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| So this happened "Under the Dome" |
Let’s start with the utter terribleness of Big Jim’s “voluntary
gun exchange.” It’s not just a bad idea
because of the execution, it’s a bad idea because it doesn’t change
anything. In terms of execution, the idea that anybody in this
town would turn in all their guns is
patently ridiculous, especially given that there was an insane shootout at the
town’s largest farm LAST NIGHT. One day
ago, an armed militia stormed a town farm to gain control of the water, met
with another armed militia and engaged in a firefight that resulted in multiple
dead citizens and a blown-up well. Why
on earth would anybody trust Big Jim to protect their stuff when he just killed
Ollie (or indirectly caused his death) and took his farm? Especially when, despite his own promise, we
see less than ten minutes later that Big Jim still has his pistol and hasn’t
turned it in. Never mind the stockpile
he gets from Token*, including Chekhov’s grenade, Big Jim doesn’t do the one
thing he promised the people of Chester’s Mill he would do.
*I’m sure they mentioned his name, but I didn’t catch
it. And given that he’s the first black
character we’ve seen since Faux Lenny Kravitz, I’m going with “Token.”
The second, bigger problem with this plot is that it does
nothing for the story. Because the gun
turn-in was voluntary and incomplete, anybody in town can still have a gun, so
it won’t be a surprise when, in the season finale, there’s yet another
shootout. It might be easy to hand-wave
the whole thing as Jim needing an excuse to get his hands on Token’s arsenal,
but he really didn’t need to impose a voluntary gun ban to get the crazy,
suicidal guy to give up his. The whole
thing just adds nothing.
In other news, we’ve got another new character in from out
of the blue, Natalie Zea’s Max, who seems to be here only to mess with things
as both the head of Jim’s drug operation and as the person Barbie called after
killing Julia’s husband. It’s nice that
we’re getting more information on the drugs but this all seems to be coming too
late. Am I supposed to care about the
drug-running operation, given that there’s been no drug-running for nine
episodes? Am I supposed to care about
Barbie killing Julia’s husband beyond the inevitable future scene when Julia
finds out? She’s presented as the
character who knows all the secrets, but she doesn’t actually have any secrets
that we care about.
On the kids’ end of things, Junior gets downgraded (maybe)
from “completely crazy” to “seriously messed up” as we discover that his mother
was having dreams or visions or whatever, that lead her to paint a picture of
Junior with pink stars falling from skies.
Naturally, Angie seizes in front of him, chanting “the pink stars are
falling.” So those two crazy kids are
back together, which is just kind of infuriating. We also learn that Joe’s been sleepwalking,
bringing the egg from the forest to the barn.
Unfortunately he, Norrie, and Angie still need one more person to help
them open it (the eponymous fourth hand).
While this is still the best part of the show, I’m a little worried they’re
going to end up dragging this out for the rest of the season, closing on the
opening of the dome (or maybe the egg) and leaving it as a cliffhanger for next
year, in which case…whatever.
A couple of spare thoughts –
So Chekhov’s hand grenade is in the bomb shelter and only
Jim and Junior know about it. I’m sure
that won’t come back again in episode 12 or 13.
Jim casually drops that he negotiated a deal with the
farmers, so we never have to worry about food again. I’m hoping he’s completely wrong, because
that would be mightily convenient.
So thoughts?
Comments? Just want to tell me my
blog sucks? Let me know in the comments
or on Twitter @TyTalksTV
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