Under the Dome Recap: “Let the Games Begin”

by Kelly M. Smith:

Under the Dome Recap: “Let the Games Begin”
Original Air Date (CBS): Monday August 26, 2013
Season 1 Episode 10

“Welcome to my brave new world.” -Maxine

It’s been nine days since the town of Chester’s Mill, Maine, has been encased inside the impenetrable Dome, and things are getting crazier than ever inside for the trapped residents and visitors in the small New England town created by Stephen King in his 2009 novel of the same title.

Teens Norrie Calvert-Hill, Joe McAlister and Angie McAlister (older sister of Joe) awaken after sleeping in the McAlister’s barn next to the mini Dome the kids had found a few episodes ago. Trapped inside the mini Dome is a black egg that occasionally gets purplish-pink stars inside of it and a lot of dirt. The kids can now see a yellow, white and black caterpillar inside of it, which Joe recognizes as a future monarch butterfly. They think it may have something to do with what Julia Shumway heard in a vision of Joe created by the mini Dome: “The monarch will be crowned.” They want to find the fourth hand that may be the key to unlocking the Dome and freeing the town from their prison.

They leave the Dome covered with a blanket in the barn, thinking that no one would want to go inside anyway. Hiding outside the barn, however, is Dodee Weaver, a young woman who works at the local radio station and has made it clear to Julia that she does not trust the kids and thinks that they may have something to do with the Dome itself. She sneaks in to see what they could have possibly been doing in there.

Julia wakes up to find Dale “Barbie” Barbara gone. he left her a note simply saying “BACK LATER” under her coffee cup. He’s gone to visit Second Selctman James “Big Jim” Rennie to talk about Maxine, the mysterious woman who knows both Jim and Barbie from her past, helped Jim and the Reverend Lester Coggins distribute illegal drugs and knows that Barbie killed Peter Shumway, Julia’s husband. Barbie wants to figure out what the “insurance policy” Max mentioned having hidden on both of them to expose all of their secrets if something happens to her (i.e. if Jim and/or Barbie decide to murder her). Jim volunteers to look into the properties that she owns within Dome-limits.

Barbie refuses to let him go along to the town clerk’s office, or to go find the property at all by himself. Jim tells him he wouldn’t screw him over, to which Barbie responds, “You’re a car salesman, Jim.”. They find a home in the middle of Lake Eastpoint that’s still inside the Dome, just a short motor-boat ride away.

Max interrupts them as they start to talk about when they should go over there. She wants Jim to get her espresso, dark chocolate and some sort of fancy shampoo. She says that she has another errand for Barbie. When they both start to protest, she reminds them of that “insurance policy” and they comply.

Back in the McAlister’s barn, Dodee uncovers and then touches the mini Dome, but it doesn’t seem to like her. It giver her an electric shock of some sort and knocks her out cold. The kids find her, but she’s unconscious and the hand that the mini Dome shocked is burned.

They take her to the clinic. She wakes, but doesn’t remember what happened. She guesses it was the generator outside of the radio station and the relieved kids, knowing that their secret is still safe, tell her that that was in fact what shocked her.

Angie gets an idea and asks a nurse if she knows of anyone else who’s had seizures in town like the three kids have had in the past nine days.

“Not since your tenth grade dance, Angie,” the nurse says, and proceeds to tell her it was James “Junior” Rennie who had been the ill party that night. The same Junior who held her captive for the first six days of the Dome’s appearance.

Oh, boy…

Julia visits new sheriff Linda Esquivel at the police station looking for Barbie (he helps out with the police work since the town’s cops have all been trapped outside the Dome or died). She’s looking into what Andrea Grinnel, the busybody, said about the trucks going in and out of the abandoned cement factory. She tells Julia about deceased sheriff Howard “Duke” Perkins and Coggins’ involvement in the distribution of the new drug called Rapture.

Julia wonders where Duke might’ve kept something that was needed to get into files or something to get more information. Recounting what Duke liked (his bourbon his job and his favorite hat) Linda gets an epiphany and looks in Duke’s old hat and finds a key. Julia recognizes it as a safety deposit box key.

Junior, another temp cop, sees a man walking down the street, acting very suspicious. He stops the man, interrogates him outside the car, and finds he just stole some salt. Salt? junior is confused until the man says it’s better than money at the cement factory. Junior wonders what is going on and why people need to bring salt to an abandoned factory, so he decides to investigate.

For her “errand”, Max takes Barbie to the cement factory, which she has turned into a house of vice. There’s a wet bar set up and bare knuckle boxing, basically street fighting with no rules but one: fight till the other man can’t stand up anymore. There is betting on the fights and people make a lot of money and also win household goods and even propane. She tells him, “If I’m going to be trapped in this Hellhole, I’m going to do as well as I can.”

Jim, seeing an opportunity to find and destroy this “insurance policy”, takes a boat to Max’s house on the island. He’s armed, though he said that Mill residents can’t pack heat till the Dome is gone, as a safety precaution. He finds a woman gardening and she says that she’s Agatha (played by Mare Winningham, from ER, Grey’s Anatomy, The Hatfields And The McCoys and more), the caretaker. She tells Jim that the owner of the home is a man named Oliver, but he’s on the other side of the island. She invites Jim in for tea to wait for him.

Back in the bar, Max explains to Barbie how she let her problem gamblers barter wagers to build up her vice empire. She is the person to whom Peter Shumway had owed hundreds of thousands of dollars to, and she is part of the reason Barbie had to kill him, because she hired Barbie. She now wants Barbie to participate in a fight.

