Dom – Season 1 Episode 2 Recap & Review

Metamorphosis

Episode 2 of Dom Season 1 returns to the alleyway as Amario fires. It’s a warning shot, one that immediately sees Pedro’s ears ring as he’s warned and told to leave the favela.

Thankfully his eardrums aren’t burst but he does stress about selling Pedro’s laptop. Still, that doesn’t stop him from meeting Jasmin, the girl who caused all the drama the previous night. He meets up at a rooftop bar and immediately starts flirting with her. Pedro is cocky, calling out Mauricinho (the guy who unleashed Amario on him earlier) as a loser and referring to himself as Pedro Dom.

Drama at home spills over to work too. Victor’s crusade to find his son causes him to miss his flight. Even worse, the operation itself has been cancelled, which leads to the Colonel taking him off the case.

Pedro is reckless and arrogant, convincing Jasmin to join him down by the beach. It turns out Jasmin ran away from home when she was 15, thanks to her alcoholic father beating her mother. In fact, he beat her so bad she passed away. It’s a pretty harrowing story, and their moments together are very reminiscent of a similar scene in the excellent movie City of God.

Anyway, Pedro and Jasmin eventually start kissing. Pedro is desperate to impress Jasmin and uses her hairpin to break into an Audi in the parking lot. He quickly hotwires it and drives her up to a motel. After a passionate night together, Pedro thoughtfully contemplates working as a drug dealer in the favela.

However, this happy union is broken up by Mauricinho ringing Jasmin and leaving 30 missed calls. This poses a massive problem for Pedro as he could well be killed if he’s found with Jasmin. He recklessly follows her home too, where Pedro narrowly avoids being smoked out by Amalia. Someone has ratted out the favela and right now, a big target is painted on Pedro’s back.

Victor realizes the danger his son is in but continues his job of looking into the smuggling run and General Cruz alongside finding Pedro. Part of this comes from contacting Paloma, who has info for him.

We then jump back to 1994 as we see Pedro as a child, tagging a bridge and entertaining his friends. Among those is Lico, who excitedly decides to rebrand his tagging as ‘Pedro Dom’, which is where he got the name from.

Unfortunately, Pedro’s happy life with his friends is contrasted by a disparate family. When he returns home that night the place is empty and he’s left all alone with no sign of Laura or his Mother.

Back in Bahia 1970 we cut to Victor on the back of his narrow escape out at sea. After the drug bust, he makes it back to shore and dodges a barrage of bullets. Heading back to Paloma, the two wind up having sex.

After his successful mission, the Colonel gives Victor a new job – to work undercover within the favela. Without much of a choice, he heads to Santa Marta with instructions to infiltrate before a known criminal does. Like an actor, he’s told to make up a character and make himself believable.

Back in the present, Victor receives a message from Laura confirming she’s seen Pedro. She warns that he’s deep in the favela scene and clearly high on drugs.

In fact, Pedro volunteers (for free no less) to work with Jasmin and her friends to break in to a luxury house and orchestrate a robbery. While they do, Viviane distracts the two police officers outside.

Predictably, everything goes completely wrong when the alarm gets set off and the gang find themselves caught inside the house. They do manage to escape but they’re chased by the officers, who figure out what’s going on and remain in hot pursuit. Thankfully they manage to get away but Pedro is concerned, reminding them all his name is Pedro Dom and they were almost caught.

The Episode Review

Dom deepens the ties with an episode that jumps between three different timelines while progressing this story about the favela and drug dealing. It works well too and the estranged relationship between Victor and Pedro serves as an anchor for the rest of the drama to revolve around.

There are echoes of both The Serpent and the excellent movie City of god here, feeding into this drug-fueled story in the best possible way.

With the kids only just getting away from the house and lots of drama sprinkled throughout, this series is just starting to hit a good stride, leaving the door wide open for the rest of the episodes.