In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.
Man, when things break bad in Chester's Mill, they break bad, huh? The townspeople clamber out of their shelter with the good news that they survived the missile (even if the fact the military seemed unconcerned about whether they would or not was bad news). The bad news now, though, is that the missile had no discernible effect on the dome, and soon enough the agitated residents of the town are looting, rioting, murdering and raping. It doesn't help that King's Appliances (Slogan: From Our Home To Your Home, Dome or No Dome) is barreling around town delivering fridges or something, and has to swerve to avoid Alice, who wanders into the street in a diabetes-induced delirium. The driver hits the water tower, emptying the tank, and Eastpoint Lake is now Methane Lake.
People start to wonder what will happen when they run out of everything. Answer: a riot! Linda deputizes Barbie, who is happy to help, but doesn't want a badge. I guess that's so when he's zoning out into a chokehold-dispensing rage he won't have to turn his badge back in? He manages to save an unconscious Angie from getting raped (I think), but he didn't arrive at the Sweetbriar Rose to stop Rose herself from getting murdered by two guys after she defended herself from their looting. Big Jim makes a deal with Ollie, who has a working artesian well and whose motivation shifts from episode to episode, to provide water in exchange for propane.
The town has run out of insulin so there's nothing to treat Alice with, at least until Norrie drafts Joe to help her steal insulin from other people. It doesn't go well, because they get a gun pulled on them by a guy who's already run out of his, and the place Norrie realizes that the diabetic of the house is a young boy. Apparently it didn't occur to Norrie that if other people have insulin, it might be because THEY NEED INSULIN. In the end, she can't bring herself to steal more than one dose of insulin from the lil' tyke.
Meanwhile, since the bomb went off, there's much more interference with radio broadcasts happening, so Julia and Dodee go out in search of the power source that they figure out must be inside the dome for it to have that much effect. Dodee has cobbled together an electronic dowsing rod, because she's a super-genius, but then when they discover that the source of the interference appears to be moving, she asks, "What kind of power source moves?" She's never heard of batteries? Eventually, they track it to Norrie and Joe walking around, and Julia and Dodee are let in out the Seizure Twins' little secret, there's much discussion about whether the dome is trying to somehow communicate.
And then it starts to rain, which is obviously a deus ex machine, but at least that fact seems to be part of the point — how does the dome know exactly what they did? You know, except for cutting them off from the outside world and poisoning the lake and killing people and all that.
Having realized that Angie was not in fact killed by the missile, Big Jim decides to come sort of arrangement with her: shut up about Junior, and he'll make sure she (and Joe) are looked after.
I don't know what to say about the fact that it starts to rain and suddenly everyone is high-fiving and happy with one another again, literally moments after attempting to kill each other. Nothing good, that's for sure.
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. Julia quickly dropped her "The public has a right to know!" position, huh? Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!The townspeople crawl out of their concrete-factory hidey-hole and gather at the dome, touching it for themselves, as if the clear division between scorched-earth and perfectly fine Chester's Mill isn't already telling them what they didn't want to know: the dome is still there. Big Jim warns everyone to stay back: "Remember Sheriff Perkins? That thing exploded his damn pacemaker." Just in case they've forgotten. Carolyn and Alice show up for a tearful reunion with Norrie, who's sorry for running off.
Then Linda shows up, and she hasn't seen Junior in a while. Speaking quietly, she tells Big Jim that Carter found Lester Coggins' body over at the bridge where they had Visitor's Day. She says that like it wasn't THIS MORNING. Big Jim manages to act surprised, all "Lester's dead?" and the other Chester Milians are starting to get squirrelly. "First Duke, then the reverend, how much more of us is this thing gonna kill?" asks Ollie. And people are starting to worry about what happens if they run out of food. Or electricity -- Ollie mentions he's almost out of propane, and another person is all, "I'm out of propane too!" and someone else is, "Oh, if only there might be some way we could get some propane! Does anyone have crazy amounts of propane?" Big Jim says they'll have a town meeting, but Ollie wonders what that'll do: "So you can keep jawing while people die?" Big Jim retorts that his "jawing" has gotten them through a lot, which I have to assume is overselling things a little. But people are getting anxious, including Julia: "Honestly, I'm a little scared. What happens when we run out of everything? What do we do then?" Barbie doesn't know.
