Under the Dome - Episode 1.06 - The Endless Thirst - Review

First of all, apologies for having my review up this late. I felt I had to re-watch the episode to write a more fair review. Because at first, I hated the episode, they crammed in way too much progression in the span of one episode. Something that could've easily been more spread out and perhaps could have made episode 3 and 4 a little better. Now, on second viewing, I liked it a bit more as I now saw the, still not very subtle, escalation of the riots. Whereas on first viewing it felt like people went from standing in line to rioting. 

That doesn't mean that it was a great episode. The people of Chester's Mill still went from singing kumbaya in the mines to a full blown riot in the span of a day. 

As I speculated last week, the bomb scorching the Earth around the dome was the catalyst for everyone to finally realize the dome wasn't going anywhere. I think the first half dozen of episode of the show were a nice introduction to the show as a whole as a result. Now things are going to get complicated fast. Resources have been running out for days, but everyone was expecting the dome to go down by now. Now that it is here to stay, people are panicking. A lot. 

Linda (played by Natalie Martinez), Barbie (played by Mike Vogel), Junior (played by Alexander Koch) and another deputy do their best to prevent a full scale riot, but to say the police force in Chester's Mill wasn't ready for this would be understating it. It doesn't help that of the original police force only former deputy-now sheriff Linda is still alive. Linda who has been prone to panic in dire and emotional situations doesn't know what to do and almost resorts to shooting looters. Nor does not having enough manpower help, it would take a lot more police officers in riot gear to subdue the hundreds that were looting the shops. 

We also got a glimpse of a Barbie that we have not seen yet, almost rage killing a looter who hit him. I think it alluded to the fact that there maybe more to his time with the Jackrabbits than he told to Julia (played by Rachelle Lefevre). Speaking of Julia did anyone feel that their kiss happened way too fast? She felt Barbie betrayed her trust and kicked him out only two days/episodes ago!

In all honesty I liked the panic and in hindsight the story of how they got there, instead of it being a free-for-all the moment the dome came down. But then it started raining and everyone stopped fighting. And looting to help each other out by holding up buckets and trash cans. It was kumbaya time again, but in the rain this time. 

Let's be honest with each other here, the rain was convenient. There is no way around that, when the truck destroyed the town's main water supply, it felt like problem-of-the-week all over again. One could argue that the missile last week, was the same thing as well. The real question is if it's the bad or good kind of convenient. The bad kind is that the dome would hold water vaporized by the sun at the top and eventually rain clouds would form inside the dome. We've seen the dome is semipermeable, vaporized water would pass through the sieve with ease. Which is why the micro climate wouldn't work. The good kind of convenient would be if the dome is actually sentient and somehow senses what the residents need. It could be a two birds with one stone thing as well, as it pacified the angry panicking crowd. This would have the dome being the towns protector if you will. 

So here I was, ready to hate on all those things when they could actually make some form of sense. Of course it all depends on where the writers are taking the story. 

Before it started raining, however, Big Jim (played by Dean Norris) had a stand of with Ollie (played by Leon Rippy) over the well on his land. I feel confident saying Ollie won't last long going up against Big Jim, since the dome came down Jim hasn't been taking any prisoners. Those who stand in his way don't last for long and his ability to rationalize that what he does is for the good of the town is down right scary. And in Lesters (played by Ned Bellamy) case, he kills smart enough as not to implicate himself. I think the Dundee brothers (played Linds Edwards and Jaret Sears) who killed Rose (played by Beth Broderick) and almost raped Angie (played by Britt Robertson) are not going to appear before court. It shows Jim maybe in it for himself, but he cares about people as well. 

Angie can't seem to catch a break, first Rose gets killed and then she almost gets raped. Only to end up back in the place she ran away from, the Rennie house, albeit above ground this time. I'm honestly thinking cutting a deal with Big Jim for protection against Junior might be the best thing she can do right now. Even Big Jim seems to be realizing what a whack job his son is. Not to mention how Junior is reflecting on himself. 

I also liked how Angie was trying to find her brother Joe (played by Colin Ford) , she spent more time searching for him in one episode than he has done in six episodes. No, after spending most of last episode searching for Angie, Joe was hunting with Norrie (played by Mackenzie Lintz) for insulin in this episode. Why he gave up on Angie so quickly is beyond me. But with their story came the grim realization that people who need medicine are running out and will probably die.

So I have this final thing to mention, Julia and Dodee (played by Jolene Purdy) now know about Joe and Norrie's connection to the dome. But Dodee seemed ready to shout it from the rooftops, obviously Julia was right here. If the people in the town found out about their connection to the dome, Joe and Norrie wouldn't be safe. People have been, ritually sacrificed for less. 

Overall, I felt it was a good episode. Even if all that happened felt somewhat rushed. In the end it left me looking forward to what comes next.

7/10

Pascal Buijnsters Pascal's a Dutchman and has been a longtime commentator on SpoilerTV and started out as a writer for SpoilerTV last year. He is quite a TV addict and writes for a local, Dutch, newspaper. Next to that he's into soccer for his local team, a gamer and a fanatical swimmer. He writes previews and reviews for SpoilerTV for a variety of shows. Main Account - All Shows

Note: I did not include any promotional photo's in the review as the ones we have for this episode were all very small.