This week’s episode of Under the Dome has temperatures falling in Chester’s Mill, and with the egg gone, there is no way out of the dome. Josh provides this week’s recap, and he is a bit snippy about the quality of show. Check out his and Violet’s thoughts after the jump!
Don’t need the Under the Dome episode recap for Black Ice? Click here to jump directly to Violet’s thoughts on the episode!
To see Josh’s thoughts on this week’s Under the Dome episode, Black Ice, click here to get directly there!
Episode Recap of Under the Dome, Season 2 Episode 11: Black Ice
Episode 11 of Season 2 for Under the Dome opens with the playground portal area being investigated. The scientists find the egg, which when picked up, knocks the scientist to the ground.
Back under the dome, Rebecca tells Junior and Sam to bring Melanie to her to try to help her. Meanwhile, Pauline and Jim argue about the way Jim handled the egg. Barbie and Julia confront him, and he learns about the tunnel sealing up.
Rebecca has turned the school into a triage/hospital. Meanwhile the temperature continues to fall inside, as Norrie, Hunter and Joe head to the dome wall. They see the wall freezing, and it begins rotating on itself. Joe’s hand is stuck to the dome inexplicably, but Norrie and Hunter manage to pry it away.
Joe and Norrie return to the hospital, and they tell Rebecca about the turning of the dome. Rebecca seems to think this is the reason for the temperature change. Julia and Barbie head out to gather more food.
Barbie seems disillusioned while on the way to get the food in the ambulance. Julia tries to remain the optimist. Suddenly, the ambulance skids out of control, and crashes, after hitting some black ice. Julia is impaled in the leg by a metal rod, and Barbie tries to help her. He decides it’s best that they stay in the ambulance. The engine dies on the ambulance, losing heat for the vehicle. Barbie has a single candle to provide heat. But to make matters worse, a window in the ambulance shatters, letting the cold in once again.
Barbie decides that it is best to let Julia fall into hypothermia, to slow her blood, allowing him to pull the rod out without her bleeding to death. She passes out, and Barbie uses a tourniquet on her leg and carries her to the diner. He turns the oven on, and begins CPR. She awakens.
Pauline and Jim argue, and she comes clean about not really wanting to be back with Jim. Meanwhile, Junior reassures Melanie, who is still really weak, but awake and coherent. Pauline talks to Melanie, and apologizes for what happened to Melanie when she died. Melanie begins to spasm, and slips unconscious, and Junior thinks that the egg must be in danger.
Hunter, after getting treated for frostbite, seems to be nosing about the egg, and Joe gets suspicious of him. When Hunter leaves for a few moments, Joe searches his pack, and realizes he is spying on them, and communicating with the outside world about the egg.
The generator powering the school runs out of fuel, and Big Jim begins to search for fuel. He checks the docks for gas in the boats, when he spots someone thrashing in the water–Lyle. He rescues him, surprisingly. Lyle tells Jim about the town being on fire in a dream he had.
The next morning, the sun is rising, and the temperature seems to be rising. Hunter makes his exit, and Joe wants to follow him.
Julia seems a lot better, but Norrie and Joe confront Hunter at the dome wall. They catch him reporting to the soldiers outside. Hunter seems to be on Joe and Norrie’s side though, telling the outside people to leave the egg alone. He explains to Joe and Norrie that he was blackmailed to keep an eye on the egg. Norrie and Joe and Hunter decide to touch the dome wall, and the dome begins shrinking, pulling towards the center. Looks like the dome is about to get a lot more crammed.
Josh’s Thoughts: Under the Dome, Season 2 Episode 11: Black Ice
Unfortunately no improvement for me in terms of enjoyment of the episode. The story still feels pretty discombobulated. The dome seems to simply be a plot device. When the show needs something to stir up trouble, they simply have the dome do something new, and viola! There is a new storyline. It seems way too convenient.
Listening to some of the dialogue is just atrocious too. Sam says regarding Melanie’s condition, “Her pulse is incredibly weak”. Is saying weak not sufficient enough? Also, when Joe’s hand is stuck to the dome, he says “It’s stuck!” To me, I would say that, “my hand is stuck”, not “it”, then Julia after being impaled says, “so the rod is the only thing keeping me from bleeding to death!”, to which I would think I would be in too much pain to think about being snarky about the “irony” of her situation. These are just a couple of the examples of terrible dialogue in the episode. I think my disdain for the episode is causing a cyclical effect. The more I have trouble watching it, the more I look for the bad parts of it.
I really can’t believe that the best solution for saving Julia in the end was to allow her to slip into unconsciousness. I am pretty sure with almost any serious injury, unconsciousness is the one big thing you want to avoid. I am not sure why Barbie didn’t consider tourniqueting her leg sooner, and carrying her with the rod still in the leg. She likely would not have lost anymore blood, since the tourniquet would cut blood from rushing to the wound, effectively allowing her to remain conscious, and the same result would have happened. Instead, the best solution is to allow Julia to stop breathing and her heart to stop, which likely would cause severe brain damage if she could be revived at all. Frustrating is the one word I can sum this show up with.
Ah well, only a couple more episodes left.
Violet’s Thoughts on Season 2 Episode 11 of Under the Dome: Black Ice
When Rebecca told Junior to bring Melanie to the school instead of the clinic, adding as an aside that the ceiling of the clinic had caved in, what I really heard was that the clinic is no longer available as a set for the show, considering we haven’t seen it on the show since last season! We have seen quite a lot of the school this season though, so of course that would be where the makeshift hospital would be set up. What happened to all the medical workers that were at the clinic though? I mean, I know there weren’t any doctors, but there were other people who were helping out there. So now the whole town has to depend on Rebecca and Sam for their medical needs, both of whom didn’t even exist last season? So much inconsistency on this show!
The show is also too predictable. As soon as Julia got up to go investigate the gurney that was moving around in the ambulance (because that was so necessary), you knew something bad was going to happen. It’s like, okay, you know the roads are icy, stay in your seat with your seat belt on, don’t go wandering around the ambulance! Even so, it appeared that Barbie was driving rather recklessly for no reason. They’re lucky they were the only vehicle on the road, or things could have been much worse. In any case, the whole scene with Julia getting injured and Barbie coming up with his brilliant plan to rescue her didn’t make any sense. Much like most things on this show.
We also got some more doses of creepiness this episode, first with the reminder that Melanie used to be best friends with Junior’s mom back in 1988, so it must have been awkward for Pauline to see her son holding hands with her former friend. Also, did anyone else feel like Hunter was hitting on Norrie when they were talking alone in the stairwell? That whole scene just felt uncomfortable to me.
So – why was the dome rotating? And is this the first time we’ve heard about it actually being a sphere rather than merely a dome? And why would its rotation affect the temperature? And how does Rebecca supposedly always know what’s going on? It’s just annoying how she somehow always knows everything. Oh, and when Big Jim went outside to go find fuel, he didn’t seem all that cold, meanwhile people are getting frostbite by not being out there very long, or even dying. Plus, Lyle was in the freezing cold water, and turned out just fine! Ughhh this show is just so frustrating (and not in a good way), I think it’s beyond the point of saving now. But, there’s only two episodes left this season, so might as well stick it out until the end.
Scenes from Under the Dome, Season 2 Episode 12: Turn
Here are scenes from the next episode of Under the Dome, titled Turn:
