The mid-season finale of Warehouse 13 aired this week and it was an emotional roller coaster of a ride. Three extremely artifacts are in play, Artie has gone all Johnny Depp in The Secret Window, and Jinks is upset that he’s on the B-team. With Artie gone over the the Dark Side, Mrs. F is in charge of the team and is trying to get one step ahead of him knowing that he makes a formidable enemy. But will her efforts pay off or will they be in vain?
In Second Chance the season’s two main arcs come to a head and one of them has a decent pay off. Myka and Pete meanwhile have far less drama as they are simply hunting down an artifact that is making people rusty. After much hoopla and Pete getting the crap beat out of him they discover what is causing people’s problems (shrapnel from old Spartan armor in a Vet’s shoulder), neutralize the artifact and everyone is all better (I don’t consider this a spoiler, what you thought they wouldn’t figure out the artifact? Have you been watching this show?). Though Pete has a split lip and bruised rib or two. Jinks and Claudia are sent on a mission to figure out if they can get him off the metronome and break his connection to Claudia because Artie refuses to talk about Data the Monk and the Brotherhood. After tasking everyone away from the Warehouse, Artie gets a visit from Mrs. F and as always she is a complete bad ass.
This week on Warehouse 13, Artie has a nervous breakdown and Lewis Carroll’s Alice escapes from her mirror. Many of the subplots of this season came to a culmination leaving room for a building up to the end of the overall story arc for this year (hopefully). I enjoyed the writers bringing back Arties love interest, he is just so cute twitterpated. I also liked that this episode focused on one big artifact that everyone was helping to hunt down. Poor Alice, driven crazy as a child and then locked in a mirror in the warehouse. No wonder you are so freakin’ insane.
Usually when I’m saying to myself, “No pain, no gain,” it is as I’m teetering down the sidewalk in strappy heels with blisters forming. Then the blisters start bleeding so I take them off and slip in to ballet slippers and think, “My god what a stupid saying.” In recent years my wearing of heels had decreased substantially as I realized that bloody feet weren’t all that attractive and I had not tolerance for how my feet looked even if I had built up a tolerance for the pain. But if the pain refers to Myka’s head of hair, I have to say, Woman, at least pull a comb through it! Sheesh. I don’t have much tolerance for her disheveled look this season. I quite like curly hair, and as my best friend as struggled with her own over the years, I know it is a pain to control. But a good cut and stylist can go a long way, and I’ve got to think that Joanne Kelly has access to these seeing as she’s on a television show!
Ok, Rant over.
Artie discovers that a hockey player is healing far too rapidly, it must be the result of an artifact, so he sends Myka and Pete to chase it down. Claudia gets invited out to lunch by Mrs. F, which leaves Jinks and Artie together in the Warehouse. Artie says something and Jinks realizes that he’s lying, so Jinks follows Artie around and confronts him. Artie has taken seriously the threat from Data the Monk that he would destroy Artie’s life’s work and is cataloging what artifacts have gone missing. Which is strange because the Warehouse is supposed to alert Artie when an artifact has gone missing, but the alert system is not working. Artie is so distraught by the artifact of doom’s repercussions and his life’s work being destroyed, that Jinks is the one who comes up with a solution. Find out if one part of a pair of artifacts has gone missing, use the second part of the pair of artifacts to find the first and maybe the rest of the artifacts. Using a rifle they hunt down and find several of them missing artifacts, but packaging supplies in the garage where the artifacts have been hidden, indicate there is a least one more artifact out there floating around. At this point the suspension of the artifact of doom and Artie’s demise has been strung along for so long, that it is lost on me and I find myself cleaning up the living room while Artie is on the screen.
