Under the Dome - Recap: The Most Dangerous Game
Recap and review of Under the Dome - Season 1 Episode 3 - Manhunt:
Though I've enjoyed the past two weeks of Under the Dome, "Manhunt" was a bit rough, and I'm not entirely sure it had to be. As the series goes on, I've started to notice that maybe I was a bit premature in feeling that the series did a fairly accurate job in capturing the problematic nature of such an incident happening in such a small town. Throughout the episode, I came to realize that the only person who seemed panicked about the dome in any way was the man everyone was actually hunting. Oh, and I guess Junior (Alexander Koch), although his panic takes the form of a calm, eerie resolve. For everyone else, the concern isn't the dome itself, but how it affects those they love.
So Linda (Natalie Martinez) has a lot on her plate. Not only does she have to deal with the escape of Paul (Kevin Sizemore), who accidentally murdered her fellow police office/her fiance's brother, she has to deal with his eventual escape from police custody once he tricks her into coming into his cell, only to then incapacitate her and lock her in. She's able to get out of the cell once Big Jim comes by, but this introduces yet another problem: Big Jim wants to control everything. As the town's only standing council member, he feels it incumbent upon himself to be the town's singular arbiter of justice. He is able to calm down the townsfolks' mob mentality, as they want Paul to answer for murdering a fellow officer, even if it was just an accident. But Big Jim asserts that there will be no vigilante justice, and pleads with the people to allow him to handle things. Naturally, he ends up looking a bit silly once Paul escapes, and he has to turn to those same townspeople to help him organize a search party. But Big Jim doesn't have to look far for volunteers. He even ropes Barbie into the search party, despite his suspicions of the mysterious stranger. Junior had told his father that Barbie violently attacked him for no reason, and insists that the man is a psychopath, a revelation which has Big Jim on his toes the entire episode.
Junior, meanwhile, continues to be one of TV's most easily hateable villains, as he continues to keep Angie (Britt Robertson) trapped in the bunker. Angie, for her part, tries to play at sympathy by telling Junior that if he could only find a way out of the dome, things might be able to go back to how they were between them. Inspired by Angie's encouragement, and by his father's resentment, as Big Jim was less concerned about Junior's bruises than he was about the possibility of his own son making him look bad, Junior sets off for an old tunnel that might possibly burrow beneath the dome. Julia, who spends damn near the entire episode doing absolutely nothing else but asking endless strings of questions to everyone who passes her by, decides to follow Junior when he completely evades her inquiry about what he's up to. Following him into the tunnels, she sees that he's trying to find a way past the dome, but she's unable to keep from making her presence known once Junior stoops to pick up a flashlight which Julia knows is about to explode. Though Junior has been saved from getting his hand singed by the exploding flashlight, he's far from happy to see Julia.
As if on a mission to prove just how severe his psychological instability can get, Junior flips out on Julia as if he's about to kill her -- of course, we quickly learn that his freak-out is less homicidal rage, and more plain ol' panic. Without the flashlight, Junior rationalizes, they won't be able to find their way out of the tunnels. Thankfully, Julia has matches, which is able to calm what feels like Junior's tenth major freakout in the last three episodes. The Julia-Junior pairing serves a narrative function, at the very least, as Junior is able to get the wheels turning in Julia's head about the real reason Barbie is in Chester's Mill. He reveals to her that Barbie punched him in the face, completely flying off the handle without provocation. And just like that, Julia is questioning just how much she trusts this man who's sleeping in her house. As for Junior, he returns to Angie a beaten man, his knuckles bloody from pounding on the wall of the dome. He hands her a First Aid kit so she can put that nursing expertise to good use, bandaging him up. Yet he forgets to take the scissors out of the box. Once Angie notices them, she discreetly puts them aside for later use while simultaneously feigning sympathy with Junior for the things he's done to win her love. At this point, I'm just glad Angie is showing no signs of Stockholm Syndrome.
