Under the Dome: Season Two, Episode Twelve – “Turn”

First aired September 15th, 2014.

The dome walls are slowly closing in, moving a few inches and then stopping for a bit before shrinking some more. While people move toward the center of town, “Barbie” (played by Mike Vogel) believes the egg needs to be back in Chester’s Mill to save everyone.

Barbie thinks that, if he can prove to his father, Don (played by Brett Cullen), that his daughter, Melanie (played by Grace Cox), is alive in the dome and dying without the egg, he’ll return it. First, Barbie beats up Hunter (played by Max Elrich) a bit when he finds out he was working as a spy (unwillingly) for Don. They go to the dome wall and demand Don come in person and, using a video Joe (played by Colin Ford) and Norrie (played by Mackenzie Lintz) shot of Melanie, prove that she’s alive in Chester’s Mill. Don immediately promises to bring the egg and Hunter writes that the way in is the red door in his backyard. Melanie’s health improves greatly once he agrees to bring the egg back and the dome even stops contracting. When Don gets to the playground in Zenith, the egg allows him to pick it up (probably sensing he wasn’t a threat), but his guards turn on him because apparently they secretly worked for someone else. Once it’s clear the egg won’t be returned anytime soon, Melanie immediately becomes sick again.

Not too long ago, Don Barbara was willing to throw his son under the bus to get that egg, but now all of a sudden he’s the concerned father? Either he’s seen the light and decided to be a better parent or Melanie was secretly his favorite and, now that she’s back, he doesn’t want to risk losing her again. None of that matters though because there is now a higher power who is taking control of this egg. There’s just no telling how high this conspiracy goes (the president maybe?).

I loved how the whole time Don and Barbie were talking, their two translators would just write short blunt versions of what they said. Also, I noticed Don had to ask for the entrance to the dome when I saw Hunter told him in an email. That’s either a continuity error or maybe Don just hadn’t checked his email yet. I’m also going to throw a theory regarding the egg out there: it’s the power behind her resurrection and, if she doesn’t do a good job of keeping it safe, it will put her right back in the ground.

Meanwhile, Barbie isn’t the only person working on a plan to save Melanie. Several people broke into pairs to find a way to save her. Pauline (played by Sherry Stringfield) has lost her visions since the egg left but her estranged husband, “Big Jim” (played by Dean Norris), thinks that, if she channels her feelings, she’ll get them back. The two of them reconnect emotionally and it allows Pauline to start painting again, although some red paint drips off the corner hinting at something ominous on the horizon.

Junior (played by Alexander Koch) goes through Pauline’s journal, hoping for a picture of Melanie surviving, along with crazy barber Lyle (played by Dwight Yoakam). There’s no useful information in the journal, although Lyle interprets a picture of a man and woman as him and Pauline entering heaven together when they all inevitably die inside the dome.

Rebecca (played by Karla Crome) chooses to believe in science over believing in the dome (or that Melanie came back from the dead) and works with Sam (played by Eddie Cahill) to save Melanie. Using lima beans, they determine that Rebecca is a matching blood type and give Melanie a transfusion to help save her (which doesn’t do much really). Julia (played by Rachelle Lefevere) even gets in on it, going to the dome asking it to spare Melanie and everyone inside the dome. It responds by contracting again.

So many teams trying to help save Melanie and almost no progress was made. Pauline and Big Jim’s scenes were pretty much a rehash of the last episode; he tries to get back into her good graces. However, I did like that it was more about his supporting Pauline as a way to make up for not believing her about the visions before. It was a genuine good side to Big Jim.

Lyle continued to bring the crazy with his supposed vision of hell and believing he and Pauline are meant to be together in heaven. Honestly, I don’t know why Junior let that man within twenty feet of him after everything he pulled and Big Jim was right to threaten Lyle against going near his family.

Rebecca has always clashed with Julia over their science vs. belief views of surviving inside the dome and it comes back in full force. Rebecca has to see something to believe it and I couldn’t believe it when I looked up the lima bean experiment and learned it was a real thing. Julia may want to rethink how much faith she has, however. The way the dome started closing in after she asked for help seemed like a giant “hell no” to her request.

Pauline ends up being the person to figure out how to save Melanie when her painting shows that the hands of the dome can heal her. They need the original four and the new four. They take her to the pit where she originally died and it looks like Julia’s faith aspect is going to win until they realize they are short a few hands for the procedure. Suddenly, Rebecca chimes in with the idea that, because Melanie was an original hand, her being alive again means she can be counted as two hands. They try that theory and it works instantly, but after about five seconds of celebrating Melanie’s recovery, she’s sucked into a mini tornado and dragged into a new bottomless pit. Pauline is devastated and feels that she once again played a part in causing Melanie to die. Big Jim comforts her and they share a kiss. In an instant, Lyle comes up from behind and stabs Pauline in the back so they can make their ascension to heaven together sooner rather than later. Big Jim becomes enraged and stabs Lyle in the heart, but he only smiles and thanks him for sending him to meet Pauline on the other side as she lays in the dirt, barely alive.

When Rebecca said she wanted to witness Melanie’s healing to have proof of the dome believers faith, I was convinced it was a set up to make her a new hand (that’d be a big piece of proof). Instead, it was a combination of faith and science thanks to the quantum physics theory of things being in two places at once, so both sides and lots of faith. Actually, the only loser was Melanie herself. I’m still completely lost as to why she got sucked up into that weird little tornado. Was her purpose always to create this possible new cliff exit for the dome or is this just a way to add some drama for the finale? There’ll be plenty of that after Lyle left Pauline near death, but again, it’s a wonder nobody saw something like this coming. Almost every word out of the man’s mouth has been some kind of crazy talk and he had an obsessive love for Pauline. That’s a recipe for disaster.

Quotes & Thoughts

“You know how I know it’s all over? The girl who bitched and moaned about how much she hates this place is now telling me everything’s going to be okay.”

If Melanie comes back for a second time, she better start putting less faith in the egg and the dome. So far, it’s caused her nothing but grief and death.

“Joe, Norrie, get your asses out here!” “How’d you know we were following you?” “Stealth is not your strong suit.”

Lyle will be feeling pretty foolish about his plan if Pauline manages to pull through and lives a long, happy life.

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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