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Joe and Norrie try different ways of communicating with the dome, from talking to it to making out with each other against it. Maybe they should have tried making out with the dome itself, because nothing happens. So they set off in search of the dome's nucleus and find... another dome. Beneath this heretofore-unseen and tiny dome is what looks like a black egg. They don't try making out with this thing, either, but it decides to give them a break and show them an image of Alice looking strangely peaceful. They race back to Joe's house, where Alice, Julia and Barbie have been helping a lady give birth. Alice suffers a massive heart attack just as the infant pops into the world, but she's okay with it because she figures it's what the dome wants. Or something.
Elsewhere in town, everything is going to hell. Big Jim's propane hoard is stolen right out form under him by his farmer frenemy and people are just generally disrespecting him. Big Jim sulks for a while, then remembers how well murder worked for him before, so he kills one of the frenemy's hired goons and reclaims his position as Biggest Little Man In Town.
Junior and Linda set off in search of the slack-jawed yokels who killed Rose, with the intent of putting them in jail until they can figure out what to do with them. This all seems fine until Junior finds out the yokels tried to rape Angie. Linda kills one of them during a gunfight, while Junior kills the other one as he's begging for his life.
As Julia and Barbie share a post-birth/death cuddle, Norrie rails at the dome for taking her mother. She pleads with it, promising to do anything if the dome will just bring back her mother. In response, the mystery egg lights up with sparks of pink energy. A portent of those pink stars the kids have been seizing over? Stay tuned for the full weecap.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Joe McAlister wakes to find himself in that Doctor Who episode where all the kids are creepy and have gas masks for faces. After he gets done wetting the sheets, Norrie pulls off the mask she's wearing for some reason and laughs at him. Ah, young romance! She says she wants him to go to the dome with her so they can figure out how they're connected to it. He scoffs a little, but he knows it's the main plot of this episode so he gets dressed.
Over at the Shumway house, Barbie is just waking up to the sight of Julia's wedding ring in his face. It's like it's all he can notice even though Julia's naked body is attached to it. The sad music of "I killed your husband and then slept with you" plays as Barbie looks suitably guilty. He's not too guilty to take her up on a little morning nookie when she offers, though. Unfortunately, they're interrupted when a knock comes at the door. It's Julia's very pregnant neighbor Harriet, hoping to bum a carton or two of yogurt. They make smalltalk about how Harriet is due to give birth in six weeks, even though her belly is ginormous right now, and how she's nervous because her husband is overseas instead of trapped in the dome with her. Barbie decides to help Linda out in town instead of watching these ladies reenact an Activia commercial.
Big Jim is so pissed off about Junior continuing to sniff after Angie that he kicks him out of the house. Junior tries to explain his crazy ways, but Big Jim cuts him off with a good, hard slap. Angie watches the whole thing from another room. She apparently stayed there all night, perhaps hashing out the minutiae of her deal with Big Jim. But, seriously, why would she stay there? That is crazy. Anyway, Angie's on her way to say goodbye to Rose, who's still at the diner since there was nobody to bury her. Big Jim is pretty torn up about it. He's a murderous asshole with delusions of grandeur, but he's not heartless.
Harriet and the basketball she's got taped to her abdomen are just leaving Julia's house when she notices a young sailor across the street. "Greg! You're really here!" She runs towards him, carefully holding onto her belly lest it bounce out of her dress and into the hands of a Harlem Globetrotter. "I finally made it home to you, baby," Greg says. As soon as they touch hands, there's a spark of electricity and Harriet doubles over in pain. Greg is gone. In his place is just the dome. Things look pretty verdant on the other side, considering it was a bombed wasteland not too long ago. Julia, hearing the cries of distress, rushes over to help just as Harriet's water breaks.
At the sheriff's station, Linda is preparing to go after the Dundee brothers for murdering Rose. At first she wants to take Barbie with her and leave Junior behind to deal with looters, but Junior points out that he knows the Dundees. "I might be able to talk them down without things getting stupid," he says. Linda hands him a bunch of high-powered guns, thus ensuring that things will be getting stupid.
