Saturday, August 22, 2015

Under the Dome, Season 3, Episode 10: Legacy



Barbie is back on the side of the… “good” guys I guess. All by the power of Julia’s very predictable love and he’s so happy she never gave up on him and didn’t let all the death threats put her off. YAY ROMANCE.

Meanwhile, at the funeral home, due to a lot of very bad decisions (are there any other kind on this show?) the Kinship is laying siege to the Resistance.

They are rescued by Hector Martin – head of Acteon, and a large squad of heavily armed men.

This clearly requires relationship discussions. Sure guys, work on your issues, mind controlling aliens are totally not the priority now. Barbie is concerned that Eva is still pregnant with his daughter and he can’t abandon her; Julia kindly lets him know that his daughter is an evil queen-to-be. While talking about this they find the burned out funeral home, empty except for bodies.

Barbie decides to go undercover as a drone to find out if Jim & co have been captured – Julia is concerned about him seeing Eva but Barbie is not ready to fall into a romantic trap when he was used and manipulated by Christine into fathering a child. Happy reconciliation thoughts are not high on his mind.

Jim & co end up in one of Jim’s safehouses with Acteon. Jim is, of course, an arsehole and tries to Assert his Authority with the large number of well armed guys. Hector is not amused- and also wants to know where his doctor is who Jim said was alive (that would be the guy Jim killed). Hector is quick to assert his much more believable authority. Nothing gives you authority like an army

Meanwhile one of the Acteon soldiers is teaching Norrie how to use a gun. Thankfully, he manages to short cut my rant about firing a gun in a safe house by showing Norrie how to use it but stopping short of pulling the trigger. We get the obligatory “killing someone is terribad” which every show needs to include at some point. Meanwhile Hunter catches up with Lily and he questions why she sent him the super hidden info, though she claims she didn’t know it was there. She keeps dodging but the intelligence drain of the Dome hasn’t worked on Hunter yet and he wants to know who was chasing her; she apparently wants to tell him but can’t in an ominous whisper.

Jim tries to pass of the doctor as dead in the old safe site and it seems work: Hector believes that the doctor and the samples he had are gone. Which is apparently a bad thing – as we get a flashback of Hector and one of his minions putting a broken egg back together again. The newly pieced together egg reactivates, produces lots of energy – then unleashes mind control mojo which got his minion, Patrick, to touch the egg and Bad Things Happened to him. Hector sent the dead doctor here to try and find a cure. Thankfully he finished his exposition before realising that Jim is probably lying because he’s Jim and he’s behind the doctor’s death. Jim quickly deals for his life and Hector, again, makes it clear who is in charge


There is still a plan for the cure – which involves getting Christine’s DNA. Jim is awkward and reluctant because he’s Jim. Convincing him does give Hector chance to give us more flashbacks of the ranting Patrick who screams about the queen being born, eggs, and a “war to come.” Lily is Patrick’s daughter.

Julia arrives while Jim is being suspicious and she decides she also doesn’t want resources, science and armed men on their side which shouldn’t surprise anyone since it’s Julia. Hector warns them that infection is forever and emotional whammy doesn’t cure anyone – it only makes Kinshipness go dormant: basically Jim, Julia and, maybe, Joe are the only non-infected ones. Julia decides that just because it happened with the last 2 eggs doesn’t mean it will happen with this one so they totally shouldn’t go for Hector’s cure.

The worst thing about being trapped under the Dome with Julia is that there can’t possibly be enough booze. Julia is sure that they just have to trust them and all is going to be fine because TRUST! AND LOVE SAVED BARBIE SO WE DON’T NEED A CURE

Seriously, not enough booze in the world.

To the Kinship and Junior and Sam have Joe imprisoned to try and get him to bring down the Dome with violence. Barbie goes looking for Christine and instead finds Junior who tells him about Christine & Eva at the barn of weirdness and how they have Joe and need him to bring down the Dome (it has to be Joe because…). Junior is kind of frustrated that torturing Joe isn’t working.