Photo by Victor via Wikimedia
Claudia and Mrs. F go on a walk about. Mrs. F asks Claudia to feel the surrounding people, and and Claudia is witness to the birth of an artifact. Mrs. F tells her that they only take away artifacts when they start to harm people. Oh, really? OK. What about JUST LAST WEEK where the whole friggin episode was about how EVERY SINGLE artifact has a downside? Huh? While Mrs. F is more in line with how the artifacts have been viewed over the years on this show, the switcheroo from week to week is wearing my believability (it’s a word) in the Warehouse Universe thin. But it is obvious that Mrs. F is trying to teach Claudia some of the subtleties of the artifacts because she is possibly grooming Claudia to be the next Mrs. F (i.e. Caretaker of the Warehouse). This requires that Mrs. F also show the downside to her connection with the Warehouse, mostly to the effect that she has lived so long her grandson is a grey haired old man in a nursing home. Definitely some food for thought for poor Claudia, who hasn’t even been to collage yet. I’m not sure she is even old enough to drink yet. (Goes and googles this)
Claudia is neither a Special Agent, nor a Criminal Research Specialist, because she does not yet meet the USA’s minimum age requirement of 21-years old. She is however, as of season 3, a fully active Warehouse agent and often partnered with Steve Jinks, “the new guy”.
Warehouse 13 Wiki. Well, I think she must turn 21 this year, but still, very young to be being groomed as Caretaker of the Warehouse. Poor Claudia.
Once again, the real fun story, the one that inadvertently paused my living room cleaning, is the Myka and Pete story. It was hilarious, interesting, and sweet all at the same time. Myka and Pete track down Mr. Hockey (not his real name or his characters name) and question him as well as go through his personal affects. Myka is all hostile towards him, mostly because he is hitting on her, and she thinks he is using the artifact himself. But then Myka and Pete do some deductive work after talking with the team owner (played by Lassiter from Psych) and reason that it must be a fan who is using the artifact. The fan is a crazy blond chick (played by Kirsten Nelson from Psych) with a key chain who gets upset when Mr. Hockey kisses Myka on camera. Pete is looking through fan bags when he accidentally uses the artifact and gets Myka pregnant. The artifact makes wishes come true, and Crazy Blond has been using it to wish Mr. Hockey better and when Pete touches the key chain, which has dog tags on it that were turned into an artifact during WWII when one buddy urged another buddy on to safety or he would have died, Pete was thinking about the life he lives and he is probably never going to be with someone who will always have his back and have his children, and some how Myka is pregnant.
WAREHOUSE 13 — “No Pain, No Gain” Episode 405 –Pictured: Eddie McClintock as Pete Lattimer — (Photo by: Steve Wilkie/Syfy)
Crazy Blond is gone when Pete and Myka finally put all the pieces together and she has kidnapped Mr. Hockey. She does this by wishing his arm broken. Gaugh. Crazy crazy. Or CrayCray as some of my friends would say. In a show down with Crazy Blond Myka looses the tesla stun gun and can’t pick it up because she’s uber pregnant. Pete puts down his real gun and the Crazy Blond wishes him to die and he begins to collapse. Walking away from the pregnant Myka Crazy Blond is full of glee until she is tesla’d by Myka who somehow got the tesla gun up into her hands by hooking it with her toe THROUGH HER SHOES. What? Or at least I did not see a barefoot Myka. Is this why people are always talking about barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen? They need their toes to pick up things? Pete gets the dog tags and bags them and they get Mr. Hockey to the hospital. Myka comes out of Mr. Hockey’s room to find Pete watching a man hold his newborn baby. ::Sadface:: Pete makes me ::sadface:: Booo.
Screen Still of “No Pain, No Gain” from Warehouse 13
An interesting episode with some drawn out story lines. This season’s overarching arc is just not interesting to me, sadly. But I have enjoyed the Myka and Pete parts as their friendship grows without delving into them having the hots for each other. They are obvious partners, who love each other, and always have each other’s backs. Pete was quite funny in his “You go girl” moments and I hope one day he gets his wish of a family and little Petes running around. Now that Artie knows about the Jinks and Claudia link, I wonder if he will be able to find a way to get Jinks off the metronome before Claudia is really hurt.
