CATCHING UP: Under the Dome (Season One, Episode Nine – “The Fourth Hand”)

Hello, and welcome to our new series, Catching Up! Over the course of the next few weeks, we’re going to take a look at a few shows that will be beginning their new seasons soon. By the end, we should be all caught up and ready for current episodes. It’ll be a fun ride, one you won’t soon forget! Enjoy!

—The Editor

First aired August 19th, 2013.

The show is really trying hard to sell the idea that Angie is the “Monarch” mentioned in the last episode. Five minutes in, after yet another unwanted visit from Junior, she has a seizure and says the all-too-familiar phrase “pink stars are falling in lines.”

Once Joe and Norrie realize Angie had the same seizures, they tell her about the mini dome which has since vanished. After spending all day searching, it turns up in Joe and Angie’s barn after Joe brought it there during dome induced sleepwalking. Apparently once people who hadn’t had seizures learned about it, the dome made him move it. They all touch their hands to the dome and a fourth handprint appears; they need one more to unlock the mini dome.

The mystery of the mini dome is producing far more questions than answers, but luckily the problem of the fourth hand is solved right away. Junior’s deceased painted him under a night sky with pink stars falling around him, which basically means he’s the missing person. With all this build-up over the stars, I’m really hoping it’s leading to a satisfying conclusion.

Meanwhile “Big Jim” has requested all residents of Chester’s Mill surrender their firearms after someone gets accidentally shot. Most people do, save one man who engages in a stand-off with Big Jim and “Barbie”. The man’s family was killed the day that the dome came down and he refuses to lose anything else, including his vast gun collection. He tries to blow himself up with a grenade but he’s subdued and taken to the local clinic for medication.

I wasn’t that invested in the stand-off, especially since it centered on a guest character that won’t likely be seen again. If the show had used a recurring character that viewers were at least somewhat attached to, it’d be easier to care what happened to them. His suspicions seem valid since Big Jim was sorting through the arsenal with an evil look on his face.

The best plot of the night was the introduction of new recurring character Maxine (played by Natalie Zea), a shady business partner of Big Jim and Barbie. She is the creator of the drug that Big Jim was making who happened to be in town when the dome came down. Maxine spent the first few days under the dome observing the various occurrences of earlier episodes. She wastes no time taking control of things (the gun collection was her idea). Now that she’s disarmed the town, she plans to open a black market to increase her hold over everyone, with Big Jim and Barbie at her beck and call since she knows all of their secrets (like Barbie killing Julia’s husband).

Maxine has already become one of the more interesting characters on the show after just one episode. In fact, she’s poised to be a greater villain than Big Jim, since she’s already gaining power while he’s been struggling to do so. Seeing how great the character has been so far makes me wish she had been introduced much earlier. Hopefully, Maxine will be around for a long time and bring interesting storylines to somewhat boring episodes like this.

Quotes/Thoughts

If the town is really separate from America, they’re gonna need a cool new name.

“Who the hell said that I’m gonna help you?” “Who says you have a choice?”

Angie went from a waitress to manager of the diner. That’s a big step up the corporate ladder.

“Anything bad happens to me, your secrets still come out.”

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