So now Barbie and Junior decide to tell Joe that the Resistance is dead – and Joe still doesn’t co-operate. Junior tries more violence before Barbie kicks him out so it’s just him and Joe. Joe has belatedly remembered some scepticism which was so sadly missing when Sam came to him

Still he’s convinced in 5 seconds and, after sharing the Dome is calcifying, he decides he has to stay and build the device to help the kinship or they’ll all suffocate. It’s a good thing Barbie isn’t mind controlled because if this were a ploy it would have worked oh-so-easily.

So Joe decides to stay and Barbie and Junior have a power struggle with Barbie trying to make Junior accept Barbie is above him and Junior trying to poke Barbie’s emotions because Junior is suspicious. He takes his minions to go looking where Barbie claimed he buried Julia’s body – he’s now convinced that Barbie is anti-kinship.

Julia and Barbie meet up to discuss their various fun activities and Barbie decides rather than take the cure he needs to go rescue Eva from the creepy barn for the sake of the evil baby!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

This is the worst idea. Julia decides she respect his decision to go save his evil baby alien and risk being controlled by the mind controlling kinship. Let me be clear that I totally do NOT respect this decision.

At Kinship HQ, Norrie manages to meet Joe and Norrie is the only person who is actually kind of dubious about Joe staying behind to help the Kinship. Alas, Julia is rubbing off on Norrie because she thinks it’s a fine idea to bring down the Dome before controlling the alien collective

In the barn, Eva is not happy to be locked up with her alien kinship midwife and circle of creepy cultists and wants Barbie. Oh and those cultists? Well something weird happens involving purple light, black eyes and the cultists pushing at Eva’s stomach. I think she may be eating them

This seems to be confirmed when the cultist, Charlotte’s, limp body is carried out as Barbie barges in. Eva has skipped forward several months in the pregnancy. Eva’s all gleeful about this and Barbie keeps playing along.

And Julia who has been following Barbie, finds a pit full of sacrificed cultists. She’s also caught by one of the watchers and tries reason because she’s Julia. Norrie decides to shoot the woman in the head. This is more effective.

They also watch Barbie kiss Eva suggesting he’s either acting as a mole – as he said he would be – or he’s been rekinshipped. Julia has the angst

Back at the Resistance, Jim preys on Hector’s guilt since he’s, rather tangentially, responsible for the Dome et al. Sort of. Jim tells Hector about Joe making a device to bring the Dome down – and makes a weird deal with Jim

Also, Hunter manages to crack another secret file in the pile of secret files – and finds that Patrick (Lily’s dad) is still alive. Am I supposed to care?

And Hector apparently wants to keep the Dome up forever to keep Lily safe from something? He even planned to blow up the red door when he left so no-one else would ever be able to follow. He told this to Patrick who seems oddly… lucid, when he’s not turning into a ball of energy.








I think the Resistance is karmic punishment for Big Jim. For all the evil stuff he’s done, he is now condemned to ally with these people. I think I know why Sam joined the collective – he looked at the Resistance and realised becoming a brainwashed drone was actually the best option.

Is there a reason why the alien intelligence that created this Dome and understands this Dome needs Joe to bring it down? At what point in the planning process did the alien masterminds think “and to bring the Dome down, you’ll have to kidnap an intelligent teenager.”

On any other show, Julia and Jim saying “we don’t need your help, go away” to the armed men who clearly aren’t taking orders would be ridiculous. On Under the Dome it’s so very normal

Julia gives me all the grey hairs in the world.

Is there a reason why no-one, not one single person, has considered the consequences of unleashing the pod people on the world?

And why would Hector make a deal with Jim? For 5 seconds it looked like someone was finally going to put Jim in his place? Aie this Dome destroys brain cells


Also I think Hector has a very limited chance of survival.