In this weeks episode, “There’s Always a Downside”, Warehouse 13 once again explores the after effects of using artifacts with immense supernatural powers. What gets me is this intense drama surrounding using artifacts and how Warehouse agents are NEVER EVER supposed to use them, but. . . BUT this didn’t always use to be the case. I’m really not invested in how an artifact always has a downside when it appears more that the rules of the game have changed than that any real drama is occurring. We all know using artifacts can be dangerous, but the gang has used them in the past and had “downsides” of turning hair blond- oooh real traumatic. It is as if the writers want us to attach a great emotional connection to the downside and so to do this they make people’s veins turn black. How about Joss Whedon did this yeeearrrs ago?
While I am not a big fan of the over all arc this season, it is kind of tame really so far (why haven’t they delved more into the fact that Artie changed the world and how this is affecting people???) and I’m hoping that the show will take a turn away from this OH MY GOD THE ARTIFACT CAN HURT YOU, MAYBE. WE NEED TO DO SOME RESEARCH FIRST. Um, OK. Get back to me when you’ve done that. I’m hoping that the show delves into how Artie’s use of the artifact to turn back time has brought an evil into the world, the set up for this is taking way too long.
Before I get into this weeks episode, I wanted to let you all know about the webisodes for Warehouse 13 that are up on SyFy. I’ve watched a few of them already and they are quite entertaining, and short. Basically, it’s a little side story for fun that doesn’t affect the main cannon of the series. I quite enjoy them, and you should check them out!
Personal Effects is a team building exercise episode. I’ve been taking improv classes, I know what I’m talking about. Basically the team has to hunt down all the artifacts that Sykes let loose as his safe house was broken into and the artifacts stolen and pawned. Everyone heads out together, even Leena, because she apparently has a database in her head of all the artifacts?, to ensure that everything is capture and brought back properly.
Artie and Leena team up to take half the list of artifacts that need recapturing and the only real thing of note is that at one point Artie grasps an artifact without purple gloves on though this makes no sense. I’m sorry, but if it is your job to catch artifacts, you are in fact, on the hunt for said artifact, wouldn’t you just constantly be wearing purple gloves? The post office personnel sure do. Only, the have the Hands of Blue from Firefly. When Artie gets a handle on the golf club he gets really enraged and spouts off how nobody knows what he has done for them. Leena sees this weird anger from him and tries to talk to him about it, but he brushes her off and just said it is his usual old man grumble. Me thinks the writers are going to have Artie’s little secret about his artifact of doom come out, but if that artifact is neutralized, will Pete die? Because I really, really don’t want that to happen!
Claudia and Jinksy are teamsters on the hunt once again! Once again their chemistry seems off. I don’t understand why I can’t buy it like everyone else, but I’m still having a hard time. Claudinsky (which is what I’m going to call them from now on!) have the other half of the list which leads them to a store to find sunglasses that make the wearer invisible. But Jinks realizes cameras can still capture the persons image, so using one he clothes hangers the dude with him arm. Funny enough, he doesn’t feel a thing, but Claudia’s shoulder aches. After a couple of more incidents and a purposeful experiment with a safety pin, Jinks realizes that Claudia has transferred pain from him. This must be the effect of her bringing him to life. But then wouldn’t Sykes have felt the pain of his Metronome man? Wouldn’t he have felt like he got shot? Died? Hmmmm.
