Under the Dome: Season 2, Episode 2: Infestation

Domey Girl runs in fear through the forest (having being scared off by Angie being murdered) and is followed by butterflies.

Julia and Barbie are all happy in bed with her, when cuddling is interrupted by the butterflies being weird. Julia’s not even worried about random insect activity any more.

Norrie and Joe are just looooving being Big Jim’s house guest (they notice in passing that Angie is missing but given the givens they’re not shocked that she’s not thrilled to take up Jim’s hospitality offer). Especially with him playing the super nice host. Of course, it’s a ploy to question them about the Dome, claiming he’s become a believer in the Dome after it spared his life. Actually that was Julia, I seem to recall. And I may never forgive her for it. He’s called away by someone reporting random damage but plans to come back to it later. Is there a reason why Carolyn isn’t there for breakfast?

Jim drops in on Junior (who I suppose I should call James) who is now sleeping in the gaol rather than under the same roof as his murdery dad. Can someone remind me again what suddenly changed James’s mind? Beyond this character having zero consistency. Anyway he’s not willing to help Jim out though he does finally agree to open the school so Rebecca can teach useful things to the kids (how can you even predict what will be useful in a Domey world were randomness is so common?)

Rebecca finds the Domey Problem du jour – caterpillars eating all the greenery. And everyone was so happy to see the butterflies

James finds more butterflies in the school – and a whole swarm of them on Angie’s body. Yes, Angie is definitely dead. James gets all heartbroken and griefstricken over the body of the girl he kidnapped and held prisoner. I would quite literally prefer to see the grief of ANYONE ELSE in this town rather than James over Angie’s death.

At the diner, a woman is praising Jim for his wonderful self-sacrifice saving them all from the Dome – ugh. Why couldn’t Jim have been murdered? Jim’s taken up serving coffee since Angie isn’t working. He offers something coming close to resembling a thank you to Julia but both she and Barbie are pretty clear how much Jim is not their favourite person. Rebecca runs in to warn Jim that all the pretty butterflies cause lots of caterpillars which, in turn, eat all the things.  Conversation interrupted by bloodstained James’s arrival.

They go check out the body and Jim tries to get Barbie on side to help. New Sheriff Phil kind of hovers, but he does find a bloody footprint.

Jim tries to both comfort his son while making sure that his scary-stalker kid didn’t actually kill Angie. James has the gall to be shocked that he’d even ask that and he turns it back on Jim – accusing him of killing Angie and threatening him if he did. Ah, they’re both keepers this family

In the woods, Joe and Norrie are being all couply before they’re rained on by dead butterflies – but Joe points out that there will be more, if they’re dying that means they’ve just laid a ton of eggs.
Rebecca still seems to be the only one who has realised this is a problem. They also run into Domey Girl! Who talks – to say she doesn’t know her own name.

They take her back to town, outside the school where Barbie has to tell Joe about his sister while the rest of the town avoids looking at him. Oh hey community where Joe grew up, way to leave the bad news to a stranger! Classy of you.

They take Joe home and Barbie comforts Julia (and hey, someone remembers Linda is dead!) since she’s upset because she thought the dome was supposed to protect them. Uh… since when? You wouldn’t be in danger if it weren’t for the dome – I don’t know where you get all these big, positive happy feels for it? She also tells Barbie about rescuing the Domey girl since she’s come with Joe and Norrie. Barbie is suspicious since the footprint found near Angie’s body was a girl’s (Domey Girl in fact) and it’s odd that no-one recognises her (he bases that on his sample size of… one, Julia. She counts as everyone now). Julia thinks it’s dubious to accuse Domey Girl of murder – damn it, Barbie, you made me agree with Julia.

Accusing Domey girl of murder is interrupted by a huge plume of smoke, Rebecca is burning a field. The owner of that field isn’t pleased but she says they have to to save them all.

Joe grieves, Norrie tries to help, but like Norrie when her mother died, he’s too angry for comfort. He wants vengeance. Norrie has also randomly decided that Domey Girl is suspicious for REASONS. She also knows about the shoeprint because no-one’s even trying to keep evidence secret.

