Under the Dome, Season 2, Episode 12: Turn

The Dome is shrinking, which will squish everyone and this is a bad thing. Apparently. So I’m told anyway. Alas, it’s not doing it very quickly, only in fits and starts. Rebecca tells the gang to get everyone to the centre of town. Hey, if you wait long enough they’ll reach the centre! No, but really, people need to be told?

Since the recent crisis of random coldness has now being aborted everyone is packing up in the school. Amusingly Pauline patronises Lyle for having visions of hell and destruction and the end – despite the fact having visions is kind of her thing.

Melanie’s also sick and she and Junior are being loveydovey which is really nauseating. Barbie and Julia pack up things she wants to keep from her house and have a pointed moment when Julia leaves a photo of her husband behind because that was “her old life” (hasn’t he only been dead for, like, a month?). I have to roll my eyes at Julia saying “the Dome has taken so much from all of us” – yeah so maybe she could stop speaking about the Dome as her personal saviour?

They reach the school and Rebecca points out the obvious – they won’t actually be killed by the Dome walls – they’ll be killed by all the earth (the Dome goes underground), houses and stuff squishing them. And Julia is back to think the precious Dome would never do such a thing. Oh gods I continue to marvel at Rebecca’s restrain in not strangling her. Julia, mindnumbingly, acts like Rebecca is being closed minded for not thinking the Dome is a source of peace, love and good wishes.

Joe makes Hunter confess to being a spy to Barbie who responds with ineffective violence and much shouting and pouting follows though Norrie does defend Hunter. Barbie drags him off somewhere

While Norrie goes to see Ben. Hey remember Ben? Ben was Joe’s friend back in the beginning of season 1, he fell into the plot box (where Carolyn now lives) and has finally pulled himself out so he can be all despair about the Dome squishing them all (he just saw someone get squished by Julia’s oh-so-benevolent Dome). Norrie gets to make a “let’s have hope” speech before Ben wanders off and she and Joe chase after Barbie and wherever he’s taking Hunter.

Barbie is staging a whole holding Hunter at gunpoint and demanding to speak to his dad through the Dome to the random Acteon minion.

While Jim keeps creeping to Pauline who seems to be buying his bullshit, Junior is ragingly pissed over Jim throwing the egg over the edge and Melanie’s rapidly declining health because of it. Melanie herself is coughing up blood while Julia continues to act like Rebecca is being irrational and wrong for thinking the murder Dome is murderous. There’s also a touching moment where Rebecca lays out the actual wonder and usefulness of knowing stuff rather than revelling in ignorance. This would be redundant if it weren’t for the whole “Dome wills it” crowd.

Lyle, Junior, Jim and Pauline all rifle through Pauline’s paintings and journals looking for an answer. And Jim tells Pauline all about his theory that he is the Dome’s special chosen one. And she buys it! She buys that he was Chosen to Lead with her as his guide! Aaaaaaaargh

At the Dome edge, Barbie explains to his dad that Melanie is alive (Melanie, we discovered, is Barbie’s older/younger half-sister) and that they’re all going to die if they don’t get the egg back. Don is obviously dubious but Joe and Norrie have a video of her (good thing when the generators needed more fuel everyone had enough power to spare for Joe’s tablet). Don agrees to get the egg to them if they can tell him how to get through. There’s worry about Don sending an army – but that would be an army of people who can’t guarantee they can leave again (and may be squished by the shrinking Dome).

Barbie tells Julia – also that the intermittent Dome shrinkage has stopped (but it’s… intermittent. That means it does stop now and then. That’s what it does) which Julia and Barbie both take as a sign from the Dome, praise be! (What? “do as I say or I’ll crush you, insect?”). Also bonus, the blood transfusion has healed Melanie (of course the usual suspects think the Dome has spared her. Or, more accurately, stopped killing her).

Barbie sends Joe and Norrie to the lake to await the egg and Norrie is clear that no, Joe doesn’t get to bring a gun. No no no, he does not.

Don goes to the egg which is still in the playground (because it won’t let anyone touch it) and since he’s now doing the Dome’s will, he can pick it up – except when he tries to leave his goons, under the command of chief lackey Malik, point a gun at him. Back in Zenith Melanie has health problems again.

Now for my choking with rage moment – Julia goes to the Dome to APOLOGISE for how the victims inside have screwed up and how she knows the Dome is so wonderful. She offers to sacrifice herself rather than anyone else dying (this is the Dome she thinks is out to protect them). The Dome starts shrinking again which, I like to think, is the Dome saying “HAHA!”

Pauline has a vision to help heal Melanie – 8 hands. The 4 new hands (Angie, Joe, Norrie, Junior) and the 4 old (Pauline, Sam, Lyle, Melanie). Except for the whole problem of Angie being dead. Pauline’s also painted an ominous bloody-drippy painting that she won’t show Jim which is probably bad.

To the school! (Rebecca is having a crisis as the only logical person left in town and they pull her to the woo-woo side). And the ominous continues as Pauline makes what looks like a goodbye scene to Junior. They parade out to the crater where Melanie/the egg first appeared. They circle the 6 hands around her; they all touch her and she starts seizing. Pauline decides the only reason the unconscious groping isn’t working is the need for an 8^th hand but Rebecca throws SCIENCE WOO-WOO and decides Melanie is now 7^th and 8^th hand so they just need to move their hand holding round a bit. She glows purple and she’s healed.

Then she’s sucked into a big pit under the earth. The Dome is just laughing at them now.

Pauline angsts and Jim comforts her, declares he loves her and kisses her. This awful reunion is interrupted by Pauline bleeding from the mouth – Lyle has stabbed her: he talks about his stalker obsession with her (hasn’t the show already used its violent stalker obsession characters quota?!) and she talks about sacrifice. Jim murders Lyle (which Lyle is grateful for).

Well, I hope they don’t need all 8 hands any time in the future.

Y’know, I love people calling out Jim but I can never celebrate because a) next week everyone will still treat him like he’s the love child of a messiah and a founding father and b) it’s always JUNIOR and any attempt to put him on the moral highground makes projectile vomiting a real risk.

I am actually so sick of Julia’s “but the Dome would never do that to us!” that I am becoming actually angry every time she does it. It’s nonsense, it’s ridiculous, it goes against everything that has ever happened – including her own near death last week and it disgustingly ignores the people the Dome has actually killed – not even people who were randomly killed because they were all stuck here and everyone in Chester’s Mill lost all pretence of being reasonable people- but people like the Sheriff and Linda who were killed directly by the Dome.

So, not only am I not enjoying this show, but I am actively loathing several of the characters and resisting the urge to fast-forward every time Jim, Junior and Julia appears on screen. Beware the Js, they make the bad even more intolerable! Sam is called in to suggest a transfusion which means home science to start testing blood type – and Sam tells Rebecca about Melanie coming back from the dead which no-one told her yet.

I think we can identify Barbie’s daddy issues- Barbie: “I’ll die in here!” Don: “tough, can’t do anything.” Barbie: “and so will Melanie”. Don: “What? Right we’ll fix this right now!”