In the opening moments of “Heads Will Roll,” the season premiere of CBS’ “Under the Dome,” a church bell slammed into Chester’s Mill’s infamous dome with a deep gong. It was almost the show’s way of reintroducing itself, and saying, “We’re back!”
When we last left UTD, Barbie (Mike Vogel) was about to be executed for murder at the hands of Big Jim (Dean Norris), who had actually done the murdering, and Julia (Rachelle Lefevre) had thrown a magical egg into a lake.
And oh how the dome has grown in just a year! It now has magnetic pull, which gave poor Renegade Barbie (note: Mattel never made such a product) rug burn when his metal handcuffs were drawn to the bubble like Junior to women that can easily be contained in a basement. Thankfully, Barbie got away in time before a car could slam into him. But as for poor Linda. Well, Chester’s Mill’s hardest-working cop officially is off-duty. (She’ll never get to see her fiancé again!)
As the now-magnetic dome started to wreak havoc on the town—destroying mailboxes and causing runaway nails to inflict stigmata on young Joe—Big Jim sought shelter underground (where his son had kept an ex-girlfriend captive for days) and ran into an old friend he had just recently killed: Dodee, the radio DJ. Was he seeing things? Or does the dome now have the ability to bring back the dead (something I have suspected since Day One)?
Meanwhile, after Julia threw the magic egg into the lake, she discovered a young woman drowning, in addition to a new UTD character, Sam (Eddie Cahill), who emerged from a cabin and helped bring the drowning girl to safety.
Other new characters that were introduced included science teacher Rebecca Pine (Karla Crome), who equated the dome’s magnetic pulse to giving birth (So is there a new baby dome on its way? Double insulation for Chester’s Mill’s hot beverages?).
When it comes to catching up with old favorites, characters Angie (Britt Robertson) and Junior (Alexander Koch) are still trying to work out their issues. You know, like him kidnapping her and his father trying to kill everyone.
“We can end this, Junior,” said Angie, as she reached for a gun to kill Big Jim.
However, Angie never got to follow through with her intentions because half the town ended up on the ground—not because they were doing a flash mob involving “the Worm”—but because they were unconscious due to the weird Dome activity. During this downtime, Junior hallucinated and helped bring about the biggest revelation of the night: the identity of his mother, former NBC “ER” doc Sherry Stringfield!
In fact, this episode was kind of like Ghostfest 2014. Many ghosts made themselves known, even not-so-recently-deceased ones.
“Who the hell are you supposed to be? The Ghost of Christmas Future?” said Big Jim, upon seeing the just-pounded-into-the-dome Linda.
Yep, poor Linda didn’t get much of a reprieve. She was immediately put to work in her next life to help BJ learn the virtue of sacrifice in order to save Junior. After Linda visited him in a dream, the biggest takeaway for Big Jim was that he had to hang himself in the public square. But he couldn’t do it alone. He needed someone to pull the lever, which about a half hour prior, wouldn’t have been that hard to find. But since the dome had left everyone incapacitated, Big Jim had to try to kill himself. . .himself. Thankfully, Julia came to the rescue and volunteered to pull the lever, before cutting him down to safety instead.
“The dome doesn’t want us to kill you,” said Julia. “It wants us to end the killing.” (Not sure I totally buy this considering the amount of deaths that have already taken place on this show at the hands of the dome).
After this, everyone woke up alive. But not Linda, whose body still remained cold on the ground, with the creepy drowning girl (she escaped!) closing the lids of her eyes.
So Big Jim didn’t die. Barbie didn’t die. Everything should have been copacetic now between BJ and the town, right? Nope. Angie freaked out at Big Jim at the café after everything settled down, saying she would have let him die.
Then, Julia’s new friend, Sam entered the café and Junior recognized him—it was his uncle. And based on the staredown between Sam and Junior’s Papa, it looked like Big Jim was not too pleased to see him.
“The last time I saw Sam was Mom’s funeral, showing up the way he did now,” said Junior to his father, after Sam left.
“Just because you dreamed about your mom doesn’t mean she’s alive,” said Big Jim.
But oh how you’re wrong, BJ! The scene darted to a very-much-alive Sherry Stringfield working on a painting, saying the name “James” as the television in the background showed breaking news about the dome terrorizing Chester’s Mill.
With Linda gone, Angie took the reins as the hardest-working person in town, with the final scene showing her throw out garbage from the café she still works at. After discovering the mysterious drowning girl walking the streets, Angie followed her into an abandoned high school. When the girl ran from her down a long empty hallway, Angie again followed, but something found her. The episode ended with a slicing sound and a bloody handprint against a locker. As it turns out, being the hardest-working person in town is never a blessing. Always a curse.
What did you think of the first episode of this season? Are you still hooked? Do you think Angie is really dead?
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