Warehouse 13 Reviews: Season 1, Episode 3

Opening titleEpisode 3: Magnetism

This one starts in a museum in Paris. Pete is hanging upside down, Mission Impossible-style, examining the guillotine that was used to behead Marie Antoinette. A quick scan reveals it as an artifact with occult powers, but when Pete tries to remove the blade, he drops his wrench. He calls Myka for help, but she’s following the plan (as usual) and taking care of themyka pounds guard guards. She zaps one with the Tesla gun, but when she runs into two more, the Tesla’s batteries are too low to zap them. So Myka goes old school and just kicks their asses. Pete almost cuts his hand off trying to retrieve his wrench, but manages to swap the enchanted guillotine blade for a mundane one. He and Myka argue about whose fault it is that things went south, and they’re still arguing after they get back to the Warehouse in South Dakota.

Artie is searching for anomalies and comes up with several in a town called Unionville, Colorado. As far as I know, there is no town in Colorado called Unionville, but this Unionville weirdnessepisode was filmed in Unionville, Ontario. Anyway, something strange is happening in Unionville … three separate people have three weird freak-outs: a kid goes nuts in music class and starts smashing his violin against the wall like Belushi in Animal House; a sweet-looking old lady throws an urn full of ashes (presumably her husband’s) at the wall of the hospital and then starts spray painting the word “fuck” on the building (with spray paint she had in her pocket for some reason); and a nun climbs onto a store roof and jumps off, insisting she can fly. Luckily, she lands on a car roof and isn’t hurt too badly, but Artie figures the three incidents must have a supernatural cause, especially since the people all remember doing everything but couldn’t stop themselves.

Meanwhile, Myka and Pete are still arguing, over who forgot to charge the Tesla, who didn’t follow the plan … basically over who’s in charge of the missions. Their negative energy causes a reaction from the Warehouse itself, which Artie notices. But when heslimed tries to warn them, they’re too busy fighting to listen, so he douses them with the purple slime that negates supernatural energy. Both of them find it funny, but later at Leena’s boarding house Artie tells Pete they have to watch the negative vibes around the Warehouse. Pete says somebody has to be in charge in the field, so Artie says Pete is the obvious choice, but asks him to let Myka think she’s in charge because of how sensitive she is. Meanwhile, Ms. Sensitive is telling Leena how much Pete exasperates her and how she just wants to punch him a lot of the time. For the record, Leena thinks Pete is quite sexy.

Artie fills them in about the weird shit going on in Unionville and sends them to figure Leena wonderingout if some artifact is responsible. Pete’s truck is at the bottom of Lake Michigan after their last adventure, so Artie lets them use his car—very reluctantly. Myka tells Artie there has to be a clear chain of command in the field and Artie says she’s the obvious choice to lead, but asks her to let Pete think he’s in charge to spare his feelings. After they leave, Leena asks about the data breach from last episode, but Artie says it’s no big deal and he’s just going to ignore it; Leena isn’t so sure.

In Unionville, Pete and Myka still disagree about how to conduct the investigation … follow a coherent plan or wing it. They encounter the old lady (Meg) who spray painted the hospital as she gets a newspaper by smashing the glass and kicking over the machine. They follow her into a coffee shop where she runs into a doctor who’s yappingtry some cake to someone on a Bluetooth headset. He seems like kind of a prick, but she goes a little overboard; she has a dizzy spell, then slams the guy’s head through the glass pastry display. Later, an EMT (Ross) examines her and says she’s fine. Myka asks a few questions (and seems to have a slight interest in Ross), but doesn’t learn anything helpful. Pete talks to the Sheriff, who wonders why he’s asking so many questions. Pete says he and Myka are on their honeymoon and are just passing through. The Sheriff gets a call about the violin kid setting the school music room on fire, leaving Pete to explain the whole “honeymoon” thing to Myka. She’s not impressed and they end up arguing again, which probably convinces any onlookers that they really are married.

