Whenever I see a character who is put in A bad light and in such a lop-sided manner, I always take a moment and pause. A person isn’t just a totality of their actions, and instead, you really need to look at their motives and where they come from. Last night’s episode of Helix was a big one for Brother Michael (Steven Weber). Up until now, all we saw was a megalomaniac leader of a cult, and we never were offered any motivation aside from a big hunger for power and being surrounded by his own personal harem. But, “M. Domestica” was a game changer because it provided a completely different explanation, one that called into question whether Michael was really the bad guy here — or was it the people who were setting out to destroy him and sabotage what he was trying to do.

BROTHER MICHAEL — A RENEGADE IMMORTAL AND SAVIOR OF HUMANITY

Well, I will have to admit here that I was wrong in my review from last week. I was fairly certain that Agnes, Anne, and Amy were all sisters and that Michael wouldn’t even consider incest so as to not risk genetic mutations. Of course, this was based upon the assumption that Michael fancied himself a new-age Biblical “Adam,” trying to create a pure and perfect society that is based upon his own gene pool.

That couldn’t have been more wrong, because as it turns out, Michael is actually a renegade immortal, much like Julia, who is just trying to win this war against Ilaria and defeat them in their quest to wipe out humanity. He does this by isolating himself on St. Germain, far away from the rest of the immortals of Ilaria, and starts his own simple community and society — something that Ilaria would most definitely find atrocious.

However, the problem with this is you really need to figure out how to create an immortal offspring to be able to continue this long-term. Otherwise, you are faced with exactly the problem Michael has been facing for hundreds of years — to not dilute his own gene pool too much, he is forced to bear children with his own daughters. A complete abomination but a necessity to accomplish what he is trying to do.

This is exactly why he became extremely curious when Peter (Neil Napier) mentioned that Sarah (Jordan Hayes) was carrying an immortal child. This is something he’s been trying to do for the past several hundred years, and the answer just shows up on his island and is sitting in his botany lab.

If this is, indeed, all true, is Michael really a bad guy? After all, he’s not much different from Julia, and they both really have the same goal. Julia’s solution is to involve the CDC and shut Ilaria down before they have the chance to release the Narvik-C virus. Michael decides a better approach is to get the hell away from Ilaria and start his own society, unknown to Ilaria and out of their reach.

So, if Julia is on the side of the good guys, can we really view Michael as bad? No, not really, but there is a catch…

BUT….POWER TENDS TO CORRUPT

Honestly, I do get Brother Michael, and I understand what he is trying to do. But, the ends does not necessarily justify the means, and I think Michael is the perfect example of the old saying, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely.”

In the case of St. Germain, Michael does, in fact, have absolute power. He is their leader, they have known nothing else, and in some ways, they view him almost like a God. Power like that can go to your head, and it certainly has with Michael. He views everyone in the community as mere pawns, even his own daughters. He showed not an ounce of remorse when he killed Agnes, shed fake tears for her like it was second nature, and lied straight-faced to his people about it — all classic signs of a sociopath. I don’t think all of this was his original intent when he started this project way back when.

Even still, we still don’t have the complete story, and it’s going to be interesting to see where all of it goes. One big piece of the puzzle that makes absolutely no sense is what does that scene of the women pulling the girl’s teeth and all those jars of yellow goo from the premiere have to do with anything? I really don’t think Michael is involved in any of that, and so, it looks like a rogue project led by Anne and some of the other women.

And, what does this have to do with the TXM-7 virus from the future? It was really great to see Julia (finally!) in present time, but there are still so many questions from everything we know that happens in the future. And, of course, Caleb is still a big question mark.

Okay, everyone else chime in! What do you think? Michael — good guy or bad guy? Or maybe something in between?

And, what do you think of Sister Amy (Alison Louder)? That girl is one sinister witch, but I can’t help but think she may end up being Michael’s match that he never saw coming.

In the meantime, here’s a glimpse of what we can expect next week. Man, this sounds so Jim Jones to me.

Official Synopsis of Episode 2.07 “Cross-Pollination”: “As the situation at the Abbey spirals out of control, Michael plans a mass suicide known as the Thinning. After Amy accuses Michael of plotting murder, she learns that Michael plans to use her as a baby-making factory to repopulate. While Alan and Kyle search for Jordan, Alan remembers through flashbacks that he performed a horrific surgery on her while he was drugged. Peter finds Anne down in the oubliette with him and bonds with her over being under appreciated. Meanwhile, Walker meets a 10-year-old immortal who informs her of Michael’s infertility project on St. Germain.”

PHOTOS

All photos courtesy of Philippe Bosse and Syfy

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