Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Dom’ Season 2 on Prime Video, Where Cyclical Drug Violence Hampers A Cop Father’s Relationship With His Criminal Son

In the Brazilian crime drama Dom (Prime Video), a father who fought the rise of drugs and crime as a cop in Rio de Janeiro tormented by his only son’s turn to a life full of violence and drug addiction. The series, which is based on true events, debuted in 2021 as the first Brazilian production for Prime Video; creator Breno Silveira directed Season 2 before passing away unexpectedly in 2022. A third and final eight-episode season has already been announced.    

DOM: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

Opening Shot: At a police roadblock, frantic officers draw their weapons as a desperate Pedro Dom (Gabriel Leone) approaches on his motorcycle, and his reckless attempt to elude capture includes tossing a live hand grenade in their general direction. 

The Gist: As Season 1 of Dom came to a close, Pedro had forsaken his latest attempt to kick drugs and work a straight job in favor of reuniting with unstable party girl “Evil Barbie” Viviane (Isabella Santoni) and falling backward into their pattern of committing burglaries and robberies to pay for cocaine. During a confrontation with police in a crowded Copacabana nightclub, Pedro pretended to abduct Viviane, when they were actually in cahoots, and footage of the incident has gone viral as season 2 of Dom begins. Pedro, who was already wanted for his role in a series of robberies, is also the target of corrupt cops looking to cash in on his ill-gotten gains. These police, people like Sergeant Filgueiras (Andre Mattos), want him to keep up with the robbing, “so they can blackmail me.” 

It’s 2004, and the criminal world Pedro lives in is often just a mirror on that of Brazilian law enforcement. Or as his father Victor (Flavio Tolezani) puts it, “policemen and bandits are the same.” And Victor should know. In the familiar flashback format of Dom, we follow a younger Victor in 1978 Rio, when he was a member of an elite undercover police squad known as the Golden Men. Their exploits catching mobsters and busting up drug rings made all kinds of headlines, until one night during an interdiction operation, his superior Hermeto (Luiz Nicolau) shot and killed the hoods they caught with cocaine and cash. Ten years of their paychecks in one duffel bag. The cops all took their cut, and forced Victor to do the same. In the same flashback, we also learn how Victor met Marisa (Laila Garin), Pedro’s mother. 

With Filgueiras shaking him down, Pedro drafts Viviane’s favela buddy Quinado (Dhonata Augusto) into their little gang, who brings pistols and grenades to the group, and they conduct a violent home invasion and robbery on a tip from the crooked cops. It goes bad. Really bad. And suddenly there are dead bodies in Pedro’s apartment. He and Vivian argue, she turns on him, and now he’s public enemy #1 in Rio, the “pretty boy bandit” son of a member of the Civil Police. Pedro blasts through his stash of cocaine in frustration, and crawls back into the life of his old flame and one true love Jasmin (Raquel Villar). Jasmin left crime behind, and encourages Pedro to do the same. But she’s harboring a secret of her own.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? In the period BBC drama The Serpent (Netflix), a dashing but dangerous French-Vietnamese criminal preys on travelers in Thailand, falls in love with an Englishmwoman, and tries to stay one step ahead of the Dutch authorities on his tail. And Prime Video also includes all six seasons of Animal Kingdom, which portrays the Cody family’s criminal enterprise in different time periods from the perspective of its matriarch, Janine “Smurf” Cody (Ellen Barkin). 

Our Take: As Dom flips between 2004 and 1978, it doesn’t do a whole lot to differentiate these eras beyond a few period automobiles and little touches like the types of mobile phones in use. The Victor of the seventies looks exactly the same as the Victor of the 2000s, and with the general murkiness of the show’s palette – in Dom, burglaries and the criminals who perpetrate them are exclusively nocturnal – it can be tough to follow what’s happening and in what era. In season 1, Victor’s younger self was played by Filipe Braganca, but the series seems to have progressed past that early portion of Victor’s burgeoning career in law enforcement.  

The shifting timelines of Dom are more effective in their larger intent, which is to link the influx of drugs into Brazil to a menacing shift in the culture of the country, a shift that plays out as Victor’s attempts to free Pedro from a life of crime and addiction bear little to no fruit. His son is caught in it, just as he was in the 1970s, and corruption and violence in Rio have only escalated in the interim. Flavio Tolezani brings some real gravity to Victor, whose struggles to save his son are echoed in his combative relationship with his own father, an angle that adds another generational layer to Dom. And through all of Pedro’s rampant cocaine abuse and downright unhinged moments as a criminal – threatening children with a live grenade is something he does on a whim – Gabriel Leone retains within his character a sense of palpable conflict, like Pedro knows exactly why all of this is wrong but can’t bring himself to face the music and leave it behind. As he rises to the level of national outlaw, it will be interesting to learn what decisions Pedro makes for both his own survival and that of his frayed relationship with Victor.

Sex and Skin: Across its two-season run, Dom has never been shy about nudity and sex.

Parting Shot: Pedro, strung out, betrayed, and wanted by the cops, returned to Jasmin, who grudgingly let him sleep off his stupor in her apartment. She quietly departs as he sleeps, and then someone unseen moves about about the room.

Sleeper Star: Isabella Santoni makes sure that Viviane earns her “Evil Barbie” nickname. Santoni lends her character a hard edge of dangerous, manic glee. She craves the thrills of a criminal lifestyle; she wants all of the action and even more of the juice. 

Most Pilot-y Line: In a voiceover, Victor ruefully picks at the paths of life that led both he and his son into dark territory. “I tried to hide the violence I lived through. But it seems like it’s in my blood, and has passed along to my son like a disease. I thought a family would change Pedro’s life…”

Our Call: STREAM IT. Dom is a gritty tale of the cycles of drugs and violence that plague Brazil and the bond between a father and his son. And while its multiple timelines can be a little murky, Dom does benefit from a handful of core performances.

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges