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!At the Rennie place, Big Jim is pouring Scotch for himself and milk for Junior, asking what kind of trouble he’s been getting himself into. Junior says he went down into the cement works to find a way out. Big Jim is unimpressed. “Failed, huh?” he says. Junior says the dome cuts straight through. “Of course it does. You didn’t think it’d be that easy, did you?” says Jim. Junior doesn’t answer, but wants to know what his dad was doing with Barbie. Big Jim tells him it’s none of his business: “Let the grown-ups do their job,” he says, telling his son to drink his milk, and he walks off. As much as I love this guy, this only makes me want Breaking Bad to hurry up and come back now. Junior angrily dumps the milk in the sink. No need to waste milk, James.
Over at the McAllister place, Joe is trying to fix the generator, even though, as Norrie points out, it “blew up like the Death Star.” Joe reminds her that the Empire rebuilt the Death Star, and Norrie is all, “I like nerds,” like Star Wars is still some kinda counterculture thing. Then Carolyn shows up, and Norrie can’t believe she found her. “Something goes ‘boom’ in a small town, parents tend to know,” says Carolyn. Then I guess the question is what took you so long? Joe wants to know who this woman is, and Norrie admits to Carolyn being just half of her total amount of moms, admitting that there were some things she didn’t want Joe to know (Carolyn clearly is not happy about that).
Norrie thanks Joe for almost getting beaten up for her: “That was, kinda chivalrous?” She takes his hand, and there’s an audible crackling and they both fall backwards, having the most romantic seizures together, saying, “Pink stars are falling” in unison, with Carolyn yelling at useless Ben to go get help.
Over in the Sex Fungeon, Junior wakes up a sleeping Angie, who wants to know if there’s a way out. There’s not, he says, putting a first aid kit on her bed. His hands are in even worse shape than before, and she asks what happened. “Stood up and beat on it until the lights went out, Angie, ’cause I love you,” he says. She almost looks like she’s touched, but as she opens the first aid kit to tend to his wounds, she manages to stash away a pair of surgical scissors under her pillow. Junior — sorry, James — is oblivious, probably because Angie, despite being locked up for two and a half days (where is she going to the bathroom?) — still looks great. Ah, youth.
Over at Julia’s house, Barbie’s getting ready for bed when Julia comes in to tell him that his comment about her running towards the fire is “aggravatingly hypocritical” in light of his joining Big Jim’s search party. “There’s a difference between me and you,” he says. “I take off after the fire’s out. At least when there’s somewhere to take off, too.” She notes that he bruised his knuckles. “Yeah. I bruised my knuckles,” he says. Julia — awesome journalist that she is — doesn’t ask directly about whether he beat up Junior, but asks Barbie if he really was just passing through, with no connection to anyone here in town. That’s right! “Goodnight, Julia,” he says, and heads off for the shower, whereupon Julia goes snooping in his bag, and finds a map with an X marking a spot where he’s notated 2428 and “PB.” Oh my god! But that means… well, we don’t know yet. Presumably we’ll find out next week.