Under the Dome Recap/Review: "Outbreak"

Kristina Carroll ’16/ Emertainment Monthly Editor
Life keeps getting worse for the citizens of Chester’s Mill, and this week’s episode of Under the Dome, “Outbreak”, is a perfect example of this.  The dome’s latest news consists of a sudden, widespread epidemic making its way throughout the town, as well as more insight into some of the character’s secrets. And don’t worry…that’s only a small portion of the events we witness in this episode.
The episode begins with Julia holding the map that she found in Barbie’s belongings, which had Chester’s Mill marked in red ink (clearly indicating that he lied about just passing through the town).  She’s definitely acting different toward Barbie in this episode, and it’s obvious that she has lost a good amount of the trust that she had in him.  Her sarcastic, almost angry attitude definitely shows that  Barbie’s secrets have put a strain on their friendship, and trust me, it only goes downhill from here.
Julia isn’t the only one feeling angry in this episode.  In fact, the entire town has become so fed up with the fact that the dome is still in place, that they have staged a riot.  This riot only worsens when the Army, which was monitoring the dome from the outside, casually begins to leave.  Feeling abandoned, the townspeople  begin to form an uprising.  Linda comes just in time, but she too is feeling overwhelmed at this point.  She comes very close to shooting at the crowd of people, but then she suddenly collapses.  And this, my friends, is the beginning of the deterioration of Chester’s Mill’s people.
Meanwhile, Angie is working hard on breaking free from the shelter that Junior is keeping her in.  And things are looking up for her, because if you remember from last week, she stole a pair of scissors!  Those are sure to be her key out of this terrible entrapment, right?  WRONG!  Junior comes down to visit her, and with her fake loving voice that she does so well, she tells him to turn around.  Just as she’s about to stab him with the scissors, he stops her.  He is infuriated about her lying and trying to convince him that “she’s changed,” and continues to leave her there for yet another day.  Terrible, right?  But wait….it gets even worse.  In an attempt to get somebody’s attention from outside, she climbs on the bed and starts screaming into a vent.  Suddenly, the pipe that she’s leaning on bursts, and water begins to rush into the shelter at a frightening speed.  So now, not only is Angie chained to a bed in an underground shelter against her will, but she is also passed out in a room quickly filling up with water.  Talk about bad luck…
On her way to visit Phil, Julia notices her husband Peter’s car parked next to Phil’s trailer home.  She eagerly asks if he knows Peter’s whereabouts, and he explains to her that Peter sold him that car months ago.  Then, all of a sudden he begins to feel sick, and he collapses to the ground, just like Linda did moments before.
Carolyn and Alice bring Joe and Norrie to the hospital to have tests done, in hopes that they can find the cause of their seizures.  While there, they notice large crowds of people being brought in by the second.  Joe sees Junior at the hospital (he’s getting a bandage put on his hand from his altercation with Angie), and he asks him if he’s seen his sister around.  Junior assures him that she’s safe, and that he saw her a couple of minutes ago.  If only Joe knew that “a couple of minutes ago” means in a cold, flooded underground shelter…
Alice, who has plenty of medical experience, is recruited to help the increasingly large amount of patients that have come into Chester’s Mill hospital complaining of headaches and fevers.  She explains to Big Jim that it seems as if there has been an outbreak of meningitis.  This is extremely worrisome to Big Jim, because according to Alice, it is super contagious and is spread whenever somebody coughs.  Right now, the only people who are safe are Norrie, her parents, Big Jim, Barbie, and Junior, whom have all been vaccinated recently.  Julia, however, is not so lucky, and begins showing symptoms of the sickness.
The hospital has become a zoo, and they are running extremely low on antibiotics.  Big Jim and Barbie go to the pharmacy to retrieve the remaining antibiotics, and Big Jim gives Junior a rifle.  He orders him to guard the door, and not let anybody out.  When they get to the pharmacy, they see that it has been broken into, and all of the medicine is gone.  So who stole it?  Big Jim seems to have a pretty good idea.  They drive straight to the Reverend’s house, and find him burning all of the medicine in his front yard!  He tells them that he’s “honoring God’s plan”, because the dome’s purpose is to kill everyone.  Jim and Barbie salvage some of the medicine, and bring it back to the hospital.  And as for the Reverend…he has officially gone insane.
