Under the Dome - Recap: This Is The End

Of course, there's still the issue, in the first half of the episode, of no one really panicking about the severity of their circumstances. When loved ones are bussed in, everyone just chills on the outskirts of town, trading smiling faces and signs of affection with relatives on the other side like it's family day at camp. No one seems to recognize the immediate implication that their family members aren't being brought to say hello, but to say goodbye. Yet even after it becomes crushingly apparent that Chester's Mill is on borrowed time, you don't really see the kind of balls-out hysteria you might expect. And yet, this is one instance where I thought that reaction (or lack thereof) fit perfectly. There's a sort of muted reaction in the community to the knowledge that everyone is going to die in a matter of hours, and while it provokes hysteria in some, and a quiet, grim defeat in others, the reaction is mostly one of weary -- even sarcastic -- resignation. And I thought that was a wonderful choice from a character perspective, since there are few better ways to get to know a character than through witnessing their reaction to the inevitability of their own death. "Blue on Blue" makes for a tightly-paced story that keeps things simple without sacrificing anything essential.

So the long and short of it is that family members have been bussed in by the dozen to visit with their trapped loved ones inside the dome. This leads to a few poignant moments, such as Linda (Natalie Martinez) breaking the news to Rusty (Josh Carter) that his brother is dead, and Dodee (Jolene Purdy) signing with her deaf mother. Norrie (Mackenzie Lintz) also gets a pretty moving moment when her biological father appears on the other side of the dome, despite her parents having told her that she was the product of an anonymous donor. Alice (Samantha Mathis) flips out on her ex for trying to be in Norrie's life now that she's famous (as Chester's Mill has made worldwide news, even sparking an international incident between the US and China, who believed the dome to be a secret weapon the government had been testing). Norrie seeks solace in Joe (Colin Ford) while Julia (Rachelle Lefevre) is presented with a "Dear John" letter from Peter by her sister-in-law, prompting her to believe that Peter left her but was too big of a coward to break the news himself. This essentially lets Barbie (Mike Vogel) out of having to tell Julia what really happened to her husband, but even without the letter, the ex-military man has bigger things to worry about, as he quickly discovers that the military is intended to launch a missile at the dome -- a missile that would kill every single person inside.

With this organizing structure, the narrative takes off. Big Jim (Dean Norris), who is still trying to come to grips with his son's actions, organizes the town to get them moving to an underground network of tunnels, on Julia's suggestion. He then returns to the shelter to release Angie (Britt Robertson), rationalizing that they're all going to die anyway, so she should at least have the opportunity to die a free woman. However, when Junior (Alexander Koch) learns of what his father has done, he loses control and speeds off in his police vehicle to get to Angie's house before she does. The stuff between Angie and Junior has always been the weakest element of the series, and I couldn't but groan once it seemed as though Angie would be returned right back to captivity. But that doesn't happen -- or, at least, it hasn't happened yet. Angie and Junior seem to reach a sort of understanding, as he apologizes for what he did to her, saying that he only wanted to help her get better. Angie then gives him a sympathetic kiss on the forehead and rests his head on her lap, looking conflicted. Of course, this could all just be an act on her part, like last week. Junior did have a gun on him, after all. Yet Angie seems at odds with her feelings about Junior -- it's almost like she's cutting him the kind of slack you cut a friend who went on a drunken tirade the night before. It's as if Angie recognizes that, for whatever reason, Junior wasn't in his right mind, and has chosen to forgive him for that lapse. It's a lot to read into a look, but Britt Robertson has a remarkably expressive face, and Dean Norris also communicates, through his performance, that these actions have not been the actions of the Junior he knows. It's fascinating stuff, in any case.

Also fascinating is the revelation of Barbie's military backstory, as he confesses to Julia that he and his squadron were falsely hailed as heroes for rescuing a soldier whose entire squadron was killed by insurgents in the Middle East. Sure, they rescued the soldier from the insurgents, but everything else is false. It turns out that Barbie's crew is responsible for killing the soldier's squadron -- a case of friendly fire taken to its most tragic end. Barbie clearly still bears those psychological scars, and believes that dying in Chester's Mill would be a fitting way for him to go -- another case of friendly fire. Barbie braces for the end, along with the rest of Chester's Mill. Linda spends the final moments in the radio tower, holding onto the wooden rail on which she and Rusty carved their initials, while Dodee and Phil (Nicholas Strong) confess their hate to one another as they slow dance to Skeeter Davis's "The End of the World." However, the biggest moment comes in the form of Norrie and Joe's kiss: as the missile approaches, the two teens share an impulsive, innocently passionate kiss -- and, surprisingly, nothing happens. They don't suffer a seizure like they did all the other times they touched. And even better, the missile didn't work! Hallelujah, we're...still trapped under a giant dome. But hey, we're alive!

Of course, the con of all this is that the missile has seemingly obliterated the rest of Chester's Mill -- the parts that didn't fall under the dome. As Big Jim surveys the damage to the outside, he's approached by a smug Reverend Coggins, who believes that they were saved by his decision to repent. Coggins has been slowly unraveling due to his hearing aid picking up military transmissions from outside the dome which he believes to be God. Thoroughly fed up with his partner-in-crime, Big Jim presses the Reverend's head up against the dome, and the contact with the structure short-circuits his earpiece and essentially kills him. It's a gruesome moment that illustrates Big Jim's gradual slide towards villainy. For the most part, he's still a man trying to do the right thing, but each week gets him further and further away from that principled starting point. I don't imagine it'll be long now before Big Jim Rennie becomes more tyrannical than democratic with his hold on power in Chester's Mill. And that ought to make for some interesting conflict, particularly as supplies dwindle and the situation becomes less tenable.

"Blue on Blue" is the best episode since the pilot, keeping things lean and focused on character. This is a show that would be wise to continue giving us windows into these characters' personalities, and not just a few of them like Big Jim, Angie, Junior, Julia and Barbie, etc. There's an entire town of people worth exploring, and the show gets exponentially more interesting when it feels like there's something larger at stake than the fate of seven or so central characters.