Sit Under It And Rotate

Yolked Together

In the immediate aftermath of the earthquake Big Jim caused by chucking the Egg (which I feel I should start capitalizing given its increasingly large significance) off the cliff, the show has to make explicit the fact that Melanie is the Egg's human avatar: in Zenith, hazmat-suited investigators comb the playground, and when one tries to pick up the Egg with a set of tongs, it turns white and freaks out (and the guy seems to be experiencing an electrical charge of some sort too)...while back in Chester's Mill, Melanie seizes. Sam and Junior are about to take her to the clinic, but the show can't afford that set anymore the earthquake caved it in so now Rebecca's converted the school into a makeshift triage center for all the medical professionals still left in the Dome, a.k.a. SAM.

Big Jim Hasn't Been Able To Cut It, Manwise, For Some Time

Alert Type: Irreconcilable Differences Alert.

Issue: Everyone is mad at Big Jim for throwing the Egg into the gulch, but no one is more mad about it than Pauline.

Complicating Factors: As far as Pauline's concerned, Big Jim's heedless, reckless action in this case is just the latest in a series of bad decisions he's made throughout his life from a narcissistic desire to be the macho business donkey wrestler hero of Chester's Mill: "Now we're the ones who are in jail, and you're the one who put us here." Big Jim's attempts to argue that everything he's ever done has been for the sake of his family are neither convincing nor effective! Read: she hates his guts.

Resolution: When Big Jim tries to save the day again by prowling Chester's Mill and environs for more gas to run the generator and keep everyone who's sheltered in the school from freezing to death, he happens upon Lyle, in the process of drowning in the lake, and even though he's super-jellz of Lyle since he's Pauline's old high-school boyfriend/Egg buddy, because Pauline believes that Lyle is an integral part of the Dome's plans, Big Jim rescues him and brings him back to the school.

Spoiler: Pauline might not hate Big Jim's guts as much as she thinks?

Now The Dome Can Rotate

Joe and Norrie and their new Dome buddy Hunter are out for a stroll through the frozen landscape that none of them seem to be appropriately dressed for when they come to, guess what, the Dome. They're speculating about what the loss of the Egg may mean for all of them, like maybe if it's a power source, then maybe now that it's gone, the Dome will just freeze? Cue the Dome freezing. Joe, who I guess never saw A Christmas Story, decides it's a good idea to press his palm to the Dome, where it promptly gets stuck. That's bad for a lot of reasons, primarily because, at this moment, the Dome starts to rotate, pulling Joe's hand (and hence Joe) down with it, but he gets it free just before it pulls his arm into the ground. This is supposed to be calamitous, I guess, since it's the end of the (no pun intended) cold open, but if all we know is that this is going to make things bad for the Chester's Millions, (a) I don't care because previous experience has taught me it'll be fixed before the episode ends, and (b) I don't care because I want them all to die -- preferably horribly.

Action On Climate Mood Swings

Plus You Stole My Sweater That One Time

One of the surprise pleasures of being under the Dome, for Pauline, is reconnecting with her dear old friend Melanie! She's astonished to see Melanie looking no different than she did twenty-five years ago, and self-deprecatingly says she must look so old. Melanie says she had no problem at all recognizing Pauline: "My best friend...who left me for dead." OH SHIT. Pauline -- obviously stricken to be called out for, you know, her complicity in the accidental death of someone who inconveniently came back to life -- takes Melanie's hand and emotionally apologizes, saying she should have stopped Sam and Lyle from...like, killing Melanie. And just like that, they're cool again? Melanie says she missed Pauline, and Pauline says, "We're gonna get you well, and then we'll figure out why you're here." "And try not to kill you again," she does not add.

Spare The Rod, Spoil The Monarch

Alert Type: Ironic Crash Alert.

Issue: Julia and Barbie are in the ambulance -- the most capacious vehicle available -- on their way to the diner to collect whatever non-perishable food they can to stock up the emergency clinic/shelter at the school when Barbie hits a patch of ice, spins out, and ends up crashed on its side.

