The first two seasons of “Under the Dome” saw Big Jim, played by Dean Norris, as the main antagonist of the show, and his character was built up quite nicely. He has been written in a very deep, thoughtful way, and even though he did some quite cruel acts, his motivation was at least explained by the writers. However, his desire to protect Chester’s Mill and to become its savior, and the acts that he committed as a result of that, have strained his relationship with his son Junior, played by Alexander Koch.
Big Jim has also killed people just to keep the town as a whole alive, and he in fact killed someone in the premiere of the show’s third season, which was a longer, two-hour episode. He didn’t do it for himself though, and he was motivated by what he saw as something greater.
Lately we’ve been seeing the residents of Chester Mill living in a better situation, and it looks like they’ve managed to break out of the indestructible dome at this point. It was shown that their lives so far had been a dream and the reality is that they were all trapped in a cocoon. Thanks to Big Jim and Julia, the residents were eventually freed from their trap and they went back to reality.
In order to accomplish that, Jim had to dispose of Melanie, who is in control of the power of the cocoons. Big Jim apparently believes that he is able to turn himself into a good or bad guy, as the situation calls for, but it’s not clear what his purpose in the overall storyline is.
Dean Norris himself seems to enjoy the negative attention from other characters, but at the same time he wants to have some limit to that – he doesn’t want to become some sort of psychotic killer, and he’s hoping for some balance to his character. According to him, taking the character to such an extreme would not be good for the show as a whole, as it would limit his potential for development significantly.
He went on to explain that, even though Big Jim is not “the guy you want as your neighbor”, he’s still one of the ideal candidates for defeating the dome, and he’s the perfect solution to that situation. He’s able to see the town for what it really is, and the character has a lot of potential to him that should be explored in more detail.
One of the main questions that has been bothering fans of the show so far is if we’re going to see another death further along in season 3, or if Jim’s kill in the premiere is going to be the end of it. It’s worth noting that the original novel that the show was based on had a somewhat unpredictable style when it came to killing off characters, and many people have been drawing comparisons with “Game of Thrones” in this regard.
So the reality is that we can’t really tell if another character might get killed or not, but it’s certainly a possibility. Jim himself has been an unpredictable part of the story since season 1 so we don’t know what the writers might have in store for him. But we can certainly see him doing a few more questionable things later on, despite the protests from Dean Norris. Plus, those “protests” might actually be carefully chosen PR talk to steer fans in the wrong direction.