Under The Dome Gets Locked Up, Not Abroad

Caged Meet

Alert Type: Jailhouse Stoolie Alert.

Issue: Having gotten Julia to deliver Christine for "tests," Dr. Frank Whaley and apparently no other scientist as far as we can tell have gotten a lot of information about what is going on with her physically -- to wit, she's not human -- but they still don't know what her plan is, so they want Big Jim to get her to tell him what it is.

Complicating Factors: Where to begin! Even if Christine were not the earthly representation of some kind of alien hive mind and just a regular woman, she's one who has no reason to open up to Big Jim. Also, Big Jim's method of exerting his will on others is generally less "emotional manipulation" and more "murder." And also, as much as Big Jim wants to stop Christine, he's also not super-psyched about helping anyone from Aktaion after they locked him in a cage.

Resolution: Dr. Frank Whaley shows Big Jim satellite footage of Christine touching the Egg and fucking up Chester's Mill, which once it gets past what Big Jim's already seen on Christine's own camera is kind of illuminating in terms of showing us the exact order of events. Eva and Christine got sucked underground, in a cloud of butterflies, to be cocooned below:

The Dome came down:

And then the Mini-Dome came down onto the Egg:

Big Jim still isn't convinced, so Dr. Frank Whaley threatens to shoot him up with whatever goop Christine's veins are full of now and he agrees. You know whoever wrote this episode was SO PSYCHED to get to write these claustrophobic scenes where their two best actors get to engage with each other unmediated -- "It'll be our Interview With The Vampire!" has to have been exclaimed over a Cobb salad at some point -- except that it doesn't actually tell us anything we don't already know: Christine doesn't pretend she's not an alien inhabiting what used to be an anthropologist's body; she argues for the supremacy of the collective while Big Jim claims no progress has ever been made without individual creativity and ingenuity; blah blah blah IDEAS. There's an interlude where Dr. Frank Whaley decides Big Jim isn't getting what he needs fast enough, so he has a henchman toss in a sedative bomb of some kind, and after Big Jim wakes up, he convinces Dr. Frank Whaley to let him go back in with some leverage: the lid of a Vienna sausages can he can (somehow) fashion into an implement to pick the lock of his cage and make Christine ask him to help her too. Dr. Frank Whaley agrees.

Spoiler: Dr. Frank Whaley should not have agreed.

But MoooooOOOOOooooom!

Who's causing a family crisis? Norrie.

How? After having been a party to Hunter's fall off the roof -- which he's framed as her having thrown him off it -- she's been locked up with Joe in a room at Town Hall while the cowcoomites (now that they're all moving and creepily whistling in unison and eating cattle feed and acting bovine, their handle's evolving; deal with it) decide how to dispose of them; all the while, Joe and Norrie aren't giving up their resistance to the new status quo.

Which relatives have a problem with it? Norrie's mother Carolyn, who we haven't seen since the season premiere and who, since then, has gone full cowcoomite. She comes to get Norrie to retrieve an x-ray machine from the clinic so that the extent of Hunter's injuries can be accurately assessed, though the punishment for Norrie if it turns out he's permanently paralyzed isn't clear.

Who's an unlikely ally? Other than Joe, her likely ally given the possibility that she'll let him stick his tiny boner in her, Norrie has none.

Spoiler: Norrie may not have a lot of allies, but she's got spunk!

Not So Blessed Are The Weak

Who called the meeting? Junior.

What's it about? Finding Christine: the cowcoomites don't know what to do with themselves since she disappeared.

How'd it go? Mostly well for the pod people: Barbie's heard from some guy that he saw Christine getting in a boat to Bird Island with a couple of guys, so he wants to take Eva to go look for her, even though his reason for wanting to recover Christine is less "for the sake of The Kinship" and more "to interrogate her about her identity and motives." Junior asks Eva to stay at Town Hall with him and help the cowcoomites move in to the just-finished dorms...and as soon as Barbie's gone, they make with the cuckoo talk -- "completing their journey" and so forth. Junior asks what happens if it turns out Hunter's injuries are permanent, and Eva, who's now fully podded, as we've already been reminded when she saw her reflection in a van window earlier and it looked like this...

...has an answer all ready: "If he's no longer of use, then we have to put him down." I might not agree with your reasoning but I wouldn't be sorry to see the end of that dink. Oh -- the only reason this meeting isn't an unmitigated success is that right before they came into Christine's office, Julia had snuck in there, located her audio recorder (though it's protected by a password I would LOVE to see Julia guess), found a weird sketch she left out...

...and hid in an adjacent room, so she hears the whole discussion. This one's on Junior for closing a door without moving his head, like, half an inch to see that Julia's RIGHT THERE.

Chills, Thrills, and Pills

Alert Type: Conspiracy Theory Alert.