Complicating Factors: The brilliant Julia was in the back at the time of the crash, securing the gurney that they didn't remove first in order to make more room for food and water, and in the crash she ends up with a metal rod sticking out of her thigh. The injury is such that she can't walk, and if the rod struck an artery, it might be the only thing keeping her from bleeding to death. She tells Barbie to go to the diner without her, since she'd rather die alone than be the cause of his death, but he refuses to go anywhere without her (and they have this argument about forty more times), and then the cold cracks the window that's exposed to the air and the glass crashes in on them. Ruh roh.

Resolution: Barbie figures out that when hypothermia sets in, Julia's heartbeat will slow down enough that he will probably be able to pull the rod out without her immediately bleeding out, so he does that, and then carries her to the diner they had previously agreed was too far away for him to get to on foot rather than pushing her there on the gurney.

Spoiler: What the Dome hath joined together no Dome shall put asunder!!!

Be Better At Spying

Hunter the genius stays out in the freezing "weather" long enough to get frostbite all over his hands, and after Rebecca (?) has treated him (??), he has some "idle" questions about the Dome and the Egg for Joe and Norrie -- like how the Egg is the power source of the Dome, but moving the Egg didn't move the Dome, so what's that about? "It's a technology we don't understand," says Joe sagely, somehow not getting punched in the face for it. Hunter presses the matter -- Joe and Norrie moved it and that was fine, but when Big Jim did he got zapped, etc. -- so much that even Joe the goddamn idiot can't help noticing, "You're asking a lot of questions. Why so much interest in the Egg?" Yeah, why would anyone be that curious about a mystical glowing oblate spheroid that somehow controls an equally inexplicable self-contained impenetrable biosphere that sprang up out of nowhere?! But seriously, Hunter, try being cool for a change, you are drawing needless attention to yourself if even this goon can see through you.

R.I.P. Mrs. Tom

Hunter is saved from further suspicious questions by the arrival of Tom Tilden, carrying his wife, who's in some kind of distress, not that we can tell what because the editing and directing are so bad that we never get a good look at her and because the writing's so bad no one says. Then she dies.

R.I.P. The Generator

No sooner has Mrs. Tom expired than the power in the school blinks off. "What happened?" someone asks. Um, put that person out to die of exposure. Someone that stupid doesn't deserve to consume any of the remaining limited resources.

"Other Than We're All Going To Die Here? I Guess Nothing?"

Barbie very inefficiently carries Julia to the diner and lays her on the floor beside the open, blazing oven! She's not conscious! He performs CPR and revives her! Phew?

At the school, Joe has the instinct to pull down a curtain and peer at the lightening sky! Apparently the temperature and barometric pressure are both rising! Phew? But uh oh, Hunter's gone! Even though Joe doesn't even know that Norrie casually dropped the news to Hunter that only a couple of people are Certified Eggkeepers, Joe was already suspicious of Hunter from the nosy questions and incriminating emails, so Joe is on it!

Pauline finds Big Jim looking at photos from his old glory days as a high school football star and they talk some more about whether he wants what's best for anyone or not! Now that he's retrieved Lyle, Pauline is more bullish on Big Jim! Phew?

Norrie and Joe locate Hunter at the Dome, exchanging written messages with some army guy or whatever! We don't see Hunter's answer as to his latest Egg-related discovery before Norrie and Joe confront him, and also they don't seem to consider that if Hunter isn't on the up-and-up, which he seems not to be, that maybe they could discredit him with his handlers by confronting him in front of the army guy BUT ANYWAY, it's a classic misdirect! Hunter was pressed into service because of hacking-related charges: "I hate those guys!" Turns out his latest sign instructs whoever's got the Egg to quit messing with it! And they have to listen to him because he's the only guy they've got inside the Dome! But then the Dome starts making some unpleasant deafening noise it's never made before! Oh no probably!

Melanie starts and breathes, "It's starting!"

Norrie puts her hand on the Dome and reports that it's no longer spinning! But then Joe and Hunter ALSO put their hands on it and it starts moving again and somehow Joe just knows that it's "contracting"! And if it doesn't stop, it could kill them all! Phew! I mean, "Oh no!!!!!!"