Okay, let me see. Angie (and presumably Linda) really is dead. The mysterious girl that Julia saved from drowning (despite her bullet wound) didn’t kill Angie after luring her to the high school (which we have hardly ever seen), but she saw who did it. Was it Junior? Sure doesn’t seem like it when he finds her body, covered in digital butterflies (because, of course). It’s all about butterflies this week.
Big Jim thinks it was him, maybe, because he knows his son. And as it later turns out, Junior was drunk and maybe blacked out and doesn’t actually remember any of that evening, but still, this is the guy that openly stalked and blatantly kidnapped Angie, why would he then secretly kill her at night in the darkened high school?
Julia and Barbie have the least passionate love story I’ve ever seen on TV, acting as if they’re long-lost destined souls without actually, you know, acting? They’re two blocks of wood with occasional super powers.
This week’s crisis is too many butterflies, who are dying because they’re breeding, and infesting the suddenly scarce local crops. Either we have a working diner full of supplies or we’re starving, how can both things be true? New teacher Rebecca is certainly mercurial, as she went from holding a gun on Barbie to being his best accomplice last week, and this week she’s moved on to Big Jim, seemingly sharing the town’s mania for him as their messianic leader. Which makes so little sense (given how clearly psychotic and power-hungry he is) that even Dean Norris can’t deliver a reasonable rousing speech at Angie’s wake, and this guy is good on everything else.
There’s no sign of Junior’s mom this week (who was the only interesting part of the Stephen King written debut last week), but that’s not the reason I’ve given up. Nor did I object to Joe threatening (unconvincingly) to shoot New Girl for killing his sister with no evidence; nobody ever needs evidence for any crazed notion Under the Dome. It’s not even that the butterflies have devolved from a mystery to a metaphor to, now, a menace-of-the-week.
It’s two other things. One, when Barbie jumps to become the world’s best crop duster (of course he can fly planes, why ask?), this man who has continually saved others from the Dome and seemed more prepared than others to confront it, keeps flying his plane closer and closer to the invisible parameter everybody keeps screaming at him to respect. He risks his life for no reason other than to give us false drama. You were worth more, Barbie. You coulda been somebody.
And then there were the previews, because next up? Dwight Yoakum. That’s it, then. If I want pseudo-religious ranting, I think I’ll stay with HBO thank you.