I’d like to tell you that Under the Dome was my last straw with Stephen King. I’d like to tell you that King’s admission that the villain of UtD was supposed to be Dick Cheney was the point where I’d finally had enough of King shoving his political cock down my throat at least once every book like it was some kind of legal requirement.

“Copyright boilerplate?”

“Check!”

“Print run and edition boilerplate?”

“Check!”

“Pointless Bush Derangement Syndrome joke shoehorned in?”

“Double-check!”

I mean, I finally had that moment with Roger Ebert. Great writer. Except for the misfiring part of his brain that compelled him to work a Bush insult into every other review, including a review for Pixar’s Cars. Repeat: Cars. Fucking CARS! Great googelty-moogelty. No mas. No mas.

Sigh. Where was I? Yeah, Stephen King’s perpetually turgid political cock. Under the Dome should have been the Maginot Line.

But nooooo. I came back. Like a dog to its own vomit.  Thank you, Sir, may I please have another? WHACK! I choked on King’s political cock yet one more time: 11/22/63, his time-travelling ode to Kennedy. The ode to Kennedy was fine. The scab-picking “HEY IT WAS A GREAT ERA, BUT IT WASN’T SUCH A GREAT DECADE FOR EEEEEEVERYBODY, WAS IT?” bullshit, as well as King’s insistence that there was some mythical political party in the sixties chartered under the name “Dixiecrats” (who were not actually Democrats, says King) left me banging my head against the wall.

Start with this thesis: Under the Dome was King’s worst book since his whacked out cocain-fueled writing era that brought us such stinkers as Cujo and Eyes of the Dragon. God damn, the conceit at the end of Dome is the stupidest fucking conceit in the history of conceits. Alien kiddies playing with an Earth town like an ant-farm until Alien parents catch them and make them knock it off. I paid $26 for that?

So why did I bother to watch any of the CBS serialization of Under the Dome?  Because I wanted to hate on it? Naw. One reason and one reason only. Brian K. Vaughan. An absolute genius writer, and the best comic writer/creator working today.  Brian K. Vaughan is the hired gun that Lindelof brought in to get Lost back on the rails. A bit late to save that flopping trout, sure.

Spielberg hired Vaughan to keep Dome from becoming Lost.

Here’s the problem with the TV serialization of Under the Dome: Could it possibly take itself any more seriously? Brian K. Vaughan is funny. His success is working belly laughs into tense plot lines. He’s a master.

What the eff happened, Brian? What’s with all the over-dramatic music, and the brooding, and slow, soap opera camera pushes into scowling faces before every commercial break? Lighten the eff UP, man.

Too late. He’s out. Brian K. Vaughan quit the show after the first episode of Season Two was in the can. I can only admire him for it. He must realize what a turd burger Dome is devolving into. Killer butterflies? Really? That has Lindelof written all over it. You couldn’t have picked a better franchise to bork, Damon.  Aquaman garners more respect.

Everybody else, you’ve been warned. The head writer bailed on this goat schtup. And you think it’s going to get better?

Get out while you still can.