Linda's walkie-talkie's getting a lot of feedback, so she hands Barbie a badge, deputizing him until at least she can touch base with her deputies. "I'll help you, but I don't need your badge," says Barbie. I imagine the locals will really appreciate the stranger in town just giving him orders. Linda gives him a lift, while Julia heads to the radio station, Linda observing the tender way Barbie and Julia say goodbye to each other. That leaves Big Jim left to hang out with townspeople, and we learn that Ollie has a farm, so he doesn't have to worry about starving to death. Big Jim promises that no one in Chester's Mill is going to starve. No, that's Season 10!
Over at the McAllisters', Angie is looking out the window, talking about how five minutes ago she thought she was going to die, but it's worse to be scared when you don't know what's going to happen . Junior tells her not to worry, pointing out that he's a deputy because people trust him now. "Whatever happens, I'll take care of you," he says. It's actually the least menacing he has sounded since literally his first scene of the series, but Angie grabs the snow globe and smashes it across his head, making a run for it.
In town, Alice makes Carolyn pull over because she's feeling very warm -- and then she gets delirious, wondering when their flight to L.A. is, as she doesn't want to miss it. She wanders out into the street, where the driver of a King's Appliance delivery truck (really? Did someone just buy a washing machine?) nearly hits her, but swerves.
Unfortunately, he plows through a fence and into the pipe of the water tower. Joe and Norrie race to the smashed cab of the truck and pull the driver out, while the water tower empties its water all over the truck. Is that the water tower from the credits? I think it is!
After the credits, Linda and Barbie pull up. Carolyn explains what happened, including that Joe and Norrie pulled the truck driver out "just in time" like the truck exploded or something. Linda and Barbie decide to go check out Lake Eastpoint, since that's where the town gets its water. And Linda confesses to Carolyn that she ran out of insulin, and has been too busy what with the bomb craziness to do anything about it. Norrie tells Joe, "She kind of loses it when she forgets to take her insulin." "It" being her eyesight, consciousness, limbs, life, etc.
Over to the radio station, where Julia and Phil engage in contrived speech to help new users come up to speed. They're not getting any military chatter "from outside the dome" (as opposed to within it) because the radio station is getting the same feedback interference, which is so strong it must be coming from inside the dome. . Fortunately Genius Dodee has built what "radioheads" like her call a "yaggi," and they're going to triangulate the power source or whatever. "Whatever this screech is, it can't be a coincidence that it started just as the missile was bout to hit the dome," says Dodee. It can't? Why is that? Their working theories are that the dome was screaming and/or trying to protect itself.
Linda and Barbie make their way to Lake Eastpoint, and Linda tells Barbie, "You're lucky to have her," and Barbie pretends not to know what she's talking about. "I have eyes, you know," says Linda, adding that she'd give anything to have Rusty with her. Of course, that doesn't explain why she doesn't think it's weird that Barbie and Linda are making eyes at each other, given that no one really knows that Pete's gone. But they've got bigger problems: like all the dead fish floating at the top of Lake Eastpoint.
At the clinic, Carolyn is dismayed to find out that the hospital is out of insulin, since there was some there a couple of days ago. Yes, Carolyn. They've used it! Are you that surprised, given you were prepared to steal some to make sure Alice had enough? The nurse tells her they've got twenty-three diabetics, and the insulin is gone. "What are we supposed to do?" asks Carolyn. "Pray," says the Worst Nurse Ever.
At Big Jim's office, Linda and Barbie come in. Big Jim already knows about the water pipe, but Barbie dramatically pours a glass of Lake Eastpoint water they've brought back with them in a jug, and then lights it on fire. "It's polluted with methane," says Linda. Barbie figures the dome must have cut through an underground mineral pocket. So it's undrinkable, until they can figure out a way to filter it. Big Jim wonders if the dome is high enough for it to rain in here, but Barbie doesn't know if it is.
But Big Jim, who knows all about Chester's Mill, brings them to an old map of the town that his grandfather gave him that shows all the old artesian wells in town, including this big one under Ollie Densmore's place. You know, the guy who seemed like Big Jim's buddy a couple of days ago but is now his mortal enemy? Linda volunteers to go talk to him, and Big Jim says he's known Ollie long enough to know he can be a pain in the ass, so he'll do it. It actually sounds like the reason he shouldn't, if you ask me.
