under the dome – Page 2 – ALL ABOUT MARG: a fansite devoted to CSI and China Beach actress Marg Helgenberger

Posts

UNDER THE DOME 3.06 ‘CAGED’ EPISODE RECAP: BIG JIM VS. CHRISTINE

July 24, 2015/in None, Under The Dome News/by Suzanne

“Caged,” the sixth installment of Under the Dome’s third season, starts to shed some light onto what happened to bring the Dome down over Chester’s Mill and to give us a little more insight into what Alien Christine’s ultimate agenda is.

“Caged” opens with Marston showing Big Jim the video footage of exactly what transpired when Christine made contact with the egg: “Right there is where Christine Price became something else…On a cellular level, the person you know as Christine Price is not of this Earth.” Right there is also the moment that the dome came down over Chester’s Mill and the mini-dome came down over the egg itself. Marsten goes on to tell Big Jim that they’ve learned a lot about Christine but they still haven’t determined what she is or what she wants. Lucky Big Jim then learns that’s where he comes in as Marsten charges him with the task of pumping Christine for information about her agenda. Big Jim initially declines as he wants no contact with ‘that thing’, but ever the persuasive guy, Marsten tells Jim he has two choices: 1) help get the information from Christine that they need or 2) be injected with Christine’s inhuman blood to see what happens to him. Big Jim decides to be helpful.

Much of Christine’s time in this episode is spent in a cage having some pretty candid conversation with Big Jim. She is honest with Big Jim from the start, showing him what I’ve speculated about for a few episodes now, that she is basically a chameleon — she can easily fake any emotion at the drop of a hat, depending on how she thinks the other person needs to see her. When Christine tells him that people will come for her, Big Jim mocks the idea of Junior as a knight in shining armor and tries to get information about who else she might have working for her. He tells Christine that if she’s relying on Barbie, her plan is flawed because Julia knows all about Christine and can’t wait to tell Barbie everything she knows. Is Christine getting a little worried at this point? It’s hard to say with certainty, but she does abruptly end the conversation by telling Big Jim that her human body is tired.

When Big Jim and Christine resume their conversation, it takes a turn for the philosophical with Christine extolling the virtues of the collective and telling Big Jim that the loneliness and emptiness he’s feeling is his ‘reward’ for only looking out for himself. Christine tells Big Jim that there’s no reason why her people and his can’t co-exist because they want the same thing. She says there’s no reason they should be enemies but that they will protect themselves. She goes on to defend her actions in stripping people of what makes them individuals: “Petty self-interest brought this community to the brink of destruction, but because of me, people are thinking about things other than themselves. Because of that, we have food. We have peace.” Big Jim balks at the idea of the collective and retorts that true progress comes from creativity and individual ingenuity: “The history of the world is made by leaders, not followers.” Christine inserts a reality check at this point: “Well, we come from very different worlds and from where I sit, you’re no leader. You’re just a very sad and lonely man.”

They are interrupted this time when Marston has one of his goons toss in a can of tear gas and then brings Big Jim out of the cage. Marston is not completely happy with Big Jim’s progress and instructs him to up his game, or else. When Christine next awakens, she has cuts down the side of her body. Over in his own cage, Big Jim is sporting a fresh busted lip and informs Christine that they must have escalated with their experiments. Big Jim decides to demonstrate to Christine what a little fight and a little ingenuity can do as he uses the tab off of a can to pick the lock on his cage. Clearly more concerned about the dangers of her current predicament, Christine begs Big Jim to take her with him, promising that she can get him out of the dome if he does. Stroking his arm and his face through the bars of her prison, Christine really pours on the charm and tries to coax Big Jim into helping her. Perhaps in response to his own passionate speech about the need for leaders and creativity, Christine makes a persuasive speech of her own that appears to be designed to seduce Big Jim over to her way of thinking: “Once out of the cocoons, the concepts of me, ego, and self were gone from my mind. Immediately I saw the world in a new light, a better light — a world where the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few…Jim, what we want is no different than any living organism – to survive, to flourish…Aww, come on. Let’s work together”

Big Jim isn’t buying into Christine’s manipulations, but manages to get her to say that bringing down the dome is her ultimate plan, which is what Marston has been waiting to hear. He charges into the room to say he can take it from there but then tries to stop Big Jim from leaving. Displaying a little more of that ingenuity he was praising earlier, Big Jim uses the can lid to cut Marston’s throat and make his escape from the Aktaion lab. Christine again begs him to take her with him, but he says “You know, I can handle good and I can handle evil. But what I can’t handle is desperate. You’re in a position to tell me whatever I want to hear, but I ain’t buying. No hard feelings.”