Myka goes to the church where she meets the local priest, Father Braid. They talk to unhappy sheriffSister Grace, who says she was certain she could fly when she jumped off the roof. She hasn’t come into contact with anything strange lately and since nuns renounce worldly possessions, she hasn’t gotten any weird gifts either. As they’re talking, Sister Grace gets dizzy and suddenly begins insisting she really can fly, which worries Myka enough that she asks to talk to Father Braid privately. Pete tries the Sheriff again, this time admitting that he’s Secret Service. But that just pisses the Sheriff off and he starts going on about how he hates liars and wondering if there’s some conspiracy going on. He tells Pete the violin kid is in a coma that the doctors can’t explain.

At the church, Father Braid can’t shed any light on Sister Grace’s behaviour, and when he and Myka return to his office, Sister Grace is gone. This time she’s on the church’s bellflying nun tower, getting ready to fly again. Myka tries to talk her down, but Sister Grace does an Assassin’s Creed swan dive off the tower. Turns out she lands in a snowbank, so she lives but she’s pretty fucked up. Pete tells Artie about the new developments and Artie speculates that whatever’s affecting people might cause them to shut down, like the violin kid. Artie is ready to start researching, but the Warehouse acts up, sending random electrical pulses arcing all over. Artie checks the main power terminal and replaces a (huge) fuse, but the electrical arcs continue.

In Unionville, the bartender slips Pete a piece of paper after noticing him eyeing the beer taps. Myka comes in and tells Pete she checked the kid, Sister Grace, and Meg and there’s thousand boob stareno direct connection between them. Ross, the EMT guy, comes in and Myka says she arranged to meet him in case he has more info. Pete leaves, after telling Myka to be safe and use a condom. Pete’s joke may have been on the mark, because seems a bit disappointed to learn that Ross has a wife and six-month old twins. Ross says Meg went nuts again (throwing something at Father Braid) and Myka wonders if there’s connection to the hospital, since Meg’s husband died there and Father Braid counseled her afterward. Ross has a dizzy spell and becomes fascinated with Myka’s cleavage, which doesn’t impress her too much.

We see what the note was all about that the bartender slipped Pete … the location of an AA meeting. I’m not sure why Pete’s feeling the pressure so acutely right now (other than plot-convenience), but I guess alcoholism isn’t logical. He meets a couple of people, onehands off named Dave and another (who chairs the meeting) named Ellis. At the bar, Myka is still trying to find a connection between victims when Ross has another dizzy spell. This time, he’s not satisfied by looking and grabs Myka’s tits with both hands. Needless to say, she’s not  happy, even though he apologizes profusely. He does it again and she almost breaks his finger to make him stop, but she finally realizes Ross, Meg, Sister Grace, and the kid all had dizzy spells before they acted weird … which means whatever’s causing the behaviour has infected Ross.

getting grabbyAt the AA meeting, Dave suddenly has a dizzy spell and walks out of the room, followed by Pete and Ellis. They show up at the bar, where Pete prevents Dave from swilling some booze. Myka has handcuffed Ross to a pie, to curb his wandering hands, but he still has one free and goes for another tit grab. Turns out Ellis is a therapist who’s counseled Dave and Ross (for what, I wonder … sex addiction?), but won’t admit whether he’s treated Meg, Sister Grace, or the kid. Dave keels over and goes into a coma.

Pete and Myka tell Artie what they’ve found and he says there must be some kind of artifact that all the victims have come in contact with. He’s worried that whatever’sEscher circuit affecting them might shut down their bodies entirely, killing them. Pete says he’s going to see Ellis and Myka’s going to talk to Father Braid. Meanwhile, Artie is examining the main power circuit for the Warehouse (which was built by Edison, Tesla, and Escher … talk about a lethal combination). Leena offers to help, but Artie tells her he’s tracking the electrical anomaly and doesn’t want help. He sets off a chain reaction of electrical arcs that knocks out power all over the Warehouse … so I guess he will be needing Leena’s help after all.

Pete talks to Ellis, who insists his patient list is confidential. Pete finds an antique pocket watch that Ellis just acquired and figures it’s the artifact, especially when Ellis says it bad watchbelonged to a famous mentalist, Joseph Dunninger (aka the Amazing Dunninger, one of the first mentalists to perform magic on radio/TV). Pete bags the watch and tells Ellis he’ll try to get it back to him. At the church, Myka learns that neither Meg nor Sister Grace were Ellis’s patients, even though Father Braid suggested it. As they’re talking, Myka starts losing her shit, going on about how all the men in her life (since her lover Sam died) are huge pains in the ass who just annoy and smother her. Father Braid snaps her out of it, but it looks like Myka’s infected too. At the bar, the Sheriff gets all paranoid-conspiracy-nut with Pete, telling him he’ll do anything he has to do in order to protect his country.

