In the caves James is all fretting watching the gooey
pods put Christine back together again.
Perhaps in response to this, the pod people start jumping
out of high windows, much to Barbie and Eva’s consternation. This is apparently
what pod people do without “someone to guide us”
Ok if Barbie doesn’t clue in by now there’s no hope for
him, hanging around with Julia has killed his last brain cell. But he seems
more interested in the shooting stars than he pod people
Meanwhile Julia and Big Jim continue to be the people in
the world I most want to see savaged by angry baby tapirs (a fate both gruesome
and overwhelmingly cute). They continue to be annoying –before they finally see
the pink stars falling and crashing like a unicorn bombardment.
Being bombarded by pink explosions apparently makes pod
people very mellow and Eva and Barbie conclude the pod people need Christine. I
wish to point out again that Barbie is not asking questions about the whole
pod-people thing or that, maybe, Julia had a point (though, to be fair, the
words “Julia may have a point” would be impossible for anyone who has actually
met the woman to say). They worry that the pink meteors may break through the
Dome (the fact they’re bombarding Julia and Jim suggests yes).
To find out they decide to go to a tower, Under the Dome actually has a nice
moment when Barbie is surprised at Eva going into danger and she shuts him down
– if it’s safe enough for him then it’s safe enough for her. From the tower Eva
concludes the Dome hasn’t been breached – but that the shattered meteorites are
being thrown into the atmosphere in such quantities as to black out the sun and
cause “an extinction level event” if the meteors are falling everywhere. She’s
convinced this is the end of the world – the entire world destroyed except for
those safe beneath the Dome.
Aren’t they making a pretty big assumption here? The
Meteors may not be falling all over
Anyway, having assumed this, Barbie realises the Dome is
the only place of safety so they have to go to Bird Island and talk the to
Acteon people since they can communicate with the outside and tell people to
use the Red Door to safety.
I think Eva disapproves of this plan because they key to get them out of the tower has mysteriously disappeared. She doesn’t want the people who are the strongest, most selfish and most vicious to make it through the Red Door (since a scrabble for the door and safety would cause this). Hilariously, she lists Julia as one of those people. And, no, Barbie still hasn’t question whether Julia may be right (blasphemy though that is) in the face of suicidal pod people.
Also they couldn’t feed the mass of people who would run
through. Eva decides that he should put aside all his worries for a sexy back
rub and losing your brain to pod-peopleness. Join the Kiiiinship, they have
naked women, apparently. Barbie goes to kiss her and notices the key she hid.
Yup, someone saying “join us, join our mind control cult which makes people
throw themselves out of windows” did not make Barbie wary – but malicious
hiding of keys? Oh hell no, he’s not standing for that!
Over to Norrie and Joe who have also decided the
apocalypse is nigh. Guys, seriously – don’t any of you think you may be overreacting?
There is no indication that the scale of this thing would be world-ending! They’re
a panicky lot, the people of Chester’s Mill. They also have Hunter there
outraged that they didn’t let him die for the greater good of the pod-people
Kinship.
Unlike Barbie, they actually think this is podpeople behaviour and not completely irrelevant and not worth mentioning. But, faced with the hopelessness of the entire world ending, Norrie even thinks that joining the Kinship may be the only way to survive (except for its pesky habit of suicide).
They’re joined by Sam, the man who killed Joe’s sister.
While Joe is outraged (thankfully) about Sam being a murderer and Norrie
(excellently) acknowledges and respects that she also points out they kind of need
to work together since they’re the only non-Kinship people in town (and
possibly soon the whole world).
But luckily being locked in a freezer apparently cures
kinshipness! (Hence why the Dome is not in Canada) because Hunter has been returned
to his senses. That seemed… awfully easy.
