Saturday, August 29, 2015

Under the Dome, Season 3, Episode 11: Love is a Battlefield



Julia and Norrie make it back to the safe point, with Jim lecturing Norrie on being careless (though, really, as Julia almost points out, Norrie needed to be put them at risk to save Julia from another of her terrible ideas. Because Julia.) She also warns them that Eva is now super pregnant and ready to give birth to new evil alien baby at any moment, powered by girl sacrifice.

Jim suggests killing Eva and her evil baby and Julia is outraged that the solution to evil kind controlling aliens invading the planet may include violence

Damn it Julia, stop making me agree with Jim.

No, she’s going for the cure (particularly since Barbie kissed Eva which is obviously an ulterior motive). So they need Christine’s DNA and a test subject (not Hunter because he’s not in the full throes of the infection).

Hunter shows Norrie the footage he found including Lily’s now white-staticy father (the sign of the possessed). Norrie’s also kind of edgy after killing someone.

Julia manages to find Christine’s hair from the barn where Eva was kept – please note that there were 12 girls sacrificed in this barn and who knows how many more attendants and guards. It’s also filled with straw. But Julia found not just a hair, but a hair she KNOWS is Christine’s. Even a CSI writer would be calling bullshit.

Jim has also caught on to the fact Julia is all pro-cure and suddenly not quite sure about love conquering all the minute Barbie goes back to Eva, though Julia does have the excuse that they need the cure before the dome calcifies and kills them all.

Which is when they’re found by Junior and some Kinship extras – and the Acteon guards happily kill the extras leaving Junior as their prisoner. And guinea pig for cure testing. He gets tied up to a stretcher while science happens and Jim clumsily tries to reach out to his son. Maybe they could connect through mutual awfulness? It’s the one thing they have in common! Junior ominously declares they will need the Kinship to survive.

While they’re doing that Hunter and Norrie show Julia that Partrick, Lily’s father, a possessed man, is still alive. In classic Julia fashion she storms in, calls off the cure and accuses Hector of lying. All in front of Lily as well. While Lily goes to watch the video Hector described what happened to Patrick (basically became possessed energy). Jim is worried that could happen to Junior – hey no loss there!

Jim agrees to try the cure. Hector doesn’t have to pry it out of Julia’s cold dead hand. Alas.

Now we have to join Lily and the guilt weasels while also hiding that Hector clearly has an ulterior motive that Lily is in on. Hector does make nice to Lily but also chides her for giving Hunter the files since apparently the government wants them dead and if they knew what was under the dome they would definitely be killed (see, Hector is aware of how terrible Julia and Jim are! Wait… oh he probably means the aliens. Actually bring on the government kill squads! It sounds like a great idea!) The government apparently wants to “bury the evidence”! Lily thinks they should get the cure which would make them a hero.

Ok there’s a whole lot of unknowns being touched on here.

So the cure is injected in Junior who has a high fever – and it seems to work with Junior and Jim having a big family moment about starting over and rebuilding their relationship. Sounds like a fate worse than death.

While Norrie goes to return the gun she took from the Acteon guard who told her how terribad it is to kill. She’s struggling – because she doesn’t feel guilty. She doesn’t feel anything.

Jim is so reassured he wants to remove the restraints but Hector is more sensible. Alas, Jim has been spending too much time with Julia and frees Junior, despite Junior saying it’s ok. Of course Junior is still an evil pod-person. And now He has the super strength – how random is this?!) Junior kill the guard Norrie confided in.

Jim has the gall to be snippy with Hector about this. But it seems official that the cure doesn’t work Without a cure, Hector says they have to kill everyone with the infection to save the world. Which includes Norrie and Hunter Joe and Barbie

Jim agrees. And Lily overhears.

Christine and Sam consult on Joe’s work – though he’s working Christine is worried about how long they have especially since her health is still shaky. That work will also need their remaining amethyst as well

Barbie is with Eva and her creepy pregnancies and goes to Christine to ask her to hunt the Resistance. Christine decides it’s just not important – he just needs to hang around Eva. He goes to see Joe and finds him creepily enthusing about the crystals before Barbie tells him to stall – they need to cure Kinshipness before bringing the Dome down or they just unleash aliens on the world.

I don’t know whether to be relieved that Barbie points this out or sad that it took this long for someone to say this. Anyway, Barbie’s out to save Eva – well to try and see if Eva feels even slightly bad about the girls sacrificing themselves. Barbie desperately tries to tap into an Eva who has feelings beyond “yay kinship! Yay duty!”

