by Kelly M. Smith:
Under the Dome Recap: “The Endless Thirst”
Original Air Date (CBS): Monday July 29, 2013
Season 1 Episode 6
“Times like this you don’t wanna stand alone.” – James “Big Jim” Rennie
Before I begin this recap, let’s all take a moment to celebrate the fact that CBS just announced they are renewing Under The Dome for a second season! Also, they claim that the writer of the 2009 epic novel, Mr. Stephen King, will be writing the first episode, which, in my humble opinion, is extremely exciting!
After the military’s experiment to blow up the Dome fails, the townspeople gather at the detonation site to review the damage the missile did to the outside world. The land surrounding the outside of the Dome is like an image from an Armageddon movie, yet, just a centimeter away, inside the Dome, everything is as it should be with no sign of nuclear devastation.
As the crowd grows, everyone (especially Second Selectman James “Big Jim” Rennie and Sheriff Linda Esquivel) are looking for junior Rennie, Jim’s half-crazed son. He hasn’t been seen by the viewer since the previous episode, when he surprised his girlfriend (who had just escaped the makeshift prison he had set up for her in his father’s bomb shelter) in her home with a gun.
At the Dome, the town worries and becomes belligerent about the food and water supply dwindling every day that the Dome encases them. Norrie Calvert-Hill and her moms, Allison Calvert-Hill & Carolyn Hill, decide to leave and they take along Norrie’s “friend”, Joe McAlister, brother of Angie.
Seeing the unrest, Linda asks ex-military soldier Dale “Barbie” Barbara for help in policing the town until they had their force built back up, and he agrees to.
Jim, trying to do some crowd control himself, tells the townsfolk: “We all banded together before; we’ll be okay.”
While there, they find out that the local Methodist reverend, Lester Coggins, got too close to the Dome and died with his hearing aid exploded.
If you watched last week’s episode or read my recap, you will know that Jim was the one who killed Coggins.
Junior is still in Angie’s room; she tries to act as normally as possible as he talks to her about how he is a cop now until the Dome lifts and that people trust him now. He says that she should trust him, too. “Whatever happens,” he tells her, “I’ll take care of you.” When he turns to face her, she hits him hard and dashes out of the house.
Driving home, Norrie’s mom Allison tells Carolyn to stop the car, she feels hot and faint. She exits the car and the family–Joe included–also exit to try and help her. Quickly, her condition escalates and she goes walking into the street towards the water tower, when a big rig suddenly comes within her path. Carolyn pulls her back and the truck swerves, hitting the water tower and therefore ruining the town’s only means of clean drinking water there under the Dome.
They realize too late that Allison is out of her insulin.
At The Mill’s radio station, newspaper reporter Julia Shumway walks in to hear a high, screeching sound coming from the radio, where DJ Phil Bushey is trying to fix it and get a decent signal. Both of them agree that it sounds like there are aliens or something of that sort in the frequency waves, but they also believe that the interference is coming from within Chester’s Mill.
“Sounds like the Dome is screaming,” Phil says eerily, as if it were a living thing.
Barbie and Linda go to the lake–the town’s only alternative to clean water–and find all of the fish inside it dead and washed ashore, poisoned with methane.
At the clinic, the Calvert-Hills are told that the town ran out of insulin and the pharmacy is also out, thanks to the crazy Reverend a few episodes back. “What are we supposed to do?” asks a distraught Carolyn. “Pray,” the nurse tells her simply.
After finding out the water has methane in it, Barbie and Linda go to tell Big Jim, who doesn’t believe them until Barbie sets a glass of lake water on fire. Jim tells them a bit about the town’s history and shows them an old map his father had given him, depicting old artesian wells that may still be active…one of them being on irate citizen Ollie Dinsmore’s farm. (Dinsmore is played by Leon Rippy, from the film The Lone Ranger, the TV show Alcatrazand many more other television appearances.)
Junior returns home after Angie runs off and Jim wonders where she is. When he tells his father that his captive ran off. Jim orders Junior to find him, that she couldn’t blab about what had happened to anyone in town.
As Linda a Barbie talk about the hostile relationship between Big Jim and farmer Ollie, they see a disturbance at the grocery store, where the proprietor won’t let the people in. She apparently fixes the issue and then tells Barbie that plan B for crowd control is “You gotta do what you gotta do,” and simply hands him a gun. She tells him she is scared.
Jim goes to the Dinsmore farm to ask Ollie for his help with the water from his well. Ollie scoffs and says he needs something in return and Jim bribes him with propane that he had stashed away (why did he have all this propane?). Ollie reluctantly agrees with Jim’s terms.
Junior drives around looking for Angie when Linda spots him and tells him to do his job, that the people were becoming irate again in the grocery store.
