Under the Dome - Recap: We Didn't Start the Fire

Yes, these people band together to stop a larger disaster from befalling the town, putting out a blaze that could threaten to engulf the entire block, and, by proxy, the town. But there's only so much that a group of people can do to stem the tide of fear and paranoia that slowly festers like a long-dormant illness. I found last week's premiere to be among the better pilots of the TV season as a whole, but whatever concerns I had about the show's direction were easily offset by this second episode, which focuses on the smaller stories of Chester's Mill, and how these characters not only react to the larger context of what's happening, but how they fit in relation to one another. These characters all have connections as a result of their circumstances, but what's compelling is that there are more trenchant points of connection between these people than they even realize. While these connections don't have much to do with the dome that surrounds them, these issues have the potential to make things a lot less pleasant for the people who have to share all this domespace.

For example, I'm sure Julia (Rachelle Lefevre) would love to know that not only is her husband never coming home, but Barbie (Mike Vogel) is the reason why. And it goes without saying that Deputy Linda (Natalie Martinez) would want to know what the late Duke (Jeff Fahey) was about to tell her -- a revelation which, more than likely, has to do with sinister Big Jim Rennie (Dean Norris) and his partner-in-crime, Reverend Coggins (Ned Bellamy). These are all details that make the set the series apart from a simpler genre show, which has the tendency to be more about the premise than the characters. Under the Dome doesn't really seem to care about the what or why of the dome, so much as it cares about how the dome changes the people beneath it.

So we learn (via flashback) that Barbie was in Chester's Mill to shake down Julia's husband, Peter, for money. As it turns out, Barbie works for a shady figure to whom Peter was in massive debt, and as the muscle for this shadowy figure, it was Barbie's job to collect. Although Barbie gets rough with Peter, it never seems as if he intends to actually kill the guy. Instead, Barbie seemed content with simply scaring Peter into paying up. But Julia’s husband decides to test the wrong guy: Peter grabs a pistol and Barbie disarms him. In the ensuing struggle, Peter is killed and Barbie has suddenly committed murder. Worse still, he unknowingly leaves his incriminating dog tags behind to be found. Of course, no one actually finds them, as this would cast too much suspicion on the man who is our erstwhile leading man. But the vaguely sinister aura surrounding him makes it hard to really see him as a hero, even as he does heroic things, like organizing the town into helping put out a dangerously out-of-control house fire. His ambiguity around Julia doesn't help matters either, as Julia, who is a journalist, after all, begins to suspect that he isn't all he purports to be -- or rather, she gives him a suspicious look that suggests as much, after he claims to have found his missing dog tags in the first place Julia looked. It's obvious that he's lying, but it's not as if she has anything to accuse him of, so she simply lets the matter go. But Barbie's suspicious nature is likely to come back to haunt him sooner rather than later.

As for Julia, she's instrumental in keeping the town up-to-date on what's going on with the whole dome situation, including informing the town that the army is, in fact, classifying the structure as a "dome." She does this by using the electronics expertise of the radio station technician, allowing them to pick up the transmissions from the army communication equipment outside the dome. They learn that the army has absolutely no idea what this thing is or how to combat it, and panic begins to set in among some of the less stable townspeople: for example, Officer Paul (Kevin Sizemore), who loses his s*** in no time flat. Not only does he arm up, in anticipation of a full-scale riot, but he also puts a damper on Big Jim's hopeful, rousing speech to the town, proclaiming to everyone that they're all going to die under this dome. Of course, it's not enough that Officer Paul is making things unpleasant for the other townsfolk. No, he has to take others with him. Like a moron, he fires his gun at the dome, and the bullet ricochets, killing Freddy, a fellow police officer and the brother of Deputy Linda's future husband. Barbie quickly hops in to disarm Paul, which draws the suspicion of Big Jim: what kind of mysterious stranger is that well-versed in the art of combat? Ex-military, of course! But then, Big Jim doesn't really know that just yet. All he knows is that Barbie knows how to disarm a trained police officer. And I'm sure Big Jim would be even more suspicious if he knew what Barbie did to his son.