Although abandoned by Big Jim, Christine is ultimately rescued from the lab by Junior and Barbie, who have been trying to track her down for much of the episode. Once they rescue her, Barbie corners Christine for the truth about who she is. Christine confesses everything to him — that she was hired by Aktaion to find the egg, that Aktaion manipulated her into wanting to be a part of something great because the egg was supposed to be a new clean source of energy. She then tearfully tells Barbie that everything is her fault – she brought the dome down when she touched the egg and all of the lives lost and all of the families who were separated are because of her. Her emotional story, which matches the one Eva gave Barbie earlier, convinces Barbie who tells her it’s not her fault and when a gun-wielding Julia interrupts Christine’s confession and tries to tell Barbie the truth, Barbie’s not having any of it. Christine eggs Barbie on, telling him that Julia is the one who took her at gunpoint and gave her to Aktaion. That’s enough for Barbie and he calls Julia a monster and tells her that if she can’t get on board with the town’s new agenda, then she needs to just stay away.

Recovering quickly from her ordeal, Christine meets up with Eva for an update on what has happened while she was locked up and especially to get a report on Eva’s progress with Barbie. While not enough progress has been made on that front, Eva praises Christine for getting Barbie to finally trust her and Christine reveals the key to her success: “I became what he needed me to be, a victim for him to save.” Christine gives Eva her next set of marching orders: “The sooner you become his mate, the sooner he’ll be what I need him to be. Our protector.”

Although she had made great strides with getting Barbie to complete his journey, Christine faces more dissension within her ranks. Sam has figured out that Christine is responsible for Abby’s death. He goes to see her and actually beats Christine at her own game of manipulation by convincing her how sorry he is that he strayed and how grateful he is that she has gotten him back on the right track yet again. When she embraces him and tells him she only did what needed to be done because of how important he is to her and to the group, Sam stabs Christine and leaves her to die. Junior finds Christine, and at her urging, he carries her back down to the caves where she re-cocoons herself with one last order to Junior: “Bring me Sam.” I can’t imagine that meeting will go well for Sam. I’m going to take a not-so-wild guess and say that openly attacking the Queen is probably something that the collective would frown upon.

I think my favorite part of this episode, and perhaps my favorite moments of the season so far, were the scenes between Christine and Big Jim while they were caged. Marg and Dean Norris played off of each other so well. It was a pleasure to watch their characters go head to head and I hope that we’ll get more scenes like that this season.

Marg was especially thrilling to watch in the scene where Christine puts on the show for Big Jim — quickly passing through all of the emotions that she has in her arsenal of manipulation. Marg played that so beautifully and really just all around rocked this episode. I love how Christine constantly keeps me guessing. When Big Jim asked her if she could do ‘honesty,’ it really got me wondering about whether we’ve seen any true emotion from Christine up to this moment. I think the answer is no, perhaps with the exception of when she is trying to explain to Big Jim why she believes in the collective.

I really cannot wait to see what happens next. Those amethyst crystals were still flickering at the end of the episode, so Christine is still in a race against time to make this collective successful.

You can view some HD screencaptures of Marg from the episode HERE.

RECAP OF UNDER THE DOME 3.05 “ALASKA” – ALL HAIL QUEEN CHRISTINE (OR ELSE!)

July 18, 2015/in Under The Dome News/by Suzanne

“Alaska”, Under the Dome’s fifth episode of Season 3 opens with Christine and Junior basking in the afterglow of what has apparently been the best sex of Junior’s life. He is eager to begin their makeout session anew but Christine is distracted by the amethyst crystals that are embedded in the cavern walls. They have begun to flicker and as she watches them, she looks a bit distraught and asks Junior to promise her that he’ll do whatever she asks him to do, without question. Firmly under her spell at this point, Junior readily agrees, assuring her that he knows “how to follow orders.”

