Under the Dome - S1E6 - The Endless Thirst
Previously, on Under the Dome: “Blue on Blue”
Okay, everybody, it seems to be getting claustrophobic under this dome thing. Let’s check in with the natives to see how they’re handling the stress (clue: NOT WELL AT ALL).
RIOT
The citizens of Chester’s Mill are gathered around the dome, stroking it and fondling it and in general in awe over the fact that the Mother of all Bombs didn’t seem to affect it in any way. Linda tells Big Jim they found the Reverend with his blown-out hearing aid. He pretends to be surprised. Norrie manages to swallow her angst for five minutes and has a touching reunion with her moms, who offer to give Joe a ride back to his own house to get away from the crowd. Because the crowd is starting to ask uncomfortable questions about supplies and food, and it’s getting a little riot-y. Because of this, Linda deputizes Barbie, who refuses to wear a badge because remember, he’s the maverick here.
Sure enough, the mob heads over to the market. The owner makes the wise-ass decision to only accept propane and batteries as payment. The mob is understandably not cool with this, but Linda and Barbie show up in enough time to put a weak lid on the situation. Then the market owner says that each customer will only get two liters of water. Soon there’s a rash of shoplifting, because between having no batteries, no propane, and water rationing, people just can’t. Somebody throws a trash can through the market’s window and chaos breaks out. Linda catches Barbie nearly murdering somebody and talks him down.
Linda gets the wise idea to try gassing the crowd. It doesn’t work.
ROSE
Angie’s tender moment with Junior is over as soon as she realizes that Chester’s Mill is safe from the bomb. She beans him over the head with a snowglobe and takes off. After running around the riot scene and catching sight of Junior in a damned deputy uniform, she takes refuge in the diner. She explains what’s happened to Rose, who believes her and gives her about two minutes of shelter before the riot gives them a pair of brothers who want to raid the diner for its meat supply. Rose tries to defend herself and Angie with a baseball bat, but they turn that on her and beat her to death with it. Barbie manages to get to the diner before Angie gets raped by the brothers and he carries her out of the diner with the clear intention to get her to the clinic. Unfortunately he hands her over to Big Jim, who isn’t interested in doing anything so banal as helping.
WATER
Norrie’s mom Alice is acting a bit loopy, and eventually she wanders into traffic muttering about catching a flight to LA. A trucker barely avoids hitting her, instead veering off the road and hitting the water tower. It empties. Linda gets there in time to tell Barbie that the water tower feeds from the nearby lake, which fortunately is inside the dome. They head over to find that the lake is polluted by methane. They demonstrate this to Big Jim, and he shows them that there’s one remaining Artesian well under Ollie’s farm.
He tells Ollie it would be awfully decent of him to share his water with the town. Ollie says, um, no. Not unless I get some propane. Jim makes a very large delivery, and Ollie says keep it coming. This might have some bearing on Big Jim’s relief when a huge rainstorm stops the rioting. Rain is a filter; it takes the methane out of the lake water and purifies it, making it all fit to drink.
INSULIN
Turns out Alice went loopy because she’s run out of the insulin she needs to manage her diabetes. They rush her to the clinic to find out the town is flat out of insulin, so Norrie, now that she’s firmly on her mom’s side again, decides to go door to door and steal insulin from people. Naturally people don’t like that, and one guy pulls a gun on her and Joe. She gives up the plan when she finds herself on the verge of stealing insulin from a little boy.
DEALS
Julia, who’s been tracking the dome’s signal with Dodee’s help, finds that the signal is basically being transmitted by Joe and Norrie. Dodee wants to tell, oh, simply everbody, but Julia makes a deal with her that it’s a bad idea because the town would start a new riot trying to get those kids. Meanwhile, Angie wakes up on Big Jim’s couch and he offers her a deal of his own: keep quiet, and you get all the food, water, and propane you want. She says she wants her brother included in the deal, and naturally he says, “Sure thing, doll, whatever you want.” Junior shows up and does not look happy.
