Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Summer DVR Dump: Warehouse 13 5.03: “A Faire to Remember”

“Alice are you still in there? Yes, good. Go back to plotting ways to kill me.”
- Artie

So if you pay attention to casting news at all, you’d know that two of the secondary characters in this week’s episode are played by two of the leads from “Alphas”. Unfortunately, it was not a crossover event which could have resolved both shows in one swoop. I mean, wasn’t everyone kind of wondering what happened at the end of that show? Anyway, they are playing Renaissance Faire actors this week. We start at the fair and we see that Oswald is a really crappy juggler. One of the guys in the crowd is heckling him pretty bad and then a jester appears and makes the guy laugh until he has a heart attack I spy artifact. Back at the B&B, Pete has burned breakfast. But that’s okay because he is super excited to go check out the artifact wackiness at the faire. Steve, on the other hand, is not so excited. And Myka is off to find Claudia so they can help Artie restock the new and improved Dark Vault. Myka finds Claudia visiting Claire at the regent stronghold. Our future Caretaker is planner to use two artifacts in an attempt to draw out the remaining artifact energy from her sister. It’s worth a shot I suppose.

The guys get to the faire and Pete is goofing off about all the costumes and the people. They speak to the owner but he’s not much help. There are so many jesters (both staff and audience) that it will be hard to find the guy responsible. They do go talk to Oswald though (after Steve dunks him). Poor guy. He gets stuck doing all the crappy jobs even though his contract says he should be a knight by this point. We know he’s not the one behind the artifact but it would give him motive to mess with people. And I really miss Ryan Cartwright with his normal accent. The fake British accent his cohort is using is so bad. Things just end up going from bad to worse though. A horseless cart goes running amok and then a wizard is trying to attack the princess. And it seems Oswald is always at the center of it. He does admit to Pete and Steve that he had his fortune read that morning and told he needs to become a hero to become a knight and win the hand of the princess. So they pay the fortune teller a visit. The guys try tossing her tarot cards in bags to see if they are all artifact-y but no dice. The fortune teller takes off running and Pete and Steve now encounter an angry human chess piece. I’m thinking the fortune teller is behind it.

Back at regent headquarters, Claudia and Myka attempt to pull the artifact energy out of Claire and it actually works. Of course Claire still thinks she’s a 15-year-old and Claudia is seven. Interesting she doesn’t even ask about Joshua. Claudia sends Myka back to the Warehouse to butter up Artie so he doesn’t completely blow a gasket when he sees Claire all revived. Too bad the excess artifact energy isn’t actually in the intended receptacle. It’s now residing in Myka. Definitely not a good thing. She goes to find Artie in the Dark Vault. She is clearly being affected by the artifact since she’s really angry and snappy. And after Claire freaks out a bit more about the time jump, she and Claudia bond a bit over guitars. They even have an impromptu acoustic jam session at the café where Claudia plays. It is actually rather sweet.

Things are of course not going well for any of our other characters. While Pete and Steve catch up with the fortune teller and learn that it was her granddaughter (the girl who likes Oswald) that read the fortune and they neutralize those cards, the magic (as it were) is still active. The girl reveals the last card she dealt was death. So Oswald has to beat whatever is coming next in the royal tournament to win the princess and break the magic. Of course Steve has to open is mouth and ask how bad it could be when a big ferocious looking black knight appears on horseback. Oswald is scared at first but when the girl who actually read his fortune steps into the ring he charges in and becomes the hero. He even turns down the princess for her. Pete thinks it is a good idea to get in on the princess action but once she opens her mouth and talks, he really regrets it. Bet he’s wishing he were Steve right about then.

And Artie realizes that Myka has been whammied by the music box energy and shoots her with a dart. I’m not sure what that was supposed to do. Maybe somehow fill her up with purple goo to neutralize the energy? Something tells me by episode end they will be putting the energy back into Claire and she’ll be back to being an artifact-induced vegetable. And I was right. Despite the sisters bonding, things take a sad turn. Claire remembers killing their parents and then Artie calls about Myka’s situation. Ultimately, Claire sacrifices herself to go back into a coma to save Myka.

Overall I felt like a lot of this episode (read the faire portions) were filler. Again I felt like I wanted more on the Claudia and Claire storyline. I know we still need case of the week to keep the format up but I’m just really hoping that the finale really resolves everything. On the bright side the writers know it is the end so they better answer all the questions and give us a non-cliffhanger ending. Something tells me many fans (including this one) would be unhappy if that weren’t the case. But it was nice to see some nods to some of the old artifacts (like the shard of Lewis Carroll’s mirror) pop up in this episode. After all, Alice has been one hell of a character on the show over the course of the whole run. Based on the promo for next week, I think we are in for some pure silliness.

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