Angie returns to the diner and finds Rose on a table in the kitchen, left to decompose like a tray of meat at Golden Corral. In tears, she starts to lower the sheet that's been draped over Rose's body. A male voice rings out from the dining room: "Who's in there?" Angie grabs a knife, but it's just Ben and his skateboard, coming to make sure nobody else is looting the diner. "Will you help me with something?" Angie asks him.
Big Jim drops in on Ollie Dinsmore's farm, where townsfolk have gathered at the pump for water. Big Jim wants to make nice with Ollie, but Ollie's enjoying his new position of power a little too much for that. He drops the hint that the propane doesn't belong to Big Jim anymore, which is news to Big Jim.
Meanwhile, Joe and Norrie have tried all sorts of ways of getting a rise out of the dome, up to and including making out against it. They figure they might have to have sex on the dome at some point, but for now they decide to go looking for its nucleus. (Joe likens the dome to an atom with the wall being its electrons. It's a very rare teenaged boy who can think coherently of science two seconds after thinking about sex). They set off in search of the dome's center with their adorable dog in tow.
Big Jim rushes over to his propane warehouse, only to find it guarded by an armed thug. "Ollie says nobody's allowed inside but him," the thug says when Big Jim tries to walk past. "This is my property, I'll do whatever I please," Big Jim says. The thug beats the snot out of him just to prove him wrong.
Barbie wanders around town, keeping an eye out for trouble. He spies a gas station that's been bled dry and sees the Dundee brothers scampering away from the scene of the crime. He chases after them.
Junior and Linda are trying to decide just what to do with the brothers once they catch them. Linda votes for locking them up in jail until they figure it out. "The Dundees can't just walk free after killing Rose, or what they were about to do to Angie." This is the first that Junior's hearing of the attempted rape. You can practically see him playing out the different ways in which he might kill the Dundees.
Julia and Harriet are driving to the clinic when they come upon a makeshift roadblock. The Dundees start shooting at them. One brother siphons the gas out of their tank while the other one keeps a gun on them. Luckily, Barbie comes to the rescue and fights off the brothers, who scatter like cockroaches in the harsh glare of the bathroom light. He radios Linda to let her know where they are. It turns out the clinic is closed, so they decide to go see Alice at the McAlister house. For some reason, they do this on foot instead of getting back into the car. The gas canister is right there. Did the Dundees shoot out all the tires?
As Joe and Norrie make their way to the center of the dome, they wonder why they were picked. Norrie seems kind of over it, but Joe thinks it's awesome, in the original sense of the word. "Not to mention, if it hadn't come down I might not have met you," he says. Aw! Their dog starts barking like mad. "Truman!" Joe shouts several times. Then my dog starts barking like mad, because his name is also Truman. The TV Truman decides he doesn't want any more of this nucleus hunt and runs away from the teens.
Having buried Rose, Ben and Angie return to the diner. Angie recruits Ben into helping her clean the place up. Big Jim slumps inside to grab a bottle of whiskey and just as quickly slumps back out. Angie hurries to close the door after him, like it's going to keep him or anybody else out, with the windowpane gone.
Carolyn and Alice share a sweet moment of dancing together and foreshadowing Alice's impending doom. That doom shows up in the form of Harriet, who gets deposited onto the couch by Barbie and Julia.
Joe and Norrie find a big pile of leaves in the middle of the woods. Joe reaches out to touch it and gets zapped a little. Norrie tries it with the same result. Undaunted, they clear away the leaves and find... another dome. Norrie washes away some of the dried mud that covers its surface and reveals a small, black egg at its center.
Back to the birthing. Harriet cries that she can't do this without her husband, so Barbie talks her into calming down and getting the job done.
