Season 2 of Under The Dome kicked off with a bang and a flash and some buzzing, as the town was nearly wiped out by the dome’s new magnetic superpowers.
Post-‘Pink Stars’
The show opens with handsome newcomer Sam Verdreaux (Eddie Cahill) skulking around his cabin in the middle of the woods. The dome is still flaring a bright white, as well making a sort of siren sound, all of which is causing people all around town to collapse.
Julia docks her boat and comes ashore, but then a girl pops to the surface in the middle of the lake, struggling, and Julia dives back in to get her. Sam helps Julia administer CPR, and invites them back to his cabin to dry off.
Barbie, Big Jim, and Junior are still atop the gallows, and Barbie tries to talk some sense into Big Jim. Junior is having second thoughts, and thinks the dome is trying to tell them something. But Big Jim won’t be dissuaded, and grabs for the level himself, until Linda stops him at gunpoint, telling him he’s out of control, and they need to take a trip to the dome to see what’s going on.
Magnet Trouble
Linda, Big Jim, Junior, and Barbie arrive at the edge of the dome, which is now a giant magnet, attracting all sorts of metal things, including their guns and handcuffs. Unfortunately, Barbie is currently wearing handcuffs, and is pulled helplessly towards the dome. Linda struggles to free him from the cuffs, as Barbie tells her to leave him. As they struggle, the truck they arrived in, and parked so very close to the magnetic dome, starts being dragged right towards them. Linda frees Barbie from the cuffs just in time to shove him out of harm’s way and take the full impact of the truck herself.
Back in the cabin, Sam tends to Julia’s wound, as she explains that Barbie didn’t make it. Turns out Sam was an EMT in town for 10 years, and Julia tries to convince him to bring his medical expertise to town, but it seems there’s some bad blood there.
The three men left at the dome are all blaming each other in the wake of Linda’s death. Big Jim and Barbie fight, and Barbie outs Big Jim as Dodie’s murderer, at which Junior is horrified. Big Jim goes after Barbie knocks him to the ground and leaves. Junior and his father argue, and Big Jim says someone’s got to make the hard choices.
Barbie comes upon a house and tries to break into the car parked out front, but is stopped by a woman pointing a rifle at him. Turns out, she’s Rebecca Pine, the high school science teacher who has been studying the dome since it came down (And yet has not made her views public enough for us to have met her at any point in the first season?).
Out on the farm, Joe, Norrie, and Angie are just arriving to find metal bits of the house pulling off and flying at the dome. Norrie realizes her mother is in there, and they run inside to find her unconscious on the kitchen floor. Before they can get her out, pots and pans and knives and nails are flying all over the place. As the gang takes cover behind a table, a nail flies right into Joe’s hand…ouch. The force of the dome pulls the nail right through Joe’s hand (double ouch), just as Barbie and Rebecca show up to save the day. The whole gang barely gets out of the house with Unconscious Mom before the house collapses right behind them.
‘Pauline Verdreaux’
Meanwhile, Big Jim is arming himself down in the storm cellar when all of the metal shelves start pulling up toward the ceiling. He tries to run out, but the door slams shut and he’s stuck. He’s sitting in the dark when he hears a voice say, “Big Jim, looks like it’s just you and me now.” It’s Dome-messenger Dodie! While he tells himself that these must be stress hallucinations, she is telling him that everything is his fault and he should have listened to Junior’s warnings about the dome.
Rebecca has brought everyone to the school because she says the school is the safest spot, because it’s the very center of the dome. They decide to make their own giant electro-magnet. Angie is skeptical, and suggests to Barbie that they just kill Big Jim, because it’s obviously what the dome wants. Barbie tells her she doesn’t want that on her conscience.
Julia decides she needs to get back to town to see what’s happening, and asks Sam to look after Lake Girl. Sam sits down with a scrapbook belonging to a “Pauline Verdreaux,” who turns out to be Big Jim’s dead wife, who just so happened to draw a picture of the girl sleeping on his couch right now.
