Created by Breno Silveira, the Amazon Prime series, Dom is inspired by actual events that deal with the narcotraffic war in Brazil. The story flows in two different time zones. It consistently follows a diver turned undercover police officer who infiltrates the local drug cartel of Rio De Janeiro to collect information. In the future timeline, the same officer is trying to protect his son from drug addiction.
‘Dom’ Season 1 Summary
Victor Dantas, an ex-civil police officer in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, narrates his story to the viewers on the other side of the screen. The voice-over establishes that his son, Pedro Dantas is a ragged cocaine addict who constantly visits slum areas in the town, often referred to as favela.
Victor tries tooth and nail to keep his son away from the scum and danger, but evidently, he is a failed father whose own past consumes his son’s future. Quickly, sitting on a typewriter while writing his life’s story, Victor visits 1970, when he was a young boy and used to be a scuba diver.
Victor loved diving more than anything else in the world. It was his world and his life. Then, one sad day, he found a dead body underwater at Copacabana Beach. When he reported the dead body to the police, a police investigation officer, Arcanjo, offered him an undercover operation. Water was a prominent medium for drug traffickers. Being a diver, Victor’s talent would be beneficial for the department. Skeptical at first, Victor took the job to find meaning to his endless trail.
Once in the dump, there was no returning back for Victor. Instead, he became a part of the drug cartel headed by Ribeiro dos Santos, the biggest drug lord in Rio.
At the present time, Victor runs a wood workshop to meet the day’s end. However, most of his time is spent looking after his drug-addict son, Pedro. The latter famously calls himself Pedro Dom (influenced by Brazil’s two emperors, Dom Pedro I and Dom Pedro II, who ruled the country in the 19th century).
Pedro loves his freedom. He wants to be free from poverty and his father too. He runs away from his home and becomes a part of a small group of robbers. The gang initiates minor burglaries. Then, they start robbing locked houses, stealing everything they can get their hands on. Most of the money is spent on their lavish lifestyle and drugs. However, soon, Pedro faces the death of his childhood friend that makes him scrutinize his life’s decision.
Major Spoilers Ahead
‘Dom’ Season 1 Ending Explained
Pedro and his team were required to pay commission to a corrupt army cop to safeguard their freedom and stay out of prison. Pedro thought it would be an accessible window. Still, the dirty cop kept on increasing the commission until Pedro realised that he had beared enough. Finally, he decided to leave the business, but his claws were fixated deep in the mud.
When Pedro stole from a currency exchanger, he quickly came under the radar of government and corrupt cops. It was a dead-end for him. He became the most notorious criminal of Rio. At that moment, the chief of the anti-corruption and anti-money laundering department, Alberto Barradas, made him a deal. He demanded a considerable sum from Pedro’s family.
Pedro’s mother paid for his freedom and saved him, but they had to sell everything in the exchange. His father, Victor, felt this would be a new start for Pedro, who would finally realize his responsibilities. So he helped Pedro to start a selling stand near the beach to earn a respectable livelihood. But a visit from the past pushed him into cocaine and violence again, collapsing any chance of his safe return. In the end, Victor looks at the stand and comments, “He is not coming back.” The father had lost all hope. He realised that the son had gone forever. He underlines that no matter how much you love a person and try to save them, you can’t make them escape their destiny. The spiral will hunt them down eventually.
In the last visual of Dom Season 1, Pedro was seen throwing an unpinned grenade at a police barricade in the tunnel. He had finally become an altered version of his father. Victor dedicated his life to cleaning the city, and his son Pedro infected it even further. It was like a snake that eats it own tail.
Afterthought
During Pedro’s childhood, a doctor informed Victor that his son had no sensitivity to physical pain. It was a neurological disorder caused by the production of endorphins, adrenaline.
As seen in the entire series, Pedro was always an exhibitionist. In the first episode, when Ármario was beating him in the alley, he asked him to hit more because he didn’t feel anything. Pedro was addicted to risks. He was too high on life. Pain teaches us, protects us, and warns us about danger, and imposes limits. But Pedro never felt that, and thus, he had no limits. With Victor and his past life, when he worked for the drug cartel, he came out clean because he was afraid and conscious, but that wasn’t the case for his son. His boon soon became a curse for him and made him the most wanted criminals in Brazil. Not his father’s son, but at last achieved free “dom.”
Dom Season 2 will explore the notorious life of Pedro Dom. Will his father Victor be able to save his son? That would be an exciting thing to look forward to.
Dom Season 1 is a real-life crime thriller TV Series created by Breno Silveira for Amazon Prime.