Back at the clinic, a worried Norrie tells Joe she is going to get insulin from one of the known diabetics in The Mill. “You think they’re just gonna give it to you?” Joe asks. She replies, “Who said I’m gonna ask them for it?” He is reluctant to go and steal insulin but goes along with his “girlfriend” anyway.
At the grocery, where the townsfolk are becoming harder and harder to control, Junior spots Angie, and she runs off into the diner, the Sweetbriar Rose, run by Rose Twitchell. Junior can’t leave, as the unrest in the store turns into an all-out melee.
In the diner, Angie hugs her old boss and good friend and tells her everything that happened to her. Rose’s initial disbelief fades as she hears how Jim released her only when he thought the bomb was going to kill them all. “Who’s going to believe my word against theirs?” she wails when Rose tells her it will get settled.
Back in the residential section of town, Norrie breaks into a house to try and get insulin when the owner points a gun at her and Joe. He, too, is out of insulin and tells them they are all going to die inside the Dome.
The fight turns into into a riot at the store. After being hit, Barbie gets a form of flashbacks like he is still in Iraq and chases after a man who hits him, beating the living daylights out of him until Linda and another resident, Carter Thibodeau (played by Andrew Vogel, from the TV series Mystery Diner ) stop him.
Looters hit the diner where Angie and Rose are sequestered (Clint and Waylon Dundee, played by Jaret Sears and Linds Edwards, respectively) and start to attack the women. One holds Angie while the other takes a bat to Rose, killing her from a massive subdural hematoma. Angie also gets knocked out, and the viewer is unsure if she is alive or not.
Linda, Barbie and Carter get tear gas canisters and riot gear from the police station and set it off at the rioters at the store, but it is ineffective. Again, Junior has disappeared, looking for Angie.
Julia and Dodee Weaver take the device Dodee made to try and find the source of the frequency jamming in the town.
Norrie and Joe find an unlocked house and take the insulin when a young boy finds them. They talk to him and he reveals that he is the one for whom the insulin is. Norrie takes only one bottle so the little boy will have enough to live on as long as possible. His mother comes home and chases them out of the house.
Julia drives by them and the signal starts beeping drastically, meaning that the kids are what are making the frequency waves, which is unbelievable.
Jim brings Ollie the propane he asked for, but Ollie isn’t satisfied, still holding a grudge on Jim from the 80’s. He tells him the propane won’t last and if he ever sees Jim or anyone else on his property near his well he’ll report them and chase them away. The town can suffer for all he cares.
The looters in the diner go to rape Angie.
The two teens don’t quite understand how they are emitting radio signals but Joe realizes it may have something to do with the seizures. He explains to Julia and Dodee what happened to them both and shows them the video the kids made of their seizures, seen in a previous episode.
Barbie goes to the diner and finds Angie just in time. One looter runs off and Barbie chokes and possibly kills the other one. He then finds Rose’s bloody body there on the kitchen floor. And to think…all that for some meat the diner kept in the refrigerator.
Linda figures it is time for Plan B and goes to shoot some of the rioters when, suddenly, rain begins to fall all over, only under the Dome. The outside, the townspeople find, is bone-dry.
Barbie asks Jim (big mistake!) to take Angie to the clinic and the corrupt Selectman says he will do so.
When they realize that the rain purifies the water supply, ensuring that they will never run out of water. “Great,” Norrie says, “now we can spend our lives inside this damn thing.”
Joe and Norrie touch the Dome at the same time and, immediately, the radio signal fixes and works just as it did before.
Julia and Dodee palaver; Julia thinks that, somehow, the Dome is “using” the kids and that it is trying to help the town by bringing the rain at the exact moment that they needed it. It implies that she is beginning to think that the Dome has a mind of its own.
“First it traps us in here and then it helps us?” Dodee scoffs. “I don’t feel very comforted.”
Dodee wants to tell Jim about the two teens and their odd connection with the Dome, but Julia persuades her not to.
In the clinic, Norrie gives her mom the vial of insulin she found and her other mom thanks her. Norrie worries about her mom’s next dose and what might happen if she misses it.
A confused and upset Barbie wanders the streets alone in the rain when Julia catches up to him. In the only tender moment of the episode, they hug there in the middle of the storm.
Angie wakes from her concussion in the Rennie house and learns about Rose’s sad death. Jim assures her that he doesn’t want to hurt her, just make an “arrangement” so she never speaks of the incident with Junior ever again. “Times like these it’s good to have a friend,” he says. She is aghast that he would offer her money for her silence but he tells her he knows Junior is “sick” and offers her anything she desires. Food, water, propane, even guns. What she wants is protection for herself and her little brother, Joe. As Jim is about to agree with her Junior comes in and sees them both…leaving the viewer to wonder what is going to happen next…
Comments are closed.