Chester's Mill Promises The Trial Of The Fortnight

Does It Even Matter What They're Talking About At This Point? (It's All The Stuff About Sam Killing Melanie, But Seriously, Does It?)

If You Can't Trust Family, Who Can You Trust? (No One, Apparently.)

Situation: Sam comes home to find Junior tossing his cabin in search of missing pages from Pauline's journal.

What Makes It Awkward? Junior is certain that Lyle's having stolen the journal is proof that he killed Angie and is enlisting Sam in his holy quest to find and presumably kill Lyle in revenge...but whoops, Angie's murderer is actually Sam.

How is order restored? Sam decides his best move is to play along with Junior's wrong hunch: he takes the missing journal pages that he totally stole and plants them in Lyle's barbershop. Junior then surmises that Lyle killed Angie because he believed doing so would bring down the Dome -- but that, since it didn't, maybe it takes the deaths of all four of the four hands. Junior then announces to Sam the identities of the still-extant "four hands," so Sam takes Junior to Big Jim's, gets him wasted enough to pass out on the couch, and then is juuuuuuuust about to smother Junior with a pillow when Junior wakes up and thanks Sam for being the only family he has left and Sam is too chastened to go through with his murder...for now.

Wendell, 1971-2013

Wendell, we didn't know you well. In fact, all we could glean during our brief acquaintance was that you were the apparent spokesperson for the pro-Julia, anti-Big Jim faction in Chester's Mill -- and apparently your animosity toward Big Jim and determination to take him down for his part in the failed controlled infection plan superseded all your other interests and concerns. You patiently waited through Monarch Julia's gazebo address about the totally voluntary food share program for war Dome criminals Big Jim and Rebecca to be paraded before the rather paltry crowd of townsfolk for their open-air arraignment, and then pulled a gun on Big Jim to deliver a little frontier Dome justice. Maybe if Barbie had been a little faster spotting you, he could have defused the situation, but unfortunately Big Jim armed Phil before his latest fall from grace, and Phil went ahead and shot you dead instead. Rebecca did what she could by petting your wound with her bare hands, but apparently healing Science didn't flow through them. Does it help your passage into the next world to know that hovering ineffectually over your body as the light went out of your eyes helped to win Rebecca over to Julia's side? Probably not, huh.

On Again, BUT FOR HOW LONG?

After Monarch Julia strips Phil of his command as sheriff for killing Wendell (and under the circumstances, it seems like maybe there should be further consequences for this than the loss of a "job" that can't have paid anything and a tongue-lashing from Julia?), Barbie rolls up. Julia suggests that maybe HE should be sheriff. "A few hours ago, you accused me of siding with Big Jim," Barbie notes. "Now you want me to be the person in charge of keeping him locked up." Show, I don't know how many times I have to tell you: STOP SHINING A SPOTLIGHT ON HOW LITTLE TIME HAS ACTUALLY PASSED BETWEEN THESE IDIOTS' MOOD SWINGS. Anyway, Julia says she should have trusted Barbie, but doesn't say that the reason she has changed her mind is that Rebecca told her he wasn't part of the virus plan, because why not leave the door open for yet another temperature-taking conversation about who should have trusted whom and why? What if they have nothing ELSE to talk about half an hour from now?

The Big Jim Redemption

Who called the meeting? Phil.

What's it about? He's so furious with Julia that he's decided to free Big Jim so that Big Jim can challenge her leadership, I guess?

How'd it go? It seems like it's all systems go for old Phil, since apparently when he took off his badge and walkie, no one noticed that he hung onto the keys to the jail? But Big Jim doesn't think a jailbreak is the way to go if he's going to depose Julia; instead, he thinks he'd be better off trying to win over that segment of the Chester's Mill population that's still on Julia's side. HOW EVER WILL HE DO THAT?!

Melanie vs. Norrie

Norrie has had a puss on her face all day, and while I assume that Mackenzie Lintz has just run out of patience for these scripts, apparently that's not it (or that's only part of it). Now that Melanie has figured out who she is/was, she's determined to track down more answers about her life and resurrection, so Joe has suggested that she just go touch the Dome and see what happens. Which is nothing, because just when someone thinks they've figured out how the Dome works, it does the exact opposite. Anyway, since it's been eight whole hours since they figured out Melanie's identity and that she was killed in 1988, she's extremely impatient about the fact that the Dome hasn't offered up any more answers about why she's come back to life, and Norrie gets pissed off enough to reveal what she's actually mad about: why should this bitch have been brought back to life instead of Alice, Norrie's mom? Furthermore, if it were up to Norrie, she'd trade Melanie "rotting in the bottom of that crater" for Alice's return. I mean, obviously? Melanie tearfully runs off, and after telling Norrie "sometimes you're a real bitch," Joe follows, and he's barely finished apologizing for Norrie before he and Melanie are kissing. And then Norrie's catching them and Joe's trying to break up a girl fight over his skinny ass -- not because he doesn't want to reward the winner with his tiny boner, but because Norrie scratched her arm when Melanie shoved her into a bush and it gave Joe an idea.

Winner: Joe! It pays to be the only teenaged boy in the whole town, I guess.

Who Brought The Mentos And Diet Coke?!