Kim Bauer, I mean Angie is running through the woods. Meanwhile, Junior has gone to see his dad to tell him Angie got away. Big Jim, not surprisingly, is pissed about it, and even angrier when Junior tries to tell him it's his fault for letting Angie go. "For once in your life, do your own damage control, get out there and find that girl," Big Jim growls at him.
Over in the centre of town -- the Stars and Stripes flapping rather strongly in this sealed dome -- Linda fills Barbie in on how Big Jim and Ollie have known each other forever and are always arguing and then making up. Then it's over to the grocery store to quell a little unrest among the shoppers lined up, agitated because the owner is only accepting batteries and propane in payment right now. "There's no need for alarm!" Linda tells the crowd.
Later, she tells Barbie that Duke taught her that you always believe in the goodness of the people you serve. And Rule No. 2, if the first rule breaks down, you do what you gotta do. She hands him a gun. Like the badge, he won't take it. She points out that he took a gun when he went after Paul Randolph. The difference is, points out Barbie, is that Paul killed Freddy. "These people? These people are scared," he says. "To tell you the truth, so am I," says Linda.
Big Jim shows up at Ollie's place, where Ollie -- who, again, not all that long ago seemed to be willing to act in the best interests of the town -- is all every-man-for-himself on his water access, and apparently it goes back to a town council decision several years ago that went against him and cost him seven acres of his land. Not that he brought it up a couple of days ago when he happily signed up for Big Jim's Paul-Huntin' Posse. Big Jim tells Ollie that he's got the propane Ollie needs. "Why am I not surprised Big Jim Rennie just happens to have what Chester's Mill needs in its moment of crisis?" asks Ollie, with Jim passing it off as the town's emergency supply. Ollie agrees to allow use of his well for some of that sweet emergency propane.
More and more anxious residents are milling around the town, things getting heated in the grocery store. Linda sends Barbie and Carter inside, and spies Junior slowly driving around looking for Angie the fugitive. Despite his protests that he's handling some sort of situation, she orders him inside the store, where he's treated with sneering contempt from a couple of guys shoplifting. Barbie and Linda also have their hands full.
Over at the hospital, a forlorn Norrie looks at her mom lying in bed. "Joe, what am I going to do? I can't just let my mom die. Not like this," she says. Like how, then? "Tell me how to help. I'll do anything," says Joe. Norrie then sets off in search of a list of other patients with diabetes. Joe naively thinks Norrie plans to ask them to share.
Meanwhile, Dodee and Julia are out using Dodee's yaggi, which seems to be indicating that the power source is moving. I screwed up in the recaplet and said super-genius Dodee asked what kind of power source moves, and mocked her for having never heard of batteries. In truth, it was Julia who asked that. But Dodee did say she wasn't sure either, so same difference.
Anyway, Angie has finally made her way to town. She and Junior lock eyes through the grocery store window, but the place is much too full for Junior to be able to make it out, and Angie bolts over to the Sweetbriar Rose, where Rose is relieved to see her. Angie tells her what happened in Junior's Sex Fungeon. Rose is shocked, to say the least — especially at the fact Big Jim didn't let her out right away — but she promises that Angie is safe now. Which only means Angie is in imminent danger, of course, She's worried about what happens now that Junior is a cop, with a councilman dad? "Who's going to believe my word against theirs?" Rose says she will, and she'll make sure everyone else does too.
Good god, Joe and Norrie are out trying to relieve houses of their insulin and Joe, standing at a house's front door, disbelievingly says, "Are you sure a diabetic lives here?" Like maybe he spotted a "No Insulin Salesmen" sign on the front door or something. No one's home, so they go around back and Norrie uses a garden gnome to smash a window. They're about to enter the house when they hear the sound of a shotgun being pumped. The homeowner is behind them, not unreasonably wanting to know what they're doing. Norrie explains that her mom needs insulin. "So you figured you'd steal mine?" he says, incredulously. Well, it does sound stupid when you put it like that. Norrie says her mom will die. "Just like the rest of us. I took my last dose yesterday," says Diabetic Dude, who then orders them to get off his property rather than unloading both barrels on them.
In town, the barely-out-of teenage-years Carter can't keep the people outside from rampaging into the grocery store. Linda and Barbie try to control things, but Barbie gets punched in the face, and he chases the guy down outside, grabs him and is suffocating him in practically a trance when Linda and Carter show. I guess they just left the full-blown riot to make sure Barbie was OK, huh? Barbie lets the guy go, and Linda sternly asks if she can trust him. Barbie says it won't happen again.
Over at the diner, Rose listens to the sound of rioting going on outside, and then someone breaks the glass on the front door, and then two guys -- I believe they're the same ones from the store who mocked Deputy Junior, calling him "Little Big Jim," come in and announce they're taking the meat they know Rose has in the freezer. Rose tries to fend them off with a baseball bat, which one of the looters winds up using on her while the other restrains Angie. It's sickening to watch, even as if the actual beating is concealed by a counter. Angie is thrown roughly to the floor, and looks over at Rose's unmoving body, face down on the floor.
Linda, Carter and Barbie are back in the town square, having retrieved a pittance of riot gear provided by the feds after 9/11. Barbie's dubious about the effectiveness of some of this ten-year-old gear, and sure enough, the tear gas they send rolling out into the crowd does nothing.
Elsewhere, Dodee and Julia are still tracking the power source.
And Norrie and Joe walk into another house where the door's unlocked. Norrie finds a bunch of insulin doses in the fridge. She grabs them, while Joe sees a young kid coming down the stairs. He's home alone, with his mom at the store and his dad stuck out beyond the dome. And if you can't tell this kid is the one who needs the insulin, I hope you're enjoying watching your first television show ever. Naturally, Norrie can't bring herself to steal the insulin. Well, not all of it. She does take one, right before Mom comes home and angrily tells them to get out. I love that they make a big deal of what a small town Chester's Mill is, but apparently they've managed to break into two houses where they have no idea who Joe is.
Out on the street, this weird scene develops where Julia, still driving Dodee around, strikes up a conversation with Joe and Norrie on the sidewalk, but it's so Dodee can come to the conclusion that the signal she's looking for is coming from Joe and Norrie themselves.
Out at the Densmore farm, Ollie pulls up with a couple huge propane tanks, and Ollie is all, "What's this?" So Big Jim promises him propane in exchange for water, and then shows up with propane, and Ollie has no idea what's going on. Maybe his parents were brother and sister! Ollie calls it a good start, but wants another delivery week. Big Jim warns that he could always just have the well seized, but Ollie knows that this isn't normal times. "You step foot on my land except to bring me propane, I'll put a bullet between your eyes," he says. Big Jim warns him that in times like these, you don't want to stand alone. Ollie suggests crossing him, and then they'll see who stands where.
Over at the diner, the looters giggle about how "Junior's girl" really put up a fight, but she can't now. One then tells the other, Clint, to go watch the door. Clint dutifully goes outside while his friend prepares to get nasty.
Meanwhile, Joe and Norrie are confessing their seizure secrets to Julia and Dodee, even showing them the video they shot in the hospital, Julia and Dodee looking on in amazement.
Every window in every shop in downtown Chester's Mill is being smashed. Barbie spots Clint acting suspicious in front of Sweetbriar Rose. "Diner's closed, man," says Clint, and Barbie wants to know when Rose made him the doorman. Clint yells for "Waylon!" inside and books. Barbie rushes in, spots Rose lying dead on the floor, and is attacked by Waylon, which is nearly a fatal mistake for the guy, as Barbie proceeds to whale the ever-lovin' shit out of him. He has to stop himself from killing the guy, and picks up the still unconscious Angie in his arms, carrying her outside.
In the street, he asks Linda for her keys so he can take her to the clinic. She gives them to him, only to be dismayed when they see someone has slashed the tires on her cruiser. Like the clinic isn't twenty feet away in this town. But there's also two men beating the hell out of a lone guy right by her car. Linda decides it's time for rule No. 2, unholsters her gun and aims.
…And that's when it starts to rain. And everyone stops rioting, like, immediately. Big Jim pulls up in his SUV, yelling, "It can rain inside the dome!" and starts high-fiving people like he's Jay Leno, and I think some people are actually applauding. I half-expected to see the two assailants pick up their victim and then all of them hug, it's that ridiculous. Big Jim yells for everyone to gather buckets, garbage cans, so they can save as much of it as they can.