We find out that Christine has a good reason to be distracted by those amethysts when she records her latest progress report and reveals that the flickering stones indicate that the Dome’s energy supply is beginning to fail — when Big Jim smashed the egg, he compromised their power source: “One amethyst died this morning; a second one is losing power, which is causing the amniotic fluid in the cavern to dry up. It’s only a matter of time before the Dome begins to calcify. If the kinship can’t come together, we will all suffocate…” Barbie interrupts at this point, storming into her office. I had to chuckle when Christine says, “Barbie, come on in, hun. Have a seat.” Is she trying a little Southern hospitality on Barbie to throw him off guard and get him on board with her mission? It doesn’t seem to phase him as he demands to know who the hell she is.

Christine is spared from having to answer his question by a loud crash and screams coming from elsewhere in the building. Barbie and Christine race through the building looking for the source of the crash. They discover that the ceiling has come down in the area where Junior took a sledgehammer to what he thought was a non load-bearing column. Two people are dead and several others are injured, some seriously, and as they set out to help people and to get the damage repaired so that people can move in soon, Pete, obviously not a Christine fan, takes the opportunity to loudly proclaim that this is Christine’s fault and to challenge her leadership. When she attempts to give him orders regarding how the repairs should be done, he lashes out at her in front of everyone: “Lady, you lost the right to tell me what to do when you let Junior Rennie take his toy hammer to that column. This is on you!” He storms off and Christine tells Barbie that Pete is a menace and she wants him out of the group. Barbie tells her he’s “got this” and pairs up with Pete to complete the repairs. The way Christine was watching Barbie when he walked off with Pete had me wondering 1) Is Pete another one of Christine’s distractions, this time to keep Barbie from coming back at her with the ‘Who the hell are you?’ question; or 2) Is Christine assessing him like she assessed Junior in the previous episode? Or is it maybe a little of both?

Christine next seeks out Eva, obviously having been rattled by Barbie’s suspicions. Eva immediately confronts her again about the necessity of keeping up the false identities that they were given in the alternate reality because she’s tired of lying to Barbie. Frustrated, Christine tells her “I’m doing this for your own good. You’re not ready.” After meeting even more resistance from Eva, Christine finally relents and promises that she’ll tell Eva the truth and sets up a meeting with her at the cavern because “that’s where the answers are.” Yeah, and so is that handy mind-altering Oxytocin goo. Well played, Christine.
Read more

UNDER THE DOME 3.04 ‘THE KINSHIP’ EPISODE RECAP – MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS

July 12, 2015/in Under The Dome News/by Suzanne

Under the Dome’s fourth episode of the season ‘The Kinship’ proves to be just as wild a ride as the first three episodes have been. Like Big Jim and Julia, we are all trying to figure out what is going on with Marg’s character, the mysterious Christine Price — Who is she and why is she trying to take over the town?

The episode opens with Big Jim, who has exiled himself to Byrd Island, watching the recording of Christine touching the egg again. As he watches, he ponders “What the hell is that? What is she?” but then the recording abruptly ends. He then pulls out a pair of binoculars and spies on his son, Junior, who has set up a tent just across the water from him. He witnesses Christine jog up to Junior’s camp and watches what appears to be a pretty flirtatious encounter.

The viewer gets a little more up close and personal with the exchange between Christine and Junior. After some initial small talk, Christine suddenly notices just how wet and sweaty she is and asks Junior for a clean shirt. It’s a rather intimate move for someone who is supposed to just be the town therapist, but Junior immediately goes to get her a shirt and seems to enjoy the show while she strips down to her sexy white tank top and then changes into his shirt. It’s obvious Christine has come on a mission as she then, reminding Junior of the construction skills he learned while in the alternate reality, implores him to come to town and help her with a dorm building project. He readily agrees, and so mission accomplished, Christine departs. As a parting gift, she tosses Junior her wet t-shirt, again a rather intimate gesture for the town therapist. As she leaves, Big Jim remarks from his vantage point: “Normally I’d applaud you kid, but that woman…that thing?” Big Jim has obviously seen enough on that recorder to know that Christine’s encounter with the egg has unleashed something in her that isn’t human.

We next catch up with Christine in her new office where she is documenting the progress of the formerly cocooned Chester’s Mill residents. She seems quite pleased overall: “It’s amazing how quickly they’ve begun to gather. Last night they heard my call. Today more have set up camp. One by one they’re completing their journeys.” Christine is most pleased with Junior’s progress: “James is furthest along. He has let go of the fear that held him back. Today I’ll assess his progress and see if he’s ready to take the next step.” She is also very pleased with how Sam and Norrie are coming along. Joe, on the other hand, has her very concerned as he did not respond to her ‘call’ the night before. She is worried that his resistance could be contagious if it’s not “snuffed out” and vows to pay him a visit to get him back on track. Another question mark on her progress report is Barbie, who is still hanging around with Julia, even though he seemed so bonded with Eva the night before. She concludes her recording with the rather ominous statement that “the moment he’s ready to move on, there won’t be any reason for her to exist.” The ‘her’ in question, is of course, Julia, who was not cocooned and who is therefore considered to be a weed in the ‘garden’ that Christine is trying to cultivate.

