This episode immediately follows the events of the previous season finale, "Curtains", with Julia coming back to shore after having dropped the egg in the lake and Barbie in a noose on the gallows in the town square.
However, the Dome emits a mysterious sound which scares Junior from pulling the lever and causes Sheriff Linda Esquivel (Natalie Martinez) to halt the execution.
Meanwhile, Julia Shumway (Rachelle Lefevre) meets Sam Verdreaux (Eddie Cahill) while rescuing from drowning a mysterious teenage girl (Grace Victoria Cox) who may hold clues to the origin of the Dome.
Determined to save the rest of the townspeople, Barbie meets Rebecca Pine (Karla Crome), a high school science teacher who has many theories about the Dome.
Inside the McAlister's house Elinore "Norrie" Calvert-Hill's (Mackenzie Lintz) mother, Carolyn Hill (Aisha Hinds), passes out from a large magnetization pulse.
While Barbie and Rebecca attempt to stop the pulses, the teens are convinced that the Dome is punishing them for not killing Big Jim when it told them to.
The Dome's magnetic force locks Big Jim in the fall-out shelter where he is taunted by Dodee Weaver's (Jolene Purdy) ghost.
Once Julia cuts Big Jim loose, the townspeople begin to wake up from their unconscious states and the Dome releases all the metal objects.
Big Jim tries to gain the townspeople's trust back by appointing Phil Bushey (Nicholas Strong) as the new sheriff and inviting Joe, Angie, Norrie, and Carolyn to stay at his house.
Junior then pulls Big Jim aside and tells him while he was unconscious he had a vision of his supposedly deceased mother Pauline Rennie (Sherry Stringfield).
"[5] Stephen King has a brief cameo in the episode, specifically interacting with Britt Robertson's character in the Sweetbriar Rose diner shortly before her demise — "Refill, Ange?
"[10] David Hinckley of the Daily News gave the premiere a 3 out of 5, saying, "The supernatural show has evolved into a bit of a cartoon, but it's a fun one, especially since Stephen King himself wrote the season two opener.
No visual on this show will ever match that opening night shot of the cow being sliced in half, but the sight of all the metal objects hurtling toward the dome and sticking there, culminating in Deputy Linda getting squished by her car five minutes into the new season, came close.
The knives flying through the air, the nails pulling loose from the walls, the pots and pans whizzing over the kids' heads, and finally the house falling completely apart... it all worked as a very satisfying mini-movie: the perfect short subject before your next screening of Maximum Overdrive.
"[14] Brian Lowry of Variety gave the episode a negative review, saying, "CBS pulled out all the stops to sex up the relaunch of Under the Dome — including a second-season premiere written by Stephen King — but at this point, attempts to keep the show interesting just bounce right off.
Part of that has to do with a loose interpretation of the 'limited series' description leading up to last season's underwhelming cliffhanger, as well as a sense that while the characters remain trapped without an answer, viewers (at least, those who can find something else to occupy them between now and Labor Day) don't have to be.
Tonight, the dome brings back the dead, makes people faint and sucks up a bunch of metal stuff into one noisy crunch.
[...] The problem with this sort of narrative stretch is that when the payoff finally arrives -- hopefully by season's end -- it's been upstaged or rendered irrelevant by all the plot flimflammery that preceded it.
"[16] Chancellor Agard of Entertainment Weekly also said, "Those who tuned in tonight hoping for an Under the Dome that was less silly and provided more answers, less questions were probably disappointed by the episode's end.