Under the Dome Review: Season One, Episode Five – “Blue on Blue”
First aired July 22nd, 2013.
The army has organized a Visitor’s Day for the residents of Chester’s Mill, bringing in friends and loved ones. Everyone communicates using pads and message boards or in Linda’s case “kissing” her fiancé through the dome (not ten seconds after saying nobody should get anywhere near it).
The cheerful mood quickly turns sour after Barbie and local radio engineer Dodee Weaver (played by Jolene Purdy) stumble on the real reason for Visitor’s Day: saying goodbye. The army plans to launch a powerful missile to destroy the dome after a lots of butterflies start gathering on it (something about the dome messing with magnetic fields). The whole town goes into survival mode and takes shelter in underground tunnels.
Since this is only episode five it’s obvious there’s no way the dome is coming down. However, seeing how everyone reacted to the possibility of impending death is fun to watch. Most notably, Angie’s locked-in-a-bunker plot finally gains some forward momentum.
Predictably, Big Jim keeps her locked down there to protect his son Junior. But, once he finds out that a missile might kill them all, he lets her go so she can at least “die a free woman.” Angie runs straight home and runs right into Junior who holds her in her room at gunpoint to wait for the impact. At the very least, Angie has at last made it out of the bunker. hopefully she’ll keep it that way.
The storyline of Reverend Coggins comes to an abrupt end. While preaching to his congregation, he gives Big Jim an ultimatum to either reveal his drug business himself or have him do it. The Reverend is basically signing his death warrant here and, soon enough, Big Jim kills him. This is a disappointing end to the Reverend, since he was just becoming an interesting character and the idea of him leading a religious cult from under the dome could have worked.
Everyone else is busy dealing with personal issues, like Norrie finding out her mothers lied about her father being an anonymous donor when he shows up to reunite with her for the cameras. She runs off with Joe and they share a kiss without any seizures just as the missile strikes. Somewhat more interesting was Barbie’s story of his army unit accidentally killing a team of their own during a mission, which makes him wonder if being trapped is a kind of retribution.
Overall, definitely an exciting episode, and the aftermath of the bomb does leave one thing certain: they are definitely on their own now, the charred remains of the land outside the dome alongside the untouched town being a good visual representation of that. Hopefully, that will add a fresh layer of conflict as the season continues.
Quotes/Thoughts
I think Big Jim wanted Angie to die since he didn’t tell her to go to the tunnels for safety. Really hope she doesn’t go right back to the bunker next episode.
“This guy said Beijing thought we were testing some kind of illegal super weapon, so the President had to talk them off the ledge, tell them we didn’t even build it.” “Great, sounds like the grown-ups have it all under control.”
Wonder if any of the butterflies survived the bomb.
“You have never been anything to this girl! The second that cameras show up, you decide you suddenly have a daughter!”
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