Would The Dome Want Barbie To Build A Bromance With Pete Only To Tear It Down?

Pick An Allegiance, Julia

It's the day after Big Jim and Julia decided to be on the same side. He's in the middle of telling her about the infection all the cocoomites are unknowingly suffering from, and is bringing her to the spot where he hid the camera featuring the video of Christine's arm going all pixely when she initially touched the Egg; he's super-excited: "When I show the town what it is, they're gonna come to their senses, and kick her ass out of Chester's Mill!" They're going to kick her...where, exactly? What's Big Jim's endgame? Apparently the remotest place from Chester's Mill WITHIN THE DOME IN WHICH THEY ALL RESIDE is Bird Island, and from what we've seen even someone with noodle arms can row her way there without any trouble. Whatever: that's a moot point right now, because when Big Jim opens the fuse box, the camera's gone! As he sputters that the Aktaion guys must have followed him and watched him hide it, Julia tires of his stories and sighs, "Do you ever tell the truth?" Thank God Big Jim tells her some shit so I don't have to -- to wit, "You came out here to find me, not the other way around, so you can either paddle the hell out of here right now, or you can shut up and help me get that camera back!" Clearly, Big Jim has not been trustworthy in the past, but for Christ's sake, Julia, you both obviously share the same goals now and he has no motivation to make shit up and trick you for sport. What do you think, he's just dying to spend more time with your annoying ass? Fortunately for us all, Julia realizes that she's better off working with Big Jim for now than trying her luck with the native terns or whatever the fuck she thought her alternative might be.

The Secret In Her Eyes

Who called the meeting? Barbie, I guess, who stops by Eva's the morning after his rather decisive split from Julia.

What's it about? Initially, it's about that very split from Julia, which Eva asks about now even though last night Barbie came straight from that fight to Eva's room. I guess it and his scraped-up knuckles just never came up in their conversation!

How'd it go? It starts out all shmoopy, until Eva asks for specifics about what he and Julia fought about. He shrugs that Julia's driving herself crazy with conspiracy theories, chiefly regarding Christine (and to a lesser extent Eva) and the likelihood that they're lying about who they really are. Eva:

Here's where things really start to turn, because even Barbie is perceptive enough to know this stricken look probably means nothing good, and as he pulls his hand out of Eva's, he implores her to tell him Julia's wrong, but Eva, with some anguish, says she can't. Barbie gets all pissy and stomps out, sniffing, "I can't be with someone who's not going to talk with me." Weirdly formal phrasing, but...you know, his good instincts are coming back, so that's something.

The Roof Is In The Pudding, Because It Fell

Alert Type: Superfund Project Alert.

Issue: Christine's in her office recording her podcast, Creepy Nonsense About Glowing Purple Shit, by which means we learn, "The Dome's energy supply is beginning to fail. When Jim Rennie destroyed the Egg, he compromised our power source. One amethyst died this morning. A second one is losing power, which is causing the amniotic fluid in the cavern to dry up. It's only a matter of time before the Dome begins to calcify. If The Kinship can't come together, we will all suffocate. Just as Barbie stomps in to confront her with his suspicions, the ceiling over Big Jim's former office caves in due to the failure of a load-bearing column. (Nice mic pack in the back of your pants, Mike Vogel, btw.)

Complicating Factors: That guy Pete who was being all pissy last week is on the scene blaming Junior for cutting shit when he doesn't know what he's doing, and the evidence sure seems to bear him out, given that the ceiling collapse kills two people.

Resolution: Christine encourages Barbie to work with Pete on repairing the collapse, whereupon Pete and Barbie realize they have a lot in common: Pete also served in the military, working his way up to being an EOD specialist. The more Barbie talks to Pete, the more he turns on Christine. (Weirdly, though we know Pete's not wrong to be wary of Christine, he's a total pig about it, calling her a "dumb broad" and later complaining about his "tramp of a wife" who cheated on him when he was deployed. If they've given him all this misogyny so we won't feel conflicted about what happens to him at the end of the episode, producers really need not have worried: at this point I feel like every human in the Dome is expendable.) But then, Barbie's up on a ladder inspecting the damage when he sees evidence that beams and columns didn't just break: they were scored. He takes his findings to Christine, who tells him Pete did it and that Barbie has to kill him for the good of the group. When Barbie resists, she goes to Pete and tells him that Barbie suspects him of the building sabotage and is going to kill him, but that Pete should go ahead and kill Barbie first gaining all of Barbie's prestige and power and status and women.

Spoiler: Apparently Pete doesn't hate women when they're appealing to his own venal self-interest!

He Likes Scotch. Scotchy Scotch Scotch.

Alert Type: Defiant Drunk Alert.

