I suppose when watching Under the Dome, you have to try as best as you can to divorce yourself from the source material. The same could be said of The Walking Dead or Game of Thrones. No matter how much the show zigs where the book zagged, if the creator is involved – like Robert Kirkman is with The Walking Dead, or George R.R. Martin with Game of Thrones – you have to treat the events as at least semi-canonical. Having a more open-ended platform like television allows the authors to explore different avenues in their own work; it’s the same reason Bob Dylan has been reinventing “Like a Rolling Stone” on stage since the 1980s. That said, it doesn’t excuse the fact that “Heads Will Roll” bored the shit out of me.
Under the Dome, which I’ve read twice, is not Stephen King’s best work – that would be It or The Stand – but it’s a fine book nonetheless. It’s bleak, angry, and misanthropic, written with the energy of a younger man or a newer author. And while some readers have decried the ending, I found it unexpectedly moving. It’s unfair to compare the book to the show, both in terms of quality and execution, and because Under the Dome (the TV show) seems intent on making everyone at least a little bit of a good guy. This is markedly different from making everyone sympathetic, or relatable, or understandable. We’ll get into this later.
“Heads Will Roll” picks up right where season one’s finale left off, with Barbie standing on the gallows as the dome turns opaque. Junior opts to spare his life, in spite of Big Jim’s protestations, because Junior thinks this is what the dome wants. As it turns out, what the dome wants is to become a powerful magnet, pulling any and all metal objects to itself and causing much of Chester’s Mill to fall unconscious.
Big Jim, Junior, Barbie, and Linda head out to the dome to “talk to it.” (I would say this is where Under the Dome diverges most significantly from the book, in that the show wants the dome to be more sentient.) The dome starts yanking off all their metal objects: guns, belts, keys; it even pulls a handcuffed Barbie over to it. In trying to release and save Barbie, Linda is smashed by a truck. As a cop, Linda ranked somewhere below Chief Wiggum and Dexter‘s version of the Miami PD, so it’s fitting that she would meet such an ignominious end.
Meanwhile, Julia saves a mysterious, unnamed girl from the lake and meets her new love interest Sam Verdreaux. Don’t get me wrong, Rachelle Lefevre looks good in a wet tanktop, but I don’t see this subplot going anywhere, especially if this girl starts babbling about pink stars falling in lines. At the same time, Barbie meets his new love interest, a science teacher named Rebecca Pine. Between Rebecca and Sam, Under the Dome continues its proud tradition of introducing new characters who by all logic should have been on the show since the pilot. Chester’s Mill is not that big.
Big Jim is stuck in the world’s most boring bottle episode, as he’s trapped in his cellar, plagued by visions of Jodie, who spouts off cliched observations that us poor viewers made months ago. Dean Norris is doing yeoman’s work as Big Jim Rennie, and to the show’s credit, his take on Big Jim is the only thing better than it is in the book. He’s less of a cartoonish Bible-thumper and more of a human being.
Big Jim escapes and goes looking for Junior, who has passed out on the town commons, right near the gallows. Jim puts his head in the noose, and tries to hang himself, only to be saved by Julia. This marks the second time in “Heads Will Roll” that Barbie has played a part in sparing Jim’s life. The sight of nearly everyone in Chester’s Mill unconscious on the ground is a nice image, but as fair as apocalyptic imagery goes, well, True Blood and The Leftovers both did it better.
Under the Dome makes its usual missteps, even in an episode written by Stephen King (who gets a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo near the end). The biggest mistake is trying to make Junior into something of a tortued antihero. In the book, Junior Rennie was a tragic, demented, malevolent id, hellbent on revenge against Barbie. In short, he was one of King’s patented sociopaths, and as a character he was both a joy and a torture to spend time with. Alexander Koch is doing a better job of playing Junior than he did last season (even if he does look like a maniacal Andy Samberg), but the material simply isn’t there.
“Heads Will Roll” at least has the balls to end with a killing, which was a welcome change of pace after threatening the deaths of both Barbie and Big Jim, who we all know will stick around for a while. The mysterious girl who Julia saved attacks Angie with a shovel, and lest there be any ambiguity, the preview of next week’s episode featured Junior saying “Angie’s dead.”
Under the Dome will never be the best show on TV (unless your TV only gets CBS, in which case it’s at least better than The Big Bang Theory). I’ve accepted the fact that it will deviate wildly from the source material, and I’ll try to review it as such. But “Heads Will Roll” didn’t leave me very optimistic for the show’s second season. The best thing I can say about it is, now that True Blood is actually getting good, summer’s best hate-watch show is back.
About Author
