Episode Report Card Daniel: C+ | 27 USERS: D+ YOU GRADE IT Angie, You Can't Say I Never Tried
By Daniel | Season 1 | Episode 3 | Aired on 07.08.2013
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.“This is a small town,” characters are told repeatedly in the third episode of Under the Dome, generally in the revelation that someone knows someone else's secret. Everybody in Chester's Mill has them, with some of them darker than others, and the darker ones, by and large, haven't bubbled up to the surface yet.
The town deals with the aftermath of the accidental shooting of Policeman Freddy, and the lynch mob that surrounds the town jail is the most excitable the residents have been since the dome came down. It's Big Jim who calms them down and urges them to let the law do its job. Not too well, presumably, given the headaches that would likely cause for him. And the residents get back to normal, which is being largely unconcerned about being trapped inside an invisible dome.
Paul seems to be remorseful about accidentally shooting Fred, but then tricks Linda by faking some sort of asthma attack or panic attack, and when she enters his cell to help, he jumps her and locks her in before stealing a rifle and fleeing, leading to the "Manhunt" title. Big Jim enlists some of the menfolk, urging them to take a break from being homophobic towards Carolyn so they can smoke Paul out of the woods. Barbie comes along too, although Big Jim and Julia are becoming increasingly suspicious of him; Junior has told both of them that Barbie beat him up for no reason, but Junior always kinda looks like he serves a punch in the face, so neither Big Jim nor Julia ask Barbie about it. Julia, becoming increasingly convinced that Barbie was in Chester's Mill for a reason, snoops in his stuff before finding a map of the area with a location on it. Big Jim, meanwhile, is becoming more concerned with being in charge, and — more important — being seen to be in charge. He's boring Barbie to death with football stories from his school when Randolph manages to get the drop on him, only to be felled by Linda, that hardest working cop under the dome or outside it. Randolph may have been helped by the fact that somehow Phil Bushey is narrating the manhunt over the radio in real-time somehow, despite phones not working under the dome. Good job giving away where the search party was over the radio, Phil!
Meanwhile, Norrie has snuck out to Joe's house, because she heard he has a generator, and she's hoping to avail herself of it, because without her tunes she's apparently not the ray of sunshine we've already come to know and love. She neglects to tell her moms where she's going, though, which seems pretty shitty of her. But Carolyn does arrive in time to see Norrie and Joe engage in some synchronized seizuring.
Elsewhere, Angie plays up to Junior and encourages him to check the cement factory where they used to have sex for a way out. Julia — puffing herself up mightily as the one, as a journalist, with the responsibility of finding answers about the dome — follows him, and then they get lost on their way out, giving Julia the chance to explain why she, clearly an awesome journalist, is in a backwater like Chester's Mill. The reason does not make her more sympathetic — in her zeal to take down a politician, she published damning documents that were fake, which she suspected they were. And she doesn't appear to have learned enough as a reporter to use a notebook or some kind of recorder when interviewing someone. Oh, and her news reports on the radio include such great muck-raking dirt as, "Presumably, [the authorities] will keep at it until they get some answers." Nothing makes for good journalism like making assumptions and placing unmitigated faith in authorities! Or maybe she was talking about the audience?
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. It's not that hard to portray journalists accurately on television. Not that Aaron Sorkin has figured it out either. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Under the cement factory, Julia doesn’t have a lot of matches left. Junior is ready to give up, not seeing a lot of difference between being trapped outside or down there. He just wanted to do something good: “A man stands up. A man doesn’t screw up,” he says. Julia says everyone screws up, and offers her own personal example: She was covering the mayoral race in Chicago, and the leader was a real “machine politician,” whatever that is, and she wanted to take him down. One of her sources gave her leaked documents showing bribery. She suspected they were faked, but ran with the story anyway. “The truth about my little lie surfaced, the guy got reelected. I was fired, and disgraced, and now I’m here.” So she knows about screw-ups. Uh, in journalism a screw-up is when you write “pubic” when you should have written “public.” Shit, you SUSPECTED the documents were fake and you went ahead anyway? Goddamn, Julia. But she will never make that mistake again, she says, and lights another match. “We just keep moving forward.”
Over at Joe’s, Carter has already taken up residence by the power bars plugged into the generator, and is charging some “freshie” five bucks for five minutes. Joe wonders if he should say something, and Ben advises against it, unless Joe wants his “face ‘Picassoed’ by a guy who’s got twenty-five pounds on you.” Joe’s about to step in anyway, but is beaten to it by Norrie, who ludicrously attempts to subdue Carter by pointing out that he must not know about the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, because then he’d know that monopolies are illegal. Carter’s surprisingly not shamed by that sick burn and points out monopolies aren’t illegal, since he’s got the board game at his house. Norrie suggests he go home then and play by himself. “Rather play with you, Red,” says Carter, and grabs at her and now Joe steps in and tells Carter to leave. Carter figures he’ll just go up to Angie’s room, since she won’t mind, what with all the time he’s already spent there.
But then the power bar shorts out and the power goes out, and the place clears out like the goddamn school bell went off. I mean, the teenagers aren’t even collecting their phones and tablets. Oh no! The Simpsons Movie is no longer playing “on a loop”!
Junior. Julia. Down to the last match. No one cares. Junior says this all happened when Barbie showed up and shows Julia his bruises, saying Barbie did it, unprovoked. Julia’s not buying it. “People think he’s this hero, but he’s a psychopath,” says Junior. Barbie’s got to answer some questions, man: What’s he doing here? Has he been here before? Then the match goes out. What do we do now? Well, we notice the light coming in from the door at the top of the stairs, and make our way outside. Julia offers Junior a lift home. What, she followed him in her car and he didn’t notice he was being followed by a car in the middle of nowhere?
Barbie and Big Jim are still tracking Paul, but with the sun going down Barbie wants to call it a day. Big Jim wants to keep going so Paul doesn’t get away, even though Paul is literally sealed in. Barbie wants to know if this is so he can “show the town what a big man Big Jim is,” unfortunately prompting a rambling story from Big Jim about how got that nickname: He played cornerback in high school, usually the province of bigger guys, and wide receiver used to make fun of him, until one day Big Jim “put the mother of all hits” on him, shattering his pelvis. “Guess what? Big Jim wasn’t a joke no more.” While the lesson Barbie takes from this is that being on Big Jim’s team can be hazardous to your health, Jim starts rhapsodizing about “an eye for an eye” and that sometimes an example needs to be made, to command respect.