Issue: Sam's drinking again.

Complicating Factors: Apparently, the drinking has broken whatever hold Christine had on Sam, because when he shows up late for his "job" leading group therapy or whatever the hell, Christine tries to blame him for the deaths of the people the ceiling crushed because they wouldn't have been standing around where they were if their meeting started on time, and he's like, I'm not the one who put fucking JUNIOR in charge of demolition when he doesn't know what he's doing one tiny bit, and Christine's like, shit.

Resolution: Seeing she's not going to get anywhere with Sam, Christine stops by Abby's and teases out more of the story of Abby's absent daughter, Courtney: she's profoundly brain-damaged as a result of Abby's drinking during her pregnancy. (They're not really specific about why that would mean Courtney doesn't live with Abby; I guess she could be a ward of the state, as Abby said she was last week, but I guess we're supposed to assume she's living in a home for children with special needs OH MY GOD I AM THINKING ABOUT THIS 1000 MORE THAN ANY OF THE WRITERS DID.) Abby admits that she fantasizes a different story for Courtney because she hates thinking of her the way she actually is. Having softened Abby up enough to shed some quiet tears, Christine goes in for the kill, saying that Abby destroys everything she loves, and that Christine's just reminding her of this because she knows how much Abby cares about Sam. Then she produces a bottle of pills she got from ??? and tells her, "I know that you'll make the right choice this time."

Spoiler: Abby makes the right choice this time.

Egg Facts Dr. Frank Whaley Disgorges, At Gunpoint

After Big Jim comes in to back up Julia and his gun trumps Dr. Frank Whaley's (for it was he who interrupted Julia in the middle of her Catfish-level computering) and I guess all the henchmen are still outside trying to figure out who blew up one of their boats somehow? ANYWAY, Dr. Frank Whaley's in a sharing mood, so he duly opens the "Alaska" folder he so carelessly left right there on his desktop and goes through some history.

• A previous crew of Aktaion scientists found Egg fragments in a crater in Alaska.
• When they touched it -- as we see in grainy black and white footage that was shot from multiple angles and professionally cut together -- sure, why not -- they all got zapped.
• They returned to their lab and continued handling fragments with their bare hands, because why not?
• While there, they were enticed by the promise of all the clean, emission-free energy these Egg bits were giving off...
• ...but then their leader had them all go to the roof of the building their lab was in; she jumped and they all followed.
• (This is also shot from multiple angles and edited with multiple cuts: does Aktaion have a USC film grad on staff?)
• The autopsies of the suicide scientists revealed that their guts were "teeming" with cells never seen in any human on Earth.
• Hypothesis: touching the Egg or any part of same infects people?
• To investigate, maybe Julia should take her gun and go grab Christine, and the Aktaion people will just trust her to come back and not change allegiance a third time today?

Beware Of Goop

Apparently Eva hasn't been paying attention, because when she confronts Christine directly about telling everyone in town the truth about their identities and current assignment, she puts herself on Christine's To Do list. Christine follows her into the cavern and gets real creepy: "Remember when you told me you felt something was growing inside you? You were right. There is something growing. The Egg put a life force inside you. You are changing, cell by cell, into a better version of yourself -- a woman who will bear Barbie's child. But you have to protect him, Eva: you have to be willing to do whatever it takes. The child you'll have together will replace me." Eva tells Christine, "You're crazy," because every once in a while someone on this show acts in a recognizably human fashion, and then Junior's behind her, grabbing her up and carrying her, at Christine's direction, closer to what's left of the precious amniotic fluid.

And after she gets a faceful of that shit, Eva's a lot more docile, and ready to do whatever it takes to get back with Barbie! When Christine's dismissed her, Junior marvels to see a pixely reflection of himself in one of the amethysts, and Christine tells him, "You and me, we're the same now." That's a real insult to Christine's intelligence, but anyway, she exposits that there's not enough oxytocin goo to go around for all the former cocoomites, so they need to ration it and just goop up the most resistant Chester's Millions: they should start by having Hunter fetch Joe and Norrie and bring them to Town Hall so she can goop them up real nice.

This Friendship's Been Cowed

And then we're watching Hunter try to fetch Joe and Norrie and bring them to Town Hall, but I guess the spell Christine had on them was broken not by booze but by their throbbing biological urges: earlier they'd pledged to fight the town zombies -- Norrie had even tried to get Joe to say that if she started to turn, he'd kill her -- and now here they are, getting their chance already. Joe explains that they're busy rigging a house with solar panels (whose house, since Joe's was crushed last season in the Dome contraction? DUNNO!), and invites Hunter up to the roof, even though it's clear from his affect that he's pretty far gone. Hunter does, telling Norrie again that she has to come with him. She refuses, whereupon he grabs her by the wrist to try to compel her physically, like, how does he think he's going to pull that off? It's going to be pretty easy for her to wrench her wrist free before they can both pick their way down the ladder. Anyway, that doesn't end up being an issue: she blahs some blah about how he can go eat cow food with the other cows but she's not going to, before...well, this happens.