Christine focuses her attention on Junior next as he readily responds to her request for assistance in the dorm building project. Their encounter is even more intimate than the encounter at Junior’s camp. Christine caresses Junior again in this episode and in a breathy, seductive voice, convinces Junior to take a sledgehammer to his father’s old office. She tells Junior that not only would this gesture show the townspeople that Big Jim is no longer a threat to them, but that it could also be very cathartic for him in his quest to let go and move on. Junior grabs the sledgehammer and quickly goes to work, with Christine contently observing in the background. I’d say Junior is scoring high marks on his assessment thus far.

While Christine is making great strides with Junior, Eva is a different story. She comes to Christine to tell her that the recorder is missing. The exchange between them becomes quite tense as Eva lashes out at Christine: “Why are you assuming it was my fault? Maybe someone’s suspicious of you. I don’t understand why you’re still pretending to be a therapist.” When Christine tries to explain once again that she is following the path that was set out for her in the alternate reality, Eva continues her rant: “Do you hear yourself? You sound crazy.” Christine pulls the ‘pot calling the kettle black card’ and says that she doesn’t look any crazier than Eva does pointing to Eva thinking she’s pregnant and running around holding hands with Barbie in front of the whole town. She then directs the conversation back to the fact that they need to find that recorder and surmises that either Big Jim or Julia must have it, with Julia being the most likely candidate as she is staying two doors down from them at the hotel. Eva’s response “With Dale?” shows that if Christine was trying to find a way to effectively distract Eva, she has hit her mark. Any thought Eva had about questioning Christine’s actions or motivations goes right out of her head as soon as she thinks about Julia and Barbie together.
Read more

AAM RECAP OF UNDER THE DOME 3.03 ‘REDUX’

July 5, 2015/in Under The Dome News/by Suzanne

Picking up right where we left off last week, Under the Dome’s third episode of the season ‘Redux’ opens with the people of Chester’s Mill, newly hatched from cocoons, climbing up out of the underground tunnels only to immediately realize that they are still trapped under the dome. Whatever they think they’ve experienced the past year has been nothing but an illusion or some kind of simulated reality a la ‘The Matrix.’ Having been teased with what life could be like if freed from their transparent prison, the residents are now struggling even more than they had been with day-to-day life under the dome. Junior, for example, misses and desperately wants back that dome-free life where he is free from the tyranny of Big Jim, while Norrie misses the life where she finally felt like she was a part of something. And As Dale Barbara tells Julia, “The dome was gone. We were free. The outside world was somehow more beautiful, more vibrant.”

While the people of Chester’s Mill are struggling to understand what has happened to them and are preparing for a town meeting where they can discuss it and hopefully come up with a plan to get some answers, the town’s newcomers, Christine Price and Eva Sinclair, are back at their hotel trying to determine what has happened to them as well. As she tries to piece together the mystery of how they ended up in cocoons for three weeks, Eva reveals that she and Christine are really anthropologists who were on a mission to find the egg. The last thing Eva remembers is that they had succeeded in locating the egg and then had landed in some kind of alternate reality where she was an aid worker and Christine was a therapist. Eva says that none of it makes sense to her and she wonders why she and Christine had different identities in the alternate reality.

Christine, who has let Eva take the lead in this conversation and who hasn’t said much at all about what she remembers from the past three weeks, jumps in at this point and says that while she has no idea why they were different in the alternate reality, she thinks it’s a good thing. She says that she and Eva would have a lot more to answer for if the townspeople knew why they had really been in Chester’s Mill when the dome came down. Christine also says that she thinks they should go to the town meeting — that everyone will be there to talk about what happened and so it would look very suspicious if they aren’t there. Thinking about Dale Barbara, Eva changes the subject and starts talking about how she was pregnant in the alternate reality and wonders if she may perhaps still be pregnant now. Christine tells her it’s unlikely and tries to comfort her because she knows how much Eva wants to have children someday. Even though our newcomers are strangers to everyone else in Chester’s Mill, this conversation shows that Eva and Christine were pretty close before they became trapped under the dome. The scene closes with Christine eyeing a piece of purple rock that is on her window sill.

