Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Warehouse 13, Season 4, Episode 10: We All Fall Down



 Myka and Pete hurry to the Warehouse, plagued by Pete’s very very very very very very bad Vibes. Artie has rampaged through the Dark Vault, scattering the dangerous artefact looking for the Astrolabe (which Mrs. Fredericks has already given to HG Wells to take away and hide) and they find Leena’s body. It’s true what happened last episode – Leena is, indeed, dead. On the other end of her fornsworth, Mrs. Fredericks, visibly shaken, upset and grieving tells them it was Artie who did it.

Claudia, Myka and Pete talk to Mrs. Fredericks and Brother Adrian about Artie being the evil unleashed, including the history of the Astrolabe doing the same thing during the French revolution. Claudia is furious and grieving for Artie and him not being evil – just whammied – and Mrs. Frederick tells them they must find him before he hurts anyone else. She reminds them how dangerous Artie is, what an expert he is on the Warehouse and how much he knows their strengths and their weaknesses.

In the Warehouse, Pete thinks he sees Leena, but rushing out there is no-one there, causing more very well acted grief from all of them. And Artie shows up, saying he can feel there is something wrong. They see this as hopeful, but he quickly says the only thing that can fix him is the Astrolabe, he needs the Astrolabe and is quite vehement about it. But they know what would happen if Artie reset time – the destruction of the Warehouse and Pandora’s box – and they can’t let him have it. It’s then that they find he’s not there – he’s just a hologram. He says he’s not Artie, Artie is dead and was a slave to the Warehouse and he’s going to use the Astrolabe to set him free. It’s at this point there’s an explosion in the Warehouse, setting fire to the files from Warehouse 8 from the Holy Roman Empire. They contain the fire and guess there was something in the section Artie was trying to hide that may be connected to the Astrolabe.

In the Vatican, Jinks, Mrs. Frederick and Brother Adrian are researching. They find an old text that says if any man lives the same day twice they will life their life as two – a dual personality and the darkness will overcome the light, the evil will overwhelm his good, irreversibly changing him.

Pete continues to see Leena’s ghostly form, which leads him to a cabinet, hidden in it he finds papers and pictures of the knife that have been plaguing Artie’s visions. According to Mrs. Fredericks, the papers are HG’s research. She tells them about Artie’s visions of Claudia stabbing him with it, Claudia says she never would and just because Artie dreamed it doesn’t make it true – Mrs. Fredericks agrees but also says it doesn’t mean it’s not true. It could be the dagger was in Artie’s dream because his dark side was trying to push him away from it They decide the dagger is important and, looking at the research find it was Francesco Borgia’s dagger that was stored in – Warehouse 8.

Using Claudia’s computer skills that outstrip Artie they find out he is travelling to Budapest – and travelling under a false name that is an anagram of his real name, suggesting there is something in him that wants to be caught. He’s tracking down the dagger.

While Myka and Pete go to Budapest, Claudia has Artie’s fake identity listed as a terrorist so he is delayed by the police in Hungary. Myka and Pete have found the dagger – it’s in an ambassador’s private art collection that has been lent to a museum in Prague – and they follow. Claudia has done some research, Warehouse 8 had an orchid that caused a severe, lethal plague that was encased in an impenetrable box – which the dagger can open. If Artie can open the box, unleash the orchid, he can force them to use the Astrolabe because the death toll from the orchid will outstrip the damage caused by the Warehouse being blown up.


Mrs. Fredericks goes to pick up Artie from the Hungarian police – except he has used an Artefact to escape. In Prague, Myka and Pete are in the museum looking for the dagger and still stunned by the enormity of Leena’s death and how they can continue as  group with Artie having killed her – and how they can tell Artie what he did. They find the dagger – but Artie is there. After delivering some confidence destroying attacks which is meant to show how much he knows them and their weaknesses, he throws a noose into the rafters that causes the whole room to dangle from invisible nooses, allowing him to claim the dagger. Fear Artie and his bag o’ tricks.

Claudia and Jenks meet in Berlin to travel to the former sight of Warehouse 8 to find the orchid and Claudia recaps everything to a rather overwhelmed Jinks. Because of the danger of the orchid it was buried under Warehouse 8, not kept in it – and when they moved to Warehouse 9 they thought it too risky to move it. So now it’s under an office building belonging to a German insurance company. They find no box – but they do find a strange symbol carved on the wall. When shown to Mrs. Frederick, she says it’s a clue to the Steinbrook family – since Steinbrook was the Artie of Warehouse 8.

Artie is ahead of them, already talking to the man’s descendants. The orchid was stored under Warehouse 8, but when the Third Reich rose to power, they moved it for fear of it falling into the Nazi’s hands. Telling them rogue agents are following him, he asks them to lead him to the orchid.

Myka, Jenks, Pete and Claudia catch up with them, but Artie uses another Artefact – the deafening finger-cymbals, to run into an old watermill where the orchid is kept. Some badly choreographed fight scenes later, Pete restrains Artie, Claudia wrestles one of the Steinbrooks and Jinks and Myka find the orchid and the dagger.

Artie then appears with Pete held at gunpoint and tells them to give him the orchid and the dagger. After a tense moment, Myka throws the dagger into the gears of the mill, where it will be ground to pieces – saving the world before Pete’s life. Using an Artefact to stop time, Artie grabs the Orchid and goes down to grab the dagger before it can be crushed.

Claudia confronts him and he throws another trampling on the sore spots speech at her, causing tears to fall dramatically. He runs with the Jesuit dagger and the orchid – and stabs through the protection yelling “I cast ye out”, the dagger is jerked out of his hands to land next to Claudia. The orchid free, he plucks the flower from the plant and throws it into the air. Claudia grabs the dagger and, hearing Artie whisper “do it, save me” in her head – she stabs Artie crying “I cast you out.” Artie collapses, holding her and telling her it’s ok.

Pete throws himself across the room to catch the flower before it falls, but it still is reduced to black motes that swirl into all of their mouths and noses. The motes leave the building and spread over Europe and the entire world


Now there’s a dramatic cliffhanger for you – a world wide plague that kills the infected within 24 hours. That’s going to be messy. I also love to see Artie in action with his impressive bag’o’tricks. I didn’t find his emotional whammies particularly powerful, it’s obvious what they were and, to be honest, given the circumstances I didn’t find them impactful.

I did like that Jinks didn’t let Brother Adrian’s comment about valuing new knowledge pass without question, causing Brother Adrian to say the Vatican protected them, not ruled them.

I am not even slightly impressed by Leena’s death. She was already grossly underused, terribly under developed and badly in need of more screen time, to have her then killed off just rubs salt into the wounds, especially considering how little screen time POC get on this show. Also, while the cast does have some powerful moments of grief for her, that quickly changes into grief about how they will affect Artie and how they will work for Artie and worry about Artie – she gets some powerful grief, but it is not maintained.

I don’t know where they’re going with Leena’s ghost or if that’s ever going to be explained. I hope they pull SOMETHING out of their bag.


This isn’t a season finale, but it is a mid-season finale (whatever that means) and Warehouse 13 will return in 2013