Tag: recap

When we last left our friends of Under the Dome, a lot of crazy shit had happened. When we rejoin our friends this week, more crazy shit happens.

So let’s get to it, shall we? (Be warned: this recap may — or may not — have more of my snarky personal commentary included. I’m sorry, I just can’t keep it bottled up inside anymore.)

Remember: This post contains spoilers about episode 4 of Under the Dome (titled “Outbreak”). Do not read this post if you haven’t yet seen the episode and plan to.

Note: this is a LONG post.

So. At the end of episode 3, Julia (our resident snoopy reporter) had gone through Barbie’s things and discovered a map. At the beginning of this episode, Julia has taken said map and has put it in her purse by way of a newspaper. It’s all sneaky and spy-like. Or it would be, if it wasn’t also a raging case of “OMG you’re going to do this now?” But pay attention to Snooping Julia and her map, which luckily doesn’t sing (this is important later) (the map, not the singing).

Outside, at the edge of the dome, we have ourselves a mini-riot. The mob (but not The Mob) is going totally batshit because the military is leaving their posts on the outside of the dome. So our civilian mobsters are painting graffiti on the dome and are basically just screaming random shit about how they’re stuck in there and woe is me and all that. Reverend Lester, our resident clueless, bumbling criminal sidekick steps in and starts preaching about God and what God wants (yeah, I don’t even know) and newly-minted Sheriff Linda is trying to get the rabble to calm down. Of course it doesn’t work, so she pulls out her gun because, I don’t know, waving it while on the edge of the dome is supposed to make people stop being all mobby. (Remember what happened the last time someone pulled out a gun at the edge of the dome? Exactly. Not the brightest thing to do, Sheriff Linda.

)

Anyway, Big Jim comes to the rescue (because of course he does). After he finishes berating Linda for her gun-pulling stunt, Linda collapses against the dome. (No, she doesn’t collapse out of shame.) Barbie and Big Jim load her up into her car and take her to the clinic.

Honestly, that Barbie guy is freaking EVERYWHERE. There is nowhere in this damn town he isn’t.

We’ll get back to Linda later, but the collapsing thing is important. Remember that part.

Meanwhile, let’s visit Chester’s Mill’s resident psychopath, Junior! He’s still got Angie locked up in his dungeon underground bunker. When we first see him, he’s bringing her a change of clothes, so she’s “more comfortable.” Of course, before he hands it over, he sniffs it.

I am not even kidding, you guys, he SNIFFS it. It’s so creepy, I can’t even begin to tell you.

Angie, in yet another attempt at getting out of her awesome little dungeon, acts all flirtatious and pretends she doesn’t want to stab Junior in the eye with a dull pencil (because you know she does). She tells him to turn around (I dunno, maybe because she’s pretending she wants to sleep with him?). When he does, she pulls out a pair of scissors from under her pillow, then lunges at him. With the scissors. Only she misses and stabs him in the hand instead. Of course, Junior is seriously pissed off and locks her with the leg chain to the bed again. He says she can leave when she’s ready, but not before. (What the hell does that even mean?)

Also, holy too stupid to live moment, Angie. What the flying fuck?

And THEN, she tries to get someone’s attention by screaming into a vent and holding on to a pipe. (You know this isn’t going to end well.) So unsurprisingly, the pipe — which turns out to be a water pipe — bursts, throwing Angie back against the concrete floor, knocking her unconscious. The dungeon then fills with water.

At this point, I am too busy facepalming to pay much attention to what else is going on. OMG Angie. You  had such potential.

All right. So. Remember how Julia is now all snoopy and looking through other people’s stuff like the world’s most annoying roommate? She’s on the way somewhere — I assume to confront Barbie or something — when she sees her husband’s car at DJ Phil’s house (well, trailer). She stops and confronts Phil about it. Phil tells her that Peter, her husband, sold it to him. And then he collapses. Just like Linda (I warned you that the collapsing thing was important).

So we all go over to the clinic (“hospital” isn’t quite the right term, since it’s not that big), where we see Alice and Carolyn (the token lesbian couple from LA) taking their daughter Norrie and her buddy Joe for some tests. (Remember, last week Norrie and Joe had a simultaneous seizure where they talked about pink stars falling from the sky in lines.) Alice, while a psychiatrist, did a medical internship and not a psychiatric one. This turns out to be Very Important, because the clinic has no doctors, so the nurses recruit Alice to be the acting doctor. Or something. But at this point, she’s still ordering tests to try determine what the hell is going on with her kid.

Julia, having taken Phil to the clinic, confronts Barbie about the map and what he’s really doing there. OMG WHAT THE HELL JULIA. (Seriously, you’re going to do this now?) At that point she gets rather faint and slumps against the wall (that collapsing thing again). Alice orders someone to take her to a treatment room. And yay, Barbie’s off the hook for now.

After examining the people coming in (and there are a lot of them), Alice concludes that it’s a meningitis outbreak.

A MENINGITIS OUTBREAK, you guys. In a town that’s COVERED BY A DOME. Where the hell did the meningitis come from? Wouldn’t it have been evident SOONER THAN THIS if Patient Zero was wandering around Chester’s Mill?

Wouldn’t more people (like the rest of the town) be in trouble since apparently only Junior, Barbie, Norrie, Alice, and Carolyn had been vaccinated? Or maybe I’m overthinking it, I don’t know.

Anyway. Alice tells Big Jim she needs antibiotics to treat everyone, but the hospital is running low. So Big Jim gets a list from Alice and goes off somewhere to get the drugs (we learn later he goes to the town’s pharmacy). Then he leaves Junior to guard the clinic’s entrance. With a shotgun.

