Man, when things break bad in Chester's Mill, they break bad, huh? The townspeople clamber out of their shelter with the good news that they survived the missile (even if the fact the military seemed unconcerned about whether they would or not was bad news). The bad news now, though, is that the missile had no discernible effect on the dome, and soon enough the agitated residents of the town are looting, rioting, murdering and raping. It doesn't help that King's Appliances (Slogan: From Our Home To Your Home, Dome or No Dome) is barreling around town delivering fridges or something, and has to swerve to avoid Alice, who wanders into the street in a diabetes-induced delirium. The driver hits the water tower, emptying the tank, and Eastpoint Lake is now Methane Lake.
People start to wonder what will happen when they run out of everything. Answer: a riot! Linda deputizes Barbie, who is happy to help, but doesn't want a badge. I guess that's so when he's zoning out into a chokehold-dispensing rage he won't have to turn his badge back in? He manages to save an unconscious Angie from getting raped (I think), but he didn't arrive at the Sweetbriar Rose to stop Rose herself from getting murdered by two guys after she defended herself from their looting. Big Jim makes a deal with Ollie, who has a working artesian well and whose motivation shifts from episode to episode, to provide water in exchange for propane.
The town has run out of insulin so there's nothing to treat Alice with, at least until Norrie drafts Joe to help her steal insulin from other people. It doesn't go well, because they get a gun pulled on them by a guy who's already run out of his, and the next place Norrie realizes that the diabetic of the house is a young boy. Apparently it didn't occur to Norrie that if other people have insulin, it might be because THEY NEED INSULIN. In the end, she can't bring herself to steal more than one dose of insulin from the lil' tyke.
Meanwhile, since the bomb went off, there's much more interference with radio broadcasts happening, so Julia and Dodee go out in search of the power source that they figure out must be inside the dome for it to have that much effect. Dodee has cobbled together an electronic dowsing rod, because she's a super-genius, but then when they discover that the source of the interference appears to be moving, she asks, "What kind of power source moves?" She's never heard of batteries? Eventually, they track it to Norrie and Joe walking around, and Julia and Dodee are let in out the Seizure Twins' little secret, there's much discussion about whether the dome is trying to somehow communicate.
And then it starts to rain, which is obviously a deus ex machine, but at least that fact seems to be part of the point — how does the dome know exactly what they did? You know, except for cutting them off from the outside world and poisoning the lake and killing people and all that.
Having realized that Angie was not in fact killed by the missile, Big Jim decides to come sort of arrangement with her: shut up about Junior, and he'll make sure she (and Joe) are looked after.
I don't know what to say about the fact that it starts to rain and suddenly everyone is high-fiving and happy with one another again, literally moments after attempting to kill each other. Nothing good, that's for sure.
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. Julia quickly dropped her "The public has a right to know!" position, huh? Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.
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The townspeople crawl out of their concrete-factory hidey-hole and gather at the dome, touching it for themselves, as if the clear division between scorched-earth and perfectly fine Chester's Mill isn't already telling them what they didn't want to know: the dome is still there. Big Jim warns everyone to stay back: "Remember Sheriff Perkins? That thing exploded his damn pacemaker." Just in case they've forgotten. Carolyn and Alice show up for a tearful reunion with Norrie, who's sorry for running off.
Then Linda shows up, and she hasn't seen Junior in a while. Speaking quietly, she tells Big Jim that Carter found Lester Coggins' body over at the bridge where they had Visitor's Day. She says that like it wasn't THIS MORNING. Big Jim manages to act surprised, all "Lester's dead?" and the other Chester Milians are starting to get squirrelly. "First Duke, then the reverend, how much more of us is this thing gonna kill?" asks Ollie. And people are starting to worry about what happens if they run out of food. Or electricity -- Ollie mentions he's almost out of propane, and another person is all, "I'm out of propane too!" and someone else is, "Oh, if only there might be some way we could get some propane! Does anyone have crazy amounts of propane?" Big Jim says they'll have a town meeting, but Ollie wonders what that'll do: "So you can keep jawing while people die?" Big Jim retorts that his "jawing" has gotten them through a lot, which I have to assume is overselling things a little. But people are getting anxious, including Julia: "Honestly, I'm a little scared. What happens when we run out of everything? What do we do then?" Barbie doesn't know.
Linda's walkie-talkie's getting a lot of feedback, so she hands Barbie a badge, deputizing him until at least she can touch base with her deputies. "I'll help you, but I don't need your badge," says Barbie. I imagine the locals will really appreciate the stranger in town just giving him orders. Linda gives him a lift, while Julia heads to the radio station, Linda observing the tender way Barbie and Julia say goodbye to each other. That leaves Big Jim left to hang out with townspeople, and we learn that Ollie has a farm, so he doesn't have to worry about starving to death. Big Jim promises that no one in Chester's Mill is going to starve. No, that's Season 10!
Over at the McAllisters', Angie is looking out the window, talking about how five minutes ago she thought she was going to die, but it's worse to be scared when you don't know what's going to happen next. Junior tells her not to worry, pointing out that he's a deputy because people trust him now. "Whatever happens, I'll take care of you," he says. It's actually the least menacing he has sounded since literally his first scene of the series, but Angie grabs the snow globe and smashes it across his head, making a run for it.
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