Pete and Myka are after the thief who stole the artifacts, pawned them, keeping one dangerous pipe for himself. The pipe causes disturbances in the weather, creating freak tornadoes and lightening. When Pete and Myka can’t get in range of the guy to stop him they talk to his mother and find out that the thief has a very sick brother and he has been trying to get enough money to pay for a heart transplant for his brother, which keeps getting denied. Plus, he has been giving blood to the blood bank, anonymously (which I didn’t quite understand- What? He’s a really big thief in Utah and if he has contact with his mother and brother he gets capture? I somehow doubt that), and is a match for his brother. You see where this is going, right? Myka confronts him on the roof top of the hospital while Pete uses the sunglasses to come up from behind him and tackle him. Once the thief realizes he is defeated he calls down lightening one more time and kills himself, giving his heart to his brother. OK, Ok. WHAT??? Could you really use a heart that had just been electrocuted? I mean, let me google this. Google doesn’t seem to have an answer, I’m thinking that’s because the answer is No.
Pete: So something that controls lightning. Did Thor smoke a pipe?
All in all a fairly underwhelming episode with some interesting leaks of information. Pete and Myka were in top form, so I enjoyed their scenes together. The Claudinsky effect is interesting, and I was wondering what the side effect of the Metronome artifact was going to be, because they keep harping on it. But so far, Claudia just has some pain, no real manifestation of Jinks injuries, so if she can’t die from it, then I don’t really find it all the interesting. So she has pains, who doesn’t? Artie’s bad temper as the result of an artifact isn’t all the interesting either. So, I’m not really sure where they are headed with that, but I’m hoping it is somewhere better than an Artie rant again.
Claudia is determined to bring Steve back from the dead with the Metronome artifact, no matter the cost. Artie is, of course, against the idea, but he doesn’t have much room to be all judgey judgey any more now that he has reversed time, and changed the course of history with his little artifact of doom. Plus, Claudia gets permission to bring Steve back from Jane, Pete’s mom, who helps her through the arduous task of holding onto Steve and the Metronome. It is a little overly hyped for me, and I’ve already lost interest in the Claudia emo drama. Plus her hair keeps changing each scene and it is bugging the crap out of me. It is acting like a bad wig, and I wonder what is really wrong with her. Claudia always has awesome hair. Not so much any more (also Myka’s hair, WTF? More on that later). I feel like the writers are trying to force emotion from the audience rather than draw it out with this over dramatic Lazarus moment with Steve. But I think I’ve made my feelings about Claudia and Steve’s sister/brother relationship quite clear.
Artie meanwhile is all worried about his artifact of doom, as well as he should be. We still don’t know the consequences of using the artifact to reverse time, well, we know it started at war, but lots of things start wars. I’m not sure that avoiding using artifacts because they may start a war, is all that much of a motivator. I mean causing people to die is bad, but there are always wars that always kill people. Not really sure how one could link the causation of one to an artifact anyway. Even asking Data (I mean the Brotherhood) for help doesn’t get Artie anywhere except, Doom and more Doom. Which was an odd out of place scene for me, diner doom. Yah, OK. So, Artie and Claude, a little boring this week from over hyped drama.
Myka Bering by CMDonovann.deviantart.com
Now, Pete and Myka, awesome story line! They go to investigate why people are turning against their friends and neighbors. The police reports and witness interviews are quite strange, people are seeing monsters with tentacles. Myka has a phobia about tentacles that is hilarious. But why oh why have they crazied up her hair? It looks ridiculous. It looks like she had a karatin treatment to relax her natural curls, but now they want to put the curls back in using a hot curling iron and then mushed it up. What? I say bring out the natural curl, for sure. Round about relax and then curl, not so much. Pete and Myka discover that an artifact of H.P. Lovecraft is turning people into Cthulhu, but they don’t understand who is behind it or why. Not until they connect the victims. But can they stop the monster creating mad man before he gets to his next victim? Pete is all excited because he realizes he really is one of the MIB (Men In Black), and now I really wish someone would do a mash-up of that!
