As usual: This post contains spoilers about episode 5 of Under the Dome (titled “Blue on Blue”). Do not read this post if you haven’t yet seen the episode and plan to.
So when we left Chester’s Mill last week, Big Jim had just discovered Junior’s dungeon and Angie, who Junior may be hoping will someday develop a raging case of Stockholm Syndrome.
When we rejoin the Chester’s Millivites (Millerites? Millians?) this week, we see a flock of Monarch butterflies attached to the edge of the dome.
Which is…a little random, really. (The butterflies are pretty though.) Joe and Norrie are contemplating the butterflies as only they can, and they come to the conclusion that the dome is trying to talk to them. Erm…okay.
Not through the butterflies, but through their seizures and the fact that they say pink stars are falling and all that while they’re seizing. (And maybe the seizures are them short circuiting or something (??) so they can’t touch each other because then there’ll be interference like when a microphone gets too close to the amplifier.)
This is weird and slightly random, but may actually make sense. Especially after we saw last week’s video of the seizure, when Joe sits up mid-seizure and says “Shhh.” So I guess it’s possible.
Anyway. Back to the dungeon.
So Big Jim has discovered Angie. When we return to the dungeon, the water has been drained, but Angie is…still chained to the bed. Big Jim is all, “Oh sure, I’ll let you out. Uh, what the hell are you doing in here, anyway?” And Angie’s all, “Your son is keeping me here because he is INSANE.” And Big Jim’s like, “Right. Okay, bye!” and then leaves.
Which isn’t all that surprising, really, since Big Jim seems like he’s a few fries short of a Happy Meal himself. (Mmm…fries…)
When Big Jim comes up from the bunker, he finds Reverend Lester waiting for him, in all of Lester’s born again glory. Lester is going on about how god has given him a message: Moab, not referring to the city in Utah but to the biblical location. Big Jim dismisses him as being a crazy old coot, but we find that Lester is actually getting the word “Moab” through his hearing aid.
So…does this mean that the dome is talking to Lester too? (Actually it’s not, but I’ll get to that later.)
Meanwhile, with the butterflies, Barbie touches the dome and all the butterflies leave, revealing the military on the other side. And…buses. Like the big charter buses, Greyhound style. The buses pull up to the dome and out come…family members.
The military has, apparently, allowed the relatives of the trapped townspeople to visit them at the edge of the dome. (Well, that’s a new development. Weren’t the military ignoring the dome earlier?)
Julia, our resident reporter turned DJ, announces on the radio that there are family visits, so of course there’s a mad rush to the edge of the dome so people can mouth conversations and mime hugs to each other. (Because, remember, nothing gets through the dome. Not even sound.)
Sheriff Linda tells Barbie to keep everyone away from the edge of the dome so that no one gets zapped. And then promptly runs up to the dome to dome-kiss her fiance, who has appeared on the other side. (This must be a case of “do as I say, not as I do.”)
So basically the entire town shows up at the edge of the dome (the butterflies are gone, obviously), waiting to see their relatives. Norrie isn’t expecting anyone but is shocked to discover someone holding up a sign with her name on it. It’s her dad, and he’s got photos of her as a baby — and a photo of him with her mom Alice (the blonde mom). Norrie of course is all, “What? You can’t be my dad, my moms said my dad was an anonymous donor!
” And then Alice and Carolyn show up and pretty much confirm that the dude is, in fact, Norrie’s dad. So Norrie loses her shit and takes off. Because of course.
Reverend Lester shows up at the gathering, preaching about Moab (yeah, I don’t even know) and is stopped by Tough Guy Big Jim. Lester gives Jim an ultimatum: confess your sins or I’ll tell the town what you did! And there’s something about drugs mentioned. (I assume this has something to do with the mysterious Propane Plot, but since we don’t know ANYTHING about the plot, I don’t even know.
)
Meanwhile, Julia’s looking for Peter, but instead finds someone named Mary, who shows Julia a letter that basically says Peter’s taken off. Julia is about as impressed as you’d think she’d be. (But Barbie still hasn’t confessed to killing him.)
As everyone’s leaving, Barbie stops Dodee, who apparently knows sign language, and asks her to read lips (because of course she can read lips, right?). Barbie brings Dodee to the edge of the dome and starts talking to a soldier.
We discover then that the military had gotten new orders the night before, telling them to bring the families and then withdraw — and never return. Barbie then puts two and two together — Moab doesn’t refer to the biblical city (and god has not been talking to Lester). Instead, Moab is an acronym that stands for mother of all bombs.
So I guess the military is going to bomb the dome. At 1:15pm.
Wow. That sucks.
But what about the residents? Will they die from the thermobaric missile that will be shot at them (what exactly IS a thermobaric missile, anyway?).
Hopefully not, because they’ll be evacuated to the tunnels under the old cement factory.
So Barbie, Julia, Linda, and Big Jim go off to evacuate the residents (they seem to be the only ones in town who do this kind of thing). But then Big Jim does something surprising — he goes back to the dungeon and frees Angie. (I know, right? I was shocked, too.) But I had to wonder — would he have let her go if the missile wasn’t headed for Chester’s Mill? Or would he have left her there?
Angie takes off and goes home because Big Jim never told her about the cement factory. Junior finds out that his dad let his captive go, so he also takes off for Angie’s house and is his usual psycho self. But when Angie learns about the missile, she kisses Junior and hugs him.
WHAT. No, seriously. WHAT. (Sometimes I don’t understand this girl.)
Norrie and Joe are still above ground, looking for Angie, but they don’t go back to Joe’s house because…I don’t know. Maybe because Angie wasn’t there when they left it? Barbie and Julia leave through the other set of tunnels to look for Norrie and Joe because…I don’t know, Julia wanted to be heroic or something. Linda leaves the cement factory because she wanted to look at some initials she and her fiance had carved into some tower somewhere.
And this is where you know that the missile won’t affect the dome because otherwise half the main cast would be wiped out. (I could do without Junior, though.)
Norrie and Joe kiss as the missile drops on the dome. BUT. They don’t have seizures! And they’re still alive!
Actually, everyone’s still alive. Because, as you may have already guessed, the missile did shit all to the dome. It’s still in place, as sturdy as can be, but the land around the dome looks like a war zone. Nothing outside survived, but everything inside is hunky-dory, like the missile never happened.
Big Jim goes to the surface and is examining the damage on the other side of the dome when Reverend Lester shows up. Lester’s all, “The Lord saved Chester’s Mill because I REPENTED!” and Big Jim and I are both, “WTF?”
And then Big Jim pushes Lester — hearing aid first — into the side of the dome. Lester’s hearing aid loses its electronic shit and kills Lester (because of course it does). Now that’s the Big Jim I’ve come to know.
Come back next week, when I revisit the fish bowl once again.
Under the Dome airs on Mondays on CBS.
Char, I’m so sorry I gave up on Under The Dome. I keep saying I’ll watch it on demand but I don’t know if I really will.
The show it such and asshole and I’m not one bit surprised by Jim leaving Angie to rot or this having biblical implications.
I don’t know who I hate the most of the cast. I think it’s still Joe, the worst brother in the world.
I watch this shit so you don’t have to :P.
No, for real, if I weren’t doing the recaps, I’d have stopped watching it after the first episode.