Under the Dome
Episode 4: Outbreak
Episode 5: Blue on
Blue
By: Carlos Uribe
Under
the Dome is a series about a small town that is trapped under a
literal dome.
Spoilers
Ahoy!
Outbreak:
The
crisis in Outbreak is in the title: an outbreak of Meningitis. The
closed nature of the dome has made it so that the disease can easily
spread among the citizens. It doesn't help matters that the hospital
is not only short on staff but medicine as well. The highly
contagious nature of the lethal disease makes it a major problem if
they aren't able to contain the problem. They have to find a way to
diagnose everyone, treat everyone, and ensure it doesn't spread. All
three of their solutions comes with obstacles. The lack of doctors
gives an opportunity for Alice to shine as she's able to use her
experience working at a hospital to use. She might not exactly be a
doctor, as she's a psychologist, but she did intern as one or
something. She's able to determine that it's meningitis and she
encourages that they quarantine the hospital to limit it's ability to
spread. Alice largely does a good job but it gets complicated because
she's basically the only doctor and her diabetes makes it a challenge
for her to stay on her feet. Well the second one is at least in
theory as it really only comes up as a concern because her partner
keeps bringing it up. There's a moment at the end where Carolyn
actually tries to steal diabetes medicine for Alice because she
realizes that there might soon be a shortage. Alice stops her because
of her optimism that things won't get so bad. It would have been nice
if this diabetes plot actually played a role in Alice's attempt to
play doctor because it could have added to the drama rather than be a
worry for Carolyn. What would have happened if she suffered a
diabetic attack in the middle of trying to help people? Who could
help her? Could it have been confused with her getting meningitis symptoms by those who didn't know she got the vaccine? There's
definably ways the show could have used that to actually build
tension rather than merely hint at it's possibility. So the solution
on how to diagnose all the people came with a theoretical obstacle
rather than a real one.
The
whole treating everyone is a whole different ballpark because it
means having to find more medicine within a short piece of time. They
try to hit the town's pharmacy only to discover that someone hit them
first. Big Jim is able to figure out that the reverend had taken the
drugs. He rushes to the Reverend's house just in time to stop every
drug from being destroyed. The reverend is clearly acting
irrationally due to his faith and it's a bit annoying. I didn't mind
that he was corrupt, but does acting like a zealot mean making
stupid decisions? I don't know, as a Christian I'm not happy with
this show's portrayal of the sole representative of my faith. Their
able to get the medicine back but not before the cop's teacher dies
because somebody whose name we knew needed to pass or it would have
been a joke of a threat. A teacher that was introduced for this sole
purpose. They probably could have saved her life if the reverend
hadn't ransacked the pharmacy's medicine. The final solution is how
to stop the spread. The genius idea is to have everyone stay in the
hospital by having Junior guard the door so that nobody can leave.
There's a small problem when the people in the waiting room panic but
Junior is able to calm them all down. This gets him deputized into
the police force, which isn't good because he's a crazy kidnapper.
Most importantly is that he finally gets some respect from his dad
but I'm sure he'll lose it soon enough because the episode ends with
Big Jim finding Angie in his bomb shelter. Finally.
That
isn't the only obstacle to stopping the spread although the show
doesn't seem to realize this. Julia is intent on finding out what
Barbie is keeping from her. The map doesn't lead to her husband's
body but the DJ's house. Parked right outside the DJ's house is her
husband's car. This only makes her more curious as she struggles to
find out what is going on. She's able to get the cabin where Barbie
had fought her husband out of a delirious DJ. She leaves the hospital
even though she's obviously sick with meningitis which is just plain
stupid. I understand wanting to know what happened to your husband
but it's not exactly like waiting to get better is a bad idea. She
was under no deadline. She basically risks infecting the whole town,
making the situation worse, because she's selfish and doesn't take
anybody else under consideration. It's the most frustrating part of
the episode and I quickly found myself turning against her. She's
lucky the writers didn't use her decision to turn the outbreak into
an epidemic because then they wouldn't have been able to wrap this
episode nicely. She does learn part of the truth but she thinks her
husband ran away from her rather than lying dead on the ground. She's
still mad at Barbie for keeping this version of the truth from her.
So he's homeless now. Outbreak isn't a bad episode per se but it's
filled with a couple of mistakes that stopped it from being good:
Julia was just too stupid this episode to the point where I was
actively rooting against her while the writers missed multiple
opportunities they presented themselves to make the situation worse.
