The town is at odds in this week’s Under The Dome, but can they get over their differences to help with the food shortage?
Shots fired
Melanie’s having nightmares about the night she died, but they can’t do anything about it until Barbie fills in Julia. When he does, they also argue about whether or not he was aligned with Rebecca and Jim’s murder plan. Barbie tells her Sam knows what happened the night Melanie died.
Back at the Sweetbriar, town residents are split between Team Jim and Team Julia, and things are pretty tense. They’re still looking for Lyle, but meanwhile, it’s time to arraign Jim and Rebecca at the town meeting. They are cranky in their cells, and Jim blames Rebecca for turning everyone against him.
At the arraignment, things start to get crazy, people start pushing and shoving, and when a man pulled a gun and charged at Jim, Sheriff Phil shot him dead. Rebecca tries to help the man, but he’s a goner. Julia throws a lot of guilt at Rebecca and finally makes her cry. However, she still tells Julia that Barbie was never in on the plan. Julia goes to confront Phil about his behavior, and fires him. She offers Barbie the job, but he’d rather stay out of the line of fire right now, thank you very much.
Kiss kiss
Sam plays into Junior’s outrage at Lyle, as he’s saying he’s going to make Lyle suffer for taking Angie from him. Sam suggests the missing journal pages might be the key to finding Lyle. They search the barber shop for the missing pages, which Sam plants under the chair cushion. He “finds” them, and they show a picture of Angie, and a picture of the four hands. Sam says Pauline used to say “Four hands will hold up the dome, and without them it will fall.” Junior realizes this bad news for the other hands, which he reveals to Sam are he, Joe, and Norrie.
Joe and Norrie bring Melanie to the dome, hoping she’ll have visions when she touches it, like they do. But nothing happens, and she’s feeling awfully down on her undead self. Norrie is over her drama, and says she’d trade her for her dead mom in a heartbeat. Melanie runs off, and Joe calls Norrie a bitch, before running after Melanie like a lovesick puppydog. When he finds her, they kiss, until they’re interrupted by a furious Norrie. A catfight ensues, in which Norrie gets the tiniest insignificant scratch ever.
Junior and Sam come to Big Jim’s looking for Joe and Norrie, and when they don’t find them, Sam pours them both a drink to calm down. Junior is hesitant, because Sam’s supposed to be sober now, but he drinks it anyway. Sam, however, does not, and pours Junior another.
Betrayal
Julia’s first big act as top dog in Chester’s Mill is to hold a voluntary food drive, where everyone in town brings their food to be split among the town. But there is a suspicious explosion, and all the food burns. In the aftermath of the explosion, citizens are mad that all their food is gone, and Phil fans the fire, saying it’s all Julia’s fault. Julia gets overwhelmed and upset, but Barbie comforts her, kisses her, and tells her she’ll figure it out.
When she returns to the scene, she sees Andrea handing out bottles of water. Come to find out, Andrea’s husband was a hoarder, and she has enough food stockpiled in her house to feed the entire town for several months. He was scared to come forward, thinking someone would steal her food, but she trusts Julia.
Phil enters the wreckage and unlocks a back room of undamaged food. Carol questions the stash of food, and Phil attacks and chloroforms her. Phil’s lackeys unload some food, and Barbie comes in with a gun. Phil sees his gun, and raises him Carol at knifepoint. There’s a fight and Barbie takes out the lackeys, and holds Phil at gunpoint again. After he asks him repeatedly to let Carol go, she ducks out of the way and Barbie shoots Phil in the chest.
Junior’s drunk, and Sam leads him to a couch, where he promptly falls asleep. Sam grabs a pillow, apologizing for what he’s about to do, and lowers it towards Junior’s beautiful face. But he starts awake, and sleepily tells Uncle Sam how much he loves him. Sam can’t go through with it now, and puts down the pillow. He considers the bottle of booze for a while, before throwing it across the room, knocking down one of Pauline’s paintings. The noise wakes Junior up, and they find that the back of the painting shows the obelisk Junior saw in his dream, and “1821,” the number of the bloody hand locker. They think Lyle might have ended up there, so they’re gonna check it out.
Christmas in July
The Sweetbriar is hoppin, with plenty of food for everyone. Julia’s keeping the food source a secret, but credits Andrea for the great party. Julia brings in Jim and Rebecca to forgive them, and Jim says Julia’s done an incredible job of leading the town in his absence. Everyone’s having a lovely time except for Rebecca, who has seen the error of her ways and realized she is THE WORST. Barbie tells Julia he’ll take the sheriff job after all.
Joe apologizes to Norrie for kissing Melanie, and tells her he loves her, but she is not having it. Melanie asks Rebecca for her help, and Rebecca compares slides of Joe’s and Melanie’s blood, to try to find some answers. She finds Sam and Junior crowbar-ing into the bloody hand locker, and when they open it up, they discover a big ol’ mystery tunnel.
Under The Dome season 2, episode 6, “In the Dark,” airs Monday, Aug 4 at 10 p.m. on CBS.