Jinks is enjoying the ultimate research project – trying
to find some Artefact that will allow him to disconnect from the metronome
without dying and without hurting Claudia. Except the Warehouse is huge (as he
whines to Artie. Who knows) and he doesn’t want to involve Claudia since she
will stop him. And Artie is considering moving in with Dr. Vanessa Calder (and
is both encouraged and teased mercilessly for it).
In the Artefact issues we have a little place in South
Dakota where a nice young lady called Kristen is organising items in a thrift
store and finds a full length mirror. And a light by it marked “click me”, she
does and there is a figure in the mirror – a young woman with too much eye
shadow. They touch through the glass, there’s a purple flash, the sound of
breaking glass and Kristen emerges looking very different. Yes, it’s Lewis
Carole’s mirror again, and that is Alice possessing Kristen who comes out and
starts kissing a priest before stabbing him. She drives off in a big van,
causing chaos on the roads until she looks in the mirror, sees Alice who urges
her to “show some skin”. While distracted unbuttoning her top, an armoured van
crashes into her van.
In the hospital she is patched up and tethered to the
bed, yelling death threats and Pete and Myka show up to interview the wounded
priest about Kristen’s possession. Interviewing Kristen looks like it’s going
to be difficult – but Kristen recognises both of them and knows their names
(from the last time they dealt with Alice, who possessed Myka). Pete speculates
telepathy, but Kristen just becomes more disturbing and more creepy.
At the thrift store they spray random objects until they find the shards of Lewis Carole’s mirror – and the label confirming what it is – which they encountered before and locked it in the Dark Vault. They realise then that Kristen is Alice
In the hospital, Alice/Kristen seduces an orderly and
gets free – and the address to L’Etoile, which she is looking for for some
reason – and she plays with a shard of the mirror. Pete and Myka arrive to find
her gone – but they do find a very confused Kristen – who is no longer
possessed by Alice. She describes exactly what it was like to be trapped in
Lewis Carole’s mirror, which Myka remembers. They figure that Alice has jumped
into another body – any body – just as an ambulance screams away leaving the
driver behind.
At the Warehouse, Claudia knows something’s up with
Jink’s unwillingness to go out in the field. He used to like action now he’s
happy to take a back seat, researching which, in turn, grounds Claudia. Any
issues are interrupted by Myke and Pete calling so Claudia can set up tracking
the ambulance. It also leaves Jinks and Claudia the job of finding a new
Artefact that can contain Alice and figure out how the mirror was removed from
the Dark Vault in the first place.
In the Dark Vault they find one of the gems the evil
priest has been leaving behind while stealing Artefacts that Jinks and Arte saw
last episode – Jinks tells this to Claudia and is surprised to find that Artie
hasn’t told Claudia about it as he said. Lena arrives and, as an expert of the
Warehouse, she has an idea on what they need. A hookah pipe that draws out a
person’s soul and traps it (Alice contains several Artefacts). Claudia climbs a
mountain of unsorted Artefacts to reach it – and in doing so dislodges a stick
that shocks Jinks – and causes red and blue energy to shoot between the two of
them. He manages to convince Claudia everything is fine – and he’s just being
protective because Artie told him about her “phantom pains” (actually pain from
Jink’s injuries) but Lena isn’t convinced – she saw their auras switch and
she’s seen it before and it didn’t end well.
Pete and Myka follow the newly possessed Alice just as he
moves bodies yet again – and leaves a burning petrol station behind. In
desperation, they call Artie to bring him up to speed. He’s less than pleased
with them interrupting his lovely date with Dr. Vanessa. They tell him she’s in
Rapid city South Dakota and heading to L’Etoile, wherever that is. Artie knows
– it’s the restaurant he’s currently eating in. he looks up to a waitress
pouring them some free champagne, and in the reflective surface, sees Alice and
she has a knife. He tells Pete to get their quickly – pushes Alice away and he
and Vanessa make a run for it (she’s quick on the uptake). They meet Pete and
Myka outside and conclude that Alice is hunting Artie.
Using mirror glasses, Pete and Myka circulate through the
crowd looking for Alice while Lena, Claudia and Jinks bring the hookah. Alice
sees them coming and body jumps again – and again before they catch her. She
could be anywhere and anyone.
So they set a trap – using Artie as bait in a hotel lobby
and putting Jinks, Claudia, Myka and Pete on the exits – and Dr. Vanessa after
she insists and refuses to be protected especially as a Warehouse Agent, even
if she is the doctor. Myka also finally shows some compassion for Alice – how
being in the mirror for a few hours made Myka feel alone and isolated, and
Alice was locked up for about over a century – and we learn that Alice went mad
in the first place because she accidentally killed her mother in front of the
mirror.
Alice arrives, body switches again – and kidnaps Dr.
Vanessa – and then possesses Vanessa to kidnap Artie, and then possesses
Claudia (will someone please cover their eyes?!) who breaks the hookah and
tries to stab Artie. Artie, of course, has flashbacks to all the visions he’s
been having of Claudia stabbing him in relation to the Astrolabe – but Jinks
moves in the way, getting stabbed in the shoulder – which causes Claudia/Alice
to stagger back from the reflected pain of it. He then holds up the glass to
her eyes and teslas it – creating the light that puts Alice back in the glass
which they then goo.
In the aftermath, Artie decides to end his relationship
with Dr. Vanessa – it’s just too dangerous for her, he can’t stand putting her
at risk. She protests that this can happen to any agent, their jobs are
dangerous, but he can’t stand the thought of her dying because of him
(especially with the angry priest). Vanessa is angry and makes it clear when he
comes to his senses, call her – because she’s going nowhere.
Also this means that Claudia and Jinks have to have the awkward decision about them being linked. She nixes him unhooking himself from the metronome. And Jinks tells everyone about the diamonds and Artie’s life work being destroyed.
And Artie starts ranting to himself about Evil priest Father Adrian – secretly overheard by Lena
One thing we did get this episode is the character
interactions. They’ve been a little shaky this season, what with all the
stress, but one of the things that really makes the show is how everyone
bounces off each other. They really interact well, they feel like friends, they
feel like family – I bet the actors really get on well together because they
have a lot of natural chemistry (especially Artie, Claudia and, to a lesser
extent, Jinks).
So we have a woman possessed by an evil woman. And what
does she do? Become more sexual. It’s a trope, a nasty trope and a common trope
that a short cut to an evil woman is to portray her as sexual. Did we need her
to stroke and kiss the priest? Stabbing and punching him pretty much
established her as evil.
Vanessa, Vanessa – at the beginning I was eager to see
her become a new agent, a regular, active character especially the way she
rejected being babied by Artie. But then she becomes a hostage, her whole part
in this show is to hurt Artie and he breaks up with her to protect her. Not so
good.
Ok, Alice, Alice, Alice – I’m glad Myka, at least,
finally called out how this girl has been treated. She was a girl, who was
traumatised and then lived the deeply ableist and common “insane person is dangerous”
trope that need to end yesterday. So this girl – a girl with no special powers
or abilities – was locked up in a magically isolation cell for over a century.
And everyone was going alone with this? There was no attempt to remove her from
the mirror and put her in therapy or a secure hospital? The only consolation is
that, with the shard of the mirror gooed, we can hope Alice is actually dead
and not suffering centuries of torture