Myka shows up and Pete gives her shit about being late, then brags about finding Dunninger’s watch. Myka has a dizzy spell and punches Pete in the face … repeatedly.have some punch When the Sheriff tries to intervene, she decks him too, leading Pete to declare that she’s infected. Pete bails her out of jail, but she’s worried she might be a liability (or kick the shit out of him) and figures she’d be better off staying in jail. Pete says he trusts her no matter what and they call Artie, who tells them the watch isn’t the artifact and they’d better figure out what’s up before it’s too late.

Artie has managed to restore power at the Warehouse and tells Leena whoever hacked the Warehouse computers is now sending the electrical anomalies to probe the no more punch for meWarehouse’s grid and establish a location. He tells Leena he’s not worried, since the probes are unfocused and the hacker has no real control of anything. Leena points out that the hacker is still doing a pretty good job of causing trouble. In Unionville, Pete pushes Myka until she takes another swing at him, then asks what she was feeling at that moment. She realizes the victims are all acting out subconscious desires: Meg wanted revenge for the death of her husband; Sister Grace wanted to escape; the kid hates playing the violin; Ross is preoccupied with tits because his wife is breast-feeding; and Myka wants to punch Pete’s face a lot (which she already admitted to Leena earlier).

They wonder why only Myka has been affected, and only certain people in town. They compare notes and figure out that Myka was at the church but Pete wasn’t, so they head over to see Father Braid. He says he’s counseled each of the victims in his office, where he also spoke to Myka. They quickly figure out each infected person sat in the same chair, an overstuffed antique that was passed down through Father Braid’s family andchair of doom which he just got a week or so ago. They call Artie and it turns out Father Braid’s ancestor was James Braid, the so-called “father of hypnotherapy”. Artie figures the iron springs in the chair became magically ferro-magnetized and, combined with the sound of Father Braid’s vice, resonated to bring out everyone’s repressed desires. Artie suggests dousing the chair n the purple goo, but before they get a chance, they hear a commotion from the church. The Sheriff is out there, waving a gun around and ranting about the town being infected. I’m not sure what his subconscious desire is meant to be … maybe to be a hero and save the town? Killing his fellow townspeople probably isn’t the best way to go about that, but the Sheriff is beyond reason.

The Sheriff shoots Father Braid in the shoulder and reveals that he’s wearing a vest full of explosives. Pete and Myka figure zapping him with the Tesla might set off the sheriff locoexplosives, so they tell Ross to get Father Braid and everyone else out of the church. They’re still arguing over who’s in charge (and Myka gives Pete a couple more pops in the mouth), but Pete finally agrees to get the purple goo and douse the chair while Myka tries to reason with the Sheriff. Pete dumps the purple goo on the chair and heads out to crow about his triumph, just as Myka’s getting through to the Sheriff. Seeing Pete pisses off the Sheriff again and he takes a few shots at him, which makes Pete revise his earlier estimate that everything is fine. He heads back into the office, taking a fire axe with him.

Myka tells the Sheriff to take her and let everyone else go, but he’s too whacked out to listen. He sets off the bomb, but instead of exploding instantly, it starts counting downchair smash from one minute. Myka tackles him and tries to figure out how to stop the bomb, while Pete uses the fire axe on the chair. The Sheriff starts strangling Myka, but Pete busts the chair open and wrecks the springs, which snaps the Sheriff back to normal. He says there’s no way to stop the bomb, so Pete runs out and grabs the vest, carrying it outside. An explosion blows the church windows in and Myka wonders if Pete got blown to hell, but he saunters in a minute later, perfectly fine.

Back at the Warehouse, Pete and Myka screw with Artie a bit, making him think they who's thereblew up his car to pay him back for his earlier bullshit where he told each of them they were in charge. Artie’s actually impressed they managed to work together on something without arguing. After they leave, the power in the Warehouse really goes crazy and Artie checks the main circuit again. This time, all the circuits are out, but the status lights spell out “knock knock” … I think Artie is about to have a visitor. We’ll see who it is next episode.