Under the Dome Recap: “Exigent Circumstances”

by Kelly M. Smith:

Under the Dome Recap: “Exigent Circumstances”
Original Air Date (CBS): Monday September 9, 2013
Season 1 Episode 12

“Not. Guilty.” -Dale “Barbie” Barbara

After months of suspense, Under The Dome” is nearly over. This is the second-to-last episode of season one, & boy was it worth watching! In my opinion, not since episode 1 has this show truly done Stephen King’s novel justice. This one was one of the best.
Back in the barn, the mini Dome glows purple, its “stars” contained once again, while out in the woods, people hunt for Barbie, whom Second Stockman James “Big Jim” Rennie falsely accused of numerous shootings & attempted murders.

At the café, Sweetbriar Rose, Jim addresses the concerned townspeople. Barbie can’t be find in the wilderness of rural Maine, so they want houses checked. After at dust pretending to be unsure, Jim appears to be swayed by their concerns and declares that this is a state of emergency & so he can now (at long last) put Barbie behind bars…or execute him. Sheriff Linda Esquivel doesn’t like the idea, but people cheer & override her concerned words.

Jim gives a rousing speech about the town surviving, saying, “This Dome can’t break us!”.

Radio tech Dodee Weaver listens in to military broadcasts from outside tge Dome and hears them mention the “egg” and they also say that Barbie is the only one with the expertise to deal with it who is in the inside.

She remembers then what it was that shocked her in the previous episode…and it wasn’t the radio station’s generator as others made her believe.

In the McAlister’s barn, Joe McAlister is sure that when the caterpillar that is inside the mini Dome comes out of the chrysalis everything will change. It will bring about the fabled “monarch” that will be “crowned”.

Angie McAlister (Joe’s older sister) still thinks the Dome wants Big Jim dead (in the previous episode Angie, Joe, Norrie Calvert-Hill & James “Junior” Rennie saw Junior’s dad in a vision brought about by the Dome, where he was dying from stab wounds and smiling.

Carolyn Hill, Norrie’s deceased mother’s wife, comes in the barn and finds the teens and the mini Dome. Norrie hastily & begrudgingly explains what’s going on and rather than being mad, as Norrie thought she’d be, Carolyn warns them to hide it so

Jim doesn’t find it. She tells them he is setting up a house-to-house search for Barbie.

They decide to take it to Ben’s, Joe’s best friend. He will stash it.

Junior finds his dad at the café and is relieved he’s alive after the horrific vision he had had. Junior warns him he’s in danger, but won’t say why he knows. He knows he needs to keep the Dome’s secret so that they can get out.

Jim tells Junior to “guard” Julia Shumway at the hospital and if she wakes up, let only him know, nit even a nurse.
Dodee frantically tells Jim what she heard on the radio and tells him to come with her to the station.

Angie locks the barn and gets grabbed from behind–it’s Barbie. He doesn’t need to waste any time convincing her he’s innocent, she has plenty of reason not to trust Big Jim & she tells him so. Barbie is worried that if Julia wakes up, Jim will kill her since she’ll exonerate him (Barbie) & reveal that Max Seagrave shit her…before Jim killed the woman. Barbie wants to use Angie’s candy striper card to get into the hospital and get Julia. She agrees to the plan.

At the hospital, Junior stands guard over Julia, as ordered. Outside, Barbie plans to hotwire the ambulance, use the card to get inside and drive away with her. Angie and Barbie share a cigarette in the bushes before commencing with their hastily organized plan.

Jim goes with Dodee to the station. She tells him she’s seen the egg the military is looking for and shows him the photo she took on get phone before she was shocked by it.

She walks away & Jim hears the military on the radio talking about what’s going on inside Chester’s Mill and mentioning his name as someone in charge. He smiles till he hears the next sentence: They say he can’t be trusted and that surveillance caught him murdering the Reverend Lester Coggins. Jim scrambles to unplug the radio, but Dodee hears it.

Norrie and Joe bring the mini Dome to Ben’s house to hide it just in time.

At the hospital, Angie and Barbie sneak inside and see Junior is the guard for Julia. Angie has an idea…

Big Jim tries to talk his way out of what Dodee heard, saying there’s more to the story that prople on the outside don’t know.

Dodee, despite her misgivings, isn’t stupid. She realizes Barbie didn’t kill the people Jim said he did. Jim walks closer to her like a predator as he says those people were threats to the town. She seems to believe him and goes back to talking about the Dome Egg, saying it might be the generator for the Dome and he might be able to use it to get the Dome down. She is probably thinking that if he brings the Dome down, it will make people like him again & forget about the murders. Oops. Wrong thing to say!

Jim pulls his gun, saying the Dome can’t ever come down. Dodee realizes her very seconds are numbered & begins to cry

“You’re a sick bastard and one day everyone’s going to know it, and they’re going to smile when you die,” Dodee says spitefully. He shoots her in the heart & then shoots the radio so no one can get aymore intel from the outside world. With a calm deliberate action, like a woman lighting candles for a lover, he lights the station on fire. Outside, he radios Linda with the news that Dodee is dead & the station is ablaze. DJ Phil Bushey is with her and thinks Barbie did it.