While Jim and Barbie are on this adventure, a lot of major things happen.  First of all, Julia approaches Peter, who is lying on a hospital bed, and tries to find out more about Peter.  However, Phil begins hallucinating, and responds by saying, “Peter, I’m sorry I can’t make it to the cabin today.”  After hearing this, she sets off on a mission to try to find this mysterious cabin that Phil is talking about.  However, she can’t get past Junior.  She tries to explain the whole situation to him, and Junior mentions that the cabin she is looking for is probably the same cabin that he followed Barbie to, when he beat him up.  She begs Junior to let her leave, but he refuses.  And I thought they were friends now!  But don’t worry, this doesn’t stop her from finding a way out.  She breaks into Peter’s office (he was a doctor at the hospital, remember?) and gets his ID, which she uses to escape through an employee exit.
The hospital is down to only one antibiotic, and Jim and Barbie still haven’t returned.  And there’s a major problem, two people are in critical condition.  One of them is Linda, and the other is an older woman, who was coincidentally Linda’s 3^rd grade teacher.  Alice is trying to figure out what to do, and the woman urges her to give the antibiotic to Linda, thus sacrificing her own life.
Norrie and Joe are alone in a hospital room, trying to figure out what happened to them.  Norrie suggests that it has something to do with when they touch each other, and they decide to try it again, this time getting it on tape.  They kneel on the floor, hold hands, and seconds later they have another seizure.  When they wake up they play back the tape, and see themselves chanting, “Pink stars are falling in lines.”   But that’s not all.  At one point Joe sits up, looks straight at the camera, and whispers “Shhh…” very creepily.  They come to the conclusion that this is the dome’s way of demanding that they keep this a secret from the rest of Chester’s Mill.
When she gets to the cabin, she finds it completely destroyed, with furniture, paper, and other objects scattered all over the floor.  She picks up one piece of paper, and is very upset by what she sees.  She starts shaking her head in disbelief and passes out, officially becoming another victim of the outbreak.  Meanwhile, Barbie returns to the hospital and angrily approaches Phil, demanding that he tell him everything he said to Julia.  So they do know each other!  Phil says that a month ago Peter came to him asking if he knew any hitmen.  He also mentions that he told her about the cabin, and Barbie goes to find her.  When Junior tries to stop him, Barbie warns him that if he doesn’t let him go, Julia will die.  So it looks like Junior still cares about Julia deep down inside, because he eventually lets Barbie leave.
After Barbie brings Julia back to the hospital and gets her the antibiotics she needs, she tells him that she learned that her and Peter are broke.  The document she read apparently showed that their house is in foreclosure.  She asks him what he and Peter were involved in.  He explains that when he got out of the army, he got a job with a bookie as an enforcer, making people paid what they owed.  Peter was one of the men who owed money, and Barbie was after him.  However, he lies to her by saying that he must have run off, and that he never found him.  He apologizes for withholding this from her, but she refuses to accept her apology, and she orders him to leave her house.
Miraculously, the town manages to get everything under control, and put an end to the epidemic.  Junior is considered a major hero, because he helped prevent a major riot from breaking out in the hospital.  Big Jim asks him if he’s ever considered a career in law enforcement, and when Junior drops off Linda back at the station, she presents him with a badge.  Uh oh…looks like the town is going to be in even more trouble in the future, now that a psychopath has joined the police force.
The last thing that happens in the episode is a MAJOR one.  Big Jim returns home after a long night, and as he’s pouring himself a glass of wine, he hears screaming.  He goes outside to investigate, and opens the doors of the shelter.  And what does he find?  Angie sitting on a bed, shivering and in tears, in a completely flooded room.
So what’s going to happen to Junior?  Is he going to give up his newly-acquired title?  For some reason I don’t feel like it will be that easy.  And when are we going to find out more about the meaning behind the pink stars?  Oh, and one more thing:  The Reverend shows up at Jim’s house with a bag full of money, and tells him that he wants to “wash his hands of this dirty business.”  So, with the Reverend out of the picture, will Big Jim’s secrets be revealed?  It looks like once again the show has us hooked for another week…