Our long national nightmare is over! Dobby is free! In case you can’t tell, Under the Dome wrapped up its nonsensical endurance test of a second season, and the results were mixed as always.
First of all, Pauline isn’t dead. GUUUH. This fuckin show won’t kill anyone off. She’s mainly around so Sherry Stringfield can try to deliver the most ridiculous deathbed acting since Cate Blanchett in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Jim leaves her side to go find saline, which is apparently a cure-all, and in his absence Rebecca aquiesces to Pauline’s wishes and goes all Dr. Kevorkian on her ass, overdosing her on morphine. Needless to say, Jim is pissed, and he kills Rebecca with a hammer, after accurately telling her “No one’s gonna miss you.” Fuckin A, brother.
Jim then absconds with Pauline’s body to his house, where he tries to make a deal with the dome: bring back Pauline and I won’t kill Barbie, Julia, Joe, or Norrie. To the show’s credit, Dean Norris is great in these scenes, and exhibits a real sense of unhinged menace. The dome doesn’t oblige him, so off he goes for more murder. I can’t tell you how excited this made me. I was hoping and praying for a downer ending wherein Jim killed all the main characters, then himself, then the credits rolled. Fin.
Alas, his murder spree only takes him as far as Andrea’s. Andrea pops up every few weeks, yet Under the Dome keeps insisting on her importance as a character. He uses Andrea to lure Julia to the house, then kills Andrea without even looking at her. Awesome. Between this and True Blood, Dale Raoul has gotten great at crafting unlikable, unnecessary characters whose deaths are the best kind of fan service. Jim tries to dispatch Julia as well, after promising her a slow death, but he fucks it up because he lives in Chester’s Mill and is therefore a dumbass. Julia stabs him through the foot and hot-tails it out of there, leaving Jim to limp after her through the woods, taking potshots (it’s worth noting that Jim and Julia both move surprisingly well, seeing as they’ve both suffered injuries to their extremities).
Junior says he’ll kill Jim, but when he shoots at him he just hits Jim’s shoulder. Apparently the Chester’s Mill PD charges its deputies for bullets, because Junior decides “eh, good enough,” and peaces out. NO ONE HAS ANY GODDAMN FOLLOW-THROUGH. This show is fucking bending over backwards to keep Jim around, even though with the town more or less evacuated, he has no earthly reason to be on the show anymore.
Oh yeah: the crater that Melanie disappeared through is another way out of the dome, obvs. The whole town starts filing out, including a kid that Julia rescued after he saw his dad die. (The kid’s name is “Aiden Tilden,” by the way, and that’s the stupidest name I’ve ever heard.) When Julia – suddenly limping again – tries to jump a chasm, it suddenly widens, leaving her and Barbie on opposite sides. “I’ll come back for you,” he says. Please don’t.
So that’s where Under the Dome leaves us: most of the town gone, Junior, Julia, and Jim still stuck, and not a single viewer giving a shit. Thanks for sticking with me through all this, guys. I don’t know if Under the Dome will be back for a third season, but I’d say it’s more than likely, considering CBS’s deal with Amazon Prime. I might miss it in the next few weeks, though; with fall TV coming back strong, my DVR is becoming a wasteland of shows that are actually good.
“Go On” score: 2 Stars
Season Score: 2/5
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