Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Summer DVR Dump: Warehouse 13 5.02: “Secret Services”

“I know Artie said he tried everything and that he means well, but you’re my sister and there’s no way I’m leaving you like this.”
- Claudia

So I guess with only six episodes to work with the wrap up their storylines, the writers are really cramming stuff in. We got two pretty big items if not completely checked off, at least explored more. The first is Pete and Myka’s relationship. While Steve, Artie and Claudia hang around the Warehouse to deal with the other major arc of the episode, our dynamic duo go off to DC for a bizarre case. This of course is after Mrs. Frederick brings up the notion of Myka having children since she’s cancer free. Pete offers to be a sperm donor and that pretty much throws Myka for a loop. Like her, I’ve always seen them as having a brother/sister type relationship and I’ve enjoyed that because not every show with opposite-sex leads needs to have them end up together.

The case that draws Pete and Myka back to their old stomping grounds is a case of a man appearing drown on dry land. Another pair of Secret Service agents are on scene and they seem to know Pete and Myka. I suppose that makes sense since it’s not just two agents protecting people. They were there with their protectee at a hotel. The guy was involved with fracking rights and also a politician. So the quartet go to visit his office and talk to his aid. She doesn’t seem to know anything and before long, there’s another drowning victim. It seems he was involved with a bill about fracking, too. I have to give it to the writers that they really did make me think it was going in a different direction than it really is. After the second victim, Pete and Myka start to get suspicious of the other pair of agents. They have their phones off during a case and they suspect they might be hiding an artifact. It turns out the pair secretly got hitched at the court house. Again, not what I was expecting.

After they learn that a bartender turned political fundraiser is victim number three, they head off to the hotel where he used to work and things really start to pick up. Pete and the male half of the other couple find an article about a girl who went missing at the hotel and supposedly it was with a senator whose successor was the first victim. I smell conspiracy! Myka and the other female agent are talking about how the marriage happened and it really starts her thinking about her and Pete. They do have a lot in common and obviously care a lot about each other. But there isn’t time to figure that out now because they think they know who the next victim is; the writer of the article that they found. And wouldn’t you know it, she starts coughing up water. Luckily, Artie has sent some artifact supplies for them and they use one to at least halt the drowning while they figure out what’s really going on. They head back to talk to the senator’s aid and the male agent gets whammied and starts drowning. The aid is going after the girl who supposedly went missing and whammies her too. Pete and Myka figure out that it was the sword hilt of Alfred Dreyfus (it only activates when someone lies) and his only escape from his prison is to swim. So that explains the water. Pete and Myka manage to stop her and neutralize the artifact. They get back to the Warehouse and Pete in all seriousness says that if Myka ever wants to talk about having babies with him, he’s willing to be a grown up about it. So they didn’t really give us an answer to the whole will they/won’t they (not that we’ve really had that much in the past) but I thought it was an interesting way to look at the issue.

The other major arc of this episode involved Claudia finding out the truth about her sister, Claire. She is about ready to hack the Warehouse system to find out anything she can since the photos of her parents crushed car screams Warehouse to her. But Arties stops her form doing that. He’s going to show her his memories of the interacting with her sister and the day her parents died. They use an artifact which I’d totally forgotten Pete and his mom used a few seasons back to go back into Artie’s memory. We first see Claire at school. She’s usually some really scary telekinesis to throw people around. We then see Claudia’s parents in the principal’s office and ultimately trying to take Claire to see a doctor. Artie wants to pull out of the memory but Claudia insists on seeing what really happened. She watches in horror as her sister throws the car repeatedly into a pole, killing her parents. Claire then collapses unconscious on the ground. We jump inside the house where we see a young Claudia who remarks that it was a music box that made her sister go crazy. Artie confirms it is an artifact but it’s been burned in a fire (not properly neutralized). This means that the artifact’s power still remains in Claire. And we also learn that from a very young age, Claudia could identify artifacts. I have to believe that ties in directly with her being the next caretaker of the Warehouse. I thought that was a really creative way to tie that back in since we never really knew why Claudia was going to be Mrs. Frederick’s successor.

Claudia is worried that she threw the music box in the fire, thus harming her sister. After some squabbling, Steve offers to go in with Claudia as an outside observer to make sure memories aren’t being blocked. And we actually see Claire. She’s in a room and they are using various artifacts to keep her in a coma. It’s dangerous but she and Steve go into Claire’s memories and we see Claire picking out the music box at a yard sale despite Claudia’s warning that it is bad. We see Claire’s reactions to what’s going on and we see that it was her not Claudia that threw the music box into the fire. So at least Claudia doesn’t have to bear any guilt about her sister’s predicament. She does swear to find a way to bring Claire out of her coma and get the remaining power out of her. I have to say I really liked this part of the episode and had wished it could have been more of the episode than it was. Now if only we can hope for one final appearance by Joshua I’d be really happy.

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