Before heading to the town meeting, Christine makes a small detour and heads back to the underground tunnels to rendezvous with none other than Melanie. As predicted, they are working together. Christine chastises Melanie for failing in her duties: “You had a job. Lead the people to be cocooned so the egg could infuse them with the life force.” Melanie apologizes but then questions why they were chosen to do this. Christine, who seems to have all of the answers, replies: “You and I made first contact with the egg. When we touched it, we gained a complete understanding of the dome’s agenda — survive and propagate.” Melanie, not content with this answer, continues to question: “But I touched the egg first, 25 years ago. It should have been me in the Queen cocoon, not you.” Becoming exasperated at this point, Christine reminds her: “But you died during the download. Three weeks ago, I came along. From inside my cocoon, I could see that this town was on the brink of destroying itself.” Melanie then shows us that although she may have touched the egg, she is still clueless about some things, this time the gooey substance in the cocoon: “What is that stuff?” Again, Christine has the answer: “Oxytocin. It’s a mood regulator. It, plus the alternate reality, was essential to shape these humans into a functioning collective so that we could gain a foothold.” The fact that Christine refers to them as ‘these humans’ should be a red flag for viewers. I think it’s safe to say at this point that Christine — at least post ‘making contact with the egg’ Christine — is not human. Christine then goes on to point out that thanks to Melanie’s failure to protect the egg from Big Jim, their mission is not complete: “Except the transfer of the life force was interrupted…Because you didn’t protect it. Everyone in this cocoon has a role to play. We need to finish what we started. Quickly.” The scene concludes with Christine telling Melanie that she’s going to the town meeting to “assess the townspeople and determine how much work is left to do” and that Melanie’s job is to handle Julia, who they are convinced is a threat: “If she shows up, kill her.” There’s no question at this point who’s Queen.

It also becomes obvious at this point that while Christine and Eva may have been working together in their quest to find the egg, Christine is keeping Eva in the dark about her current agenda (i.e. the Dome’s agenda). After her secret meeting with Melanie, Christine meets back up with Eva and they go to the town meeting. As soon as they arrive, they are met by Big Jim and Julia who are just full of questions for the strangers who have ended up under the dome with them. Eva sees Barbie and quickly excuses herself, leaving Christine to come up with a cover story. Quick on her feet, Christine tells them that she and Eva were vacationing in Chester’s Mill and were out in the woods hiking where they fell into a sinkhole and then emerged from cocoons three weeks later along with everyone else. Big Jim and Julia look skeptical, so just like she did with Eva back at the hotel, Christine quickly changes the subject to talk about how she’s a therapist and how, in the alternate reality, she helped the townspeople deal with the trauma of having been trapped under the dome. She wonders if she could offer a similar service in their present situation. A nice deflection, but Big Jim is still suspicious: “Looks like everyone is shaken up, except Christine Price.”

Julia begins the town meeting by talking about all who have lost their homes and encourages anyone who still has a home to open their doors. Christine jumps in at this point, basically taking over the meeting: “The last time I stood in front of you, I urged you to find strength in community…” Her goal here is apparent: she is reminding them yet again of the alternate reality where they were free and also reminding them how helpful she was there so that they continue to trust her even if Julia and Big Jim do not. She urges the townspeople to work together to find food and several immediately volunteer to do so. Christine then offers up her services as a counselor — that they can come to her at any time. Julia stands there shaking her head in disbelief at how quickly this strange woman seems to have the townspeople completely under her influence. Even Barbie says that “Christine is right.” Finding food should take precedence over finding Melanie. As the meeting disburses, Christine makes a special effort to reach out to Sam Verdreaux and encourage him to lead a support group – that his experiences with AA while in prison would be very helpful. He seems unconvinced that anyone would want his help, but she tells him to at least think about it and then sends him off an a task to find Junior and bring him back. In what then appears to be another calculated move, Christine leaves the office unattended so that when Sam returns with Junior, people who are there waiting for Christine begin to open up to him instead when he mentions how much she helped him in the alternate reality, thus inserting him into the role of reluctant leader of this impromptu support group.

