Under the Dome 2x04 Recap

Oh my gosh things are going wild on Under the Dome. Big Jim and Rebecca are trying to “thin the herd”, Julia is getting suspiciously close to Sam and Barbie and the teens were able to (mostly) figure out who Melanie Cross really is.

SPOILERS AHEAD!!

This episode pretty much followed two distinct storylines. The who is Melanie Cross storyline, and the Rebecca and Big Jim storyline. Rebecca has been keeping track of the town’s livestock since the dome came down, and when she discovers that a piglet has died from the flu she gets blood from the carcass in order to cultivate the virus at a lab. I’ve said it before and I will say it again. I do not like Rebecca Pine. I am fully with Julia on this one!

When the virus is ready Rebecca tells Jim that by releasing the virus they are allowing natural selection to occur as only the fittest will survive. It is also revealed that once the virus is airborne it could potentially infect anyone, including Jim and Rebecca. Jim doesn’t seem too keen on the plan but after a pep talk from Rebecca he agrees.

Jim heads to the diner to contaminate the water but Julia and Sam show up and stop him as they have been spending their time trying to figure out how Rebecca was planning to thin the herd. They also discover the piglet but they find that the flu has jumped to other piglets and is more dangerous than Rebecca believes. When they confront Big Jim they find that he doesn’t have the virus but that Rebecca has taken it.

Julia basically attacks Rebecca at the church (yay!) where it is revealed that she had found out about the pigs and so didn’t contaminate the water as she believes the mutation to be much more lethal than she anticipated. Rebecca is locked up along with Jim. Since this is only episode four, I kind of get the feeling that these two won’t be in jail for long which sort of depresses me, so I suppose I should just enjoy it for now.

Sort of the background storyline in this episode was Junior allowing Lyle out of jail in order to find out more about his mother. Lyle shows Junior postcards that he had received from Pauline since helping her fake her death. The postcards displayed the events that have happened since the dome came down but stopped at the blood rain. Perhaps the creepiest thing about all this is that Pauline knew the dome was coming and left because she hoped it would follow her and leave Junior alone. Plus she knew what was going to happen after it came down. Creepy. They head to Sam’s cabin in order to get Pauline’s journal but Lyle hits Junior, takes the journal and leaves. Shocker.

And now we get to our second major storyline of the episode. Who is Melanie Cross? The teens tell Barbie about the internet hot spot at the school and take him back there, also explaining about Melanie’s locker and her picture in the old yearbook. The group looks through old newspaper files on microfiche and find an article about the disappearance of Melanie Cross. Turns out her family moved from Zenith, which is where Barbie was from and also where it appears Pauline has been hiding out.

The group goes to Melanie’s old home and then to a spot in the forest where Melanie says she saw pink stars falling, which just so happens to be where Joe and Norrie found the egg and the mini-dome back in season one. Melanie goes to that exact spot and finds that some of her memories come back. Turns out that in 1988 Melanie was dating Sam, and was best friends with Pauline who was dating Lyle. The four of them find a meteorite which they open by placing their hands on it. They were the original four hands! When the meteorite opens it is to find the egg inside which Melanie takes as she wanted to protect it. Melanie was pushed and killed though she doesn’t know whether it was Lyle or Sam that killed her. Barbie digs up the meteorite and finds Melanie’s necklace but not her bones.

Later on Barbie goes to talk to Julia but she is mad at him and he leaves, not knowing that Sam is there. Sam tries to kiss Julia but she backs off. He is shown to have scratches on his right shoulder - indicating that it is possible that he was the one who killed Angie.

So wow a lot happened in this week’s episode. Jim and Rebecca are in jail, though I’m positive that’s not going to last very long, and we found out a bit more about Melanie. So questions were answered but many more were posed. Let me know what you thought of the episode in the comments below.

Stay random!

~ Jenna