wicked games

yeah. i just really wanna know more about him and this storyline! i think it's the one i'm most interested in right now!

Stay to the Lights

Yeah. Definitely one of my most interesting things about the show.

DigificWriter

Man, this is a big thread bump (so, again, I apologize).

Based on what they set up in the Pilot and what was covered in the behind-the-scenes special, this show has a lot of ground to cover in a very short period of time, which makes it somewhat risky to do two episodes back-to-back that largely have nothing to do with the season's wider narrative mystery, but that's one of the things that I liked the most about this episode.

Making it essentially a direct continuation of the previous episode gave it a narrative focus that allowed it to be completely driven by character development, which is definitely a good thing, as it told us a lot about a number of our main characters and actually started to do something with Jim Rennie, although he does still remain very clichéd.

Linda is definitely reminding me of Emma Swan and Nathan Wournos more and more, and I like the way that the writers have subtly been putting her at odds with Jim's agenda even as he pretends to be on her side; it reminds me of the dynamic that emerged in Haven Seasons 3 and 4 between Vince and Dave and between Vince and Nathan.

The more I see of Junior, the more he reminds me of Jordan McKee from Haven, which is a good thing because I loved her and her story arc, and there are some definite similarities between Jordan's obsession with Nathan and what's going on with Junior and Angie.

I love that Joe is our 'everyman' character in this and that he gets chosen to be the one whose storyline in this episode drives the wider narrative forward; his interactions with Norrie finally gave her something more to do, and there's some definite 'sparkage' between the two of them that gets rather heavily hinted at here that made the episode and their involvement in its storyline better.

I get that an 'everyman' character like Joe needs a 'wingman', but Ben really is an idiot, and there were a LOT of ways that his little 'invite the entire town over' scheme could've seriously backfired, making it rather surprising that they ultimately didn't make it backfire but instead used it as a chance to give Joe a chance to stand up for himself and drive the wider narrative forward as far as his connection to Norrie and their connection to the dome itself is concerned, so kudos have to be given on that front.

Angie didn't have all that much to do this episode, which is kind of to be expected given that she's trapped in a fallout shelter, but I did like that they used her isolated circumstances to help shed some light on Junior's character and make him more than just the 'crazy psychopath' by having her plant the seed in his mind about trying to find a way underneath the dome. It made for a nice 'b' plot and gave him a chance to interact a bit with Julia, which also gave them a chance to further develop her growing relationship with Barbie and shed some light on her character by providing an opportunity for her to explain to us as an audience why she's in Chester's Mill when she could clearly have been anywhere else doing what she does.

Dodee and Phil are starting to remind me of Vince and Dave from Haven in terms of their role in the story, but I'm liking what we get to see of them because the writers are able to use them to offer exposition in a way that doesn't bog down the story.

It might've been risky to make this episode largely standalone, but, in the end, it ends up working really well because it allows the show to focus on and develop a number of its main characters in a way that I'm not sure you could've had the episode been all about expanding the season's wider narrative mystery.