Blue on Blue:
Blue
on Blue shifts things up by pretending that everybody is going to
die. The military realizes that the dome is messing with the
magnetization of the planet. They don't know what it is and it is
starting to affect the outside world. The only clear answer for the
military is to do what they do best: blow it up with the best
non-nuclear bomb they have. They start the day out nicely by having a
“visitor's day” where people from outside can visit their loved
ones inside. They have to find ways to communicate: some use the
Microsoft Surface, some speak in sign language, and others just hope
the other can read lips. This visit is really supposed to be a
goodbye even though people from neither side seem to know this. It is
a good way for the writers to develop some of the conflicts. Linda
has to break the news to her fiance that his brother is dead, Norrie
finds out that her biological father was not an anonymous sperm donor
but an ex-boyfriend of Alice, and Julia receives a “letter” from
her husband explaining that he's run away. The Linda one is a good
plot as it's a way to force the character to confront that someone
died under her watch but it's sadly rushed due to the time restraint.
The writers only had so much time to dedicate to visitor's day before
they had to introduce the missile. The Norrie plot makes sense as a
way to create conflict between the daughter and her two moms but it's
not like there wasn't enough animosity between them. It felt more
like trying to stir the pot for the sake of it but hopefully there's
a good reason on why the truth about her father was kept from her.
The Julia plot is the perfect way to allow her to buy Barbie's story
so that they can basically be back to where they were before she
realized his connection to her husband. I'd say visitor's day is a
good way for the show to create conflict but it's never really
properly utilized. Linda's inner conflict is all too short to work,
the Norrie plot felt forced and unnecessary, while Julia's letter was
used to remove a conflict. Overall, I think that if the series had
been able to spend a whole episode with the idea of visitor's day
then it would have been properly executed. As it stands, it's a
rushed idea that quickly gets shoved to the background in exchange
for a rocket.
The
whole rocket drama is a little better. I never really bought the idea
that: a) they were going to die or b) the rocket was going to destroy
the dome. The first is obvious because then we would have no
characters to watch. The second can't happen until the series finale
because that's what the whole show is about. Putting both in jeopardy
might be a good way to try to increase the tension but the stakes are
too high to properly be believable. So it should have come as no
surprise to any viewer when the rocket was stopped by the dome. It
explodes on the outside. Now this is where the show does to one thing
right: it shows the destruction that the rocket had on the other
side. The green forest has been wiped out, the road is a wreck, and
it looks like a war zone. We get a visual sense of the power of the
rocket rather than merely being told of it's theoretical power. Would
it have been nice to get this idea before the rocket hit so that we
could understand the threat more? Sure but I don't think that was
necessary since I still wouldn't have bought the stakes. No, showing
us the destruction of the rocket shows how powerful the dome is. This
wasn't a weak missile but one that should have been able to destroy
it. It didn't make a dent. That's a good way to really show how
powerful the dome is. I might have known that the dome was going to
survive the impact but I get to truly understand what that means
thanks to what we see on the outside. It's also a pretty cool image
to end the episode on as it's iconic in it's own right while creating
the necessary narrative momentum to get me to come back. Blue on Blue
might have had trouble with the content of the episode but it had one
hell of an ending that was knocked right out of the park. Well,
except for the whole kiss thing. That was a little bit too cheesy and
fake to truly work.
The
episode does have some frustrating bits during the missile drama. Big
Jim takes forever to decide that he's going to let Angie go. Only he
doesn't bother to tell her that a missile is heading straight to the
town and that she might want to head to shelter like everybody else
in town. I understand he might think their going to be dead anyways
but he could have at least explained what was happening to her. She
runs home because she thinks she'll find her brother there but Junior
is waiting there with a gun. Since the world is ending, she basically
pities him but I hope this doesn't mean that she's going to be taken
hostage again. I'm kind of already fed up of her as a prisoner and
literally only one person in the whole town noticing she's missing.
Her boss and the people she helps out at the clinic? They don't seem
to be worried at all. It's not like the writers could excuse that as
they think she's on the other side of the dome considering enough
people saw her after it fell that they should have realized a teenage
girl went missing inside the thing. I, mean the writers keep trying
to call her a flake but it's a little ridiculous how nobody really
cares enough to actually investigate the matter. Hell, the only
reason her brother is looking for her is because she missed Visitor's
Day and their all going to die. Now he finally starts to get worried
despite not having seen her for days. There's a difference between
being a flake and nobody getting suspicious at all when nobody knows
where somebody is. Here's hoping she stays free so that people can
pretend their happy to see her again because it's pretty obvious
nobody in town actually missed her.
Blue on Blue is like Outbreak in that it's not bad per se but it stops from actually being good due to a wasted visitor's day to create real drama and the rocket drama having too high stakes to truly be believable.
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