Issue: Sam's real sad that Abby killed herself.

Complicating Factors: I guess because his chronic alcohol abuse killed the part of his brain that could be flipped to make him one of Christine's drones, Sam has enough cognitive power to note the name on the pills Abby took...

...check it again just to be sure...

...see it one more time on a different pill bottle when he comes to x-ray Hunter, which Eva explains came from the dispensary Christine set up from everyone's remaining medications, because absolutely there would still be any left after all these people had spent three weeks in the Dome...

...and figure out that something's not right.

Resolution: Sam bides his time, which is easy to do while Christine's unaccounted for.

Spoiler: Christine should be more reserved with her hugs.

The Enemy Of My Enemy Is...Junior, This Week

Junior's loving life bossing Junior around -- seriously, way too much, like to the extent where you wonder whether Alexander Koch is working on an audition for a role as a concentration camp guard -- until Joe gets impatient trying to set up the solar panel system at Town Hall and knocks a bunch of stuff over and Junior threatens him with a punishment. At this, Julia emerges from the crowd and yells that Junior has no right to punish anyone. Immediately, the cowcoomites are like, Oh hell no, and once they've closed ranks to keep her from leaving the scene...

...Nnnnno? Junior, don't hit Julia like that? I guess?

Dear Mister President, It's About Time Someone Started Getting Ruthless About Resource Management. I Am Not A Crackpot!

So Joe gets the solar panels rigged up about twenty minutes after Junior roughed him up -- sure, that's how long it would take a high school student to whip up a solar generator from scratch -- and it immediately has enough energy stored in its cells to run the x-ray machine, which immediately returns the result Sam relays to Hunter: he's fractured his fourth cervical vertebra, meaning that even if he weren't living in a Dome, Hunter would never walk again. Eva asks for a minute with Hunter, and once they're alone, she lays out the situation: "To manage the pain for your injury would deplete our supply of painkillers in one week. You alone would permanently take away valuable resources from The Kinship. To continue down that path would be irresponsible." Hunter considers the bottle of pills and tells her, "If it's what's best, then I want to do it."

Hunter might be mind-controlled right now, and I'm also not clear on why he'd need painkillers at all if he's paralyzed since by definition that means he has no feeling where he's injured, right? But never mind: there is a finite amount of non-naturally-occurring painkillers available until they all get back in their cocoons and bathed in soothing goo. If someone's not working for the collective, they're weakening it. Cut them loose. I'm not saying Christine's plan is a good one, all things considered; I'm just saying that if you're going to do something -- even something evil -- do it right and be consistent in your principles, which is exactly what Hunter's doing. Good job, Hunter! I am not a crackpot!

Abolish The Monarchy

R.I.P. Dr. Frank Whaley

Big Jim's sausage can lock pick gambit is executed perfectly: Christine promises to bring down the Dome if he'll get him out of the cage and take her with him. No sooner has she made this promise than Dr. Frank Whaley -- who's obviously been watching and listening to everything the whole time, which you'd think Christine's big alien brain would have assumed -- steps in to stop it. Just then, gunshots are audible outside; the henchmen who came in with Dr. Frank Whaley take off, and in the chaos, so does Indy. Big Jim's about to follow when Dr. Frank Whaley tells Big Jim he has to stay. Big Jim's like, Naw.

Boy, that is one unimaginably sharp commercially available can lid we've seen no evidence that Big Jim made sharper than any you might have in your cupboard right now! But sure, why not! As Dr. Frank Whaley dies, Christine -- whose cage hadn't been opened yet when the melee started outside -- begs Big Jim to let her out. "I can handle good, I can handle evil," speeches Big Jim. "But what I can't handle is desperate. You're in a position to tell me anything I want to hear. But I ain't buyin'. No hard feelings." He ambles out, leaving Christine alone...for about ten seconds; then the last henchman gets shot in front of her, by Barbie. Seriously, Aktaion: review your training program. This is a VERY poor showing.

Humans vs. Cowcoomites

Joe and Norrie having freed Julia from Christine's office and been brought up to speed with regard to Eva's plan to euthanize Hunter, they bust in juuuuuuuust in time for her to have injected him with something to put him to sleep (what, exactly?) but before she shoots him up with something else to stop his heart (...what?! and from where?!!!?!? Sure, why not?!). As Norrie wrestles Eva to the ground, Hunter whines, "I want this!" But Joe and Norrie aren't interested in Hunter's altruism, and after Norrie knocks out Eva by slamming her head against the wall, Joe wrestles Hunter into a wheelchair, and they're off!

Winner: Humans, until they realize what a liability Hunter is to them as fugitives, probably.

