In Which I Review Under the Dome (2x7)

NOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Best delivered line of the night, in my opinion. Rivals Darth Vadar. I have no idea what is going on with this show anymore; in fact, I'm willing to bet that I never knew what was going on with this show. Time travel. Portals between cities. Cave of mystery. Supposedly dead relatives not being dead anymore. People going crazy. Just another week in Chester's Mill, I suppose. In this week's episode "Going Home," we finally learn what's at the bottom of the Cave of Death. Hint: it is not death. I think I said a few posts ago that if the Cave of Death had a way out of the Dome I was going to freak. Well, the Cave of Death does have a way out of the Dome but I'm not freaking. Why? Because of course it does. I shouldn't be surprised. They've been hinting all season that there is another town somewhere where all our questions will receive "answers." Answers is in quotation marks because I honestly wonder if the writers and producers know what an answer is. 

After Sam's magical trip down the Cave last week, Barbie is finding it hard to sleep. Sam told Barbie a lot of disturbing things, like that he killed Angie and that the other children need to die if they want to leave the Dome. When Barbie and Julia fill in Joey, Norrie, Junior and Melanie about Sam's extracurricular activities, Junior refuses to believe it. So naturally, Barbie thinks he should venture down into the Cave of Death, fetch Sam's body, and use it as evidence for Junior that Sam killed Angie. And because this is the plan, miraculously, climbing equipment appears. You live in Maine. Does Maine have mountains to climb? Did someone lend you this climbing equipment? Did you steal it from your local sports store? Anyway, Barbie makes a slow descent into the Cave of Death while Julia and Science Teacher Pine look on. Rebecca was there for moral support? Apparently we're all friends now. One heart to heart with Julia last week and everything is a-ok; this more or less annoys the living daylights out of me because Science Teacher Pine officially has no reason to be on this show if she's not part of Big Jim's antagonistic posse, which now only consists of him. Rebecca is there to spout some science-y things when science-y things need to be spouted. The Cave of Death is pretty unremarkable, though it goes on forever. Without warning, though, something begins to pull at Barbie and drag him down faster and further. The compass Rebecca conveniently has on hand begins to spin wildly in all directions (oh no!). Julia and Rebecca try to haul Barbie back up to the top but the pull of whatever is down below is too strong. Barbie, deciding to be a hero, tells Julia to cut the rope and let him fall. Julia refuses because she's deeply in love with this man she met three weeks ago and who killed her husband and lied to her for a better part of these three weeks. When Barbie realizes that Julia won't let go, he cuts the rope and falls to his death. RIP Barbie.

Julia thinks they need to keep Barbie's death a secret from Big Jim and the rest of the town for awhile. Meanwhile, Joey finally says the thing that every viewer worth their salt has been wondering, "where did these tunnels come from?" The school was not built on tunnels (thank god), and the basement of the school has always just been a basement. Why did no one think of this earlier? Did anyone, besides Joey, stop to think, "this was a really dumb place to build a school." When Joey tells Julia this, a light bulb goes off over her head (not literally, but this show is so cartoon-y at this point, I wouldn't have been shocked to see a literal light bulb float above her red head). If the tunnels were never there to begin with, then the Dome created them and maybe somehow Barbie survived his plunge into darkness and nothingness. Joey produces a flying robot plane thing. Where did this come from?! Was this another science project? Is there anything that this town doesn't have? The flying robot plane thing travels down into the Cave of Death but the signal goes wonky and eventually crashes. I'm sure that's a good sign. Melanie has brought along the egg because she is actually Gollum. I'm not kidding. Watch the episode again and see how obsessed she is with this thing. When danger comes a-knocking, Melanie grabs the egg and runs. She carries it in her bag. It's only a matter of time, folks, before she starts calling it her precious. I have no idea why she brought it to the Cave of Death (except for plot reasons) but once inside the Cave of Death, it lights up and sputters out pink stars. Freaking pink stars again! This time the pink stars make the image of a town, complete with the obelisk from Zenith. Ah, this town again. I think it's probably important.

So what happened to Barbie when he fell? He went to Zenith, Ohio of course. I wish I was kidding. He suddenly wakes up, on the ground of some children's playground. And no one noticed. I mean...really? How does no one notice that a man either fell from the sky or magically appeared out of thin air? It's a thing you would notice, people! Maybe Zenith is fake. It's an imagined town and all of this is a dream. Oh, what's that? Sam is there too? Is he having the same dream as Barbie? Most likely not. So, they really did transport themselves to another town entirely. Barbie and Sam do not meet up but instead decide to pay a visit to old family members. Let's start with Sam. He goes to a psych ward where Pauline is. How did he know she was there? Sam has an address on a piece of paper, but where did he get that from? Pauline is on a locked ward, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense because she's clearly in full possession of her faculties. She just happens to think that an invisible magical Dome would follow her if she left Chester's Mill. But you know, other than that, totally normal. Lyle is also in the psych ward, but he's lost his mind and all he does is sit and say "Melanie" over and over. How...strange. Why? No one else went crazy when they went through the vortex (or whatever the hell is actually down at the bottom of the Cave of Death). So what's Barbie doing? Visiting dear old Dad, of course. Never mind how Barbie got to Papa-Q (I'm going to call him that until I learn otherwise), it's not important and frankly dull. Papa-Q and Barbie don't get along. They haven't spoken in two and a half years but now Barbie has been magically transported out of the Dome and he needs to find a way back in or to get a message inside. Thankfully Papa-Q has magically convenient connections that will facilitate this! Of course he does. What if Papa-Q had just been a teacher or a lawyer or something more mundane? Barbie would have been doomed to a life without Julia. Oh. The horror! Whatever. Papa-Q agrees to help out because he can see that Barbie has changed and if there is a woman involved then Hot Damn!

Miscellaneous Notes on Going Home

--Melanie and Junior wake up in each others arms. No. Just...no

--"There's something so much darker in him." Gee, you think?

--Max No-Last-Name shout out!

--What is the red door in the ground? Why is there a red door in the ground? Does it take people back to the Dome?

--NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! (because reasons)