‘Under the Dome’ 1.06 Recap: “These People Are Scared”

We begin this week’s recap with some good news for ‘Under the Dome’ fans. CBS has officially renewed the show for a second season, which will once again be a limited-episode (probably 13) summer series. Even better, word is that Stephen King will write the script for the Season 2 opener. In the meantime, this week’s episode put some plot points into place to establish that the citizens of Chester’s Mill could viably live under the dome for a long time to come.

Episode 6, entitled ‘The Endless Thirst’, opens shortly after last week’s episode concluded, with many of the townspeople gathering around the dome’s barrier to view the damage that the missile explosion did to the other side. The people are already worried about what will happen when their supplies start running out. A bad situation turns worse when a truck (appropriately owned by “King’s Appliances”) swerves to avoid hitting Norrie’s diabetic mom Alice and crashes into the town’s water tower, causing the water reserves to vanish.

Barbie and Linda decide to look into shipping water into Chester’s Mill from the area’s lake, but soon discover that’s not an option. When they arrive, they find all the fish dead and learn that the water has been contaminated with methane. Big Jim states that Ollie Dinsmore has a well on his property, and that he’ll go talk to him. When he gets there, Ollie wants nothing to do with sharing his supply, but agrees after Rennie offers to give him some propane in exchange.

Alice is taken to the hospital in desperate need of an insulin shot, but the hospital doesn’t have any left to give her. Norrie teams up with Joe to go off into town looking to steal some from another house. After almost getting shot trying to break into one home, they find a supply in the house of a young diabetic child. Norrie feels guilty and doesn’t take the entire supply, but does steal one to take back to the hospital.

Angie once again escapes from Junior, this time by hitting him over the head with a snow globe that he had bought for her. She makes her way into town, but finds that things are no less dangerous there, as the townspeople have started rioting and looting. Angie makes her way to the town café, where she spills the beans to the owner, Rose, about how she was held hostage by Junior. Rose promises to protect Angie, but her promise doesn’t last long as a pair of looters break into the café, attack the women and kill Rose. Barbie eventually finds Angie there and rescues her. As he gets ready to take her to the hospital, Big Jim spots them and volunteers to bring Angie himself. No bonus points for guessing that Big Jim doesn’t take actually Angie for medical help.

At the radio station, Julia arrives to discover that Phil has detected a weird signal coming from inside the town. Dodee has equipment to track it, so she and Julia head out in Julia’s car to see if they can locate the source. When they come across Norrie and Joe (on their way back to the hospital), Dodee realizes that the signal is coming from them. Norrie and Joe explain the strange seizures that they’ve had, and show them the video that Joe recorded on his phone of what happens to them when they touch each other. In the process of explaining, Norrie and Joe both touch the dome’s barrier at the same time, causing Dodee’s car radio to start picking up the local station again, as the signal was previously blocking it. Dodee and Julia both agree not to tell anyone what they know about Norrie and Joe until they can find out more about what’s happening to them.

As all of the above occurs, the citizenship is surprised when a heavy downpour of rain begins. Dodee has a few lines of mumbo jumbo about how the dome has created its own micro-environment, but viewers all know that this is just an excuse to keep our characters under the dome for as long as CBS wants to keep this series on the air. We also get a rather cheesy moment where Julia meets Barbie in the rainstorm and the two kiss (which seems a little rushed for where the two characters are at this point in the series).

The final scene finds Angie waking up in the home of Rennie, where he makes a proposal to her: If she stays quiet about what Junior did to her, he’ll provide both her and Joe with whatever they need – food, water, money or any other necessity. She appears to be ready to agree when Junior storms in and asks what is going on.

Episode 6 is not as strong as last week’s episode, but ‘Under the Dome’ seems to be hitting its stride now. However, one wonders how long the writers can stretch out this story of survival without frustrating the viewers at home. (My solution: Start introducing characters and storylines from the other side of the dome.) The driving force of the series continues to be Dean Norris, who is crafting one of TV’s more interesting characters right now. He’s capable of doing horrible things, but he’s not quite your traditional black-hat. He’s the main reason I keep tuning in.