Not to give away spoilers, but what do you think happens? Interestingly enough Jane actually didn’t have permission to give Claudia permission to bring back Steve (who is weirded out that he isn’t dead anymore), and the main Regent Dude tells Jane she must not be ruled by her guilt. Oooh, Bad Mommy! And, as a result of bringing him back, even though they don’t know the consequences of using the Metronome, they must keep Steve close to the Warehouse and the Metronome under observation, and if him being alive puts other people in jeopardy, they will have to end his life by stopping the Metronome. Basically, Steve is forever a prisoner of the Warehouse. Artie is going through the same anxieties, but he can’t tell anyone about them of course, because that will make his artifact of doom, even doomier. Then Artie gets a ping that an artifact is in play, and it is the artifact from his previous nightmare where CLaudia is out to stake him. He pretends it is nothing, but Pete has a definite vibe. Hopefully Pete and his exceptional detective skills will get this all figured out before it comes back to bite the agents in their respective butts.
Warehouse 13 is back for its fourth season and was the season opening a doozy of an episode! Last season ended with Sykes having employed a bomb that destroyed the Warehouse, killed H.G. Wells and Mrs. Fredric, leaving Artie, Pete, and Myka standing in the middle of the ruins with Artie holding the watch that MacPherson gave him some time before. Take THAT run on informative sentences! Even though this episode went the direction I figured it would go, I quite enjoyed the season opener. I liked all of Pete’s quips, the artifacts employed were really cool, and the team brought emotion to what could have just been a boring treasure hunt. How any treasure hunt is boring, I’m not sure, but it’s happened. A great start to the season and I’m hoping the rest of the season are as good as this episode is.
As Myka, Pete, and Artie stand there in the middle of devastation they peer around them with tears in their eyes. Everyone feeling utter hopelessness, when Artie realizes that not only is the Warehouse destroyed but the container keeping Pandora’s Box safe was destroyed also. Myka mutters, “And on the bottom of Pandora’s Box, all that remained was hope,” explaining that because hope was not contained any longer in the box, hopelessness and chaos now ruled the world. Artie turns on the TV and news reporters are talking about a collapsed economy and riots in major cities.
The gang figures that Artie must have a plan, because he always has a plan, but especially because he has that oh so famous watch. Only Artie isn’t sure what it does. They all begin to examine the watch closely and realize it has an inscription on it that when Myka-translated reads, Push the button. Artie pushes at the watch and it reconfigured into a stop watch counting down from the moment the warehouse imploded. They presuppose it means there must be a way to go back in time 24 hours and stop the Warehouse from being destroyed, if only they can follow the clues. The first clue are black diamonds in association with a Templar brotherhood in France, even though Claudia would rather being bringing Steve back from the dead, Myka convinces her to come with them and the gang fly to their next clue.
Now that we have delved into Pete’s past in previous episodes, the writers of Warehouse 13 decided to treat us with a bit of Myka’s imperfect past. It was a delightful illumination of the present relationship between Pete and Myka verses her old partnership and I thoroughly enjoyed finding out where Myka came from (agent wise) and seeing how she has grown as a character, even if it has all been off-screen. Myka and Pete aren’t currently perfect people, but they are characters that have grown as they’ve gotten older and wiser and that is all I ask from a two-dimensional personality, most 3-D peeps can’t pull that off! Plus this episode pairs up Claudia and Jinksy again, always a great dynamic and begins to explore the reasons behind evil FBI lady, being said evil FBI lady.
Don’t Hate the Player was a unique episode, taking the gang into an alternate reality and dealing with a lot of emotional issues while staying fun and exciting. Fargo makes an appearance and adds a bit of fresh air to the usual artifact finding episodes. He continuity between Warehouse 13 and Eureka is kept vague, because frankly it doesn’t really fit with his time line of getting ready for the space trip. But no matter, we’ll take him continuity be damned. I liked the fact that an artifact was at the heart of the trouble of this episode, yet the overall seasonal story arc continues and we learn a little bit more of the FBI lady when Artie and Jinks have to deal with her. Yes, that is right. Jinks is back. All in all a good episode, interesting, and just good fun.
Absurdly Nerdly 