Ollie drops by Big Jim's office to outline the new world order. He's got the crops, the water and now he's got the propane. "So unless you want your beloved Chester's Mill to suffer, you'll toe the line." Big Jim looks like his testicles just retreated into his abdominal cavity.
The Dundee brothers are hiding out at the town salvage yard, drinking sodas and not worrying about the future. Junior sneaks up on one of them and puts a rifle to his head, while Linda pins the other one down. "You're both under arrest for the murder of Rose Twitchell." Before she can finish reading them their rights, her Dundee decides to make a break for it. Seizing the opportunity afforded by this distraction, the other one fights off Junior and runs. Linda ends up shooting and killing her Dundee after he pulls a gun on her, while Junior chases after the other one. That one trips and falls, pleading for his life as Junior advances on him. Junior regards him coolly, then raises his rifle and shoots him twice in the chest.
Joe and Norrie try talking to the egg, but it's not feeling very conversational. The kids put their hands on the mini-dome, since touching the big dome together seemed to work pretty well when they needed rain. They don't get rain this time, but they do get Norrie's mom. Like, suddenly Alice is just standing there in the woods, smiling peacefully at them. As soon as they stop touching the mini-dome, Alice disappears. Norrie realizes she needs to go find her real mom right away.
She's still helping Harriet, and looking considerably worse than the woman currently pushing a Spalding through her birth canal. When Alice has to step aside for her own medical trauma, Barbie takes over her position as midwife. Is there anything that guy can't do? Besides not accidentally killing somebody's husband?
Nighttime at the propane warehouse. Ollie's thug loads up a flatbed with propane. He senses something's about to go down, or maybe he's just suspicious because thieves are suspicious. With a nervous glance all around, he gets into the truck. Somebody shoots at the gas tank and the whole truck explodes. Big Jim, with a rifle in one hand and whiskey bottle in the other, watches the whole thing like it's the Fourth of July.
Everyone at the McAlister house is like, "Aw, what a beautiful baby!" because it's rude to say "Ew, your baby looks like a fat, pink grub covered in lasagna!" Alice asks to hold the baby girl. There is much cooing and cuddling. "Alice, meet Alice," Harriet says. The dome decides that one Alice is enough, so Original Flavor starts having a massive heart attack and returns the baby to her mother.
Ben and Angie have gotten the diner back into shape. "I just realized this is the first time I've worked here and not been pissed off about it," Angie says. Just then, Junior shows up to scare the crap out of her. Ben bravely decides to stay by Angie's side even though Junior is clearly crazy and twice his size. Junior is all killed out for the day, though, so all he does is tell Angie that he's sorry for that whole kidnapping thing. Oh, and that the Dundee brothers won't be bothering her anymore. Unless the dome brings them back, or whatever.
Norrie returns home to learn of her mother's heart attack. She sits on the edge of her bed and holds her hand. "I knew something was wrong," she says. "I saw you in the woods. It's like the dome wanted me to." She thinks she must sound crazy, but Alice tells her about Harriet's vision. "It brought you here," Alice says. "It must want me to go." They cry and say their goodbyes and it's pretty heartbreaking, mostly thanks to Mackenzie Lintz's portrayal of Norrie. Carolyn hugs her as they look down at Alice's body, but only for a moment, because Norrie flees the house. She drops to her knees in front of the dome and presses her hand to its surface. She pleads with it to bring her mother back.
Montage. Barbie and Julia snuggle on the couch downstairs. Harriet cradles her new baby. Carolyn says goodbye to Alice and tries not to fall apart completely. Sad music plays. The moon is full and Big Jim shows up at the propane warehouse to pretend he's shocked to see the truck burning. "Just tell me what you want!" Norrie shouts at the dome. In response, the black egg inside the mini-dome lights up with pink sparks of energy. Nothing good ever comes out of eggs in sci-fi. Nothing.
Tippi Blevins is just a visitor to the dome. Email her at b_tippi@yahoo.com, or find her @TippiB.