex became even more hostile towards Michael after discovering that he himself was the Chosen One. But as Michael put it Alex may be difficult he is amazingly good although Alex himself likes to deny it; we've seen tons of examples of his compassion in the past few episodes.

When he called "shot gun" Michael wasn't being literal

         It's apparent that Michael prefers to use tough love more than empathy when it's needed, which is why he and Alex had a rocky start. But I think in episode 3 "Broken Places" Michael finally broke through to him. I think it was the first time Alex ever saw the Archangel cry or show any kind of real human emotion. So when Michael was impaled by Furiad's sword Alex raced back to Vega not thinking about what would happen to him when he did; given that he went AWOL, he was promptly arrested. Finally Alex began to trust Michael, wanting to learn how to unlock and use his markings to help save mankind. Things were going well until Alex found Claire's supposedly dead mother.

"I'm right here, Michael..."

           Alex has a great amount of compassion and mercy that Michael may admire but in "Black Eyes Blue" found them to be a real annoyance. Alex was adamant that they should try and save Clementine even though Michael said that evicting an angel will only hurt the host, but like I said Michael likes to use tough love. Unfortunately that made Claire's emotions a casualty. We know that Alex would have tried to help Clementine either way so Michael reasoned that once Alex failed then he would give up. But this lesson may cause a wedge between the Archangel and the Chosen One. Alex loves Claire but this tragic event definitely put them on the outs. 

Michael's lessons leave bruises

         Gabriel mentioned that Michael had a "colorful" past and the eight ball talked about Michael knowing about what it means to want "redemption". What's Michael trying to redeem himself for and what horrible things did he do? That story may be revealed next episode when Michael's lies about angels hiding in Vega comes out. I saw in a promo Alex and Michael were having an argument and then Michael got so mad he shoved Alex up against a wall. Alex and Michael make a great team but the secrets Michael is hiding may destroy their relationship. I don't believe Alex will just suddenly join Gabriel no matter what he finds out about Michael good or bad but Alex needs someone to help him use his powers; someone he trusts. Michael just needs to start being honest; trust Alex can handle whatever darkness Michael is trying to hide. Without trust this bromance will crumble and humanity will be doomed to extinction.  

I'm not the enemy, Michael...

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