As other townspeople, including Linda, begin to display similar symptoms, Alice volunteers her help at the clinic and discerns the town is suffering from an outbreak of meningitis.
With a waning supply of antibiotics, Big Jim and Barbie head to the pharmacy but discover Reverend Coggins had already taken all the medicine, believing it was God’s plan for the infected to die.
"[5] Darren Franich of Entertainment Weekly gave the episode a more mixed review, focusing on the show's continuity issues, saying "I actually wonder if, weirdly, Under the Dome could use less serialization.
There's a germ of a good idea there -- Junior, Violent Crazy Person, is a rhetorical pacifist -- but it was reduced to a non sequitur single scene, mixed in with the ongoing (boring) tales of Julia Shumway investigating her husband's disappearance and the Pink Star Seizures."
He also commented positively on the cliffhanger, saying it "marked the first time that any plot on Under the Dome has moved forward since the season premiere, making me just a bit excited about next week's episode.