Yes, Junior (Alexander Koch) continues to be the most eerie, disquieting, and downright loathable presence on the show. He keeps Angie (Britt Robertson) locked up in the fallout shelter and tells her his master plan: to make her love him again. His theory is that she truly does love him, but she's forgotten because the dome is screwing with her brain. Angie pleads with Junior to take her to the hospital if that's the case, looking for a way out of the dank cellar. But Junior refuses, stating that "that guy" is probably still there: Barbie. Though Angie initially insists that Barbie only offered her a cigarette and nothing more, she gets downright vindictive with Junior, telling him the lie that Barbie screwed her brains out, and she loved it far more with Barbie than she ever did with him. Naturally, because Junior is crazy, he sees this as further proof of Angie's dome-induced insanity, and decides to make it his mission to eliminate the threat Barbie presents. After having an amusing chat with Norrie about the inevitable prison-like bartering system of Chester's Mill, Barbie encounters Junior at the cabin where he'd killed Peter.

Junior threatens Barbie to stay away from Angie, saying that she belongs to him. But when Barbie doesn't take too kindly to the threat, Junior makes his move and punches the ex-military man. The fight is over in mere moments, as Barbie again displays his considerable fighting skills. But Junior doesn't seem the least bit fazed by the attack, insisting that Angie is his, and his alone. Junior is utterly insufferable, which is a credit to the skill with which Alexander Koch plays the character. But for how little she's given to do, I continue to be impressed with Britt Robertson, who makes the captivity storyline far more compelling than it should be. When she sees right through the lie that he killed Barbie, it's the best moment of the episode, because it's Junior getting called on his bulls*** with the exact same all-knowing smugness he employs with Angie. I don't expect Junior to become interesting in and of himself, but he's certainly fun to root against.

Of course, Linda is the real star of this week's episode, as we come to understand her in relation to her grief over the death of her father figure, Duke (Jeff Fahey), whose pacemaker exploded in the presence of the dome -- and only moments before he could tell Linda the truth about Big Jim. Her grief is palpable, and is only one of a series of problems facing her this week. Her fiance is on the other side of the dome, and she's faced with increasingly paranoid colleagues and townspeople, as no one seems to know who's in charge, since the police chief is dead and the Mayor is outside the dome. To make matters worse, there are likely agents sabotaging Linda's efforts from within: Linda finds Big Jim going through all the files in the police station, and when she questions him about his actions, he states that he was merely looking for Duke's final will and testament, which he produces for Linda to read. Duke, who'd seen Linda as a daughter, left her his house and everything in it. Linda gets some semblance of peace from knowing how much Duke loved her, but none of this is really sitting well with Big Jim, who decides that he and his partner-in-crime, the Reverend Coggins (who is also, apparently, the town coroner), must get their scheme under control. This proves somewhat difficult for Big Jim, as Coggins has apparently been getting high off their massive supply of propane.

We still don't know exactly what Big Jim and the reverend are up to, but it's implied that whatever it is, it could help "save" Chester's Mill. Of course, this doesn't stop Coggins from breaking into Duke's house to retrieve documents that could incriminate himself and Big Jim. Things go smoothly enough until Coggins decides to burn the documents while still inside, and ends up setting the entire house on fire (in a sequence that's unintentionally hilarious for just how clumsy Coggins proves to be in trying to put out the blaze). Fortunately for Coggins, Linda bursts into the house and rescues him while Barbie gets the townsfolk together to toss water on the fire before the entire thing engulfs Chester's Mill. Though Linda is able to save him just before the propane inside the house explodes, there's still the question of just what he was doing in Duke's house. Thinking on his feet, Coggins states he was looking for a suit in which to dress Duke for his funeral. The lie passes muster with Linda, but Big Jim is furious at Coggins' clumsiness, and demands he get things under control. That seems like a tall order for someone who seems so perpetually out-of-sorts.

Less out-of-sorts, however, is Angie's brother, Joe. Despite having a seizure last week, Joe is back on his feet, researching the cause and properties of the dome. He discovers, along with his friend, that the structure is semi-permeable. Water can get through, but not smoke or solid matter. Though this doesn't deepen the character-centric plot, it's the one development this week that furthers the mythology of the dome, and provides context for the supernatural goings-on in Chester's Mill. All-in-all, Under the Dome keeps up the narrative momentum of the premiere in its second week. The show is taking its time getting to the big reveals, but the character-oriented focus makes for a more satisfying journey than your standard premise-obsessed genre series would allow.