Or is she? She’s actually walking in a daze through the town of unconscious people. Angie asks her if she’s alright, but gets no answer. Angie is searching the diner for a gun, when Junior comes in and asks what she’s doing. She confesses that she’s looking for a gun to kill his father, and he says he’ll get her one from the station.
Sacrifice
Big Jim has rigged up some explosives in an effort to blow the door off the storm shelter, but Dodie keeps harassing him about everything being his whole fault, and that the whole town is going down because he’s unwilling to make any sacrifices. She warns him that “Sins of the father are always visited on the son,” but he blows the door open and runs out.
They’ve rigged up a bunch of copper wire on a tower tower, and are waiting for their magnet to charge up when the dome lets out another burst of energy, causing Norrie, Junior, Angie, Rebecca, and basically everyone in town but Barbie, Julia, and Big Jim to pass out. Julia finds Barbie alive and they finally have their romantic and heartfelt reunion, but they’re worried the dome’s next burst might take them out too.
Junior wakes up on a sidewalk, and wanders through a deserted city. He takes a snow globe from a broken shop window, but when he shakes it, it fills with blood, and he throws it to the ground, where it shatters. (Hmm…foreshadowing, perhaps?) A woman passes, and he calls out to her, only to find out that it’s his mom. She calls him her sweet boy, to which he says, “Not anymore,” and it’s all very sweet and sad.
Big Jim comes across Junior’s body in the town square, and Linda, the newest Dome-emissary, tells him h can save his son time by learning the virtue of sacrifice. Big Jim eyeballs the deserted gallows, before climbing the stairs, and putting the rope around his neck. He can’t quite reach the lever, but fortunately Barbie and Julia show up at the perfect moment.
Big Jim says he’s just trying to do what the dome wants him to do, and Julia volunteers to help. But she can’t go through with it, so Big Jim just jumps on the trap door until it gives out. But before the rope goes taught, Julia cuts it with the sharpest knife in history, saying “The dome didn’t want us to kill you, it wants us to end the killing.” And just like that, the dome has stopped being a giant magnet, and everyone is waking up. Well, not everyone, as Lake Girl sits with Linda’s dead body, saying, “Sorry.” Barbie introduces Rebecca and Julia, who immediately dislike each other, because Rebecca thinks science is causing all this, while Julia thinks it’s all dome magic.
Aftermath
All the townspeople report to the Sweetbriar for a cup o’ joe, including Stephen King! Phil confronts Big Jim for letting Barbie go, but Big Jim explains that Barbie was an innocent scapegoat, and asks Phil to be the new deputy. He also offers Norrie, her mom, and Joe his home, as theirs has been destroyed. Norrie scoffs, but her mom thanks them, wanting to keep friends close, but enemies closer. Rebecca is still concerned about the dome’s electro-magnetic powers, and Big Jim promises to discuss it with her tomorrow. Angie threatens that if she had been up on the gallows, as she would have essentially danced on his grave.
Sam strolls in claiming he’s looking for a 17-year-old girl, and no one questions this. Big Jim looks murderous as Angie tells Sam where Lake Girl was headed. Junior thinks it’s not a coincidence that his uncle has showed up just after he’s had this dream about his mom. When Big Jim tries to talk him down, he growls at his father for calling him Junior, saying his name is James.
We see Mama Rennie looking at a painting of a grown Junior, before replacing it with a painting of a grey door, and just when you think it’s a flashback, you see she’s in a city high rise, watching news coverage of the dome in Chester’s Mill.
Angie is closing up the diner when she sees Lake Girl wander out into the street. She follows her into the darkened school, and finds her staring into an open locker. When she calls out to her, Lake Girl turns to look at her in horror, before running away. Angie looks into the locker herself and seems shocked, before turning and screaming just as someone takes her out with an axe. Another one bites the dust in Chester’s Mill.
Under The Dome season 2, episode 2, “Invasion,” airs Monday July 7 at 10 p.m. on CBS.