Oh, okay, let’s give the psycho a GUN and tell him it’s okay to use it. THAT SOUNDS LIKE A GREAT IDEA. (Have I mentioned he’s got someone locked in a dungeon?)

Over in another part of the clinic, Julia has left her room and is trying to get answers about her husband from DJ Phil, who apparently knows Barbie. Phil is completely out of it, thanks to the meningitis, and thinks Julia actually is Peter, and says, “I can’t make it to the cabin tonight.” And of course Julia’s all, “What cabin?” because she has no clue what the hell he’s talking about. She tries to get Junior to let her out, but Junior’s on his power trip and says no. But he does mention that he found Barbie in a cabin, which makes Julia all snoopy reporter curious. But Junior won’t let her out, so Julia goes to her husband’s office and takes his key card, which is still miraculously in his office, and leaves out the back door.

To go find this cabin. Even though she’s got meningitis symptoms.

OMG the TSTLness abounds.

So. By this point, the clinic is running out of antibiotics and Big Jim isn’t back yet. Because, as we discover, the pharmacy has been broken into and ALL the medicine is gone. So Big Jim and Barbie (swear to god this guy’s everywhere) are all, “WTF?” and Big Jim has an idea of who took the drugs and where they are. So they go to Rev. Lester’s house, who is apparently a born again Christian and is about to burn all the medicine. Because it’s God’s will that these people die. Or something.

Really? A born again reverend? By this I mean a reverend who is born again WHILE being a reverend? WTF?

Big Jim and Barbie take all the medicine back to the clinic, but by then Sheriff Linda’s third grade teacher has died because she sacrificed herself so that Linda could get the last dose of antibiotic. Linda, of course, recovers.

All the people in the clinic’s waiting room are getting antsy and move to rush the doors. Junior fires a warning shot into the ceiling with his shotgun but then Linda appears before Junior can actually shoot people (I’m sure Junior’s disappointed at being thwarted like that). Instead, he starts telling random stories about various residents and says he’s one of them and they all have to fight this together. Then he puts down the shotgun and leaves. And the people calm down.

And Linda tells Big Jim about what a hero Junior is, and Big Jim asks if he’d reconsider a career in law enforcement. Cue ominous music (no, for real, the scene actually did cue the ominous music).

Meanwhile, I’m going WHAT. THE. HELL.

Barbie, who’s now back from the antibiotic run, corners Phil (which really isn’t that hard, since the guy’s in a wheelchair with an IV) and asks where Julia is. Phil says he doesn’t know, but Barbie gets all tough guy on him. Because apparently the sick dude with the IV is going to lie? I don’t know. Anyway. Phil explains that Peter had been asking about hit men before selling Phil his car. Phil apparently told Peter to take the cash and run and start over someplace else. So I guess Barbie isn’t going to get the money. (I don’t actually know if he did get the money from Peter…) Phil isn’t sure how much of this he told Julia, so Barbie asks Junior where Julia is. Junior tells him about mentioning the cabin, which makes Barbie get all panicky in that Barbie way of his, and demands the keys to Junior’s truck.

He discovers Julia passed out at the cabin. Because Julia did find the cabin, and because she’s gone all snoopy reporter on us, she found some documents that were apparently so shocking they made her pass out. (Kidding. The documents may have been shocking, but I’m pretty sure the meningitis made her pass out.)

Julia comes to, confronts Barbie about Peter, blah blah blah. Turns out he’s an enforcer for a bookie and he’d come to Chester’s Mill to collect from Peter (and possibly from Phil, I never got that part). Julia’s all “But my husband would NEVER gamble!” even though apparently Peter drained their bank accounts and their house is in foreclosure. Barbie’s all, “Wanna bet?” and produces a voicemail of Peter. And then he lies and tells Julia that Peter must’ve taken off somewhere to start over because he got in too deep. And then Julia’s all “I let you stay in my house! Your sorry means nothing to me! Get out of my house!” (And I’m going, “Ugh, seriously? SERIOUSLY?”)

Meanwhile, while all this is happening, Norrie and Joe have decided to find out if the two of them touching sets off their simultaneous seizures. So they set up an experiment. Someone set up a phone to record on video, and they touch. For a moment nothing happens, and then they fall to the floor. In a seizure. Afterward, when they look at the video playback, we see Joe sit up MID-SEIZURE and say “Shhh” to the camera. What the hell?!

So yay, everyone’s saved (well, except for Linda’s old teacher) and the meningitis outbreak is over! After only a couple of hours! Yay super doctor Alice! Joe and Norrie lie about having another seizure (because I don’t know), and Joe offers his house to Alice, Carolyn, and Norrie. Because both his parents are outside the dome, and his sister Angie is trapped in Junior’s house of underground horrors.

In a serious lapse in judgement, Linda deputizes Junior, which cues the ominous music again (OMG you’re all GOING TO DIE).

Big Jim goes home and finds the reverend on his porch. The reverend, now that’s he’s born again and all, returns the Propane Plot money to Big Jim and tells Jim to keep the propane. (Honestly what the HELL is up with that propane?) Big Jim goes inside to get a glass of water from the sink and hears Angie screaming.

From his tap. At the kitchen sink.

Yeah, I’d be a little weirded out, too.

Big Jim follows the screaming to the bunker (even though you can’t hear it outside, so I don’t know). He goes inside the bunker and finds it filling with water. He also discovers Angie chained to the bed. Inside the bunker.

Dun dun dun…

Come back next week, when I make fun of the people under the dome again.

Under the Dome airs on CBS on Monday nights.