Under the Dome - S1E5 - Blue on Blue
Hi fellow Chester’s Millians! Millites? Millers? Oh, hell, I don’t know. Anyway, this week’s episode was just plain lovely, so let’s get to brass tacks, shall we?
MONARCHS
Joe and Norrie have a chat about what the seizures mean (are they walking human “receivers” for whatever it is the dome is transmitting?) when Joe shows Norrie the butterfly phenomenon. Hundreds of Monarch butterflies are clustered on the wall of the dome. It’s a fascinating but somewhat disturbing sight, and they throw around a couple of theories while they stare.
Barbie’s been sleeping in his car and wakes up to the discussion between Joe and Norrie. He makes his way over to the butterfly spectacle, and when he disturbs the wall of butterflies by putting his hand up to it, he notices that the military presence on the other side of the wall has returned. People—relatives and friends of those stuck under the dome—are getting off buses. It seems that there’s going to be a Visitor’s Day.
BIG JIM, ANGIE, AND JUNIOR
Big Jim finds a blue-lipped Angie still stuck in the fallout shelter. She asks him to let her go (like you do), but maybe he’s thinking that he just deputized Crazy and springing Crazy’s girlfriend from her little prison so she can blab to the whole town about how crazy Crazy is wouldn’t be the best idea. He staggers out of the shelter to, oh, I don’t know, give her time to reflect on what she’s done.
The next time Big Jim sees his kid, Junior is in full deputy regalia and driving a police cruiser. He tells his dad about the Visitor’s Day plan, and, despite knowing his son is cray, Big Jim gives him the authority to recruit auxiliary officers for the sake of crowd control.
MOAB
After Big Jim left Angie in the fallout shelter, he bumps into the Reverend, who’s going on and on about how God Almighty is whispering the word “MOAB” to him. (Frankly I’m a little confused by the Reverend’s insistence on fire and brimstone; Moab wasn’t that big a deal in the Bible. But whatever, I digress.) The Reverend states that “MOAB” is a warning that Chester’s Mill has become sinful and God is gonna get ‘em. It becomes clear that it’s his hearing aid picking up transmissions from the military.
The Reverend goes to the wall for Visitor’s Day in order to preach his Moab nonsense to anyone who will hear. When Big Jim confronts him over it, the Reverend says it’s time for Big Jim to confess his sins and repent. It’s like he’s new or something.
VISITOR’S DAY
Julia confirms Barbie’s hypothesis of a Visitor’s Day and broadcasts the news from the radio station. The citizens of Chester’s Mill (Chester’s Millese?) are gathering at the wall of the dome. Linda recruits Barbie to help with crowd control and impresses on him that nobody should touch the dome, then proceeds to try to make out with her fiancé through the barrier. Joe is looking for his sister, Angie, through the dome’s wall. Norrie encounters a man named Michael who claims to be her dad, then proceeds to back up his claim with baby photos of her and a pic of him and her mom, Angie. She thought she was the product of a sperm donation, so to say this is a surprise might be a bit of an understatement. Her moms show up and she confronts them with the lie, then storms off with a preponderance of teenage angst and drama.
Linda confesses to Julia – who’s still waiting for Peter – that she couldn’t bring herself to tell her fiancé that his brother got shot and died during episode 2. Julia spots her sister-in-law, Mary, on the other side of the wall, and Mary holds up a letter from Peter saying “sorry” and “Julia deserves better.” So did Barbie forge the letter, or did Peter know he was going to die?
When Barbie tries to enforce Linda’s no-touch policy, Junior tells him to back off. Linda finally tells her fiancé about his brother, and he reacts by leaving without another word.
The military starts pulling people away from the wall. Barbie has a chat with a soldier on the other side who explains that they’re planning on firing the MOAB (Mother Of All Bombs), the largest non-nuclear device in the arsenal, at the dome. The military is not expecting there to be any survivors; Visitor’s Day was actually a chance to say goodbye.
SHELTER
Barbie tells Julia, Linda, and Big Jim about MOAB, and they manage to parse the military’s double-speak to figure out the bomb will be launched at 1:15 PM. Julia suggests they take advantage of the underground tunnels. She gets on the radio to share this plan with the town.
Big Jim releases Angie from the fallout shelter, then tells Junior he did it; Julia grabs something alcohol-based from her house (priorities, people); and DJ Phil puts together an end-of-times playlist. People start trickling into the tunnels. Julia finds out from Barbie that he’s seen as something of a military hero for rescuing a soldier during a friendly-fire incident in Afghanistan. He then confesses to her that he thinks the bomb is going to punch right through the tunnels and kill everyone anyway.
Angie ends up at home, searching for her family, only to find that Junior is already there, waiting for her. After a little bit of crazy-eyes, he turns on the radio so she can hear Julia’s announcement of the bomb on a loop. A glance at the clock reveals they don’t have the time to make it to the tunnels, so Angie decides to give Junior one last cuddle before the end of the world.
Julia and Barbie are having a nice little chat, and right when Barbie is going to confess that, “Hey, I killed your husband,” Norrie’s moms show up frantic because they can’t find their kid, who was last seen wandering the woods with Joe. Julia and Barbie decide to take the back way out of the tunnels to conduct a little search. Meanwhile, Joe and Norrie are frantically searching for Angie. Joe tells Norrie to go to the tunnels, but because that makes sense she slaps the advice away. They end up at his house, on the front porch, and they lean in for a little kiss when the bomb detonates against the dome.
The bomb was no joke; it’s massively scorched and apocalyptic outside the dome. Inside, however, there’s no damage at all.
The Reverend approaches Big Jim where he’s standing at the wall of the dome, gazing out at the scarred landscape. He takes credit for saving the town. Big Jim is like, “Whatever, dude,” and presses the Reverend’s hearing aid against the dome, which is notoriously bad for electronics. The Reverend leaves an ugly blood streak on the dome before he collapses.
