So I guess a new episode of Under the Dome aired last night. To be honest, I totally missed it. There was a snail-eating competition on the Gastropod Channel, and it was neck-and-neck for a long time, so I got fascinated. But I gather some stuff happened.
I gotta come clean, or as clean as a dome in Maine can be—there is a lot of bird poop in Maine, incidentally. The thing of it is, I’m only doing this show for the paycheck at this point. And the craft services. They have these little lobster rolls that make my surface go all sparkly and change color, they’re so good. But I’m not really invested in this show any more, even though I guess I got to do a couple of major things last night.
What did I, the Dome, do in “Breaking Point”? Two things: First, it turned out that I was actually projecting a false image of the Apocalypse destroying the outside world—so full marks to everybody who predicted that in the comments on last week’s recap. Or more accurately, Christine was using her psychic amethyst powers to project scenes of planetary destruction onto my surface. In any case, it was just a fake-out, both on the part of the show and on the part of Christine.
And once that was over, I returned to showing blue skies and a totally intact outside world.
The other thing I did came at the end of the episode—I started to calcify. I’ve heard this happens to domes when they get bored, or something. Anyway, it means I’m turning to chalk, or bone, and everyone under me will suffocate to death soon. Which sounds like a win-win-win. I think I would look very distinguished when calcified.
What happened in between those two events? I’m honestly not sure, because the snail-eating competition was intense. But I asked some of my butterflies, who actually were paying attention, sort of, and here’s what they told me.
Apparently, the main arc of last night’s episode was about the Resistance, led by Big Jim and Julia, proving that individuals are better than a collective—by completely failing to coordinate their efforts and behaving in random, selfish, idiotic ways. Because that’s the great strength of individuals, you see!
The upshot of all this is that Big Jim and Julia send Norrie and Joe on a fact-finding mission and then nearly murder them with bombs, because they were too busy having drama with Barbie, Ava and Junior. (Or maybe Big Jim was also distracted by the snails.) Big Jim hatches a plan to blow up the tunnels where my magic amethysts are, and can’t be bothered to tell half his team about it before putting it into place. Yay!
The upshot of this plan is that the tunnels are caved in, and my magic amethysts are lost, all except for one—which is why the aforementioned calcification. And Norrie’s mom, who’s barely been in the show for the past year, dies.
Apart from that, what else? According to my butterflies, there’s a new nerd girl who works for Acteon and magically gets bombs and gas grenades for Big Jim on demand. She’s sassy and gullible! And she bonds adorably with Hunter, until she’s forced to sign off because “they” are coming for her and she has to defend herself with a gun. (Because this show needed another conspiracy outside the Dome, to replace the Acteon conspiracy that has apparently fizzled.)
And the attempts to cure people of Christine’s influence failed, in the case of Norrie’s mom and Junior—but it’s made pretty obvious that physical pain is an important catalyst. As soon as the mom is in pain, she’s back to normal. Also, Barbie has sex with Ava, but still seems to be wavering between Ava and Julia until Julia tries to blow him up and stuff. Oh, and Christine tries to use a cheap trick to convince Sam to rejoin the Kinship—a fake blood transfusion, which I’m not even sure how that’s supposed to work.
Anyway, yeah, calcifying. And the “pod person” plot continues, with the whole town hunting down the Resistance in my name. Oh, and Norrie and Joe stole a schematic to a special amethyst design that would make the butterflies and pink stars turn extra sparkly (I’m guessing.)
But all of that is just second-hand, because a few of my butterflies actually still love this show. And they’re all like, “don’t hate, pupate.” Which I don’t even know what that means.
I gotta be honest—I have been pitching a new concept for next season of this show, because you know this show will go on forever. I call my season four concept, “Same Shit, Different Dome.” The idea is that the town of Chester’s Mill gets out from under me—but then a moment later, another dome appears over the town. Maybe a dome that’s more sleek and a bit flatter? Anyway, the main point is, I’m trying to suggest some sneaky ways that I could be replaced but the show could go on.
Here are the things happening under me that I cannot bring myself to care about, in order of how much I don’t care:
- Sam’s struggle to remain an alcoholic knife-murderer
- Barbie’s love triangle with Julia and Ava
- Christine’s endless scenes of scheming to turn zombies into bigger zombies
- Junior doing that thing with his mouth while he says things like “I’m my own man.”
- Acteon Energy.
- The Kinship
- Wait, which order was this in, ascending or descending? Because Barbie’s love triangle is the thing I care about the least. Just want to be clear about that.
- Also, Big Jim’s rise to heroism, pretty close to the top of the list.
- All of the broken families and estranged children.
This show is in a rut AND under me, and I don’t appreciate looking down at a rut. If you want me, I’ll be watching the Beaver Dam Cam. (Beavers are amazing creatures, so ingenious. You know what would be cool next year? Instead of an alien dome, there’s a dome BUILT BY BEAVERS. Make it happen, CBS.)
Read more of The Dome’s recaps of Under the Dome here.