Barbie asks Big Jim if he can take Angie to the clinic. Big Jim's all "sure," and when he realizes it's Angie, he's very interested to know what happened. Barbie fills him in, and Big Jim's stunned to hear about Rose. Barbie says it was two guys, one of whom was called Waylon. Linda figures it's the "Dundee brothers," and Big Jim growls, "Find them."
Julia, Dodee and the Seizure Twins get out of Julia's car by the dome, apparently hopeful that the rain means the dome is gone. No such luck. It's still there, and it's not raining on the other side. So Dodee gives a little science lesson about how the water in the dome evaporates but is trapped by the dome and rains inside. Plus, "the evaporation process" gets rid of the methane so it's safe to drink! "Great. Now we can spend the rest of our lives living inside this damn thing," whines Norrie. No, not all of you. Not unless it's raining insulin, Norrie. She touches the dome, and for some reason Joe takes her hand to pull it away. There's a bit of a zap, but no seizures, and the radio in Julia's car comes back on, the interference jamming the signal gone. "It's because Joe and Norrie touched the dome together," says Julia confidently.
Norrie and Joe rush off to get to the clinic, Norrie desperate to get to her mom but not so desperate that she'll ride in the car to get there, I guess, even though that would get her there faster. But that's so Dodee and Julia can be left alone to discuss Julia's theory that Joe and Norrie are connected to it, like the dome is using them. Dodee increasingly looks like she thinks Julia is a crazy person. Julia says they could have died in that missile strike but the dome protected them. That doesn't seem much like evidence of any sentience to me. Julia also notes that just when they need rain, it rains, and that can't be coincidence (even though they've arguably needed rain for a while and I don't believe she knows about the riot). She thinks the dome might be trying to help them, or reassure them.
"No, there's nothing warm and fuzzy about this, Julia, and we need to tell someone about them," says Dodee, and then crusading journalist Julia says they can't tell anyone (Dodee kinda creepily intoning that Big Jim "will know what to do," like she's in a cult. "Do you have any idea what will happen if word gets out about those kids?" asks Julia. She says they can tell anyone about it until they know what's going on. Dodee: "Fine. For now."
Downtown, nighttime, while people collect rainwater in buckets and garbage cans, Carolyn hugs Norrie over at the clinic and doesn't get too curious about where the insulin came from. Norrie can't help but worry about where the does will come from. Well, that kid and his mom probably won't put up too much of a fight.
And now Barbie is wandering around a deserted street in what is still a torrential downpour at least a couple of hours after it started raining, He doesn't appear to notice the headlights of Julia's car as she pulls up behind him and finally honks at him. They talk about what a crazy day it was -- "I guess you could say everybody went a little crazy today," says Barbie, adding, "By which I mean me, and by 'crazy' I mean like I almost killed two guys. Not that I killed your husband or anything, which I totally didn't."
She goes in for a hug and says they're going to be OK. She takes his hand and they start kissing, and then walk towards her car.
Angie regains consciousness, not at the clinic, but on a couch at Big Jim's house. He's nearby, drinking (of course). She slowly gets her bearings and says Rose needs help, and Big Jim tells her that it's too late. "She was a good friend to me," says Big Jim. And now Angie realizes where she is and, a little scared, tells Big Jim can't lock her up again. He says she can leave any time she likes, but he was hoping they could come to an arrangement.
Pissed, she says Junior kidnapped her, and no amount of money can fix that. Big Jim concedes the point, adding he always knew something was a little off with Junior ever since his mother died; he just couldn't admit it to himself. But he's not talking about money: "I'm offering you my word," he says. "Junior Rennie will never touch you again. I'll make sure of it. And if you need money, or what counts as money in town these days — propane, food, water, a gun — you'll have it." Angie looks terrified. Big Jim says if she'll just put "this terrible event" behind her, he'll make sure she has everything her "little heart" desires. Right now the thing Angie needs most seems to be a hairbrush, but she asks about Joe too. "I need to know that my brother will be taken care of too," she says. Done, says Big Jim, disposition brightening since it looks like Angie's going to accept this little arrangement. He says that they can be friends: "Trust me: Times like these, it's good to have a friend like…" "…Big Jim Rennie," finishes Angie, who says she doesn't know and she'll have to think about it.
That's when Junior comes in, and wants to know what's going on. Angie and Big Jim look at each other.
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. He's only happy when it rains. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.