In this week’s “Going Home” episode, we got a glimpse of life Outside of the Dome (I smell a spin-off!), with two characters dying and experiencing rejuvenation. If you watched last week’s episode, you can guess who the first character was (Uncle Sam), and if you happened to see previews for this week’s episode, with Barbie dangling off a cliff, you can probably guess the next character.
Of all the characters on the show, Barbie probably has the most to be disturbed about (killing his girlfriend’s husband and then keeping said husband’s bed warm), but in this week’s episode, the untimely death of Sam the uncle (not the butcher) was weighing on his conscious, causing him to wake up in a cold sweat next to Julia.
Because they couldn’t do brunch or anything a normal couple might do, the pair headed over to interrupt a good old-fashioned heavy petting session, with guests including Norrie and Joe on the couch, and Junior and Melanie huddled at the door.( It looks like Junior has found a new female life to ruin—even if Melanie’s life is technically already over).
When Barbie and Julia broke up the party, Julia discovered Melanie had the egg Julia had previously thrown in the ocean.
“It needed to be with us,” said Melanie of the egg. If you had no idea what this show was about, walking into this episode might make you wonder whether you were having a stroke.
Julia broke the news to Junior: Uncle Sam was dead. His Uncle Sam—this was not some sort of empty symbolic sentiment stolen from Fox News.
Even though he had no reason to feel otherwise, Junior thought that Julia and Barbie were lying, and he left in a huff. Meanwhile, Barbie decided to go back to the tunnel to find answers (and maybe some kind of story arc for his character?).
The Cave of Wonders
With Julia and Rebecca at his side, Barbie traversed his way down the side of the locker cliff where Sam had died just a day before.
“It says we’re facing every direction at once” said Rebecca Pine of her compass, although this statement felt like a metaphor for this season’s storytelling.
“I see a whole lot of dark,” said Barbie, as he was hanging down the side of the cliff.
Soon, Barbie got pulled down by some unspeakable force, and while Julia tried to save him by grabbing the rope, he cut it himself in an effort to save her life.
Even though Julia was distraught over the presumed death of Barbie, she didn’t want Rebecca to tell Big Jim, otherwise the shift of power could be catastrophic. So when Big Jim came bounding into the high school looking for Barbie, Julia made up the excuse that Barbie was in the tunnel looking for Sam, although I was hoping this episode would turn into an elaborate 45 minutes of Weekend at Bernie’s without the body or the humor—although it is somewhat humorous that Julia is more distraught over the death of the man who killed her husband than when he actually killed her husband.
Talk about a cliffhanger, though. You didn’t actually think Barbie was dead (mainly because I told you he wasn’t in the beginning of this post). That’s right. Barbie woke up—on a playground.
Angie. . .ANG-IEEE
After overhearing Junior and Melanie at the diner, Big Jim discovered that Uncle Sam killed Angie.
“Your uncle was always off. . .it’s why we didn’t get along,” said BJ. But unlike Big Jim, did Sam try to poison the town? I mean, he did allegedly only kill one person, as opposed to attempting to kill hundreds. But potato, pa-tato.
Later, Big Jim confronted Rebecca Pine at her house.
“You made a huge mistake crossing me,” he said before launching into talk about the dome choosing him and redeeming him, which sounds even crazier than the killer caterpillars Rebecca Pine discovered just weeks earlier.
Big Jim had been watching the high school to find out where Barbie was.
“I waited outside that school. I saw you leave, but Barbie, he never left. So where is he?” I guess we know where Junior got his creepiness from.
Rebecca Pine told BJ that Barbie was dead.
Joe versus the dome
“It got me thinking about the dome,” said Joe to Norrie. “Something isn’t adding up.”
Finally, right? I’m glad Joe got around to thinking about the dome on this show. It’s time someone mentioned the dome. “Where did it come from? Why is it here?”
Later, when Julia revealed to Joe that Barbie was probably dead, Joe was in denial: “The dome wouldn’t let anything happen to Barbie.”
Seriously. Why couldn’t this kid have leapt off the cliff?
As a dedicated viewer, I’ve grown concerned over the education system in Chester’s Mill, simply based on Joe’s comprehension skills. He’s also managed to make the dome a false idol (“What if this is all a part of the dome’s plan?”), but I’ll leave that one up to the big man upstairs.
Determined to figure out what happened to Barbie, Joe floated a drone down the cliff to see what he, Norrie, and Julia could find. But it lost its signal and barely made its way back up.
When Joe went to play back the video he did capture, he discovered something when he rewound the dome video. Frame by frame, it showed a playground. The playground where Barbie had ended up.
Eventually, Junior and Melanie found their way to the school, and since Melanie had the egg, Joe implored her to get the gang back together and make some magical pink stars in the locker tunnel.
Outside of the Dome
Barbie woke up outside of the dome, on a playground, before wandering around on what looked like a college campus. People recoiled at his bloodiness, instead of offering to help him (so I’m guessing he was in Florida?).
But guess who else was outside of the dome: Uncle Sam. And just as we discovered Uncle Sam was alive, we also discovered where he was: the Davidson Psychiatric Institute. After bypassing some lax security, Sam was reunited with his sister Pauline, who was teaching an art therapy class.
“You were inside the dome. Did it come down?” said Pauline. Check CNN, girlfriend. That would be a no.
Sam explained to Pauline that they had found tunnels through the school and that he had leapt to his death and ended up here. He pressed Pauline for details as to why she faked her death, and she explained she thought the dome would follow her if she left Chester’s Mill. She had done all of this to save the town. After she gave this big spiel, she revealed that oh, by the way, Lyle was out and about. Talk about burying the lead.
Pauline took Sam to visit Lyle, who was in a psychiatric unit where all he said was “Melanie” over and over again. You know what’s more crazy than this? The fact that the actors that play Pauline, Lyle, and Sam are each 10 years apart in age in real life and play contemporaries on the show.
Pauline assumed that the “Melanie” in question couldn’t be the one from 25 years ago, but Sam assured her it was—she was back from the dead.
Action Barbie
Outside of the dome, it didn’t take long for Barbie to be up to his old tricks, hanging with thugs and toting guns. He got accosted by a group of men with guns, one of which said, “Welcome Home, Barbie,” without so even much as a hug or party banner. Instead of Barbie getting cake handed to him, he got his ass instead.
“Give me a day to get organized,” he pleaded for his life. “I just got back.”
Later, he double-crossed the group when they went to ambush a house, the owner of which was Barbie’s dad.
“Dale, is that you?”
“Hi, Dad.”
I think we all saw this coming from a mile away.
The next scene showed Barbie and Papa Barbie sharing a drink (somehow he had gotten out of that kerfuffle with the thugs) and Barbie begged for Dad, who’s a powerful CEO-type guy, to pull some strings and get him to the dome, even though there’s a 10-mile no-go zone around the perimeter.
“I need to get a message to someone on the inside.”
After some coaxing, Barbie’s dad agreed to help get his son to the dome.
It looks like stuff is finally starting to happen this season on “Under the Dome.” What did you think of this episode? With Uncle Sam and Lyle being alive, do you think Angie could be, too? And more importantly, is the Sweetbriar Rose café still charging for food during this time of crisis?
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