CAPTURED ATTENTION: Episode 5 finds the good folks of Chester’s Mill in an awkward spot. After their families start showing up via bus and military escort for a meet and greet, Barbie figures out that it was more of a final meeting, the long good bye. See, the armed forced have decided to drop one giant bomb on the town, destroying the massive contact lens and all townfolk too. They decide to retreat to the abandoned cement factory for cover. Meanwhile, Big Jim and Junior have a family moment over the kidnapped girl in the basement. Family matters!
THE INVISIBLE SHIELD: “Blue on Blue,” beyond a few real cheese dick moments and painfully obvious Windows product placement, is perhaps the best episode of the season. Tensions can’t be much higher. Death has never been closer. Yet, the people of Chester’s Mill actually take the news for an incoming bomb with relative ease. No one really panics about the potential for death. Oh sure, panic happens when Joe and his goth girlfriend are missing moments before the bomb hits (leaving her mothers’s panic stricken) but I doubt I could take it that easily.
But even with a bomb about to get dropped, “Blue on Blue” is Big Jim episode. We get to see his duality in full force here. One moment he’s the man in charge, leading the people to safety. The next (spoiler) he kills the preacher by shoving his hearing aided head against the dome, melting his brain in the process (end spoiler). He’s a calculating bastard who’ll do anything to protect his image. I’m curious to see what he does with his son know that he knows he chained up an ex-girlfriend in the bomb shelter. Does he help him? Does he punish him? Does he join in?
As for those cheese dick momentsand obvious product placement, they didn’t kill the episode (because they were thankfully short), but they could have easily done so. The cheese came from the big goodbyes with family members. The worst moment was between Linda and her firefighter boyfriend, where they made out they best they could. They also are the connection to product placement, where her boyfriend brings along the convienant and easy to use Surface tablet. It’s a great little device that also you to look up magazine covers and write notes to a trapped girlfriend with the ease of your fingertip. It was embarrassingly obvious. Later on when Joe and goth girl are on the run, Joe very clearly checks his Windows phone for the time. I get it that advertisers advertise however they can, but let’s try to keep it sublte. Otherwise, the show needs a banner that reads, “Thank you, Microsoft for being the sponsor for this very special episode of Under the Dome!”
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