Big Jim, meanwhile, is off chasing after Paul, while simultaneously having a dick-swinging contest with Barbie. In essence, Big Jim tries to intimidate the stranger by telling him the story of how, in high school, he shattered the pelvis of the kid who'd mockingly given him the nickname "Big Jim," turning the insult into a badge of honor. He states that he needed to make an example out of the guy, so others would understand just what kind of man he was. As one would expect, Barbie isn't exactly impressed by this story -- nor is Paul, who overheard the entire thing and thinks Big Jim's "make an example" speech was referencing him. Barbie and Paul have a standoff, guns drawn, with Big Jim caught in the middle and neither man willing to give an inch...which is why it's fitting that neither man settles the conflict. Instead, it's a woman: Linda, who takes the shot at Paul the minute she has an opening. Paul is dead, and Linda proves to Big Jim that she's capable of running the police department of Chester's Mill. And just like that, Big Jim apologizes for his lack of faith, and promotes her to full sheriff. I suppose he has the authority to do that, in lieu of an acting mayor. And if nothing else, it's worth it for the poignant scene that follows, in which Linda clears out Duke's locker, puts on his old Stetson and lays down in one of the open prison cells, looking like a sheriff straight out of the Old West.
However, things aren't going nearly as swimmingly for Barbie. Though things don't come to a head between himself and Big Jim, the wheels of suspicion are already turning. Big Jim assures Junior that he knows what he's doing, as it relates to Barbie, but I honestly have no idea if he does. He certainly has his suspicions, but suspicions without evidence are little more than conjecture. Julia must feel the same way, since she goes about trying to get evidence from Barbie, first questioning him about why he was really passing through Chester's Mill. But Barbie continues to be evasive, so Julia goes rummaging through his backpack while he's in the shower. It's an interesting development that ties into Barbie's own suspicions about Julia, as he'd earlier asked how someone so ambitious wound up in a small town like this. As it turns out, Julia's husband grew up in Chester's Mill, and it felt like a natural place to "start over." But "start over" from what? It feels like everyone has got something to hide. Like Barbie, who continues to lodge beneath Julia's roof despite having murdered her husband. Though Julia doesn't discover that fact this week, she finds a map while going through his backpack. On the map is a pinpointed spot in Chester's Mill marked by coordinates: is this where Peter's body is buried? The plot thickens.
As far as plot-thickening mythology is concerned, we're left with our two seizure victims, Norrie and Joe (Colin Ford), who meet at the local skatepark. Norrie claims to have been passing through Chester's Mill alone, and asks if she can crash at his place. In addition, she asks if she can use his generator to recharge her phone. The interactions between Norrie and Joe are brief, but their chemistry is instantly palpable, especially after Joe defends Norrie from the advances of the bullheaded jock who caused the generator to blow out by plugging everyone's phones into the same power strip. When Norrie's mother, Carolyn (Aisha Hinds), hears about the blowout, she rushes to the scene on the suspicion that her daughter is at the impromptu house party. Carolyn finds her there and insists that they leave, but as Norrie is thanking Joe for nearly getting his ass kicked for her, their hands briefly touch. The moment their hands touch, both kids collapse onto the ground in a seizure, mumbling "Pink stars are falling" while Carolyn can do little else but freak out. I have no idea what the seizures have to do with the dome, or if they even have anything to do with the dome, but it's one of the more interesting mysteries of the series so far because it's rooted in the mythology of the premise -- which no other story really is, at this point.
Again, "Manhunt" isn't bad TV. But it's a bit of a slog to get through, especially in the middle sections where it's all "Big Jim posturing" and "Junior pouting" and "Julia asking questions." It certainly picks up considerably by the end, and I still have hope that future episodes will eschew the dicey structure of this week's episode, which didn't have much of a focus (the episode tried to make us think it had a structure with the manhunt itself, but there wasn't really any sense of urgency or narrative momentum behind any of it). The cast remains damn solid, so even if I'm not wild about an individual episode, I'll always have that to look forward to.