TV Review: Under the Dome 2X09, “The Red Door”

After episode upon episode of pointless filler, we’ve finally gotten to the good stuff.

Episode nine opens with Barbie, who was captured by the guards in black in the previous episode. He’s being held in a small room and is under interrogation by one of the guards. Unfortunately for the guard, Barbie isn’t giving up any information. Then, out of the blue, Barbie’s father comes into the room under the pretense of visiting and tries to persuade Barbie to get Julia to bring the egg. However, Barbie isn’t an idiot and realizes that his father is obviously lying… again.

After failing to persuade Barbie, Barbie’s father (who owns the guards in black operation) commands one of the guards to be rougher with Barbie so that he’ll start talking.

Back in Chester’s Mill, Big Jim is wary about Julia and the Four Hands. He knows that Barbie isn’t dead and challenges Julia to tell him the truth. Julia, knowing how Big Jim can be, decides to hold on to the truth a little bit longer.

After the encounter with Big Jim, Julia and the Four Hands throw worries back and forth about what to do about Barbie’s message and the egg. Julia wants to jump with the egg so that she can free Barbie, but Melanie believes that they should continue protecting it.

On the outside of the dome, Pauline, Sam and Lyle try to put the pieces together about how to get back under the dome so they can retrieve Junior. They look to Pauline’s postcards that Lyle was saving up over the years for some clues, lining them up in order of the events that took place under the dome. Pauline shows them the postcard that she didn’t get a chance to send, which was a painting of a red door. The group decides that this must be the door that will lead back to the dome. Since the park was where Lyle and Sam were found, Pauline believes that the door must be in the park. However, when they visit the park, two suspicious men are sitting near the playground. Lyle and Sam split up and the two men tail them. Pauline inspects the playground and finds a playhouse with a red door. Unfortunately, it’s not the door they were looking for. I’m kind of glad it wasn’t since that would’ve been too darn predictable and would’ve cheapened the storyline.

Meanwhile, Junior spills the beans to his father about everything; the egg, the cave that leads outside and Barbie’s existence. Big Jim uses this info to negotiate with the guards in black about finding a way out of the dome in exchange for the egg. To give Big Jim some credit, he asks for the release of the entire town at first. When that seems impossible, he asks for himself and his son alone.

With overflowing frustration, Barbie’s father gets Hacker boy (whose name happens to be Hunter) to unwillingly send another e-mail to Julia, telling her that if she comes with the egg, they could exchange it for Barbie. He does this in a cunning way, making it seem like he’s a worried father who’s only trying to get his son back and not the devious bastard who’s trying to manipulate those around him to achieve power. I bet that if he were to meet Big Jim, they’d get along like two peas in a pod.

Barbie gets manhandled by a guard in black and manages to escape. However, this is all part of his father’s plan; he figures that Barbie would’ve led them to a contact he had outside the dome. I don’t think Barbie’s dad understands that Barbie used to be in the SPECIAL FORCES and that he’d obviously know how to ditch someone who might be tailing him.

Rebecca seems to be the only one out of the loop lately. When Big Jim accosts her again about the egg and Barbie not being dead, Rebecca looks as lost as ever. Somehow, Big Jim feels that he and Rebecca are still on the same side and asks her to spy on Julia and the Four Hands. Instead, Rebecca warns Julia about Big Jim and what he knows.

Back at the playground, Lyle meets Pauline after losing the man tailing him, and finds her drawing spirals in the mud. She explains that this is how her visions start out and that she fears what this one might mean. Lyle tries to have a personal moment with her but backs off when Sam rejoins them. Having just been followed, Sam suggests they stay somewhere besides Pauline’s apartment. Luckily, Pauline knows a very techy kid who was a student in her art class. And it just so happens to be handsome, gorgeous Hunter. Hunter and his friend, Trevor, are based in a shed-looking building where they run their underground website Hounds of Diana (a site dedicated to uncovering information that the government doesn’t want people to know about the dome). On their security camera, they spot someone who looks like one of the guards from near the dome. Trevor goes to check it out and is held at gunpoint by an undercover Barbie. Hunter laughs it off saying that’s how Barbie greets people. That’s when Barbie sees Lyle and Sam. He’s confused at first but quickly grabs Sam and points the gun at him. Pauline tries to keep the peace, and when Barbie tells her that Sam killed Angie, she doesn’t look that shocked at all. I mean, a moment ago she was talking about how infatuated Junior used to be with Angie.

