Warehouse 13 Reviews: Season 2, Episode 11

Warehouse 13 opening titleEpisode 11: Buried

This one starts with Pete having breakfast with Kelly at the boardinghouse … if you call splitting a banana breakfast. Kelly says they could eat a lot better at her place and hints that she’d like him to move in. Pete says Artie is strict about keeping all the agents together in case there’s an emergency, which comes off as Pete being commitment-phobic since Kelly still thinks he works for the IRS. She leaves (taking the entire banana) and it seems like maybe Pete is a bit reluctant to commit fully. Later at the Warehouse, he asks Myka, Claudia, and Wells what they think, but doesn’t get much help. (Pete:”She’s a tech nerd, she’s a hundred and fifty, and you’re … Myka. Not exactly relationship success stories.”) ClaudiaPete gets relationship advice and Wells both claim to know about relationships, but still can’t give Pete and helpful advice. (Wells:”I know a thing or two about the opposite sex; many of my lovers were men.”; Pete:”Gonna follow up on that at a later date, but for right now can we bring the focus back around to moi?”) Myka asks if he loves Kelly, then concludes that he does based on the fact that he’d give Kelly the biggest piece of dessert. Is that really a thing? Mrs. Frederick pops up and says every agent is allowed to reveal the truth about themselves to one person, so Pete has to figure out if Kelly is his “one”.

In Alexandria, Egypt, three young American dudes are hanging out at a souq. One of them (John) sends a pic of himself to his sister back home and the others give him shit; apparently whatever they’re in Egypt to do is meant to mummificationbe secret. Suddenly, the guys start getting desiccated one by one, basically turning into mummies in front of the horrified crowd. Back at the Warehouse, Mrs. Frederick has some kind of attack and almost keels over. Pete yells for help and the others come in just in time o hear Mrs. Frederick speaking strange words in a sepulchral voice. Wells recognizes the language as Demotic, the tongue of Ancient Egypt. A translation program tells them Mrs. Frederick was saying “The penalty is death”. Claudia finds a report on the three mummified students on the computer and they realize there must be a connection.

Pete, Myka, and Wells go to Pittsburgh to talk to the dead guys’ families. As Pete and Myka talk to John’s mother (who thought John and his friends were on an archaeological dig in Peru), Wells bonds with his sister and sees the photo John sent, of himself standing in front of a wall full of hieroglyphics. Back at the Warehouse, Artie checks the ancient archives andWells with John's sister finds a match to the hieroglyphics, which makes him and Mrs. Frederick think the lost Warehouse (Warehouse 2) has been found. Mrs. Frederick explains that Warehouse 2 was buried when the Romans invaded Egypt back in 31 BCE and was never found again. The three dudes must’ve opened it (and set off a trap, which is why they ended up mummified), thereby bringing Warehouse 2 back online, so to speak. Warehouse 2 is searching for its Caretaker, but since the original Caretaker died two thousand years ago, it latched on to Mrs. Frederick, Caretaker of Warehouse 13.

But the strain of bonding with two Warehouses is too much for Mrs. Frederick, threatening to overwhelm her mind with data. (“Two networks, one server” as Claudia puts it.) Plus, Warehouse 2’s new bond with Mrs. Valda shows them the keyFrederick is eclipsing the bond she already has with Warehouse 13, which means the later will start shutting down. Artie sends Pete, Myka, and Wells to Egypt to shut down Warehouse 2 before it’s too late, saying an expert will meet them there. In Alexandria, the expert turns out to be Valda, one of the Regents. They head out to the kids’ camp and find an old map that led them to the site of the lost Warehouse. Valda says the phrase “mind, body, soul” comes up repeatedly in all lore on Warehouse 2. He shows them the only thing that survived Warehouse 2’s destruction … an ankh-shaped key that he figures can shut down the Warehouse.

Outside, Wells changes into a full Lara Croft tomb raider outfit, which seems to catch Myka’s eye. (Wells: “I checked; this is what fashionable British archaeologists are wearing nowadays.”; Myka; “No, it’s what American filmmakers think fashionable British archaeologists are wearingMyka impressed by Wells' Lara Croft outfit nowadays.”) Seriously, I wish these two would just bang and get it over with. Pete calls Kelly but gets her answering machine. He still doesn’t tell her the truth about his job, and the message runs out before he can tell her whether he wants to move in with her or not. Back at Warehouse 13, Mrs. Frederick is hooked to a brain monitor that shows how much of her mind is occluded by the data from Warehouse 2; when it hits 100%, she’ll be in deep shit. She has another attack and visions of Warehouse 2. Artie calls Myka and tells them to hurry up and get inside Warehouse 2 because Mrs. Frederick doesn’t have much time.

