“Every time I think this can’t get any worse, it does,” Julia says on the latest episode of Under the Dome and that’s exactly how I feel when I watch this show. But this week maybe we should change that to, “Every time I think this can’t get any worse, it gets sexy!” Because this week’s UtD was all about sexy times, and unprotected vaginas, and the wonders of childbirth, and abortions. They didn’t name this episode “Plan B” for nothing.
The greatest minds in Chester’s Mill are holed up in a funeral home, thinking. Big Jim is drinking brown liquor out of the bottle and saying things like “Reading is powerful!” and Norrie is crying because her black mom is dead. Instead of pointing out that Norrie didn’t seem this upset about her white mom dying, and that it’s racist to cry more for someone based on the color of their skin, Julia apologizes for making things awkward by having them hide in a funeral home when neither Norrie’s black nor white mom got a funeral. That’s okay, Julia, because Hacker Hunter figured out how to listen to Christine’s secret mix tape (turns out you didn’t have to crack the password, just rewind to the beginning) and he plays it for her. Instead of being full of songs by En Vogue and Aaliyah it’s all about how Barbie needs to put a baby inside Eva. Now it’s super-awkward for everyone.
Christine is not feeling good because she got stabbed by Uncle Sam and her wound is going Full Nazgul and she’s doubled over in pain. But never forget, Christine, when God closes a door he opens a vagina, and a glowing rock tells her that Eva’s vagina is full of baby! Christine’s swollen upper lip makes it difficult for her to pronounce words like “amethyst” but she’s so excited about Eva’s baby that she says it a bunch of times which is funny. Here’s a Pro Tip for all you ladies: if you want to have a baby, do it inside a space dome because instead of taking nine months to carry your baby to term it will take about nine minutes.
Barbie is so excited that he starts prank-calling Julia on her walkie talkie but then she prank-stabs him with a needle full of drugs and he wakes up tied to a chair. “Physical pain suppresses the lifeforce allowing emotions to overcome it,” Julia says, applying jumper cables to Barbie’s nipples. Who’s laughing now, funny boy? Big Jim wants to shoot Barbie in the face but Julia decides that with Barbie tied to a chair and her holding jumper cables it’s a perfect time to talk about their relationship. She makes a dramatic speech with swelling music about how Eva is the past and she’s the future and Barbie has to fight for his future but Barbie has been electrocuted so many times by now he’s puking blood into his thick man-stubble and he calls her annoying. Then he uses army metaphors for sex.
“A good enemy puts up a fight, but you were easy pickings,” he says. Translation: you are a ho. “Just like a good soldier, I knew exactly where to attack my enemy where she was weakest.”
Where’s that? I’ll give you three guesses (hint: starts with a “v” and rhymes with “bone china”) and while you wouldn’t think it’s romantic to turn sex into a military metaphor, think about the ending of Star Wars. The Death Star floats in space, round like an egg, impregnable, impenetrable. But then thousands of small, white, darting space ships entered its trench and while many of them are destroyed, one of them manages to fire its photon torpedoes into the Death Star’s vulnerable exhaust port and the whole thing got fertilized blew up. So basically the Star Wars is a giant pregnancy metaphor except instead of giving birth to a baby it gives birth to an explosion and that’s probably what Eva will be giving birth to, also.
But for now, she’s enjoying her Dome pregnancy because it’s making her feel sexy (“When Dale returns from killing Julia, send him to my room,” she purrs). And Christine is feeling better because she used sex with Junior to heal her wound. Then she tells him that they should see other people and goes mate-shopping with him. “Your mate needs to be in the prime of her fertility. Healthy, strong, maternal,” she says like a really overbearing mom. Junior picks a girl but Christine wants her instead, so they trade, with Christine telling him, “I need at least 12 girls. Have them waiting when I get back.” Pro Tip: make sex with 12 girls if your relationship with an alien anthropologist is in a rut and she wants you to see other people.
Sex is on everyone’s mind. Hunter Hacker reassures Norrie that his wiener still works even though he’s in a wheelchair, Uncle Sam pretends to be good until Joe trusts him enough to turn around and bend over, allowing Uncle Sam to approach him from behind with his heavy pestle in one hand. Later, Joe is missing and they only find the bloody pestle on the ground where he was taken. Uncle Sam has kidnapped the thin, hairless Joe and taken him back to Christine hoping that he’ll get points for giving her a new girl for the harem she’s building in a barn.
But he’s too late. Christine has already taken Eva to the sex barn where she surprises her with 12 white-robed maidens carrying flickering lovemaking candles. Apparently normal, painful labor isn’t enough for Christine and she’s going to get sexy labor. In other news, Barbie finally realizes that Julia’s weakest point is her face and so he attacks her with his lips. Pro Tip: It turns out that torture was good for their relationship, especially the part where Julia asked him to murder her like he murdered her husband. It’s not too late for their love, and it’s also not too late to stop Eva’s pregnancy, and it’s not too late for Uncle Sam and Scarecrow Joe to fall in love, and it’s not too late for BigHead Norrie and Hacker Hunter to give romance a try. Because as we learned this episode, it’s never too late for Plan B.
Grady Hendrix has written for publications ranging from Playboy to World Literature Today and his latest novel is Horrorstör, about a haunted Ikea.
