‘Under the Dome’ Review: The ‘Imperfect Circles’ of Life

Under the Dome has officially veered off into Lost territory. That’s not a bad thing; Lost was a great show, but it was probably difficult to review each week without sitting there wondering what on earth just happened.

Last night’s “Imperfect Circles” promised a birth and a death and it delivered (no pun intended) on both. Actually, there was more than one death, but we’ll get to that later. For me, the strangest part of the episode centers on the second dome that Joe and Norrie discovered and the giant black egg that was inside of it. What is that? Why did it start glowing when Norrie touched the dome? Does it have magical powers? Did it create the dome?

Obviously, there are a lot of questions to be answered there and at this point, I can’t even come up with a guess because it was so confusing. But I’m assuming it’s supposed to be confusing so I’m tentatively okay with this plot point for the moment (All bets are off if a smoke monster appears or there’s a button to press to keep the dome from blowing up).

So let’s talk about that baby. We were introduced to Harriet, Julia’s pregnant neighbor, when she stopped by to interrupt Barbie and Julia’s morning after (again, this pairing does nothing for me and it doesn’t make sense that Julia would be so lovey-dovey with Barbie after everything; especially since it’s only been seven days). Harriet’s husband is outside the dome or she thought he was until she heads back home and he’s there to greet her.

But the husband was just an illusion and when Harriet reached out to him, she ended up touching the dome and that sent her into labor even though it was too early (maybe the dome has a specific astrological sign it likes). Julia attempts to drive her to the clinic, but in a scary moment, they are stopped by two men who want the gas from the car. Barbie shows up to save them and then they head to Alice to ask her to deliver the baby.

Alice has obviously been very sick without her insulin so the writing is pretty much on the wall once this scene begins. She starts to get weaker and weaker, but holds it together to help Barbie get the baby out safely since the cord is wrapped around her neck (of course it was because on TV, having a baby outside of a hospital is not traumatic enough). Harriet names her baby Alice, but things are not looking good for the older Alice.

While this was happening, Norrie and Joe had been out experimenting with how much they could touch each other and the dome without having seizures (I’m still having a hard time relating to these two, which is upsetting because they’re obviously important to the central plot of the show). Norrie has a vision of Alice and they rush to the house. Thankfully, Alice is still holding on and shares a lovely, sad goodbye with her daughter before she dies. That’s when Norrie goes to the dome and begs it to bring her back, which makes the egg glow. Will Alice be back? Does the dome have that kind of power? I’m curious to find out.

Speaking of power, Big Jim continued to assert his. He slapped Junior (awesome) and threw his son out after the debacle with Angie. Then it was Big Jim’s turn to get punched when he went to visit his propane and found out that Ollie had claimed it as his own and put a guard in front of it. Big Jim was not amused. He went to the diner where Angie was saying goodbye to Rose and started drinking. Later, he returned to the propane area and caused a fire, killing the guard, but making it look like an accident. Why is the propane so important that it’s worth killing so many people? I hope this is a question we don’t have to wait too long for the answer.

Junior is still a deputy and still gets to carry a gun so everyone should be on high alert just knowing that. Linda and Junior headed out to find the brothers that had killed Rose and once Linda mentioned they had also nearly raped Angie, Junior was out for blood. But it was hard to fault him this one and I doubt anyone shed a tear when Linda killed one brother in self-defense and Junior shot the other one as he begged for his life. Cold, yes, but it was hard to feel sorry for the murderer/would-be rapist. Is it possible for Junior to be redeemed? I’m not sure, but he definitely has a better chance at achieving redemption than his father.

This episode brought a lot more questions and very few answers (actually, there were no new answers). It was nice seeing Angie out of captivity and reunited with her brother. But seriously, what is up with that glowing egg?