Episode 7 of Under the Dome is titled Imperfect Circles. Violet reviews this week’s episode, and provides of an episode recap if you need to catch up! In this week’s episode, Norrie and Joe make a big discovery, the population of Chester’s Mill has increased by one, and tensions heat up between Big Jim and Ollie. Following the recap, Violet provides her thoughts about the episode in pink font, and Josh provides his thoughts in blue font. Lets get into it!
Violet’s Under the Dome Episode 8 Recap: Imperfect Circles
The episode starts off with Norrie waking Joe up in his room, asking him to go with her to the Dome. Meanwhile, Barbie and Julia wake up in bed together, but get interrupted by Julia’s very pregnant neighbor, Harriet, knocking on the door to ask for yogurt. After an awkward exchange, Barbie says he needs to go to town to see if they need any help after what happened with the riots yesterday.
Over at Big Jim’s house, Big Jim tells Junior he’s sick, slaps him, and tells him to leave and not to come near Angie again. Big Jim tells Angie she’s welcome to stay, but she knows he’s just trying to keep her from saying anything about Junior, and she says she’s going home to her brother. But first, she wants to say goodbye to Rose. Big Jim tells her that Rose’s body is being kept at the diner, and it just so happens that Big Jim owns the diner, so he has a key.
As Julia’s neighbor, Harriet, leaves Julia’s house, she sees her husband has come home from the navy and rushes over to him, but when she goes to touch his hand, it turns out he wasn’t there, and instead she touches the Dome, causing her water to break. Julia hears her cries and goes outside to help her, then drives her to the clinic.
Junior shows up at the police station, as does Barbie. Junior volunteers to help Linda track down the Dundee brothers, who killed Rose, while Barbie goes out on patrol.
Angie goes to the diner, where Rose’s blood is still on the floor, and finds Rose’s body in the back, covered with a bloody sheet. Joe’s friend Ben shows up there as well, and she asks him to help her with something.
Over on Ollie’s property, he is happily letting a line of townspeople take as much water as they need. Ollie seems to imply to Big Jim that “his” propane supply no longer belongs to him. Big Jim rushes over to check on his propane, but some guy named Boomer is guarding it with a gun on behalf of Ollie. He hits Big Jim with the gun, and Big Jim drives off angrily.
Joe and Norrie are making out against the Dome, but nothing is happening, as far as seizures go. Joe realizes that the only time something happens is when they do something different. He also thinks that the Dome is like an atom, and there must be a nucleus in the center holding it all together.
While Junior and Linda are driving around looking for the Dundee brothers, she tells him that murdering Rose isn’t the only thing they did: they also tried to rape Angie. Junior vows they won’t get away this time.
As Julia is driving Harriet to the clinic, there’s a makeshift roadblock, and the Dundee brothers jump out with guns to gas-jack her car. Barbie is able to scare them off, and radios their position to Linda. Barbie then delivers the bad news that the clinic is closed. They decide to bring her to Alice, but they have to walk because the car is now out of gas.
Joe and Norrie are walking through a field, when Joe’s dog Truman starts to bark and whimper, signaling that something is wrong. But Joe doesn’t want to turn back.
It turns out that Angie had wanted Ben’s help burying Rose, and she thanks him for helping her. They start to clean the diner up, when Big Jim comes in and starts chugging a bottle of whisky. He sees that Ben is there, and makes sure that Angie didn’t say anything about Junior. He then leaves with the bottle of whisky.
At Ben’s house, where Carolyn and Alice are staying, Carolyn is worried about Alice. But Alice reassures her, and they slow dance together. Carolyn starts to apologize for bringing them there, but Alice tells her it’s no one’s fault. They kiss and start to have a moment, when they are interrupted by Julia knocking on the door, and bringing Harriet in so that Alice can deliver the baby.
Norrie and Joe venture into the woods, where the find a pile of leaves, under which they uncover a mini-dome. Inside is some sort of black egg-shaped thing.
Ollie comes to visit Big Jim at his office to rub it in about the propane. Ollie essentially tells Big Jim that he’s going to be the one in charge of the town now.
It turns out that the Dundee brothers are hiding out at the salvage yard, just as Junior suspected. Junior, armed with a large rifle, sneaks up on Clint and puts his gun to his head, while Linda does the same with Wayland. Linda starts to arrest Wayland, but he overpowers her. With the brief distraction, Clint runs off, and Junior chases him. A gunfight breaks out between Wayland and Linda, which Linda wins. Junior catches up to Clint, who says he’ll go quietly and peacefully, but Junior shoots him in the head.
Joe thinks that the egg thing inside might be the generator the created the whole Dome. They try to give it verbal commands, but nothing works. They decide to touch the mini-dome at the same time, which causes them to see the image of Norrie’s mom, Alice, standing nearby. Her image disappears when Norrie takes her hands off the mini-dome. Norrie thinks something is wrong with her mom, and they rush off to find her.
At the propane warehouse, Boomer is loading up some propane in his truck. Big Jim is hiding nearby and shoots Boomer’s truck, causing it to explode. He is still drinking the bottle of whisky.
Back with Harriet, Alice isn’t looking so great, so Barbie takes over. But something is wrong, so Alice checks it out. It turns out the umbilical cord is wrapped around the baby’s neck, so she instructs Barbie what to do. Harriet then safely delivers a baby girl, and decides to name her Alice. Adult Alice seems okay for the moment, but then all of a sudden something is wrong.
Back at the diner, Ben and Norrie have cleaned up the place and have it almost looking like nothing ever happened. Junior appears from out of nowhere, and tries to order Ben to leave, but he refuses. He tells Angie that he knows he can’t make her love him, and apologizes for everything. She doesn’t seem too forgiving and tells him to leave. But before he does, he tells her that the Dundee brothers will never bother her again.
Norrie comes home to find out that her mom, Alice, has had a heart attack.
As Joe is waiting outside his house, Angie comes home with Ben. Finally, Angie and Joe are reunited! They hug. All she has to say for herself is, “Long time no see, ya little brat.”
Norrie tells Alice that she knew something was wrong because she saw her in the woods, and that it was like the Dome wanted her to. Alice thinks the Dome brought Norrie there for a reason, and now the Dome wants her (Alice) to go. Alice tells Norrie to be brave, they tell each other they love each other, then Alice passes. Norrie runs off crying, and Joe follows her. Norrie places her hand on the Dome and tells it to bring her mother back, saying she’ll do anything it wants, begging it not to take her mother away. Carolyn cries over Alice’s body, while Harriet holds her newborn daughter, Alice, and Barbie and Julia cuddle together on the couch.
Big Jim “shows up” to the burning wreckage of Boomer’s truck, as several townspeople are already there watching it burn.
Norrie yells at the Dome, “Just tell me what you want!” Meanwhile, in the woods, the black egg thing lights up with purple lights, seemingly in response to Norrie.
Violet’s Thoughts on “Imperfect Circles”
Although I liked this episode a little more than last week’s, and felt like it was more genuine than last week’s episode as well, there’s still those little distracting moments that pull you out of the episode. One of which was when Julia’s car was gas-jacked. They didn’t even try to start the car before they decided to walk to see Alice. Chester’s Mill is probably small enough that they would have been able to run off the fumes still left in the tank to drive there, rather than walk. I think with a pregnant lady in labor, they would try to get there as fast as possible before resorting to having her walk, which would mean at least attempting to drive first. And why is the first person that they think to go to Alice? Even though she had medical training in the past, she is a psychiatrist, not a medical doctor. Wouldn’t one of the nurses or other medical personnel in town have more training with delivering babies? And for only being a psychiatrist, she sure knew exactly what to do when there were complications with the delivery! Just struck me as not very realistic.
Other than that, I don’t think I had any other huge problems with this episode, until Boomer’s truck exploded and a propane tank flew up funnily and made a weird noise – it looked and sounded so fake that I laughed out loud!
I’m glad that Angie finally came home, even though Joe didn’t seem too concerned about where she’d been. Will they get into that next episode, or will Angie keep her mouth shut? Is Joe even going to ask?
Overall, though, a very emotional, game-changing episode that I enjoyed, for the most part. Mainly because some supernatural-type elements are starting to occur, which seem to be controlled by the Dome itself, and we are finding out more about Dome with the discovery of the nucleus. When Norrie was pleading with the Dome to bring her mother back, and then it showed Carolyn crying over Alice’s body, I half expected Alice to wake up then and there. I’m wondering what it meant when the black egg inside the nucleus started lighting up. Very curious to find out more next week!
Josh’s Thoughts on “Imperfect Circles”
It looks like dome is starting to be more “active”, which is making to more interesting to see what is going to happen next. I am really curious to know what Norrie’s and Joe’s connection to the dome is. I am curious to know if they will be returning to the “nucleus” to further investigate, or if they feel it might cause too much trouble. I am wondering if Norrie’s pleading with the dome will save her mother. Since they seem to have a connection, perhaps she can be saved?
As mentioned last week, I was hoping to see some judicial problems with the arrest of the two brothers, but this episode simply killed them off, evading the issue. Curious to see what Linda has planned for Junior considering he shot the boy in cold blood. Considering Linda’s desire to uphold the law, she should have a real problem with what he did.
As for Ollie and Jim, I am curious to see the next play that happens between them. If Jim were smart, he should probably move the propane so that Ollie can’t simply come back again. I have a feeling Ollie may not last in Chester’s Mill much longer, however.
Barbie and Julia seem to be getting along rather well. Julia seems to have forgotten her husband rather quickly. Barbie has seem integral to keeping the town in order, but his seemingly dark past is bound to catch up with him, and Julia will be the first to turn on him I feel.
This show overall is getting really good. I just wish CBS and Time Warner would get over their spat so we can watch it sooner than Friday.
Here are some scenes from next week:
