The first episode of this Stephen King adaptation, CBS’s Under The Dome, sets up the 13 part series about a small town, Chester’s Mill, that becomes inexplicably trapped under an invisible dome.
The episode begins with a man, nicknamed Barbie (Mike Vogel), burying a dead body and trying to make a quick get-away when he crashes into a cow field.
He seems like the sketchiest character, until the rest of the town’s inhabitants are introduced, including Junior (Alexander Koch), an emotionally disturbed college student who is so possessive of Angie (Britt Robertson), the girl he thinks he loves, that he follows her around town, fiddling with his pocket knife.
He sees her talking to Barbie, a conversation in which she likens their situation to being stuck in a fishbowl. She says that she used to have two goldfish, and when one got sick, the other ate him–an eery foreshadowing of what’s to come in the next episodes.
Junior sneaks into Angie’s house, kidnaps her and traps her in the fallout shelter in his backyard. Talk about creepy ex-boyfriend.
Junior’s father, Big Jim (Dean Norris) a town politician, seems to be involved in some mysterious scheme, where he has been stocking the town with propane. A resident tips off the town reporter, Julia (Rachelle Lefevre), who will hopefully get to the bottom of some of the issues in this town. The sheriff, Duke (Jeff Fahey), seems to have been in on whatever this scheme is, and when he tries to warn his deputy, the dome somehow damages his pacemaker.
Angie’s little brother, Joe (Colin Ford), is a smart kid who begins looking for a possible off-switch, or energy source for the barrier. It’s when he’s searching for the source when he has a seizure, exactly like another girl has earlier in the episode.
The inhabitants of the town have a lot to deal with, considering the creepiness of the town’s citizens as well as the mysterious effects of the dome. The first time someone touches the dome, it zaps them, but after that, it doesn’t hurt to touch it. It also has, presumably, been the cause seizures in a couple teens, where they foam at the mouth and mutter about stars falling in lines.
The barrier has blocked all communications, put Duke’s pacemaker on the fritz and cut anything that was on the line in half. Its first victim being a cow that was completely dissected. Because the barrier is completely invisible, planes, cars and birds crash into it until the feds show up and create road blocks.
This show is super creepy, and very intriguing. Despite the fact that Barbie was first seen burying a body, who we later find out is the reporter’s husband, he seems to be one of the few sane and clear-headed characters in this show. Perhaps he is the town’s only hope.
It seems clear he and Julia will at some point have an affair, until she uncovers his past and no longer wants anything to do with him. But other than that, the upcoming plot is hard to predict and very unique.
Hopefully we’ll find out where the heck this dome came from, but, I’m sure, not until the town’s inhabitants are forced to reveal their dark secrets and face some consequences.
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