MiniDomeEgg is all bright and shiny, Julia is still unconscious in hospital – and Barbie is on the run in the woods, hiding from search parties hunting him down because of Jim’s lies. In a public meeting where Jim has managed to rouse up the panic, one of the people wants house sweeps and searches, despite Carolyn (she’s out of the plot box!) protesting that such unwarranted searches of people’s homes are illegal. Jim protests that this is America and of course they won’t do such – oh well if you insist! House sweeps it is. Linda gives him the side-eye. Jim ignores her and continues his inspirational speech about Chester’s Mill enduring these terribad times. Everyone cheers, Carolyn leaves in disgust.
At the radio station, Dodee continues to listen to the military chatter and hears someone refer to “that egg thing”. Checking her Iphone she sees the picture she took – and realises that is what burned her. But they add that finding the egg won’t mean a thing if they can’t find Barbie – and he’s the only one inside with the necessary expertise. Expertise in alien invulnerable eggs is apparently what they teach you in the military these days. Good to know.
Over to the Children of the Dome, minus Junior, and Angie wants them to kill Jim because the Dome said so (hey I’m all for killing Jim and think Angie has excellent reasons for wanting that – but killing people because the Dome said so is probably a bad precedent). Joe and Norrie are less on board with the whole killing-people-because-our-hallucinations-said-so idea. Joe is also invested in the idea of Barbie as the monarch. More speculation is interrupted by Carolyn arriving (much to everyone’s shock – she has managed to leave her bed/plot hole!). Norrie tells her what it is and that it showed her Alice, giving her chance to get home and say goodbye. Carolyn jumps on board and tells them they need to move it because of the house-to-house search. Carolyn assures Norrie she’s always on her side – and she doesn’t trust Jim anyway. Angie suggests taking it to Ben’s (what they’re not going to search his place? And wow, the plot box is being emptied and shaken this episode!)
Linda is co-ordinating Jim’s house-to-house search, trying to ensure the volunteers for it don’t wreck everyone’s home and limit the damage. And Phil arrives (the plot box be emptying!) to follow Linda around. Junior arrives with lots of worry and vague warnings for his dad who dismisses vague portents and instead sends Junior to guard Julia – in case Barbie tries to finish her off *ahem*. And if Julia wakes up, he needs to tell Jim straight away, no-one else (so he has the chance to silence her). Dodee shows up and tells Jim what she heard on the radio.
She takes him to the radio station and shows him a picture of the egg – then leaves him alone for plot reasons so he can be the only one the hear the military talking about the egg being moved. They also hear the military say they can’t find Barbie and that the guy in charge is Jim – who would make a bad contact because he murdered Coggins and the military saw it. Killing the local pastor is apparently frowned upon. Jim hurriedly tries to shut the radio down, but it’s too late – Dodee heard everything.
It’s ok, Jim explains that he killed Coggins because he was a liability! See, totes fine! Dodee, like most people, doesn’t particularly trust referring to people as “liabilities” and then murdering people and asks about all of Barbie’s supposed victims and Jim all but admits to the deaths by not denying it – simply saying that Barbie deserves what he gets. Why, Jim just killed people for the greater good
(this paraphrase has been used solely so I can use this youtube clip. No, I’m not sorry). Dodee is quick to emphasise how helpful and useful she could be in getting the egg and bringing the Dome down – but here’s the problem, Jim doesn’t want the Dome to come down any more. Seeing the writing on the wall, Dodee cries and hits him with a most awesome smackdown line “Big Jim, you’re a sick bastard. And one day everyone’s going to know it. And they’re going to smile when you die.”
He shoots and kills her – and then shoots all of her equipment before setting the place on fire and then leaving. He calls Linda and tells her what happened and Phil decides it must be Barbie since they broadcast information about him. Uh-huh because you have more info to broadcast that needs silencing? When they arrive they find Dodee’s body – and are convinced it’s all Barbie’s fault.
