‘Under The Dome’ Recap: The Reverend Starts A Fire, Freddie Dies

Police Chief Howard “Duke” Perkins dies and James “Big Jim” Rennie (Dean Norris) tries to hide a major secret on Under The Dome Monday night on CBS.

The episode begins with a flashback from Dale “Barbie” Barbara (Mike Vogel) that showed his murder – perhaps an act of self-defense – of Julia Shumway’s (Rachelle Lefevre) husband Peter (R. Keith Harris).

Seemingly just minutes after where the pilot episode left off, the audience finds Deputy Linda Esquivel (Natalie Martinez) holding the dead Duke (Jeff Fahey), whose pacemaker exploded in his chest because of the dome. His death leads the town to wonder who’s in charge.

The emotionally disturbed Junior Rennie (Alexander Koch), son of Big Jim, continues to make his mental illness obvious. He locks up his ex-girlfriend Angie McAlister (Britt Robertson) in a bunker, believing she has slept with Barbie – she hasn’t, but says she has just to make him angry and kill her rather than subject her to torture. Junior doesn’t kill Angie though, but rather fights Barbie and is beaten to a pulp. However, he tells Angie that he won the fight and wants them to be in love again.

Electricity in the dome is cut off, and Julia goes to the radio station to see what she can figure out. While there, Julia hears military personnel calling the town’s barricade a dome. Radio engineer Dodee Weaver (Jolene Purdy) wants to find out more information before telling anyone, but Julia runs to alert the town’s residents instead.

The town coroner – also the local Reverend – attempts to examine Duke’s body. However, Big Jim stops him because he’s afraid of a secret with the propane tanks – a secret he, the Reverend, and Duke were in on, but the audience is unaware of yet. Big Jim also finds out that Duke left everything to Esquivel in his will.

The Reverend goes to Duke’s house to burn the papers with secret information about the propane tanks, but accidentally sets the house on fire. Esquivel saves him before the propane tanks in the house explode, much to the chagrin of Big Jim, who wanted as few people knowing the secret as possible.

The episode ends with a bonfire in Duke’s honor. It seems like a positive moment, but then a police officer goes on a paranoid rant and fires a gun at the dome. The dome, impenetrable, ricochets the bullet back. It kills Esquivel’s brother-in-law, Freddy, after it goes through his chest in the episode’s closing moments.

Under The Dome is based on the Stephen King novel of the same name. However, King has made it clear that the show will not strictly follow the book, but rather will take creative liberties.

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