Note: Do not read on if you have not seen Season 1, Episode 9 of CBS' "Under the Dome," titled "The Fourth Hand."
The season is winding down, but CBS is still throwing every possible scenario our way. It's been a very busy eight days in Chester's Mill, and Monday's episode just adds to the crazy.
This week, Julia tries to show Barbie the mini-dome and egg situation, but when they arrive to the spot in the forest, it's no longer there. Before Julia can enlist Barbie to find the missing alien egg with her, he gets a page from Linda urging him to come to the other side of town because "shots have been fired." What we've learned so far: every day someone dies.
When Barbie arrives, he finds that there was a neighbor's quarrel after a town druggie broke into a man's house and went ballistic. Turns out, the addict was on 'rapture,' the good stuff that Reverend Coggins was supplying. Apparently, God's messenger also claimed the drug was the same as visiting heaven. What a good salesman!
At the diner, Angie is holding down the fort. She asked Big Jim for a promotion to manager, but he has to think it over. Either Big Jim is getting handfuls of applications from qualified managers who want to run a restaurant in the middle of a crisis for a paycheck that's no good in the town or I smell discrimination. Because there's no food at the diner, Angie only has one customer. But fear not, Junior (AKA the guy who looks vaguely like James Franco) strolls in soon enough. After a few protests, Angie decides to hear him out, but before she has a chance, she has a seizure and falls to the ground, reciting the "pink stars" line.
When Angie wakes up, she does so in the back of Junior's cop car but surprisingly, he lets her go at her house. Before he leaves, he promises her that he'll see her again. You know, in case she had any concern that it would be hard to find each other while trapped under the dome.
Meanwhile, Big Jim has an unexpected visitor. Nine episodes in and we finally meet another person involved in the rarely-mentioned propane scheme. Max, a stereotypical beautiful-yet-intimidating woman is apparently the face behind the whole operation. She doesn't live in Chester's Mill, but happened to be on her way to visit Big Jim the day the dome came down and just decided to appear now. She's pissed off that things are going awry and bosses Big Jim around to fix it.
While Big Jim is dealing with the ghosts of his not-quite-past, Barbie and Linda decide to visit Reverend Coggins' funeral home for evidence of drugs. They find bags of paraphernalia and evidence "hidden" in caskets, including a handwritten recipe (just like mom's!) for the rapture drug.
When they return to the station, Big Jim is waiting for them with a plan. He suggests that in light of recent events, they should ask the townspeople to turn in their guns. For a few minutes, the show gets oddly political as Linda argues that the citizens have the right to bear arms. Obviously the suggestion is shady coming from Big Jim, but when an entire town is trapped and unwieldy, I'm not sure the Second Amendment should apply. Regardless, Linda gives in and Big Jim makes an announcement on the radio asking that people "voluntarily" turn in their firearms.
In the most unbelievable twist yet, the residents comply and hand over their guns to Rennie. Except for a quick interlude where Big Jim turns up at the home of a resident who refuses to give away his guns and talks him down from committing suicide via hand grenade, things go pretty much according to Jim's plan. Except, while he and Barbie are going through the guns, we find out it wasn't really Jim's plan after all. Max was behind the idea, but before she has much time to really thank Rennie for his hard work, she walks over and plants one on Barbie. In a really screwed up triangle, we find out that Barbie knows Max (he bought her a drink once?), Rennie is still working for Max and Max has the whole thing planned out. When Barbie doesn't agree to be part of their scheme, Max threatens to tell Julia about Barbie's past.
In non-corrupt cop news, Linda decides to pay a visit to the propane shelter. While there, she watches a security tape that shows an unnamed woman (Max) doing business with Duke. Poor Linda has to find out the hard way that her beloved sheriff was pretty sketchy.
Junior is on his way to join Linda when Angie appears at the station. In what's surely Junior's dream come true, Angie asks for his help because she thinks he can tell her how she's connected to the dome. Junior leads her to his mom's art studio (now a dim and dusty garage with a few canvases strewn around) and shows her a painting that he thinks will clear everything up. When his mom was still alive, she had a dream that compelled her to rush to her studio and paint a picture of Junior surrounded by pink stars. (Hopefully Junior's mom kept her day job.) Junior convinces Angie that this means they're linked by something huge.
Speaking of being linked to something huge, Norrie and Joe go on a search for the missing egg. Just when their adventure seems futile, the dog starts to bark at the barn next to Joe's house. They open the doors to find they have a glittery egg visitor. Who needs a pony when you have an alien egg? Norrie and Joe are in shock when Angie walks in to get in on the fun. She says Joe woke up at 3 a.m. that morning and left the house "like a zombie" and clearly brought the egg here. Joe has no recollection, but because there's no other way it could have moved here, he buys it.
Angie, Norrie and Joe all reach out for the egg at the same time, causing the mini-dome to emit a blue light. As their hands are surrounding the egg, Norrie makes a profound observation: "It's almost like these are locks and our hands are the keys." As soon as she says it, a missing hand print illuminates on the other side of the dome, indicating that they need one more person to "unlock" the secret.
Stray Observations
- When Junior returns home, he finds Big Jim somewhat maniacally setting up and dusting off his new firearm collection in the bomb shelter. This family keeps passing the crazy around.
"Under the Dome" airs Mondays at 10 p.m. ET on CBS.
