I was on the phone with my dad a couple of weeks ago, detailing all these various headaches from work. A public meeting that would likely go to a hearing. Another public meeting filling in for The Coworker Who Doesn't Understand How Bribes Work, the AI nonsense, some other stuff.
He said, 'Sounds like you've had a rough few weeks.' I replied, 'All that was just on Tuesday.' He laughed. It's OK, that's what I do to keep from going insane.
First off, this final issue is 40 pages, at no additional cost. The 6-issue mini is 170 pages, total, so Chisholm's trying to provide value for the money, that's for sure. Anyway, after getting a massive hole blown in his chest last issue, Ted awakens in the weird tunnel he's seen previously, and briefly meets a woman named Kim. There are what look like tablets or pieces of paper coating the walls, and touching one lets Ted see someone's thoughts, but also gets him revved up again.
Good thing, because he, Sarah, and the doctor are about to crash. Oh, and Brody, but whatever. They make it out alive, landing in front of the Dome, where Noah is floating and crackling and assuring his legion of adoring imbeciles he's going to protect them from shapeshifting aliens.
Noah's actually in one of those Manowars, except the doc says his consciousness is elsewhere. Ted and Noah throw down, which does not go well for Ted, despite at one point slamming Noah into the Moon. The doc goads Noah into turning on his machine, and then Ted kamikazes himself. Not, critically, to destroy Noah, but because when Noah activates all the other people like Ted by turning on the machine, Ted'd back in that tunnel, where each of those little panels or pages connects to those people. So he can disrupt the paranoia and whatever Noah's been feeding them, if he has any hopeful memories to do it with.
And he does, because of Sarah. Because she was the first real friend he ever had. That prompts Sarah to admit she took this job to run from losing her girlfriend back on the other coast. A woman named Kim. Ted reminded her of Kim, which is why she reached out to him. So maybe they helped each other.
Ted makes his big play, and Chisholm illustrates the pages of Ted reaching the others as this winding path through deep red panels of enraged people. Except each person gets a blue-white shard in their head, the connection to Ted. And as you progress to the next set of pages, the shards get larger, showing Ted's fond memories. The red fades, gradually overtaken by blue as the others stop feeling as angry. They don't necessarily have to be alone and mistrusting of others.
So they swarm Noah and throw him and his Dome into the Sun to protect the world, rather than making it into some sort of hellscape Noah can either rule or "save.". So his consciousness retreats to his back-up, the doc's missing nephew. but without the machine, his consciousness is sort of metabolized by the kid's. Kim is able to speak to Sarah briefly through what's left of Ted's body, and basically tells her it's great she wants to help people, but she shouldn't feel guilty for enjoying herself, or feel like it's a betrayal of Kim's memory. Which seems to convince Sarah to do something else with her life, to move forward. Though now she's leaving long text messages for Ted, who may not be dead.
The whole "strength of connections" theme makes me wonder about the Dome's significance. Because it has a honeycomb design, lots of borders connecting into something larger and stronger than they would be separately. But it was being used to hide Noah's plans, cover up what he did just to try and feel special, keeping everyone else sealed out and away from his special machine. But The Dome is an inanimate object, not people, so maybe its design isn't meant to be significant.
Or it's just an example of how Noah sees connection, as something to be molded to suit his purpose. He doesn't contribute anything to it, just uses it. Uses the doc's love for her nephew to keep her quiet. Uses empathetic people like Sarah to monitor his potentially useful tools. Keep him shielded from any consequences, by keeping everyone focused on being angry or afraid in other directions.
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