Valda gets them past the entrance into a room full of obelisk-shaped pillars. Since this is an Egyptian-themed Warehouse, the door slide shut and the ceiling starts to lower. They figure the “mind, body, soul” clue must the ceiling stops just in timeindicate three tests that must be passed to access the Warehouse’s inner workings; obviously this one is the “mind” test. Pete realizes it’s a lot like a kids’ game he played at the Pancake House, where you have to take the pegs out and place them in the holes in a certain order until there’s one left. They start re-arranging the obelisks like crazy as the ceiling comes closer to squishing them. At Warehouse 13, Mrs. Frederick starts spouting Demotic again; this time she says “One must die”.

In Warehouse 2, Pete’s child-like mind figures out the right pattern and stops the ceiling from crushing them. A door opens, leading them into a corridor that looks like something out of one of the harder levels of Super Mario: blades swing back and forth between platforms separated by pits that shoot fire into the air—definitely the “body” challenge. Pete doesn’tWells ziplines over the traps do so well with this one, almost getting sliced and flambéed. At Warehouse 13, Artie has called Vanessa Calder (doctor and his pseudo-girlfriend) in to look after Mrs. Frederick. In Egypt, Wells uses her grappler gun to allow them to slide right down the corridor, safely above the blades (although it looks like the pillars of fire could still reach them). Valda reads some hieroglyphics along the wall that say “One must die”, so he gives Pete the ankh-key and tells him the key is in the Water Bearer. Valda voluntarily drops into the fire halfway across, leaving the others freaked out.

They try to call Artie, but they’re too far underground to get through. On the other side, Artie is trying to call them too, but can’t get through. Mrs. Frederick starts mumbling in Demotic again, saying “Where once there were four, now there are three”, adding ominously, “and two will lose their the floor starts collapsingway”. In Warehouse 2, Pete, Myka, and Wells find themselves in a room with a big stone Medusa face on the wall. Its eyes glow red and the three are tempted with what they want the most: Pete tells Kelly the truth about his job and she’s cool with it; Wells is reunited with her daughter, Christina; and Myka is treated warmly by Artie. The red eyes of the Medusa are reflected in each person’s reverie: a lamp in Pete’s fantasy, a jewel on Christina’s doll, and an exit sign in the Warehouse office behind Artie. Since they’re all entranced by their wish fulfillments, they don’t notice the floor of the room starting to break apart.

It’s the exit sign that makes Myka suspicious, since there was never one in the Warehouse before. Artie’s being much nicer than usual, which makessmashing the medusa eyes Myka even more suspicious. She finally realizes it’s not real and snaps out of her trance just in time. She brings the others out of their fantasies (which Wells really isn’t happy about) and destroys the Medusa’s eyes with a torch. That concludes the “soul” portion of the tour, fixing the floor and opening the door. Pete tells Myka he’s decided Kelly is the “one” and Wells is devastated at losing her daughter again, but Myka says they have to keep going for Mrs. Frederick’s sake.

At Warehouse 13, Vanessa prepares to sever the connection between Mrs. Frederick and Warehouse 13. She tells Claudia that it has to be done, because if Mrs. Frederick dies while she’s still connected to the Warehouse, it will Claudia linked to Mrs. Frederickdie too. They want Claudia to be the new Caretaker, forming a new bond with Warehouse 13. Claudia is freaked out by that kind of responsibility, but Mrs. Frederick says everyone has a purpose, and being a Caretaker is Claudia’s. In Egypt, the three Warehouse agents make it into the ancient office and see a weird orb down on the Warehouse floor shooting lightning bolts all over. They figure the orb has to be shut off to save Mrs. Frederick. Wells heads down to get a closer look, while Pete and Myka study a wall full of holes that let light through. Pete realizes the holes are in a pattern—the stars of the night sky. Remembering Valda’s words about the Water Bearer, Pete tries to fit the ankh-key into the constellation Aquarius.

At Warehouse 13, Vanessa and Mrs. Frederick are ready to make Claudia the new Caretaker. Pete finds the right hole and shuts down the orb, saving Mrs.triumph Frederick right before the transfer takes place. Pete and Myka celebrate and he points out that he solved two puzzles, while Myka only solved one. Pete’s boasting is interrupted when Wells calls them down to the Warehouse floor. Back at Warehouse 13, Claudia tells Mrs. Frederick she’s been trying to follow the money trail, since a bunch of punk kids couldn’t have financed the trip to Egypt and the Wells' betrayalexpedition to find Warehouse 2 on their own. She gets a hit and finds out the money originated from Warehouse 13. Even more worrying, Artie hasn’t been seen in hours. In Warehouse 2, Wells blasts Myka and Pete with some kind of mini-Tesla gun and takes off. I guess she and Myka won’t be having a romance after all. We’ll see what Wells is up to and how everything plays out next episode.