There is one more exchange between Christine and Eva that is very telling. Eva again questions Christine about the need to lie about their identities. When Christine reminds her that they are trapped and need to do whatever they can to survive, which means keeping the people’s trust, Eva’s response is “When did you become so calculating?” Eva, the only person in Chester’s Mill who knows anything about Christine, is starting to see that something is ‘off’ with her. Christine reassures her that she hasn’t changed with an anecdote about escaping from a wolf while searching for artifacts in North Dakota: “We’ve been through so much together. We’ll get through this.” Shen then diverts Eva’s attention by giving her a task: to go find “the one thing that can expose us.” Eva sets off on her mission, but unfortunately for Christine and Eva, Big Jim, who was lurking around the corner, follows her. Eva locates the damning piece of evidence and hides it in their hotel room; however, Big Jim promptly traces her steps and retrieves the item for himself.

The evidence turns out to be a recording of Eva and Christine finding the egg. In the video, which we watch while Big Jim is watching – “Therapist, my ass” – Christine picks up the egg, which appears to activate it. There is what appears to be an explosion and all we can see at that point is Christine’s hand clutching the egg and flashes of purple running up her arm while she screams and screams. It stands to reason that the purple we’re seeing running through Christine’s arm is the ‘download’ that Christine says Melanie did not survive when she originally discovered and touched the egg 25 years ago. It also stands to reason if the successful download into Christine is what brought the dome down over Chester’s Mill, then if Melanie had survived the download 25 years earlier, the dome probably would have come down over the town then.

While Big Jim has been busy spying on Eva, his son Junior, who is really struggling with life back under the dome and has thought of taking his own life, seeks out Christine. With just a little coaxing, Christine gets Junior to confess how much he misses life in the alternate reality — that he had killed his father and was ready to burn down his house and move on. Seizing the opportunity, Christine tells Junior that he’s on the verge of a breakthrough: “If you really want to be who you were, finish what you started. Drop the match. We are what we do.” Junior departs, presumably to do just that, and Christine picks up a hunting knife, repeating to herself “We are what we do.”

While the rest of Chester’s Mill is off hunting and gathering food, Julia and Barbie have gone back to the tunnels to look for Melanie. Remembering her orders from ‘Queen’ Christine, Melanie attempts to complete her given task – to kill Julia if she returned to the tunnels. While she’s attempting to strangle Julia, Melanie mutters about how much better it would have been if she had just cocooned Julia with the rest. Mid ramble, however, she is stabbed in the back. The camera pans up to reveal Christine standing there with her bloodied hunting knife asking Julia if she’s okay. Killing Melanie serves several purposes for Christine: 1) Getting rid of Melanie gets rid of the only other person who is privy to the details of the dome’s agenda. Since Melanie was starting to babble about wishing she had cocooned Julia, it opened up the possibility that she may reveal more details of the plan, which made her a threat; 2) Melanie, because she kept failing to perform her duties, was becoming more of a hindrance than a help anyway. Now that the life force is taking root, Christine can probably easily find a new helper to take Melanie’s place; 3) Melanie’s jealousy of Christine being the one in the Queen cocoon also potentially made her a threat to the ‘throne’ so eliminating her removes that danger, and 4) most importantly, by killing Melanie, Christine has saved Julia’s life, thereby making Julia indebted to her and probably more apt to trust her going forward. Was getting rid of Melanie in this matter part of Christine’s plan all along or did she just see the opportunity and take it? I’m not sure at this point, but as calculating as Christine seems about everything else, it would not surprise me if she set Melanie up by sending her after Julia in the first place. Speaking of calculating, how about those tears after she kills Melanie: “I was out looking for food and I saw this girl…and she was strangling Julia. Oh my God, what have I done?” She then leans against a tree and cries, until she looks over her shoulder and sees that Julia and Barbie are preoccupied with each other. As soon as she sees that, she gets up and calmly walks away, knife still in hand.

The next time we see Christine, she is sitting in her office stroking the bloody knife with the piece of purple rock and seems quite content. She picks up her recorder and documents her progress so far: “James was the closest, a seed ready to sprout…once he shed his fear. With the right amount of nurturing, Sam could be next. They came when I signaled them, without knowing why. The life force has taken root. Some are compelled to serve their duties, some will require cultivation. Others must be pruned away. Weeds are stronger than they seem, a threat to what must blossom. But with careful tending, this kinship will grow into what we need it to be.”

