CATCHING UP: Under the Dome – Season Two, Episode Seven

First aired August 11th, 2014.

“Barbie” (played by Mike Vogel) decides to retrieve the body of Sam (played by Eddie Cahill) after he fell from the cliff because his scratch marks prove he murdered Angie (played by Britt Robertson). On his way down, he’s forced to cut his rope to keep Julia (played by Rachelle Lefevere) from falling with him…and he ends up in a playground somewhere outside the dome!

After wandering around Barbie realizes he’s back in his hometown, Zenith, and heads over to his apartment. Two minutes after he walks in, he’s jumped by a gang of thugs who he was supposed to help with a job before getting stuck under the dome. They kick his ass and force him to do the job, but Barbie double crosses his escort by instead going to the house of his father, Don (played by Brett Cullen). There is clearly animosity between them, but Barbie begs his father to help him get back to the dome. Although it’s under heavy military guard, his father agrees to get him there.

There is now a way out of the dome, which can mean one of two things: either there is something or someone the dome wants from Zenith or the show is on the verge of cancellation and the writers wanted to tie everything up before that happened. I’m going to go with the first one because Zenith has been brought up by the egg so it has to have some meaning.

Watching Barbie’s uncomfortable reunion with his father gave some great insight into how he became the person he is. I can’t wait to see how that plays out while they plan to sneak past the National Guard to get anywhere near the dome.

Sam, of course, survived the fall as well and found himself in Zenith along with Barbie. He decides to look up his sister, Pauline (played by Sherry Stringfield). She’s teaching art therapy at a psychiatric hospital where there’s another familiar resident from Chester’s Mill. Lyle (played by Dwight Yoakam), the crazy barber, also fell off the cliff, but he somehow ended up losing his mind and is only capable of repeating a single name: “Melanie.” Pauline is upset that leaving Chester’s Mill didn’t prevent the dome from trapping the town but is happy for the chance to reconnect with Sam. He conveniently leaves out the part where he nearly murdered her son, Junior (played by Alexander Koch).

Since everyone who’s left the dome has ended up in Zenith, it reinforces the idea that the town is, for some reason, important to the dome. Since Pauline is the expert on all things dome, she may be the reason everyone who escaped has ended up in Zenith. The bigger question is what happened to Lyle that made him go crazy (well, crazier) after going through the cliff/portal. That twitch in Sam’s arm looked like an indicator that eventually he and Barbie might start to go a little crazy too.

Meanwhile, back under the dome, Julia is a wreck, thinking that Barbie is dead. However, she wants to keep the information a secret, especially from “Big Jim” (played by Dean Norris). Big Jim scares Rebecca (played by Karla Crome) into spilling the beans and ends up hosting a large memorial service in Barbie’s honor (but knowing Big Jim, he has ulterior motives). Joe (played by Colin Ford) flies a model plane with a camera into the cliff and, before he loses picture, notices a brief image of the playground. When they bring the egg down, the pink stars form a layout of Zenith and everyone realizes that’s where the cliff must lead and that Barbie could still be alive.

There’s been clues about the importance of Zenith thrown around every few minutes this episode (maybe just to be sure nobody misses them). Watching Big Jim during the memorial service you would almost believe he was genuinely sad to hear about Barbie’s “death” (but that’s bull). He’s obviously trying to rebuild his image of being a nice guy so he can regain some semblance of power again. Now that Julia and the gang know there’s a way out of the dome they’ll no doubt want to make sure it’s real and safe. Maybe they can play rock paper scissors to see who gets to take a swan dive into the abyss.

Quotes & Thoughts

“You know, I blame myself in part for this. I trusted you. I never should have… You made a huge mistake crossing me.”

Pauline thought the dome would follow her, so she went to an even larger city. That’s millions of people who could have been trapped. I don’t see the logic there.

“I’m sorry I ever doubted you.” “Any sane person would. I guess it’s no shock Lyle believed me.”

That door in the ground with the handprint looked pretty important. Looks like the show is taking a page from the Lost playbook. Maybe Desmond’s in there!

If you enjoyed Manny’s review, you can find the rest of his work right HERE on Sci-Fi Bloggers. You can also follow him on Twitter @KN_Manny.

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