Just when you thought it was safe to use metal appliances again, the folks at Chester’s Mill faced a whole new problem in this week’s “Infestation” episode. Killer. Caterpillars.
Science teacher (and new CBS hire) Rebecca Pine discovered the little buggers in her garden and immediately came to the conclusion that they were going to overrun the town, and thus, had to die. And like Jonathan Lipnicki in Jerry Maguire, Ms. Pine spouted off an insane amount of weird knowledge. “Caterpillars can eat over 200 times their own weight.”
Wait, what? Why doesn’t anyone say, “Hungry like a caterpillar” instead of “Hungry like a horse”?
In order to stop the reproductive cycle of butterflies, girlfriend became the ultimate cock-block by torching the fields (Did she not think about contained smoke killing the residents? Is that not covered in junior high science?).
Just like when ABC’s “Lost” used to do episodes around certain characters (“Oh, this is a Kate episode. . .”), “Under the Dome” had no qualms about making this a butterfly episode because they were f***ing everywhere, man. Pervy ones that liked to watch Barbie and Julia canoodle in bed. Gross ones that liked to cover Angie’s dead body.
Yes, folks. Angie, our favorite waitress and basement captive, has died. Junior discovered her body at the high school, setting off this show’s whodunit mystery that’s still not as interesting as “Who shot Mr. Burns?”
Big Jim connected the obvious dots.
“Did you do this?” he asked Junior, as Angie’s body was being hauled away.
Junior countered with: “Did you do it? Did you kill her?”
Of course Big Jim didn’t do it, as his recent brush with death had made him a Born-Again Domer (hahahaha “Domer”). He’s nice now. He even rewarded Julia with free diner coffee for sparing his life. (Relax. It was Folgers. He’s still kind of a schmuck.)
“This is a test,” said Big Jim. “The first test of many. I’m guessing the dome wants me to prove myself.”
While Big Jim and Junior agreed to work together to track down Angie’s killer, they failed to work together to get a hold of Joe, Angie’s brother. As Angie’s body was being carried away, Joe was taking a walk with Norrie in the woods. When he went to steal a kiss, he discovered that all of the butterflies were dying, falling to the ground like snow. (Sounds like a metaphor for his makeout skills.) In addition to dead butterflies, Joe and Norrie discovered the New Girl/probable murderer curled up in a ball under a tree. Like idiots, they adopted her as a new member of the gang, despite knowing nothing about her.
Later, as they were walking past a crime scene, Joe, Norrie, and New Girl stopped to ask Officer Barbie what was going on. Barbie broke the bad news, and Joe took it especially hard, considering he didn’t seem to notice when his sister went missing for three days after the dome initially went up.
“Whoever did this is going to pay!” Joe exclaimed.
Despite their bedroom canoodling from hours earlier, Julia and Barbie soon engaged in a lovers’ spat, when Barbie made the claim that New Girl might be the killer.
“I don’t understand anything that’s happening,” said Julia to Barbie. “But I feel like I’m starting to lose you.” Honest question: Did they ever really have each other? Especially when Barbie is always off doing something stupid like hijack a plane he’s not familiar with.
In order to kill the caterpillars with pesticides (instead of smoke them out), Barbie took off in Big Jim’s plane, and like a jackass, nearly crashed, before Big Jim surprisingly steered him to safety.
“Meet the new Big Jim,” said BJ, after saving his former enemy’s life. Shit. I miss the old evil Big Jim. He was more fun.
In order to clear New Girl’s name, Julia went to visit Sam to see if he thought New Girl could have possibly killed Angie. Seeing as they had no idea where she came from nor her intentions, they deemed her not a suspect.
“Think I’m nuts for defending someone I don’t know?” said the red-haired reporter. No, Julia. But we all think you’re nuts for letting the killer of your husband live and sleep with you.
Sam also introduced himself as Big Jim’s brother-in-law, prompting Julia to utter a line that could foreshadow things to come: “Is it possible everyone around me is trapped in Jim’s orbit?” (What if it’s Big Jim’s world, and we’re just all living in it?) While he had her there, Sam showed Julia one of his sister’s old paintings which looked EXACTLY like New Girl. Creepy.
Speaking of creepy, Julia and Sam showed up to examine Angie’s body, in order to exonerate their new teenage friend, and discovered Junior clutching his deceased ex’s lifeless hand.
“I didn’t want her to be alone,” he said.
“I understand,” said Julia, which really was her way of saying, “I’ve interrupted ‘happy time.’”
While Junior spent most of this episode thinking his father was the murderer, somewhere along the way he started to look at himself as a suspect, especially in his heart to heart with Uncle Sam.
“Is it possible to love someone so much you’d hurt them?” said Junior. (Not a Hallmark card, believe it or not). See, Junior was like blackout drunk the night before and in his stupor, may have murdered the love of his life.
Meanwhile, Norrie may officially be the smartest person on this show because while she was helping Joe mourn (not with her lips), she made the realization that maybe that New Girl they had befriended was not to be trusted. Maybe she was the killer because she was new and showed up out of nowhere (which would also make Rebecca and Sam suspects). This epiphany caused Joe and Norrie to steal New Girl’s shoe and take it to jail to see if they could match the footprint found at the crime scene.
The Dome may be up, but the defenses are down because Junior, Joe, and Norrie just walked right into the jail with a gun and the intention of shooting New Girl, but Julia stopped them. There were bruise marks on Angie that came from a male. New Girl wasn’t the killer.
“Ruh-roh,” Junior mentally chirped. Later, when he retreated to his personal drunk tank cell, he discovered Angie’s bracelet, which was notably missing from the body. Did he really kill Angie?
At Angie’s wake, Big Jim gave the eulogy:
“She was a daughter. A sister. She had big dreams.” Where were her parents?
“We are being tested by some power that’s bigger than any of us.” Big Jim preached to the church like this had never been written before or published in a big book called the Bible. And the congregation ate it up just like the horny caterpillars. Could the big Book of Big Jim Church soon be on its way?
After the service, Rebecca came up to Jim, and was a total buzzkill to the great little moment he had just had.
“We’re the problem, Jim. There are too many people here for our limited resources. We can’t all survive.”
Yikes. I predict people are going to start eating each other very soon.
But before we get to cannibalism: next week’s disaster involves Dwight Yoakham and blood rain.
What did you think of this week’s episode? Did you like Angie? Were you happy to see her go? Or do you think she’ll rise out of this cocoon and live again?
1 comments