Julia talks to Domey Girl who admits she was there and she ran from a man who killed Angie – but not knowing why she went to the school is not very convincing. She decides to go see Sam and see if he has any insight and so he can exposition more of his angst over his suicidal sister (James’s mother who didn’t really commit suicide) and shows Julia one of his sister’s pictures – of Domey Girl, 20 years ago. They decide to go check on Angie’s body and find James holding a vigil because he doesn’t want her to be alone –uh, this is the man who stalked and imprisoned Angie. My skin crawls. Sam gets to connect to his nephew and downplay James’s hallucinations of his mother and more of James’s proclamations of how much he loved Angie and would never hurt her. He adds that his dad would (but not why)

Joe and Norrie take Domey Girl’s shoe to Phil who declares it a match and has her arrested, to Julia’s loud protests. Joe and Norrie tell James who quickly leaps off the deep end and tries to get Joe to agree to murdering Domey Girl.

Barbie and Jim join Rebecca in her happy burning, she points out the extent of the infestation and how much land they have to burn to save themselves. Jim declares this a test by the Holy Dome for him to prove himself

Yes, Jim now has a messiah complex. Oh gods why couldn’t he have just died?! Barbie finds this super creepy, Rebecca isn’t a fan but since people listen to Jim it’s definitely in the “needs must” category. Also in that category is finding a plan to destroy the caterpillar eggs without burning half their food.

Which involves a plane full of pesticide. But who to fly it – well Barbie apparently has military training in flying a plane (which is apparently something you get from the Army?) but Jim demands to do it because he is MessiahJim! Rather than let Jim take the plane up despite Barbie’s greater experience, Barbie gets in first. In a moment of astounding hypocrisy, Jim actually accuses Barbie of acting out for the town to see. Of course this isn’t helped by Barbie playing Big Damn Hero (and big damn fool, risking destroying their only plane (only saved because Big Jim knows about a hidden fuel tank on the plane from his old drug smuggling days). Barbie goes full on “Jim Saved my life” oh gods no.

Julia and Sam examine Angie’s body (Sam because he’s a paramedic even though Julia does all the talking) and finds evidence of a large man having killed Angie. Joe, Norrie and James get to the gaol first and Joe points a gun at Domey Girl when James can’t bring himself to kill her. Julia arrives with the Truth and All is Good and we don’t have to wonder about armed people wandering into the prison to kill people

Barbie and Julia debate on many issues, Jim’s messiah complex, Rebecca SCIENCING everything and Julia’s odd belief that the Dome cares about them. And Julia decides she’s losing Barbie and his trust (which bemuses him – he asks whether he has to agree with her and her freaky Dome religion for him to be on her side. Fair question Barbie, but really it’s the writers clumsily prying in that love triangle by hook or by crook).

At the funeral and Rebecca declares herself a dedicated member of the damn Jim fanclub for no bloody reason except THIS SHOW.  Also she decides Jim should totally go to the funeral even though Angie’s only living relative, Joe, doesn’t want him there. Classy Rebecca. Really freaking classy.

Joe and Barbie have a moment about loss – and Jim even gets up and speaks in the funeral. Because the actual family wishes are just so wrong and he goes on to make a big speech for his own grandiose advantage

After which Rebecca brings some grim news – there are simply too many people in the town for the area under the Dome. Some people will die. (Which would sound more menacing if the Dome had been up longer than TWO WEEKS)

James finds Angie’s missing blood stained bracelet under his bed – so goes to see Sam to say he thinks he killed her. Good enough for me, get the scaffold!

Wait wait wait, the preamble opened with “2 weeks ago, a Dome crashed…”

2 weeks? You’re telling me the entire first season happened in 2 weeks? 2 weeks? That’s like an episode a day?! How did everyone lose their ever loving minds and come up with all these shortages in TWO WEEKS? They must have run out of insulin in like 4 days!

Also, doesn’t that mean that Julia’s husband is only 2 weeks dead with her merrily rolling around with Barbie (her husband’s killer?) Far be it from me to think someone should be in mourning for years before moving on, but can’t you let the body get cold first?

In fact, 2 weeks makes everyone’s reactions off. Norrie seems to have recovered from the death of her mother very quickly, for example.

It’s actually kind of sad that all the people saying “oooh pretty butterflies” all the time haven’t realised that butterflies come with caterpillars. Is this Rebecca’s role? Being the one brain in town?

Lots of people are really upset by Angie’s death – which is good, her death is not ignored. Like Linda’s. Hey, remember Linda? She died. Pretty much no-one noticed.

I am nauseated by all the scenes of how very sad Junior is for Angie and even his rage at his dad – since he’s launching stones from a very big glass house here which Under the Dome is continually ignoring

And Jim the Messiah? Enough of this bullshit

Carolyn, oh Carolyn, where are you Carolyn? Oh the plot hole has eaten you again.

Also things I don’t care about – Domey Girl, random Domey Event of the Week, Julia and Barbie… actually pretty much everything on this show.