Christine's really picked some great horses here. OR SHOULD I SAY COWS. (Someone tell Norrie the barnyard animal she's thinking of is sheep, good lord.)

Spare A Thought To Resource Management

When Tipsy McStagger finds his way back to Abby's, he's alerted to her death by drowning because she left the tap running in the tub and it's dripped through the floor. And THEN, while he cradles her and mourns, he ALSO doesn't turn the water off. Y'ALL KNOW YOU'RE IN A DORM WHERE SHIT GOES WRONG ALL THE TIME, RIGHT? Maybe don't waste water when you've got it, dipshits!

RIP Abby, I guess. You seemed like a pretty crappy person so this is no great loss.

Cows vs. Kids

Somehow Hunter has survived the fall in which it sure looked like his head struck brick from a considerable height: though he can't feel his legs, he is conscious and talking, and uses his amazing powers of communication to claim that Norrie threw him off the roof. Junior does what comes naturally and deputizes himself the head of the lynch mob, announcing, "There need to be consequences," which is funny coming from THE GUY WHO LOCKED HIS GIRLFRIEND IN A BOMB SHELTER without having anyone find out about it. Joe and Norrie clasp hands and try to escape, but every point of egress gets blocked by a passel of extras. Oh no, but their love!!!

Winner: Cows.

Julia drops Christine at the doc to be ferried to Aktaion's in-Dome HQ and have an Egg abortion or whatever the hell they're going to do! Julia tries to talk tough, saying that after they cure Christine's infection they're going to cure everyone else in town (not sure that's what Dr. Frank Whaley said at all and in fact isn't a DOME the perfect place to quarantine a bunch of people with space infections?)! Christine, even as she's being cuffed by a couple of Aktaion goons, says she thinks it's adorable that Julia's trying to save humanity: "Unfortunately, it's much too late for that"! YEAH, JULIA, HAVEN'T YOU BEEN WATCHING CBS'S SUMMER EVENT SERIES ZOO?!

Barbie finds Eva staring at the sky, as you do, and is about to try to bring her back to help Hunter somehow when a bunch of garbage cans explodes, just like an EOD expert would probably know how to rig! Question about all the cans lined up on the curb, since we're here: why are they there? Who's coming to empty them out? Where is the trash going from there? The town's out of food: how much trash could residents even be generating? None of these questions is answered, so let's move on! Of course Pete rigged the bomb, and he emerges from the shadows and starts beating Barbie with a baseball bat! "I'm gonna take your place and your girl!" threatens Pete, before Eva gets in the mix and kicks Pete off Barbie! In the silence as everyone catches their breath, Eva snarls that Pete's never going to get her: "You're a piece of trash who never learned how to be a man!" As we know, Pete doesn't like listening to women talk, so his response is to smack her, and as she rears back, Barbie grabs the bat and goes HAM on Pete in her defense! Whatever he's doing is so violent and crunchy that we can't see it! But...bye, Pete, you won't be missed! And now that your character's been killed, Andrew J. West, spend this time thinking about what projects you accept: you were just on Justified, and now this?! Once he's dead, Eva and Barbie decide the perfect time to kiss is when both their faces are covered in blood!

When Dr. Frank Whaley gets word that Christine's almost there, he purposefully gets up from his desk! Big Jim exposits that the door is in the opposite direction, and Dr. Frank Whaley knows: "The way out of the Dome is here"! Big Jim follows, obviously, and that's when Dr. Frank Whaley tricks him into getting into a cage! And when he's in there, he has to watch as a henchman brings in his beautiful dog, whom Big Jim has named Indy, and Dr. Frank Whaley threatens to slit Indy's throat if Big Jim doesn't tell him where the Egg is! Big Jim, panicked, lies that it's at Town Hall and Christine has it! Dr. Frank Whaley knows that's not true, and tells the goon, "Take this animal into the next room and slaughter it"! Seriously, this dog's is the ONLY jeopardy I've ever cared about on this show! Big Jim finally admits that he smashed the Egg, and throatily demands, "Give me my dog back"!

And they do?! Okay, weird decision, evil corporate thugs! As he tries to calm himself down by petting Indy, Big Jim demands to know why he's there! Dr. Frank Whaley explains that every experiment needs a control group: "Christine Price is the experiment, and you, Mr. Rennie, are the control!"

BIG JIM NO LIKE!

Indy's cool either way! Good boy!