Barbie shows up at the fire hall in time to see that a considerable portion of the pro-Julia faction has apparently agreed with her totally voluntary/socialist food-sharing program and brought whatever dry goods they have to the effort. (I guess those who didn't want to give up their own supplies contributed by painting the totally unnecessary banner.) Anyway, Barbie's just noticed that some of the boxes he's moving are suspiciously light and cut a couple open to find them empty when KABOOM, there's an explosion. Julia is in peril under a fallen shelf for about ten seconds, and then everyone's safely made it out of the building and they didn't even lose any food because there wasn't any inside so other than the destruction of shelving, who cares?

Phil vs. Julia

Julia is giving her second address of the day, trying to soothe the jangled nerves of the townsfolk who've just either witnessed or almost been killed in an explosion that they are pretty sure consumed all the food resources they had when Phil interrupts to blame the explosion on "frayed wires" on the generator that Julia didn't check, which Big Jim would have done. OH, I GET IT. And somehow Julia's response to this is to go around a corner and cry because she's taken this wires explanation totally at face value as though Phil doesn't have an axe to grind against her, I MEAN SHE MADE HIM QUIT LIKE FIVE MINUTES AGO. Anyway, this is when Barbie comes to find her and NOW she can tell him what Rebecca told her, exonerating Barbie for the part she thought he had in Virusgate. Barbie is sure Julia will figure out a way through this whole "food running dangerously low" issue though he has zero evidence for thinking so, and then she comes around the corner and sees Andrea, the lady who's taken over the diner since Angie's death, handing out bottled water to the explosion's survivors like it ain't no thing, and gets an idea....

Winner: Draw, for now.

Unanswered Questions About Joe's Blood-Testing Idea

• Since when has the Dome given a shit about anyone's blood?
• Why would Melanie's blood be different from anyone else's in town?
• They couldn't find anything pointier than a compass to draw blood with?
• They're using the same compass to draw both Joe's and Melanie's blood?
• How do they know that what brought Melanie back isn't a horrible STD, I MEAN LITERALLY ANYTHING COULD HAVE?!
• What makes Joe think Rebecca could interpret any data that would be offered by these two blood samples?
• Why is Norrie still hanging around these two after they screwed her over?

Philling Up The Food Bank

Well, duh, there was a reason those boxes were empty, and it's that Phil was squirreling away all the donations into a side room at the fire hall that was protected by a locked metal door which no one heard moving and also no one saw him do it? And even though he was stealthy enough to have pulled this off without detection when the place was crawling with volunteers, now all it takes for his great Julia-undermining plan to be discovered is for Carolyn to show up and glance over his shoulder? Long story short: Barbie creeps through the WIDE OPEN SIDE DOOR to the real food bank with a gun drawn on one of Phil's henchmen, which is when Phil appears with a knife held to Carolyn's throat, and in the melee that ensues, this lawyer suddenly has superhero powers to pull herself out of Phil's grasp JUUUUUST long enough for Barbie to shoot Phil in the chest. SURE, WHY NOT, THAT ALL MAKES TOTAL LOGICAL SENSE.

Julia has followed her hunch to Andrea's house (not before changing outfits, of course) and discovered that, despite what Andrea claimed, she hasn't been keeping the diner open thanks to a secret basement store room full of food that Angie told her about: Andrea's late husband Lloyd, CONVENIENTLY ENOUGH, was a survivalist, and he stockpiled enough food supplies to feed the whole town for two months! She didn't come forward before because she didn't want to get robbed, but she trusts Julia! PHEW! That's enough food to last like TEN MORE SEASONS! PROBLEM SOLVED FOREVER!

After knocking one of Pauline's paintings off the wall at Big Jim's and waking Junior with the noise, Sam rips open the backing FOR SOME REASON to see another of her ESPaintings underneath! It's the obelisk Junior saw in his dream that time! And also the locker Angie's bloody handprint was found on! MAYBE THIS MEANS SOMETHING!

Monarch Julia presides over a lavish meal at the diner because rationing is for chumps! When Barbie marches in Rebecca and Big Jim, Julia can even be magnanimous enough to say that even though what they did was "inexcusable," it isn't "unforgivable," as though those two words don't mean the same thing! The upshot is, no trial! They have to pull together! Big Jim is happy for the chance to make amends! He thinks Julia's doing a great job running the town! They shake! PROBLEM SOLVED FOREVER!

When Joe sees Julia and Barbie kissing in celebration of Barbie's relenting to her request that he take over as sheriff after all, he is moved to drag Norrie into the kitchen -- which is somehow empty despite the dozens of diners out front -- and say he's sorry for kissing Melanie! Norrie is the one he loves! But Norrie don't give a shit!

After Rebecca mooches up to Julia to say she's impressed by her which I guess means these two are friends forever, Julia gets pulled away, opening the door for Melanie to ask Rebecca her blood question!

And Rebecca is trying to see anything on the shitty school microscope in the half dark when she hears noises! It's Sam and Junior at DeathLocker! Sam is using a crowbar to break in because it never occurred to anyone to do that before! And finally we see what's inside! It's a tunnel! BUT TO WHERE?!??!?!??!?