Julia vs. Barbie

Junior and Barbie having somehow overwhelmed all ??? Aktaion henchmen and rescued Christine, they're all on their way back to Chester's Mill. Christine sends Junior ahead to deal with the boat so that she can have a frank discussion with Barbie and allay all his fears about her. She tells him what was the truth about the original Christine -- the Aktaion assignment, the Egg, the Dome. But Barbie lets her off the hook 100% on the grounds that Aktaion is run by jerky jerks and that they probably tricked her into doing something dangerous. Kind of patronizing, but okay, I guess, that's one way to interpret what she's just said? I'll give him an idiot pass because he's half alien worm or whatever right now.

Anyway, they've barely finished this discussion when Julia emerges, gun drawn, and tells Christine to get away from Barbie. Christine whines that Julia colluded with Aktaion to hand over Christine, and Julia doesn't deny it: "Aktaion was only trying to help." Barbie tries to get Julia to put down her gun, and when she won't, he waves Christine away and tries to dominate Julia with his sex appeal, which kind of works: he hugs her to him and gets her to lower her gun hand so she's pointing it at the ground. "Christine and Eva work for Aktaion," Julia begins. "I have proof." Barbie's like, No duh, Christine just told me: "They [Aktaion] used them." Julia takes a deep breath and then barfs all this out: "Yes, Christine works for Aktaion, but that's not the real Christine. When Melanie placed the Egg on her cocoon, something from inside it went into the others, and now it is-- It's growing inside of everyone like an infection."

Just take a minute and imagine all the steps that had to precede this moment. A group of writers came up with these ideas. Andres Fischer-Centeno went off on their own and wrote that speech. An actor received a script with those lines in it. She learned them. She got in front of probably dozens of crew members and delivered them with cameras pointed at her. Studio and network executives watched it and approved it and decided that was acceptable to put in front of our faces. WE'RE DECENT PEOPLE. DO WE DESERVE THIS???

Barbie can't believe he's infected with anything since he feels fine. He hasn't changed, he says; Julia has. And if she's going to be like this, then maybe she should just live on Bird Island forever and turn into a bird! Julia:

Winner: Barbie.

Christine returns to Chester's Mill triumphant and patrols the dorms! She "explains" to Eva that Barbie's military experiences have made him "more resistant than most" (sure, why not), but that she got him when she made herself a victim for him to save! Oh hey, by the way, have Barbie and Eva boned yet? Eva sheepishly admits that they haven't! Christine says that the sooner Eva becomes Barbie's "mate," the sooner he can become "a protector"! Cool -- hey, when is the Keymaster getting here?

Christine enters her office, sees the sketch out on her desk, and is reaching for her recorder when Sam lets himself in! She tells him he looks great, and he said he cleaned himself up after what Abby did! He plays along a little with what he knows she wants him to do, before asking, "You did it for me, didn't you?" She doesn't admit it, so he narrates that she gave Abby the pills, knowing she'd attempted suicide already: "This time I was too late. But you saved me. You pulled me out of the quicksand. Thank you." "It needed to be done," says Christine proudly. "You mean the world to all of us." And then they hug, which is when Sam stabs her in the side. "You shouldn't have done that to Abby," he tells her. "I'm sorry," he adds, weirdly. He tells her he can never be what she wants, and takes off to let her very slowly lose blood from what may or may not be a fatal wound! Very efficient choice for AN EMT!

After telling all the cowcoomites in the dorm how proud Christine's going to be, he goes to see the lady herself, only to find her stabbed BUT STILL VERY MUCH ALIVE in her desk chair! "What do I do?" he asks. "Get me to the caves," she tells him.

Barbie is staring at the moon when Eva comes out to find him! She tries to get him to join her in one of the abandoned (but not disassembled) tents (come on, Christine, how about mind-controlling the troops into some tidying) for some overnight delight, but he wants to go for a walk! Eva watches him leave like the sexual failure she is!

Junior carries Christine to the cave and sets her by the crystal she designates! It turns on, and she tells him to step back! The last thing she says is "Bring me Sam" before she gets engulfed in goo and re-cocooned!

AND ANOTHER AMETHYST BLINKS OUT!

And then there's more? I mean, don't get me wrong: all the stuff with the amethysts is dumb but at least it's kind of dramatic? More dramatic than this weird coda where Big Jim walks through the woods on the now henchman corpse-ridden Bird Island calling for Indy and runs into Julia standing in the woods like a dope! He sarcastically asks after her encounter with Barbie, and she sadly admits that Big Jim was right: she tried to explain everything, but that Barbie's already changed. "And Aktaion's all dead," adds Big Jim. "So much for getting out of here." "Or finding a cure for the infection," Julia further exposits. "We're on our own." Leave the recapping to the professionals, idiots! Big Jim says he's going to keep looking for Indy but that Julia can walk with him if she wants! AND THAT'S THE END???? SURE, WHY NOT?!??!??!?