Under the Dome - Revelation - Review: "Excessive Exposition"

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Previous Episode: 2.03 Force Majeure

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2.04 "Revelation"
Directed by Holly Dale, written by Alexandra McNally
Rating: 5.5/10 (C-)

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Next Episode: 2.05 Reconciliation

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This week’s episode spends a big portion with the town’s dwindling food supply and it was rather unspectacular because in the end, nothing really happened. At all. It’s been only two weeks since the dome appeared and resources are apparently running so low that something has to be done about the current population. Barbie calls it extermination plan, Big Jim calls it reduction option but as already mentioned: It doesn't really matter because all the time spent building up this plot amounts to absolutely nothing.
If there really is as little food left as they want us to believe, then why is the diner filled with people perpetually drinking coffee? Why is the rest of town seemingly oblivious to this entire ordeal? Because magnetism. Jokes aside, it’s utterly perplexing how Rebecca and Big Jim are contemplating killing off part of the town and yet, nobody really seems to be affected by the limited supplies. I have no idea how this will be resolved but one thing I know for sure: The solution will take as much suspension of disbelief as the fact that it took the show this long to deal with this.

Rebecca has emerged as the worst character, if we can even call her that. From the moment she was introduced as the local science teacher, it was obvious that she will be overused as a plot device to solve the oh-so-many crises on this show. It is only fitting that she was introduced during one of the dome’s disasters because she herself has become one of them.
Over the course of last season, Barbie showed a vast skillset which seemed plausible due to his military service but Rebecca makes him almost look like an amateur: Apart from being a teacher, she’s also a veterinarian who is capable of telling a piglet is fatally ill after three seconds, an epidemiologist who can create a new disease by merging two strains within hours and her knowledge about Darwin is as broad as her expertise on magnetism.
Before infecting the town with the virus, the show throws some exposition at us to justify the actions Big Jim and Rebecca are about to commit which didn’t really work. That entire scene just felt out of place and did nothing it terms of humanizing Rebecca. After all is said and done, they couldn’t go through with it because their God complex isn’t big enough. Both are arrested by Phil (who by the way is doing extremely urgent work by going after some vandals) and will be put on trial but given how the last trial went, I doubt these will face any serious consequences.

The other development is Melanie’s quest to find out more about her identity. As it turns out, she is indeed Melanie Cross and through glimpses of flashbacks, we learn that Pauline, Lyle, Sam and her were the originals Four Hands. Melanie finds herself drawn to the egg and picks it up despite the others urging her not to. She is accidentally killed and the egg turns black. So this clears up how Pauline is connected to the dome and for how long the egg has been around. With Sam revealed as Angie’s murderer at the end of the episode, it is likely he is also responsible for Melanie’s death. I have to admit though, the way Melanie was pushed into the crater comes across more as comical than dramatic. That was some awful directing.
Speaking of awful, there is an awful lot of not-so-well done exposition, especially from Joe. The show has never executed exposition very well but in this episode, I found myself repeatedly yelling Joe to shut up already because we already know all that stuff. “The dome came out of nowhere and changed our lives forever.” Really? Really?!

With the help of Lyle, Junior finds out Pauline left town so the dome would follow her (What?!) and that this would spare him. She also has been sending Lyle postcards with her paintings, depicting every single event that has occurred under the dome and some that are still to come. The sketchbook we saw in 2.01 with Sam turns out to be Pauline’s journal and it has a drawing of the door which we have already seen in a previous episode. And Junior looks dumb when he falls for the oldest trick in the book, did he really think Lyle would just let him pick up the journal? Sigh.

Well, Sam made a move on Julia. Let the love triangle fiasco begin. The rift between Julia and Barbie has become so big that he isn’t invited in their her house anymore. I’m not looking forward to seeing Julia working with a murderer, mostly because she will get closer to Sam, find out the truth and we'll be treated to another “I thought I knew you” speech.

The second season of Under the Dome has been underwhelming and has gradually become worse with every episode. I was hoping the show would shift the focus to the mythology of the dome. While still mediocre, it is superior than the rest of what is currently going on. The dome needs to come down or something drastic needs to happen or characters need to show up that are actually worth rooting for.

Other thoughts:
- I still have trouble wrapping my head around the fact, that Dwight Yoakam’s Lyle is the same age is Sherry Stringfield’s Pauline & Eddie Cahill’s Sam.
- How awkward was it when Rebecca was by herself and randomly uttered “Everything happens for a reason.”?
- If this was Season 1, Big Jim would have thrown Rebecca out of the window and I wouldn’t have minded it one bit.
- Melanie and Barbie are from the same town. She keeps saying how familiar he looks but wouldn’t Barbie have been a little boy in 1988?
- I don’t know if it’s because of all the snark but I’ve been enjoying Norrie a lot lately. And Carolyn shows up next week. Yay!

About the Author - Mark A. Ondo/LittleDreamer

20 y/o Austrian. Music lover, avid TV watcher, cheesecake muncher and pseudo writer. His taste in television is as eclectic as it gets and he dedicates more time to ficitonal characters than he would like to admit. He currently reviews Under the Dome, writes about various shows in Mark's Remarks and creates Best-Scene Polls for Grey's Anatomy, Once upon a Time, Revenge and Scandal.

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