Someone bangs on the door and Sam stays outside while
they hide. When they come out, with the sun rise, Sam is gone – Norrie declares
he saved them from knocking people. I understand, I hate it when missionaries
knock on my door too. And Hunter re-kinships so Norrie punches him out. Between
an excellent bonding scene and determination not to become Kinship drones,
these two (using their very rare working brains – so unusual on this show)
realise that Hunter managers to be non-pod-person when he’s in pain; the pain
killers send him back to la-la kinship land. Alas, freezers are not the cure
for pod-peopleness. Broken bones are.
Shouldn’t someone “cure” James?
Actually Hunter claims the cure is fear – since watching
his mother die, he’s terrified of dying young but the pain pills suppress
emotion. Norrie follows that through – she managed to de-pod-person herself
because was so extremely pissed off at Christine trying to make Joe play nice
with Sam. Big emotions knock you out of Pod-people bliss: which is why
Christine wanted Joe to move on after the death of Angie, grief is keeping him
non-Kinshippy.
Alas they then abandon common sense and decide they have to find Julia.
She is trying to contact the outside world while Jim has
also decided it’s apocalypse time and is drinking heavily
Guys at most all you know is a large part of Maine is on
fire. That’s sad, but the loss of Maine is not the end of the world.
Having absorbed that, Julia decides to despair and Jim
decides to pick up some guns and fight – even if it is pointless and they die
doing it. But Julia finally claims to be right – the Dome IS there to protect.
Just not humanity. They then get maudlin and discuss life and regrets and
generally make me despair.
The next day they see a huge wall of flame.
Back in town Sam returns to Joe and Norrie – and Junior
hunts him, guided by the freaky Kinship. Sam does his protective thing again, telling
them to hide, so he can talk to James. Alas, he puts his knife away. But James
is there to ask Sam’s help – not realising he stabbed her he wants Sam to use
his medical skills to help Christine live.
He, James and several kinship all walk to the tunnels
while watching the dust cloud cover the Sun – and James refers to the “great
destruction” on their “home world” (if Sam were Barbie right now, that
statement would be completely ignored). Sam, however tries to pump him for more
information and Junior names the unique special people who get to keep half a
brain in the kinship – him, Sam, Eva, Barbie. The rest are drones. And
Christine is queen.
In the cave Junior attacks. I’m not sure why this is a
better place than when he is surrounded by obedient drones. He pins Sam over
the pod with Christine in it for him to “face judgement” when she emerges.
Barbie runs for the island and, on the edge of the Dome,
sees refugees pounding on the Dome, desperate to get in. Oh people, dying
horribly out there is way better than being trapped in a small space with Jim
and Julia. Embrace sweet oblivion.
Barbie despairs but Eva turns up to tell him to let go of humanity it’s all in the past. And yes, he still seems quite happy to not question the alien hive mind. Barbie holds out his hand for Eva and joins the evil podpeople, he throws away Julia’s necklace. The refugees are consumed by fire.
Julia sums up the true horror of the situation. She and
Jim are the last living humans on Earth (the only non-podded people). My gods,
Eva’s right – it IS time to leave humanity behind! Thankfully Norrie, Joe and
Hunter arrive to show that there are some terrible crumbs of hope left to
humanity. Norrie tells them her cure.
They start their resistance and get a call from outside.
Ok… that got very dark very fast. I still think they all
rather hilariously leaped on “it’s the end of the world!” when, realistically,
they couldn’t even be sure it was the end of Maine. But absolutely everyone is
convinced of utter extinction. I’m not surprised though, these are people who
epicly lost their shit in 3 weeks of being under the Dome – they’re good at
dramatics!
Barbie… they really need to increase the woo-woo on him
or something because last episode he was appalled at Julia’s accusations and he
had them all confirmed so very quickly this episode but didn’t even have one millisecond
of doubt
Joe and Norrie remain the only reason why I don’t think Under the Dome humanity shouldn’t be
just wiped out entirely – embrace the Kinship, humanity is not worth saving!
I find it a terrible dark, depressing, horrendous future
that all of humanity will be destroyed – except Jim and Julia. One of the
precious bright sides of an apocalypse in this world would be the deaths of Jim
and Julia.