11 comments

  1. You are very forgiving, Shannon. This episode was astoundingly awful, by far the show’s worst to date.

    The entire chain of events leading to the water tower accident was absurd. Why was that delivery truck barrelling down Main Street at top speed in the first place? She misses one insulin shot, and Norrie’s mom throws herself in front of traffic? Is that the way that diabetes works?

    When the water tower breaks, Barbie and Linda go check out the reservoir where the tower gets its water from and find all the water there tainted. Wouldn’t that mean that all the water in the tower was also tainted?

    Within five minutes of the accident, the entire town erupts into chaos of rioting, looting, murdering and raping one another in the streets. “Oh no, we’re out of water. Hey, let’s go kill that old woman and rape that girl. Whoo-hoo!” And then, the very instant that it starts raining, those same rioters, looters, murderers and rapists shift on a dime to, “Whew, I sure am glad that’s over. I guess we’re fine now. You have a pleasant rest of the afternoon,” and it’s like nothing at all happened and everybody’s friends again.

    After developing a conscience and not stealing insulin from the cute kid, we find out that Norrie actually DID steal insulin from the cute kid, and we’re just supposed to be OK with that?

    Were none of the diabetics in town Type 2, who might be able to go without insulin and not instantly drop dead? (Because, again, that’s how the writers think that diabetes works.) How about Norrie just, you know, ASK somebody if they can spare some, rather than immediately break into their house to steal it?

    I was yelling at my TV the entire episode. If the show has more turkeys like this, I may have to stop watching. I can’t believe CBS wants to drag this out to another season.

  2. I agree with you about the speeding truck, but forgot to mention it when I did my recap…my thoughts, however, were more along the lines of “why is a truck going that fast, and who at this point is having appliances delivered to their home?!”

    I believe the water in the lake being contaminated was a result of the missile impacting off the dome, so the water in the water tank would have been find until they needed to refill it.

    Norrie showed Joe she was keeping one of the boy’s insulin vials before they left the house…I guess the logic there is you’ll have one less week to live, kid. 🙂

      • I read somewhere that (much like TWIN PEAKS) every episode is equal to one day in the dome.

        I think they get their gas from the same place the characters on THE WALKING DEAD have been getting theirs. 😉

  3. Bryan

    At this point (especially knowing it’s renewed) I do find some of the situations a little ridiculous (That delivery truck had no reason to be going anywhere — and let’s face it, the store would have been out of food/water/etc … on day one or two of the dome, not a week into it). However, for some reason, I’m still strangely addicted to it.

  4. Barsoom Bob

    I think part of the big popularity of this show is that there is really nothing, and I mean almost nothing, to watch this summer that isn’t a repeat or a been there, done that, reality show. The story could be interesting, not so far removed from The Mist actually, but the writing and plot contrivances are pretty lame.

    In NYC, even the baseball season, which usually helps get me through the summer, is basically unwatchable. And I can’t remember a summer of such slim pickings in the video release schedule. Last night I watched Hollywood Game Night, good Lord, hide the gun Katie, I’m gonna kill myself.

    • Suits on USA is a terrific show. The Bridge on FX is very good. Ray Donovan on Showtime is pretty good. This season of True Blood isn’t the show’s best, but it’s still very watchable and entertaining. I find Siberia on NBC kind of intriguing. I’m personally not a huge fan, but some people seem to like The Newsroom.

      I’m actually having trouble keeping up with all the TV I want to watch this summer.

      • in 9 days well have a short but long awaited reprieve from the boring shitfest of shows thusfar when breaking bad returns, which will hold us off until the walking dead.

        ive decided to stop watching this wreched show. this last episode was my breaking point. utter garbage.

        networks seems to be having some sort of brain fart when it comes to renewing shows lately. with this one and the godawful revolution.

        the premium stations, amc, and fx are really all that pumps out quality.

      • Barsoom Bob

        Well, it seems I’m caught in the crossfire between CBS and Time Warner here in NYC. Tried to watch Ray Donovan last night, Showtime is connectyed to CBS ? Who knew that ? Ah, corporate greed, it’s a beautiful thing. So, no Dome, no Donovan.

        I read up on Suits, which I will give a try, surprised to see that Michelle Fairley from GoT is in their current storyline, liked her alot.

        To compound this problem, I have already started packing up ahead of my move in September. I am up to 11 boxes of CDs, DVDs and BDs. LOL

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *