Under the Dome Review: Season One, Episode Eight – “Thicker Than Water”

First aired August 12th, 2013.

The clash between “Big Jim” and Ollie takes center stage in this latest episode of Under the Dome. Thankfully, there are no major subplots to take away time from this long awaited fight.

Ollie has formed a militia to cut off his well from everyone, depriving people of water to grow food with and drink. Big Jim decides to form his own army of locals to take out Ollie and save the well for town, although it’s really just another power play for him. “Barbie” comes up with the idea of blowing up the well to reroute the water to other wells, taking Ollie’s power over the water away without any bloodshed. Big Jim refuses to back down and leads his army to battle while Barbie secretly goes ahead to destroy it anyway.

What’s interesting about this is that it’s a battle of evil versus evil. If Ollie wins he’ll continue to deprive the town of water, which he sees as a way of becoming the new authority figure of Chester’s Mill. If Big Jim wins it will only strengthen his position as a figure of power, which is all he really cares about. If these two managed to work together they’d be an unstoppable force, but as is usually the case they can’t see past their individual lusts for power.

Adding to the mix is Junior, who feels betrayed after being evicted from his home by Big Jim, and later having his gun taken away by Linda after his reckless actions last episode. He decides to join Ollie and turn his back on the both of them, which is nothing unexpected from the volatile Junior. What is unexpected is Ollie’s revelation that the car crash that killed Junior’s mother years ago was really a suicide covered up by his father.

The two groups fight resulting in heavy losses for both sides until Barbie manages to blow up the well and everyone runs off. Big Jim gets captured and an angry Junior demands the truth about his mother’s death. There’s an intense scene between them as Big Jim tearfully admits he lied so Junior wouldn’t know his mother chose to leave him. Ollie gets fed up with the heartfelt father/son talk and goes to execute Big Jim, but Junior puts him down.

That scene was very intense and the first time we see a vulnerable side to Big Jim. Watching him sob on the floor over his wife’s death made him a sympathetic character for the first time.

Although Ollie is dead, the show wastes no time setting up future conflict between Barbie and Big Jim. He sees through Big Jim’s power lust and that’s obviously not the kind of person Big Jim can afford to have around.

There’s a small subplot involving Joe showing Julia the mini dome. When Julia touches it she sees an image of Joe telling her that “the monarch will be crowned.” Apparently it was decided the show needed another riddle even though the pink stars have yet to fall into their lines. Now instead we have to wait for someone to fill the role of monarch, which as of now doesn’t seem worth waiting for.

Quotes/Thoughts

“You don’t wanna make an enemy of me, Barbie.” “There’s two sides to that coin, Jim.”

I can’t believe Linda bought Junior’s story that joining Ollie was just a ruse.

“I’ve seen some things today that have been testing the limits of my comprehension.”

Angie has a monarch butterfly tattoo; early reveal or red herring?

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