Under the Dome: Alaska

July 20, 2015 9:45 AM - Season 3, Episode 5

When Big Jim and Julie team up to find proof to discredit Christine, they learn something new about the dome; Christine puts a deadly plan into action.

In this week's episode: more Oxytocin-based sex! Cattle-feed breakfast! Construction-based intrigue! Dharma-Initiative-esque flashbacks! Barbie beats a man to death! And...GIVE MY DOG BACK!

IGN:

The problem with the Pete storyline was that Pete was a damn creep. Barbie bonded with him and for a while it seemed like they might overthrow Christine, but Pete was still such an obvious pig chauvinist - calling women tramps, broads, etc - that one wondered why Barbie couldn't pick up on the overt signals that this guy was a louse. So the whole time I wasn't buying their bond because Barbie's such a blank vanilla nothing and Pete was a clichéd sexist grunt.

Tor:

Who has brought this level of dramatic craftsmanship to an episode of Under the Dome, a show not exactly known for caring about fancy dramaturgical theories like matching shots, making sure background actors know when the camera is rolling, and plot logic? Why, it’s Peter Medak, the great director who last worked with Marg Helgenberger on a little movie critics like to call Species II.

Den of Geek appreciated the show's embrace of Stephen King hive-mind tropes: "between Salem's Lot, The Tommyknockers, and The Cell, King has explored the herd mentality many times."

The only hopes we have left are "Big" Jim who is imprisoned by the aforementioned scientists, Joe and Norrie who are being chased by the bulk of Chester's Mill residents, and Julia who doesn’t have Barbie to be her muscle. The series finally has an effective big bad and things are moving in a very King like direction. Let's call this week a win.

posted by We had a deal, Kyle (5 comments total)

You know who else loved their dog...?
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 9:51 AM on July 20, 2015

I knew Pete was going to be killed horrifically as soon as he started in on spouting misogyny, and I was not disappointed. They just do not make characters say stuff like that unless they really want the audience to be happy when they get killed.

Speaking of the kill: that was quite violent.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 9:54 AM on July 20, 2015

I will give the writers credit. They are smart enough to know that the dog is the only character I care about being threatened. At this point I'd be happy quite happy if the dog digs his way out of the dome and we just follow him around having The Littlest Hobo style adventures.
posted by Gary at 6:09 PM on July 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

They're working very hard to reform Big Jim into an Our Hero protagonist this season.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 6:13 PM on July 20, 2015

This episode was so terrible even Fanfare was afraid to touch it for a few days. Thanks for posting it, now I get to re-live this drivel.

I do like the new explanation for the terrible performances from all the secondary characters. They're all Evil Therapist Lady's Oxytocin Zombies! Pete was particularly terrible, I'm not sure that actor could pass a Voight-Kampff test. But maybe that was all Acting?

I'm also confused on exactly who Christine and Eva are. The wiki confidently asserts that "She was sent to Chester's Mill with Eva Sinclair by Hektor Martin. They were sent to find the Egg." OK. But then Christine has been taken over by the evil butterfly aliens, so she's not acting herself? And Eva is set up to receive Barbie's divine seed? (And how is that going to work out? The Egg favors redheads but Eva's genetics are not well suited to red-headed babies.)

Still wondering why the Millers aren't more concerned about Christine and Eva showing up out of nowhere. Their cover story was "we were passing through town and then we woke up in these coccoons and ¯\_(ツ)_/¯". That's pretty thin but again: Oxytocin Zombies!
posted by Nelson at 11:00 AM on July 22, 2015