Joe and Norrie leave the Dome with Ben with instructions not to touch it. They don’t want him getting shocked.

Angie puts on her little candy striper outfit and talks to Junior. She asks if he trusts his dad and asks what he’s supposed to do if Julia wakes up. When Junior appears mollified, Angie bats her eyes at him and asks to talk somewhere private. “I need you,” she says, the exact words he longs to hear. She leads him away and Barbie sneaks in.

Phil is sickened & enraged by the wreckage of the radio station & over the news that Dodee is dead. Linda assures him Barbie won’t get away with it.

Angie stalls Junior with a hug, trying not to get creeped out by him any more than she already was since he kidnapped her for six days when the Dome first appeared. She fully sells it, kissing him like Scarlet O’Hara would. He notices she tastes like cigarettes and takes off running, knowing she only smoked when she was near Barbie. Julia is gone.

At the barn, Carolyn stalls Big Jim and his search party, calling his search unlawful. She is a very convincing character. Finally, his goons physically move her aside.

Joe and Norrie come back and the volunteer goons grab them, too. When Jim sees the egg is gone, he has Norrie and Joe taken to the station on an obstruction of justice charge.

Angie runs out of the hospital, warning Barbie that Junior’s coming. He gets Julia into the ambulance, tells her loves her and then tells Angie to take off & hide. Barbie gives himself up to Linda so that Julia can be safe. Once he’s in cuffs, Phil kicks Barbie in the face until Linda stops him.

At the station, Norrie thinks Angie was right about them killing Big Jim.

Jim comes to talk to them, telling Joe that Angie is “aiding and abetting” Barbie, but if Joe tells Jim where the mini Dome is, he’ll let them both go.

Norrie laughs at him, calling him “some loser trying to scare kids.” He comes into her cell and she stares him down, saying he doesn’t scare her. He threatens her with bodily harm & maybe even death. She is the definition of a badass & isn’t frightened, as she lashes at him with a small knife she was hiding, but he pins her easily and walks away unharmed.

Angie hears Linda broadcasting about her on the radio in the ambulance. In the back, Julia starts to wake up.

Linda brings Barbie into the police station/town hall. He tells her he’d never hurt Julia.

“Yeah, what about her husband?” Linda asks, walking away, disgusted.

Upstairs, Carolyn waits in the station, refusing to leave until she sees her daughter and Joe released.

Big Jim doesn’t comply with her demands and goes and asks about the status of Julia.

Ben hears a loud piercing squeal coming from the mini Dome. He tries to cover it with blankets to muffle the noise, and only succeeds when the room is stripped bare of blankets & even his curtains.

Two of Jim’s goons take Joe and Norrie from their cells. They scream tell Barbie not to talk, no matter what.

After he takes them away, Jim tells Barbie to confess to all of the charges in public or they’ll charge Angie as an accessory, charge Joe and Norrie with Dodee’s death and charge Julia with hiring Barbie to kill Peter.

Barbie agrees to say whatever Jim wants if he leaves everyone else out of it.

Upstairs, Jim releases Norrie and Joe to Carolyn. Jim then tells Linda to put a tail on them, saying they’re hiding something that could be their way out, so she goes & follows them to Ben’s.

Jim tells Junior to find Angie and Julia and bring them back at any cost. Junior asks why he wants to find Julia now that Barbie’s locked up. Junior warns his dad not to lie to him again. Jim tells him Barbie confessed and is about to confess to the town. Jim asks if Julia was conscious when Junior last saw her, but she wasn’t. He never tells Junior why he still wants Julia.

Carolyn, Joe and Norrie pull up to Ben’s house with Linda on their trail, watching their every move.

Julia wakes up and remembers a woman she’d never seen before shot her. She wants to know where she is & Angie tells her they’re in the storage room at the clinic. Angie says she dumped the ambulance and got Julia down there in a service elevator, saying no one would find them there. Angie catches her up on Jim’s moves as she knows them, including that he wants her dead.

Jim brings Barbie out in front of town hall to address the gathered townspeople. He makes a speech about there still being rules, justice and punishment inside the Dome, that it’s still America. He recites the murder charges.

Back at Ben’s, he unveils the loud and seemingly angry mini Dome.

Junior goes back to the spot on the big Dome where the four teens had their vision of his father dying. He puts his hands on it, his face troubled.

Big Jim asks Barbie how he pleads to the charges. Barbie hangs his head in silence.

Back in Ben’s room, Linda joins them and stares at the shrieking mini Dome and egg, which is now glowing reddish-orange, the color of a monarch butterfly.

“What is that thing?” she cries.

Jim asks Barbie again how he pleads. He says with a loud & clear voice: “Not. Guilty.”