Angie, upon finding out that Junior had had a seizure, explains to Norrie and Joe that she thinks Junior is the fourth hand that they need because he had a seizure at their tenth grade dance. She falters in her explanation and has to tell Joe about Junior keeping her locked up after the Dome fell. Joe, being a protective brother (though he is a small, weak nerdy kid), wants to kill him, but both Angie and Niorrie try to calm him down, saying that they might need Joe to unlock the Dome and free them all. Julia and Linda go to check out the abandoned bank and try to find the safety deposit boxes.

Outside the cement factory, Junior tries to get in using the salt, but the bouncer Duncan knows he’s a cop now (though Junior is wearing street clothes) and won’t let him in. Junior tries to fight but he lands a massive punch on Junior and takes the salt.
Inside, the gathered human pigs are enjoying the bare knuckle fights. Max explains to Barbie that he’s the main event, fighting Victor Rollings, someone he collected from and didn’t leave very happy. The conditions are simple: he fights, or she tells Julia he killed her husband.

Back on the island, Jim is trying to figure out middle-aged Agatha’s connection to Max while he tries to look inside every drawer in the place for the “insurance policy” while she is distacted. It’s then he sees an old photo of Max as a teen. He turns around and sees that Agatha has a rifle trained on him. She tells him that she’s Max’s mother.

Her daughter Max introduces the illegal fight. There are no rules and no time limits. She expects Barbie to win, as she told him she bet on him, as did most of the spectators.

Agatha reminds Jim that they went to high school together. She was called Claire back then and had gotten pregnant at age 16, resulting her dropping out of school. She tells him that she supported Maxine by turning tricks, probably how Max became so depraved in the first place. She explains that Max told her everything about him, Duke and Coggins. She tells him she knows Barbie’s big secret, too, and he acts like he already knows Barbie’s secret. Agatha mentions him killing Peter, shocking Jim. Then Jim starts to intimidate her and walk closer, daring her to shoot. He quickly disarms her and binds her hands together.

Angie takes Norrie and Joe to Junior’s mother’s old art studio and shows them the painting with pink stars falling, whioch mimicks the phrase they all have said as they seized: “pink stars are falling in lines”. It doesn’t matter if they all think he’s crazy (which they do), it only matters what the Dome wants. Junior shows up in the studio, shocked to see the three of them. Joe, unable to control himself, rushes him, but the bigger Junior easily gets him in a headlock.

Angie pleads with Junior to ler her brother go and he finally relents. She asks Junior to come to the barn with them.

At the cement factory, Barbie and Victor are deep into the fight. Victor is bigger, but Barbie seems to be better trained thanks to his time in the US military. Victor nearly pile-drives him, but Barbie finishes him off with a few sharp crosses. Victor is down, but Barbie looks into the crowd, sees how pleased Max is and eggs Victor on by bad-mouthing his wife and kids (low blow!). Victor, enraged, gets up and goes after Barbie. Barbie whispers to Victor to hit him as hard as he possibly can and with the next hit, Barbie goes down and stays down.

Barbie thinks he got the better of Max, now that he lost she can’t win the bet, but she knew he’d throw the fight just to piss her off. She reveals that everyone bet on him, and she bet on Victor, so she cleaned house.

Linda and Julia find a letter in Duke’s safety deposit box. It’s a confession in case anything ever happened to him. His son died of a drug addiction 19 years ago and he made a promise to keep drugs out of Chester’s Mill, so he made a deal with Maxine; he called it selling his soul to the Devil, as she was the biggest drug distributor on the East Coast. The letter explains that the town bought the liquid propane to help make the drugs and Maxine lined the town coffers and promised to keep all drugs out of Chester’s Mill. The letter explains Coggins and Big Jim’s role in the scheme as conspirators and breadwinners.

Julia checks her own deposit box on a whim and finds a life insurance policy on Peter for a million dollars, double the money he had owed. “I need to talk to Barbie,” she says, her eyes wide.

Jim drives Agatha back to the mainland, all trussed up like a Christmas goose, but she stands up at one point and falls off the moving boat. She calls for help, not realizing she would drown (what an idiot!). He circles back to get her, but then decides against it and drives off, leaving her to drown in the water with her hands tied.

After his fight, Barbie’s body and ego are bruised as Hell. Max climbs into his lap and kisses him. She tells him that she thinks they can both live large while the Dome is up. He shoves her off his lap. She threatens (again!) to tell about Peter’s death but he’s had enough and leaves, determined to make her threats irrelevant by telling Julia himself.

Jim comes home late to find Linda waiting for him in the inky dark on his porch. He offers for her to come in and have dinner while they talk, but she asks him to come to the station, but gives him till the morning when he asks for more time.

Barbie comes home to Julia. “I need to say something,” he says, detremined to lay it all on the table. He tells her he found Peter at the cabin. She finishes his thought and guesses he pulled a gun on Barbie. She found his gun missing, but all the bullets were there.

“He needed you to kill him,” Julia says, and continues, “Deep down I knew that something was wrong. I just didn’t want to see it,” and then shows him the life insurance policy. She thinks Peter did it to protect her. The policy is only void if he committed suicide, not got murdered, so Peter planned the whole thing. Barbie apologizes. She tells him “in the future” there can be no more lies.

“Future?” he asks.

She replies, “Yeah,” and gives him a weak smile.

The kids go to the mini Dome in the barn with Junior. The caterpillar is in a chrysalis now (Angie says its a cocoon but her genius brother corrects her). The three touch the mini Dome and the egg glows purple. They wait for Junior to follow suit and see what happens.

He places his hand on the mini Dome and it fits the hand print perfectly. The power goes off in the barn and a thousand points of light like pink stars appear in the barn all around them. It’s the pink stars making constellations.

“It’s beautiful,” Angie says.

“But what does it mean?” Junior asks worriedly.