Warehouse 13 “Duped” #108 (Season 1, Episode 8 )

Original airdate: August 25, 2009

Summary:

Pete and Myka have a mishap in the Warehouse involving Lewis Carroll’s mirror and the Studio 54 disco ball.  All seems fine until Artie and Claudia discover another Myka in the mirror after Pete and Myka head to Las Vegas to investigate a con-artist couple who have an unbelievably good streak of luck at gambling.

Points to Know:

• Leena, as always the voice of reason in her Greek chorus-ness, tries to get Artie back in line after being run though with a sword in his hunt for MacPhereson, his old Warehouse partner who has other plans for artifact collection.
• Myka is still mad at Artie for keeping secrets, not communicating with Pete and her, and about the MacPhereson situation.  She doesn’t appreciate being a pawn in a game she has no control over.
• The artifact interaction between Lewis Carroll’s Mirror and the Studio 54 disco ball swapped Myka and the imprisoned Alice’s soul or essence so that Myka is now trapped in the mirror and Alice is in Myka’s body.  Alice was a homicidal crazy girl who had killed the Warehouse agents pursuing her.
• Erica Cerra and Niall Matter play a con artist couple in possession of an artifact- a poker chip that allows the holder to see briefly into the future with one rub of the chip.  This contact artifact has a price for its ability as it had survived a great fire- the holder begins to sicken and bear burn marks where they hold the chip.  The price gets even higher in that the artifact is addictive to use.
• Artie has had bad experiences with reflections/ shadows of people before (ie Bloody Mary… OMG, that would be one scary ep!).  It takes some convincing before he believes that it is Myka on the other side of that mirror.
• The Alice-possessed Myka discovers the poker chip as the artifact, but has her own plans of what to do with it.  She incapacitates Niall’s character and Pete with what I can only assume is some of Myka’s own physical defense training skills and thinks that they are dead.  Alice/Myka goes back to the warehouse to destroy the mirror that kept her trapped all these years.  Luckily, Artie, Pete, Claudia, and Leena were waiting for her and set a trap to contain Alice back into the mirror using the Studio 54 disco ball.
• Alice tipped her hand when the Alice/Myka passionately kissed Pete in the hallway as a cover.
• The Eureka guest stars go free, the artifact is secured, and Alice is imprisoned again.  The mirror is to go into the Dark Vault where especially dangerous artifacts are stored.

Commentary:

• It is good to see that Claudia is now part of the team.
• Myka can be very attractive if she wants to be. They sure vamped her up in this episode, but as soon as she opens her mouth or does one of those vacant eye stares, the illusion of beauty is completely shattered.  Joanne Kelly plays Myka with such a high-pitched tone that it sounds like she’s whining all the freaking time.  She was freaky as the Alice possessed-Myka and it was good that Joanne managed to take on a different persona, but it didn’t make me like her any better as a character or an actress.
• Myka gets all Le Femma Nikita on Pete while Alice possessed her body.  That fight scene was lukewarm for me- perhaps if Pete’s end of the fight were performed better it might have been more believable?
• Erica and Niall’s characters served their purpose in this ep, but what on earth was the costumer thinking putting that dress on Erica?  They made a beautiful woman look really wide at the caboose.  Costuming fail IMHO!
• They are establishing a steady rhythm with the show now and viewers can come to expect a formulaic storyline, but is it enough to create a foundation for a long-lasting show?  Seriously, if it weren’t for Claudia and the mystery of Mrs. Frederick’s, I would have stopped watching long ago.

Warehouse 13 “Regrets” #109 (Season 1, Episode 9)

Original airdate: September 1, 2009

Summary:

Pete and Myka go to Riverton Penitentiary in Florida to investigate a series of unexplained suicides at the prison.  People in the prison, including Pete and Myka are seeing dead people from their pasts.  Search for the artifact becomes more frantic as a tropical storm rolls in, magnifying the influence of the artifact.  Meanwhile, back at the Warehouse, Claudia uses an artifact to try to get to a flaky light bulb and gets in trouble when the artifact’s power goes out of control.

Points to Know:

• The hallucinations that people in the prison are seeing come from a guilt-ridden past in each of their lives.
• This ep guest stars Eureka’s Joe Morton playing the incarcerated Reverend John Hill who always seems to be preaching. His words end up saving Pete and Myka from their hallucinations.
• Pete sees his dead firefighter father but is able to resolve his guilt by knowing that his father would not have stopped being a firefighter even if Pete had warned him about that night.
• Myka sees Sam, her married lover and fellow Secret Service agent who was killed in the Denver incident while protecting the President.  She is plagued with the guilt of his death. Pete helps Myka accept that she did the right thing and it was Sam’s actions that got him killed not hers.
• The Reverend and his followers seem to be the only ones not affected by the artifact.  It is because of the Reverend’s teachings of being free from guilt and fear that they are unaffected.  In the chaos of the artifact’s effects being magnified by the storm, the Reverend is shot by the artifact-crazed current warden and dies a martyr and at peace.
• The previous warden had calmed the prison down from a state of constant riots, but since his death, the suicides have plagued the prison.  Turns out that the prison is built on and with materials with a large amount of quartz content which itself, is an artifact.  The previous warden had a large quartz cross that in effect canceled out the quartz of the building’s effect on the prisoners.  Pete manages to restore the cross’s to the wall of the warden’s office and negate the artifact’s power.
• Claudia should know better than to use an artifact in the Warehouse to change a light bulb, but her teenage recklessness makes her think it might be ok to use this magnetic lab coat to climb a metal column in the warehouse to get to the bulb.  How many warehouse agents does it take to change a lightbulb?  Apparently, just one- Artie as he’s able to finagle something to negate the coat’s properties without killing Claudia in the process.
• Artie has music in common with his father, but they no longer talk. Artie hopes that one day a composition he is working on will bring them back in contact.

Commentary:

• Joe Morton’s character is remarkably strong for a guest spot.
• Why didn’t Artie just use some neutralizer and something to catch Claudia with?  That would have been a quicker solution and Claudia would just have to shower to get the purple gunk off, right?
• Why is Myka ALWAYS yelling/screeching for Pete?  This is getting old FAST.
• Finally, some character development!  This ep is strong for two reasons: one is Joe Morton and the other is actual writing to further Pete and Myka’s individual characters. Still I do not see any indication of Pete and Myka’s relationship progressing in any direction though even with Pete’s helping Myka overcome her guilt of the Denver incident.  They are in a holding pattern of immature shenanigans.

Catch all new eps on the Syfy channel:

Watch “Warehouse 13” on Tuesday nights 9/8 C

Watch full eps on Syfy’s Rewind. http://www.syfy.com/rewind/

Syfy also offers these later “Warehouse 13” eps with commentary. Click on the eps labeled “Enhanced Version”.