Under the Dome - Recap: Emperor Jim

Naturally, in order to successfully seize power, Big Jim has to subtly manipulate everyone in his orbit. Luckily, Chester's Mill is populated with people who are all-too-willing to trust him without further investigation into his possible motives. Take Linda (Natalie Martinez), who gives only weak protest to Big Jim's decision to order sweeps of each house in town in the search for Barbie. Of course, his rationale is solid, as he states that he isn't the one who is demanding these sweeps -- rather, it is the people who are demanding it. And he's right. But Linda is too easily cowed by Big Jim's intimations of authority, and she's just as easily taken in by his lies about who killed whom. Case in point, our most significant death this season -- Big Jim kills Dodee (Jolene Purdy) after she overhears a radio transmission from the military detailing how a surveillance drone captured footage of him killing Reverend Coggins. He shoots her in the heart, destroys the broadcasting equipment and sets the radio station on fire, and once again, he's not simply protecting his secrets with his actions, he's gaining information. In this instance, he learns about the existence of the mini-dome and the possibility that it could be a power generator of sort for the dome. We also learn that the military is actively looking for the "egg," which seems to indicate that they have some understanding of what it is. But as he tells Dodee before killing her, Big Jim can't allow the dome to come down, not yet. Dodee, in her final moments, gets in a pretty good dig about how Big Jim is a sick, deranged man, and the townspeople will all laugh when he dies. But words aren't enough to save Dodee. Big Jim perfunctorily shoots her dead, as if it were the easiest thing in the world. And for all we know, for him, it just might be.

But no one seems to suspect for a moment that he might have had anything to do with Dodee's killing, as Linda and Phil (Nicholas Strong) immediately assume that Barbie (Mike Vogel) has claimed another victim. What they don't realize, however, is that Barbie is on the other end of town, trying to rescue Julia (Rachelle Lefevre) before Big Jim kills her to keep her quiet. It's a kind of cat-and-mouse game, and it's all the more effective with the presence of a new partner for Barbie, this time the other McAlister sibling, Angie (Britt Robertson). Together, they hatch a plot to get past Junior (Alexander Koch) and gain access to Julia's room. But this proves difficult once it becomes apparent just how sold Junior is on his father's lies. He doesn't question why his father would order him to guard Julia and contact him -- and only him -- if she should awaken from her gunshot-induced coma.

Granted, Big Jim's rationale isn't all that suspicious in itself, as he tells Junior that Barbie will try to finish the job he supposedly started, and, thus, she needs protection. Big Jim is playing on his son's ingrained bias against Barbie, and his desire to impress his father. What results is Junior proving unable to see why his father has placed him on secretive guard duty until Angie notes the discrepancies in Big Jim's story. He begins to show pangs of doubt, and lashes out at Angie, who covers for her theorizing by claiming to be messed up in the head. She then plies Junior with soft, romantic talk, saying that he's the only person who understands her, and adding that she needs him. She even kisses him as part of the charade, but it all falls apart when Junior tastes cigarettes on her and realizes that Angie, who has no cigarettes of her own, must have gotten one from another person -- the same person he'd seen her smoking with before, Barbie. By the time Junior races back to Julia's hospital room, Barbie has already made off with the unconscious patient.

Junior tries to stop Barbie from taking Julia away in an ambulance, but he's quickly beaten by the ex-Special Forces soldier. Angie starts up the ambulance while Barbie says goodbye to the unconscious Julia, telling her he loves her for the first time, and then sending the vehicle on its way while he turns himself in to Linda. It seems like Barbie intends to have the truth about Big Jim come out, but he doesn't realize that councilman Rennie still holds all the cards...

Big Jim uses his authority to perform searches of every house in town to force his way into the McAlister barn. But the mini-dome is gone, as they stored it with Joe's skateboarding friend, Ben. However, Big Jim isn't satisfied to simply let the matter go, so he takes Joe (Colin Ford) and Norrie (Mackenzie Lintz) into custody despite the protestations of Norrie's remaining mother, lawyer Carolyn Hill (Aisha Hinds). At the local jail, Big Jim tries to strong arm Joe into telling him the location of the mini-dome, but Norrie speaks up. She'd earlier told Joe that she believes they should have killed Big Jim when they had the chance, like the dome instructed them to, and it becomes quickly apparent that she now intends to take her chance. She baits Big Jim by telling him he's a loser, and that she isn't the least bit afraid of him. Unfortunately for Norrie, Big Jim sees her attack coming and quickly disarms her, locking her in her cell. It's this leverage that Big Jim intends to use with Barbie: he tells the captured fugitive that he'll let Joe and Norrie go, and will also forget about Angie and Julia, if he confesses to the crimes with which he's been charged. Barbie has no choice but to begrudgingly agree. Anxious, he asks Big Jim, "How do I know you'll keep your word?"

"You don't," Big Jim responds, with a smug grin.

Meanwhile, Angie has taken Julia to the hospital storage room to hide out. She awakens and Angie explains everything that's gone down, and Julia is quick to confirm that a woman shot her, not Barbie. She fears that Big Jim means to kill Barbie, but there isn't a whole lot they could do about it at the moment. Norrie and Joe are equally powerless to do anything about the egg, which begins blazing red and emitting a high-pitched noise back at Ben's house. Inside the mini-dome, the butterfly's chrysalis is about to hatch as well. Unbeknownst to them, however, Big Jim has had Linda tail the teenagers, and she becomes the latest person in town to discover the existence of the mini-dome. But that's not the cliffhanger of the episode. That honor is reserved for Barbie, who, when faced with confessing in front of the whole town, turns to Big Jim and proclaims his plea as "Not Guilty". Let the trial begin!

"Exigent Circumstances" isn't perfect, but it's one of the most purposeful episodes of the series. There's hardly a wasted minute here, as everything builds toward the conclusion, in which all the different plotlines begin to intersect for the season finale next week. It's a strong way of telling a story, and if the show is able to stick the landing next week, I think a lot of viewers will think back on this first season more fondly than they otherwise would have, given the uneven nature of the season. Here's hoping.