However, when they have time to themselves, Pauline confronts Sam about killing Angie. His explanation is that Pauline’s drawings led him to believe that if he killed Angie, Joe, Norrie and Junior, the dome would come down. Pauline goes ballistic and asks whether or not Sam hurt Junior. He denies the fact that he’d ever murder his nephew, but I’m pretty sure if Junior was the last obstacle standing in his way, he would’ve taken him out like a professional hit man. After hearing this, Pauline is convinced that they need to get back under the dome to rescue Junior and to atone for their actions.

The entire team (Barbie, Sam, Lyle, Hunter and Trevor) continue looking for a way back inside the dome. They’ve figured out that a red door is the key, but they need to figure out which one. After studying Pauline’s painting of the red door for a while, Barbie instantly knows where to look: his house.

Inside the Barbara household, Barbie’s dad is furious that the guards in black allowed Barbie to escape. While he’s stating his disapproval to the guard Barbie beat up, a guy in a black hoodie shows up on the security cameras and Barbie’s voice comes through on the intercom by the front gates. Unfortunately, when Barbie’s father goes to approach the person, they find Trevor instead and realize that he’s just a decoy.

Barbie and the rest of the gang on the outside, find their way to the back of the house where there is a red shed with a yellow hand print on it. This was the same shed that Barbie and his father had walked past in the beginning, and I can’t believe I never realized that this would be their way back into the dome. It was so obvious!

Meanwhile, Junior and Melanie decide to find a better hiding place for the egg. Junior figures that he can’t completely trust his father with everything, and Melanie agrees to help him because she doesn’t think she can trust Julia or the rest of the Four Hands to keep the egg safe. Junior hides the egg in the bomb shelter where he once locked Angie up. Melanie asks Junior to lay down with her for a while in the shelter’s bed and he complies. I think Melanie might like Junior because he looks just like his uncle when he was younger. Or does she have some ulterior motive? Nah, I doubt it.

Anyway, Barbie, Lyle, Sam, Pauline and Hunter all rush into the red shed and Barbie spots a door that wasn’t there from before. The voices of the security guards are getting closer as the team escapes through the door. The door, just like the locker in the school, leads to a cave. Only thing is, this cave has a mystical whirlwind in it that makes each person (except Hunter) have some kind of vision. Sam has a flashback to the time he was searching through some of Pauline’s things after her funeral, and is approached by a young Junior who wants to live with his uncle instead of his controlling father. Barbie’s flashback takes him back to the time when he was just a kid and first put the yellow hand mark on the red shed. Melanie is right beside him and tells him that one day, he’ll remember the handprint on the shed. When young Barbie asks why she’s there for just that day, she says that her mother wanted her to meet him and that she’ll meet him again someday. His father is also right there watching him and Melanie.

However, Pauline’s experience is by far the most interesting. Instead of having a flashback, she has a premonition. In the premonition, she’s standing in the area where they first found the egg, and Melanie is there in a purple dress. All she tells her is that this is where it began and this spot is where it’ll end for all of them. When Pauline tries to ask more, Melanie disappears and she’s suddenly transported to a body of water where she meets up with the others. Whoopee! They’re all back under the dome! Unfortunately, nobody knows what happened to Lyle and why he never got transported like them. Pauline decides that she’ll go looking for Junior and Barbie goes off to find Julia. Sam is left to search for Lyle along with Hunter.

The episode comes to a close with Pauline returning to her home and staring at all the pictures of Junior. She enters his room and gazes at all his trophies. All of a sudden, she’s interrupted by someone coming up the stairs. It’s Big Jim. And, for probably the first time in his life, he’s rendered speechless. The only thing he can say is her name.

Rating: 8/10