The episode concludes with all of the formerly cocooned residents of Chester’s Mill gathered together and staring at the full moon. Quite pleased with her progress thus far, Christine emerges on the roof of the town hall to look down on them and then turns around to give an eerie smile to the camera and the moon.

I’m calling this episode the “Who are you and what have you done with the real Christine?” episode because based on the incidents that take place in during ‘Redux’, I don’t think we’ve actually met the real Christine Price. The post-cocoon version of Christine that we’re seeing appears to be merely a vessel that is carrying out the Dome’s agenda. The only glimpse of the real Christine that we’ve had thus far is the woman we (and Big Jim) see in the recording before she touches the egg, along with the hints that we’ve been given from Eva as to what Christine may have been like before she touched that egg. This probably doesn’t bode well for Christine’s longevity in Chester’s Mill as I can only see this playing out with her going head-to-head against Big Jim and Julia at some point and I would be surprised to see either of them go down. It is ‘Under the Dome’ though so I guess anything is possible.

I think what I’m enjoying most about all of this is watching Marg play such a different role from what I’ve been used to seeing in recent years. I had forgotten how much fun it is to watch her play a bad girl.

You can view screen captures from Under the Dome ‘Redux’ HERE.

AAM RECAP OF UNDER THE DOME 3.01 ‘MOVE ON’ & 3.02 ‘BUT I’M NOT’

June 27, 2015/in None, Under The Dome News/by Suzanne

It’s finally time for AAM’s recap of the “Under the Dome” season 3 premiere. For those who have never read my recaps, while I do give a general summary of what takes place throughout the episode, most of my commentary is reserved for Marg’s character. Apologies in advance if I neglect your favorites.

For those new to the “Under the Dome” experience, Season 2 of the popular CBS summer series concluded with a cliffhanger as the mysterious dome which had encapsulated the town of Chester’s Mill and cut them off from the rest of the world suddenly began to contract rapidly. Fearing that they would be crushed to death, the residents of Chester’s Mill, led by Dale Barbara, evacuated into underground tunnels they hoped would lead them to safety. Once they all descend into the tunnels, they are met by Melanie who tells them to come with her because ‘we’re going home. It’s time to move on.’ Season 3 picks up exactly where Season 2 left off as the residents take a leap of faith and follow Melanie into a dream-like, misty white landscape and somehow emerge outside the dome. As the town residents stand there trying to take in what has just happened and realize that Melanie is no longer with them, those pink stars that have been falling in lines for the previous two seasons suddenly shoot up into the air like fireworks and seconds later, the dome shatters. Barbie discovers that Julia, Junior, and Big Jim, who were left behind, sadly are casualties of the dome collapse, but otherwise the town and its people are free. Sounds a little too easy, right? Especially for a show that is based on a novel by none other than Stephen King. A quick glance at the clock shows that we’re less than five minutes into the 2-hour episode. What is sure to be a wild ride has only just begun…

We next experience what appears to be a time jump. It is one year later and, for the most part, the residents of Chester’s Mill are attempting to move on with their lives. We see that Barbie and Hunter are now in the military, Norrie has gone off to college, and the town of Chester’s Mill seems to be back to its old self overall.

Or is it? At the same time we’re watching everyone move on, we’re also being shown scenes where Julia and Junior are still back in the tunnels attempting to follow the path that the other residents took when they evacuated. They then have a run-in with an even crazier than usual Big Jim. How is this possible if Barbie found all of their dead bodies when the dome came down? Ah ha, now we’re getting more Stephen King-like. It seems that those who followed the mysterious Melanie are now in some kind of alternate reality and that perhaps Julia, Junior, and Big Jim are still alive after all.

It is in this alternate reality that we are finally introduced to Marg’s character, Christine Price. Christine tells everyone that she is a trauma specialist who has been sent in by FEMA to help facilitate the healing process in Chester’s Mill. She serves as a therapist to both Joe McAllister whose sister Angie was murdered while the dome, and ironically, to Sam Verdreaux, who was Angie’s killer. She is also organizing a memorial ceremony to honor all of the lives that were lost because of the dome. While Christine seems genuinely passionate about helping everyone to heal, there is still something suspect about her. For one, her methods seem a bit unorthodox for a therapist, a little too intimate. When we first meet her, she is actually in Joe’s bedroom waiting to talk to him. Christine is also literally very hands on — not only in the sense of trying to control everything that is going on in the town – calling Barbie to come to the hospital for his girlfriend when she sees he about to do something she doesn’t like, etc., but also in the sense that there is a lot of touching involved when she is talking to Joe, Sam, and Junior, among others. Perhaps it’s coincidence — it’s still too early to tell — but she also seems very focused on the men. I’m getting the vibe that the enigmatic Christine will probably be a character that fans either love or hate, that there won’t be any middle ground on that.

