Episode Report Card Daniel: B- | 59 USERS: C- YOU GRADE IT Touch Me, I'm Sick
By Daniel | Season 1 | Episode 4 | Aired on 07.15.2013
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.It's what, day three? The episode opens promisingly with the townspeople spray-painting the dome and raising a ruckus over what appears to be the army pulling out (Ollie has gone from "don't worry, the feds will save us" to "can't trust any gummint!" literally overnight) but then that just peters out and goes nowhere. It's like this place is a Sims-like game where the townspeople were given the task "riot" and it lasted a set amount of time and the experience points were earned and now they'll wander aimlessly until they're given something else to do (like come down with meningitis, I guess).
Yes: the Weekly Crisis this week is a meningitis outbreak, which has the good folks of Chester's Mill all coming down right at the same time. Well, they seem to come down in reasonably spaced intervals so they can be taken to the hospital in an orderly fashion. Alice (who we didn't see at all last week) volunteers her medical training (she's currently a psychiatrist), since she happens to be at the hospital to get Joe and Norrie, the seizure twins, checked out. The complication with the fire -- I mean the outbreak -- is that the hospital has no fire department -- I mean antibiotics. This leads to the forced sentimentality of Linda being given the hospital's last dose of meningitis medicine over her third-grade teacher, introduced to the show for the first time just so she can die because Barbie and Big Jim discover someone has stolen all the drugs from the pharmacy. The good reverend is going full religious freakjob now, and stole the drugs not to take them himself but to burn them because getting sick and dying is all part of God's plan, and he also gives Big Jim his share of the proceeds from their nefarious doings, since he's washing his hands of the whole thing.
Big Jim gives Junior the task of keeping everyone quarantined at the hospital. The best method the Rennies have is not "let's tell everyone how important it is that they keep the contagion within the hospital" but "give Junior the psychopath a loaded shotgun and have him stand guard at what is I guess the hospital's only entrance and exit."
But at least major plot points are advancing elsewhere. Angie's attempt to stab Junior and then presumably starve to death in the bomb shelter after killing the only person who knows where she is goes awry. But while Junior is out earning people's respect by not blowing them away with shotguns, she pulls loose a water pipe (she's pretty strong for an eighty-pound woman who's been shackled underground for three days) and almost dies of hypothermia. Fortunately, Big Jim hears her cries for help through his house's plumbing, and discovers her. I have no illusions that he's going to free her, but I'm looking forward to seeing this play out.
And in contrast to what I said in disparaging the show's subtlety last week, Barbie does already know Phil Bushey, who is the P.B. marked on his map. Julia follows the map to P.B.'s place, where she discovers that her husband sold his Beemer. Phil inconveniently comes down with meningitis before he can answer too many questions. Thankfully, so does Julia, and she manages to drag out a reference to the cabin, and then gets the location from Junior, who's all too happy to drive a wedge between Julia and Barbie. Julia manages to escape the quarantine and find the cabin, where she discovers that her husband has emptied their savings and the house will be foreclosed on. She collapses but is brought back to the hospital by Barbie, who confesses to being an enforcer collecting on Pete's gambling debts, but claims Pete must have taken off somewhere. Julia doesn't believe that Pete was a gambler. Fortunately, Barbie is a stupid enforcer and has incriminating evidence on his phone (a voicemail) that links him to the person he killed shortly after the voicemail was left.
Linda, impressed by the way Junior talked down a minor freakout by people quarantined at the hospital (and disregarding the way he first fired off the shotgun and then later left a loaded shotgun lying around a group of people who moments earlier were freaking out) and deputizes him. When the inquest happens, there's a lot of poor decision-making to ask questions about.
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. He's really impressed that Norrie is aware of such pop culture obscurities as Star Wars and X-Men. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Elsewhere, Julia’s followed the map to a trailer park, where she finds a BMW parked next to an Airstream. She seems to recognize the car, and is peering into it when a helpful neighbor asks what’s up. She starts to introduce herself, and just a few words are all the fella needs to recognize her voice from the radio and set up his contrived dialogue about how she must be here to see Phil Bushey then, who must be home since his car is parked outside. Because no one in tiny Chester's Mill walks anywhere? Julia says it’s her husband’s car, and starts hammering on the door of the trailer. He comes out, appearing groggy, and Julia wants to know what he’s doing with her husband’s car. He says Pete sold it to him and that’s all he says, apart from “I feel like crap,” before collapsing, while Julia yells for help.
Meanwhile, Alice and Carolyn have dragged Joe and Norrie, the seizure twins, to the hospital to get them checked out, despite their protests that they're fine. Alice gives detailed instructions to the nurse on duty, only to find that the closest MRI machine is five miles outside the dome. Also, they’re fresh out of doctors, since one was on holiday and another crashed his car into the dome. "The third the audience knows, so he’ll be the one I mention by name and tell you Dr. Shumway is MIA," says the nurse. Alice volunteers to do the tests herself; she’s a psychiatrist, but has a background in medicine. The nurse tells them to follow, but Joe hangs back because he’s spotted Junior getting his hand bandaged and asks if Junior has seen Angie. Junior says he saw her a couple nights ago "around," following it up with "Anything else, little man?"
And here’s Big Jim with Barbie, carrying Linda in, Junior making up a story about hurting his hand while chopping wood to placate his suspicious father. There’s not much time to probe the story, though, because a steady stream of people with headaches and fever is now coming in, including Julia with Phil, who is lying on a cot. Barbie goes to get more cots for sick people, and Big Jim tells his son to go help him. “What’s going on?” asks Julia, when she sees all the other patients, including Linda. Big Jim calls her “Mrs. Shumway” for the benefit of those just tuning in and not knowing the relationship. “Sure could use your husband,” he says. You don’t have to tell Julia twice. The washing machine isn’t -- oh, Big Jim means at the hospital. Julia goes to question the unconscious Phil Bushey and this dubious tactic is thwarted when the door is closed in her face.