Under The Dome Recap: Pilot

The long-awaited summer event adaptation of Stephen King's epic novel Under the Dome, as written [...]

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The long-awaited summer event adaptation of Stephen King's epic novel Under the Dome, as written and executive produced by comic book superstar Brian K. Vaughan, arrived on CBS today. Unfolding over thirteen episodes that will represent 13 days under a giant transparent dome that has inexplicably surrounded the small Maine community of Chester's Mill, the showrunners insist there's the potential for more than just one season--and to explore beyond the boundaries of King's novel--if ratings justify it. Starring Breaking Bad's Dean Norris, Twilight's Rachelle Lefevre and a cast of "hey, haven't I seen him on...?"-type character actors, the series hits the ground running, not taking very long to get the premise into place and the characters into trouble. So, how did we get off to the start? It was a chaotic "day." The first bit of the episode is primarily remarkable for its unremarkability. It's one of those things that they can afford to do in a horror, science fiction or other jarring reality that doesn't often happen on sitcoms and dramas--we get to see people living normal, non-plot-driving lives.

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Of course, the reason for that is that when we see people going to the diner or walking on the streets, it's that much more notable when, a second later, a cow is sliced in half by a giant transparent dome that drops suddenly and inexplicably into place. Just before it happens, a man named Barbie--the same man we'd seen only moments before hastily burying a body wrapped in a white sheet in a shallow grave--is so focused on watching the sheriff's car passing in the opposite lane that he's nearly oblivious to--and then swerves to miss--a group of cows and goes off the road. Suddenly in the wake of the dome being dropped there's nothing much that you can count on. The local radio station is still working, but there's no phone or cable service; the town is effectively cut off from communicating with the outside world, and there's an electrical discharge when you touch the dome's surface, making it harder to assess a workaround. Birds run into it, killing themselves against the invisible barrier; a small plane crashes into the edge of the dome. Most of the police and local government are trapped outside of the dome, having been outside of its drop zone because of a parade. We find this out, which paints a bleak picture when the Army shows up and are unable to make a dent in the dome.

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A councilman and the sheriff remain, though, and clearly there's something going on between them; Julia, the editor of the local paper whose husband is nowhere to be found, has been looking into reports that someone was hoarding propane, and the authority figures are discussing what to tell the community about the propane in question while Julia meets with Barbie at the site of the plane crash. With gas pumps not working and a giant barrier holding in whatever exhaust might come out of the cars, the Councilman gets on the radio and tells the public to pull over and stop driving. A lesbian couple and their daughter are going to a camp and the daughter has a medical condition that involves seizures. Both she and, later, another (seemingly unrelated) boy say "The stars are falling in lines" during their episodes. Barbie encounters Junior, the man whose girlfriend broke up with him shortly after lovemaking this morning. Junior is clearly not a stable individual, and seems to have a problem with Barbie, who seems baffled by him. This is, of course, because Barbie had lit a cigarette for a stranger who by coincidence was the girl Junior was stalking. Junior has a knife, though, and it falls to Julia to defuse the situation. She invites Barbie to stay with her for the time being (not romantically, presumably also for the time being). She doesn't know, though, that it's Barbie who's responsible for her husband's death.

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Junior, as it turns out, is the son of "Big Jim," the councilman, who sees this crisis as an opportunity to essentially take over the town. We assume, based on Stephen King's interests, that Big Jim was named after the catfish in a Bruce Springsteen song. Junior seeks out and then attacks Angie, the girl who broke up with him that morning. After that, he drags her to the councilman's fallout shelter, where he locks her in. Just before the episode ends, we learn that there's definitely something on the mind of Duke, the Sheriff. His partner is still with him, and he's about to explain the backstory to the man (and presumably the audience as well) when he gets too close to the electrically-charged dome and his pacemaker blasts out of his chest.

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