Barbie isn’t so thrilled by this so Eva gets suspicious and sets out a whole story about how she’s afraid they won’t be together as perfect parents forever and when Barbie (oh so naive) takes the bait she realises he’s no longer Kinship. But Barbie has drugged her tea… to stop her “hurting my baby”

Meanwhile Christine goes to Joe to explain the original plan – amethyst made pretty noises which unlocked the Dome. He wouldn’t it have been a good idea to tell Joe this before he started working on opening the Dome? Y’know rather than have him try and figure it out himself? Anyway, she now gives him keys how to solve the puzzle (again, why do they need Joe?)

Anyway she decides a nature walk is in order, while describing how the aliens hardly wanted to come to Earth and were forced to (how this, in any way, is a counter to “you just want my submission” bemuses me. Desperate pity grab to hide being a slave master?). She tells him, ominously and vaguely, that a big enemy who is coming and plans to destroy humanity.

Of course, Christine who recently faked the end of the world, is totally trustworthy here.

Barbie takes Eva out and calls Julia – but Jim stops her from telling him where they are still they don’t know whether Barbie is a podperson or not (how very sensible! Of course, since Julia isn’t sensible, she objects – but Jim wins). Damn it Julia, again, stop making me agree with Jim!

We have to mention that Barbie has completely given up on Eva – all he cares about now is the baby and he and Julia arrange to meet up. Julia tries to get Barbie to abandon the baby but of course he won’t because BABY (no-one cares about Eva).

Julia decides to play midwife while snarling at Barbie that she’s helping deliver his baby by another woman (ok, yeah, that’s got to be a bit bitter). Because, yes, Eva is conveniently giving birth even though she’s really trying not to. Alas it seems the super strength she had against Jim is now gone when she has a chance to break Julia’s neck like a fragile twig. Snappy snappy.

They forcibly pin Eva down until the alien baby is born and Barbie coos at the monstrous herald of humanity’s destruction. Absolutely no-one kills it with fire. Hey how much breast milk is there Under the Dome?

But Sam has twigged onto Junior’s disappearance and informs Christine that Barbie may no longer be team!alien! Finding Eva missing it’s time for a search party. They arrive at the motel where Eva has given birth

As they leave, Eva begs to hold her daughter at least once (also because of aforementioned lack of breast milk). The baby feeds and Eva gets evil purple alien veins which are more than little ominous – and she throws Barbie out of the window with her newly restored super strength.

Barbie still doesn’t want to go without his evil daughter despite more proof that she’s not human. But they have to leave before they are killed. And, again, they had a chance to stop the whole alien invasion by killing the baby with fire, but they didn’t take it.

Christine goes to Eva and the new Queen – who seems to be draining energy from Eva. Christine takes the baby and Eva is de-pod-personed: so Christine kills her with a pillow. Of course, because the writers have no purpose for her now. Since this is Under the Dome I expect a new WOC will be recently into… oh hi Lilly! I should have seen it coming: T-Dog Chain continues.

While they’re searching, Joe has Minion drill into the Amethyst to split it into pieces. When did Joe learn about the cleavage of alien crystals?






The baby – ok Barbie, the baby is an alien monster. Does it even count as “yours”? And even if it did – drugging a pregnant lady for the sake of the foetus inside her is beyond not ok. Especially in this setting where said foetus is literally a threat to all humanity. This actually would be one of the few times when drugging Eva and removing her from the Kinship FOR HER OWN GOOD would actually be far more palatable. But no, suddenly Eva has no value or worth as a person (if she did she would be competition to Julia!) – to anyone – she is just a vessel for the baby. Tool to manipulate Barbie, source of angst for Julia, now walking womb – Eva has only ever existed to be a footnote in someone else’s story or a useful tool.

And once her usefulness is over – she’s dead. That is the entire point of this Black woman on this show – love interest, tool and death. Her purpose is served, she has no existence as a character in her own right.

This also continues Under the Dome’s appalling record of killing POC. The death count is ludicrous, and none got a fully fledged storyline.

Can we also address random extra drone #12453 deciding to badmouth Junior, a senior member of the kinship (which apparently has ranks) because he’s not there to do the work? That strikes me as rather blatantly out of character for the drones and just shoe-horned in to force a story twist

Especially since the common drones not thinking is just about the only possibly explanation for why Christine would need Joe to create her Dome breaker

I’m not even going to discuss the whole “they’re coming” threat of another season until someone accepts that Christine is a lying liar who lies and how “they” hardly justified what the Kinship is doing

Julia, stop making me agree with Jim!

So. Much. Stupid. Everyone on this show is just so terrible foolish. Every decision is bad. Every last decision. There isn’t one brain cell among them.