Barbie, meanwhile grabs Angie and desperately tries to convince her that Jim is the evil one. This takes 0.5 milliseconds since Angie doesn’t need much convincing. He wants her help saving Julia from murder-by-Jim. They sneak in and find Junior on guard – so Angie goes in to try and confuse him and analyse his dad’s motivations. And how confused she is and how she desperately needs to talk to Junior privately. She leads him aside and gets all creepy up close with him and even kisses him (nooo! Stop this! Stop stop stop!). But she tastes like cigarettes and, since Angie shared a ciggie with Barbie once, this means he’s suspicious –he runs back to Julia and finds her gone.
They both run out of the clinic and Junior attacks Barbie – and gets easily beaten down for it. Oh it’s always satisfying to see him get hit. He has Angie drive the ambulance with Julia away after he says goodbye to her, but he doesn’t run before Linda gets there – Linda cuffs him and Phil hits him.
The COD arrive at Ben’s where Ben (he is free from the plotbox!) comments on the Banker becoming a new dustman. They stash the Minidome in his house since the sweeps have already passed through.
At the barn Carolyn stands off against Jim and his men, as a lawyer she invokes the law on illegal searches – he has his goons drag her away along with Norrie and Joe. Of course, the barn is empty. Jim decides to have all three of them arrested on charges of having an empty barn.
In the cells Norrie calls Jim a Nazi and that they should have killed him (right on both counts). Jim arrives to try and menace Joe into giving in. Norrie isn’t impressed and he violently menaces her – so she tries to slash him with a knife but he takes it off her.
Linda brings in Barbie and puts him in a cell – he tries to get her to actually do some investigating rather than be Big Jim’s stooge, but alas Linda no longer does the thinking thing. When she meets Jim she doesn’t even bother to ask why Joe and Norrie have been locked up. Pesky thinking is too much effort, obeying Jim’s every whim is easier.
At Ben’s the Minidome starts making a high pitched noise (last time the Dome was angry it created a storm, now it gets noisy?) and Ben covers it in layers of blankets and coats to muffle it.
Jim has his goons drag Norrie and Joe out and he threatens Joe, Norrie, Angie and Julia if Barbie doesn’t give Joe a full public confession to the fictional crimes. Barbie actually agrees to the deal – because Jim is so likely to keep his word, right?
Carolyn, Norrie and Joe leave the police station and Jim tells Linda to tale them – she asks why but he says, basically “because I say it’s important” which is enough for her – again, she doesn’t question why they were locked up in the first place. Jim tries to send Junior out to kidnap Julia and Angie but, unlike Linda, he actually questions the need. Unfortunately, Carolyn, Norrie and Joe go straight to Ben’s, followed by Linda
Junior goes to the edge of the big Dome and presses his hands against it
Julia wakes up and tells Angie a woman shot her. Angie fills Julia in on what’s been happening.
A crowd gathers out front of the police station as Jim marches Barbie out onto the steps to accuse him of all the crimes and for his public confession. At the Minidome, the egg is now flaring black and red and making a loud, angry noise, Linda joins them to watch as the Chrysalis begins to open. On the police station steps, Barbie pleads NOT GUILTY (this is supposed to be a TRIAL?!)
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Dodee! Stop killing off the interesting characters while Junior is still breathing!
I get that Angie is manipulating Junior but considering he kidnapped her, the idea that she’s now willing to lure him away somewhere private seems… rather downplaying the extremity of what he did. And can we stop having convoluted story reasons to give these 2 alone time, it’s creepy.
What happened to Linda? How did she go from the woman at the beginning of the series refusing to let Jim use the police as his private army, to now becoming Jim’s loyal, unquestioning stooge? That's a horrendous character turn around
I know, I know, big fish small pond and all that – but the more I see Jim killing, lying and plotting to take over Chester’s Mill, part of my mind keeps saying “is it REALLY worth it? Seriously do you really want to put this much effort into becoming dictator of this little place?” But now if the Dome does come down he’s a known murderer which will probably end badly for him.
The Dome has been in place, what, 2 weeks now? 2 weeks and everyone has resigned themselves to living there for YEARS. Jim talks about assigning bankers and lawyers new jobs – isn’t it a bit soon for them to decide their old jobs are unobtainable? This whole show has been ridiculously sped up.
We had a load of people leave the Plot Box – but it didn’t really go well for any of them
