Under The Dome, Episode Two, Begins To Answer Questions

Big Jim and the Reverend worry about getting caught in episode 2 of CBS’s Under The Dome.

Questions begin to be answered and tensions rise in the second episode of CBS’s Under The Dome.

The episode begins with a flashback that explains why Barbie (Mike Vogel) had been seen burying the body of reporter (Rachelle Lefevre) Julia’s husband in the first episode.

He had been a debt collector for somebody and had been roughing up Peter (R. Keith Harris) to persuade him to pay his debts. Barbie was about to leave when Peter pulled a gun on him, and ended up getting shot in the ensuing struggle.

After the flashback, Barbie realizes he left his dog tags at the scene of the murder, and needs to go get them to cover his tracks.

Julia still believes her husband is on the other side of the dome, but suspects something is mysterious about this ex-military man she’s letting stay with her. Something more mysterious than how handsome and buff he looks with his shirt off in her guest bed. Hubba hubba.

And I must not be the only one thinking Barbie is a cutie because Junior (Alexander Koch) reveals to Angie (Britt Robertson)–the girl he considers to be his girlfriend, but more accurately his hostage–that he kidnapped her in order to keep her away from “that guy” she had talked to outside the hospital. He thinks the dome has made her crazy and forget that she loves him.

Angie is desperate, and lies to him, saying that she slept with Barbie. Junior confronts Barbie when he is trying to get his dog tags back from the place where he killed Peter, and he beats up Junior pretty badly. He warns Junior to leave him alone or he won’t have mercy next time they have a fight.

Angie would be much better off pretending she loved Junior long enough to be let out of the bomb shelter, and then run to the nearest house and tell them what happened. If she could stomach acting like she loves a psychopath.

And why hasn’t her brother noticed that she’s missing yet? He’s too busy using trigonometry to plot the circumference of the dome to notice his sister is MIA?

I give him credit for trying to figure the dome out, but since their parents are on the other side of the barrier, it would be nice for the siblings to try to keep tabs on each other.

The previous episode left off with the death of Duke (Jeff Fahey), the police chief, and father figure to Deputy Linda (Natalie Martinez).

He had been just about to reveal to her the scheme that Big Jim (Dean Norris) has been putting into motion in their little town. Something illicit that involves propane, and was supposed to help the town, but that’s really the only clues we have about the scheme so far.

His death, and the news that the barrier is a dome–not just a wall that could be gotten into through the top as the townspeople had imagined–has created an edge of panic and desperation in the townspeople. This is especially so in one of the police officers, who begins to stock up on weapons.

We also learn in this episode that Chester Mill’s reverend (Ned Bellamy) is in on the propane plot, and tries to sneak into Duke’s house to cover up any evidence he had left behind.

He finds documents that prove the presence of the propane and burns them, but accidentally catches the house on fire in an unrealistic burst of flames. Unless that house was doused in lighter fluid, it would have taken a lot longer for a fire that big to catch, but I suppose TV is supposed to be a bit more dramatic than real life, right?

The townspeople arrive on the scene and work together to put out the fire, which keeps spreading, until Big Jim knocks it down with a bulldozer, which stifles the flames.

The townspeople are relieved and congratulate themselves for working together to stop a threat, until the panicky police officer breaks down and starts shooting at the barrier.

The bullet bounces off and hits another police officer behind him, who lays on the ground, dying.

This is the second of two episodes in which someone lays dying at the end. They can’t keep this up for long without running out of people to kill off. Or maybe that’s the plan.

Stephen King was quoted here, saying the plot of the miniseries won’t follow the same plot as the book. This means the town is going to be under the dome “for months instead of little more than a week, as is the case in the book,” he said.

He also said the TV writers “have completely re-imagined the source of the Dome.”

So, I suppose we’ll just have to wait and find out.

What did you think of this week’s episode of Under the Dome? Tell me in the comments!