What also becomes apparent is that we are not the only ones watching the Chester’s Mill residents in their alternate reality. Melanie is also watching them, through some kind of strange purple crystal wall. When she realizes that Ben knows something is ‘off’ with the reality they’re living in and sends Barbie a message that he has proof that what they’re living in is not real, Melanie decides he must be stopped and kills him at the memorial ceremony. And here’s where it gets even stranger. She kills him by strangling him – not the Ben that is at the ceremony, but a version of Ben who is covered in slime and housed in a cocoon in the tunnels beneath the dome. And as Julia discovers as she is exploring the tunnels looking for Junior who has disappeared, that is just one of many cocoons that are in the tunnels. With purple glowing roots interconnecting them all to one larger cocoon that we can’t see into, this network of cocoons appears to house all of the Chester’s Mill residents that we originally thought had gotten out safely, including Junior who encountered Melanie when he got separated from Julia. Melanie tells him that he and his friends need to become what she needs them to be so that they can all survive – he just needs to be ‘fixed’ first. We see firsthand what happened to everyone as we watch Junior go through the same process. Once ‘fixed’, his name disappears from the memorial wall and he rides into town on his motorcycle as if he had been there all along. After she has dealt with Junior, Melanie turns her attention to Julia. She manipulates Julia into believing that they need to get the egg back in order to unlock the cocoons and free everyone and they set out to make this happen.

So Melanie is obviously a major player in this “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” experience that has taken over Chester’s Mill, but is she working alone? For the answer to that, I think we need to follow the purple — purple egg, purple roots connecting the cocoons, purple crystal wall to watch everyone through. And in our alternate reality, where do we see purple? I don’t think it’s a coincidence that our friendly FEMA therapist is sporting a ring with a large purple rock in it and that she also has a large purple crystal prominently displayed in the room where she and Joe are meditating. The purple coupled with Christine’s ‘off’ behavior make a pretty compelling argument that she is not what she seems and is somehow in cahoots with Melanie and whatever her agenda is.

Things come to a head quickly once Big Jim enters the mix. Melanie retrieves the egg from her father, and of course kills him because what’s one more body at this point? With the help of his new canine companion, Big Jim discovers the body and follows the trail to Julia. The two of them have words as Big Jim tries to convince Julia that Melanie is evil and so is the dome. Julia tells him off and heads back to the tunnels. When she arrives, she sees that Melanie has placed the egg on top of the largest cocoon. The purple roots are now starting to pulse and something big is obviously about to happen. As she watches, Julia questions what is happening, the overall purpose of the dome, and Melanie’s motivation. Once she realizes Julia is a threat to the ‘process that has started’, Melanie attacks Julia but also promises that they can ‘fix’ her too. Big Jim enters at this point, says that he’s not letting whoever is responsible for all of this kill his son, and proceeds to smash the egg with the butt of his rifle. With the power source destroyed, the alternate reality disappears and all of the Chester’s Mill residents are able to break free from their cocoons, with Christine emerging from the largest cocoon and immediately reaching out for the hand of, interestingly enough, Barbie’s alternate reality love interest, Eva. Is Eva in on it as well? The final frames of the episode are focused on the two of them and their ‘Uh oh’ expressions.

The season opener was a very entertaining two hours of television. I especially loved the intensity level and the sense of mystery that surrounded everything and having that juxtaposed with Big Jim’s antics, his dark humor, and his interactions with the stray dog. I’m obviously eager to learn what exactly Christine’s role will be in all of it. Does being housed in the largest cocoon mean that she is somehow the leader or mastermind behind the dome? I think this is going to be a really fun character to watch Marg play because Christine obviously has a lot going on and so many different levels for us to delve through. I have a lot of questions about Christine at this point. What’s her motivation? Is she truly evil? Is she even human for that matter? If she is human, where did she come from? Has she been cocooned under the dome this entire time? Do any of the townspeople know her? The list goes on and on. I really can’t wait to see where the story picks up next week.

Screen captures of Marg from the season opener can be found HERE.

Tag Archive for: under the dome

Posts