Episode 9: Shadows
Last episode, the Regents came under attack and Pete was blown away to find out his mother (Jane) is one of them. He’s understandably upset that she didn’t tell him, even after he became a Warehouse agent himself, but Jane insists she had no choice. Before they can get into it, Mrs. Frederick shows up and says they have to figure out who’s targeting them. She says Artie is trying to track down A-to-Z Technologies, the shell corporation behind last episode’s attack. Jane
has a vague memory of that name and Pete gets another bombshell when he finds out his mother gets vibes about stuff just like him. He asks them if they’d ever have told him the truth if circumstances hadn’t forced them, and their lack of answer is the only answer he needs. Pete storms off; I get that he’s mad about being lied to his whole life, but he’s kinda acting like a five-year old throwing a tantrum.
In Portland, a guy (Jason Kinser) is mowing is lawn when there’s a huge flash of light, disintegrating him on the spot. Whatever it was blows out some lights and conks out the lawnmower and his wife’s car, but other 
people nearby are unaffected. Sounds like an EMP, except EMPs don’t usually disintegrate people. At the Warehouse, Myka and Claudia are giving Artie shit for letting Steve go last episode and Artie finally has enough and sends them to Portland to figure out what’s going on. At the boardinghouse, Myka tries to get Pete to snap out of his shit mood, but he wonders if maybe him being picked as a Warehouse agent wasn’t a coincidence; maybe he’s been manipulated all along in some grand scheme. Myka says she wondered the same when she found out hr boyfriend was killed by an artifact, but she says maybe it doesn’t matter if they are part of some big plan, as long as they’re happy with what they’re doing. Pete says it matters to him.
Mrs. Frederick and Jane talk about keeping secrets from their kids and Jane tries to remember why A-to-Z Technologies sounds so familiar. Mrs. Frederick has an idea that might jog her memory. In Portland, Myka and Claudia figure the power dampening that happened when Kinser disappeared could be magnetic in nature, so Claudia searches for magnetic
anomalies. Myka figures they should check out Kinser’s t-shirt print shop to see if anyone held a grudge. At the shop, an employee named Viola is sure Kinser was abducted by aliens, but the rest of the staff just talk about what a hard-ass boss Kinser was. Apparently he only cared about the bottom line, not about the art, which is why he brought glitter back in a big way … Viola says she even found some in her va-jay-jay; I’m not sure I want to know how it got there. Myka and Claudia get a list of employees, including ones who were recently fired.
Elsewhere in Portland, a dude shows up at an apartment to talk to someone; the way he’s getting all mad and stalkery it has to be a girlfriend—or ex-
girlfriend, more likely. She’s in an apartment with pizza boxes taped over the windows and when the guy gets all pissed off and starts yelling, there’s a flash of light and he disintegrates. Some outside lights pop and there’s a shadow burned into the dumpster and wall, like at Hiroshima. Artie soon finds out about the second disappearance and lets Myka and Claudia know. He says there’s no connection between the victims as far as he can tell.
Jane is ready to use an artifact to go into her own memories to figure out what she knows about A-to-Z Technologies, but Artie is worried. People can sometimes get lost in their own memories and never come back, so Mrs.
Frederick volunteers to go with Jane, to pull her out if necessary. Pete says he’ll go with Jane, since it’s part of his life too. Pete and Jane grasp the artifact and end up back at their old house, which Pete thinks is cool. Unfortunately, it’s the day of his father’s funeral, so the house is full of mourners and condolence callers. (Standard time travel rules apply; nobody in the past can see or hear Pete and Jane.)
In the present, Myka and Claudia talk to the missing guy’s roommate, who tells them about a girl (Megan) the guy was supposed to go see. (Apparently it was serious; the missing guy was a huge David Lynch fan and on the third date he was going to turn Megan on to Eraserhead.) Myka realizes Megan is on the list of former employees at Kinser’s shop, so they go to Megan’s 
place and find the busted lights and the shadow burnt into the wall. Myka recalls the same effect at Hiroshima and wonders if the artifact they’re looking for is nuclear. They talk to Megan’s landlady, who’s pissed off that Megan has basically barricaded herself in her apartment and won’t let anyone in. Myka and Claudia don’t want Megan to go nuclear, so they tell the landlady to get lost. Megan tells them to leave, but they bust in and find Megan (played by Alessandra Torresani of Caprica and Big Bang Theory fame) cowering in a corner. She says she warned them and now they’re going to disappear like the others. Myka and Claudia dive for cover and … nothing happens.
Yeah, no flash of light, no disintegration, no nothing. Megan is as surprised as they are and she’s even more surprised when they ask her what artifact she’s using. Megan says she isn’t using anything, it’s her; when she gets
mad, people disintegrate so they’d better leave her alone. Claudia is ready to do just that (and throws in a “What the frak?”), but Myka says Megan is obviously scared and in trouble, so they should help her. In Jane’s memory, Pete relives the day of his father’s funeral and finds out that Mrs. Frederick was there. She showed up to offer condolences … and to ask Jane to come back and do a job for the Warehouse.
In Portland, Myka and Claudia check Megan’s place for artifacts, but come up empty. Megan tells them her death powers started a few months ago 
when she lived in Indiana; some guy mugged her and got flash-fried and so did her boyfriend (who shoved her during a fight). She moved to Portland to get away from everything, but not too long ago, she was rear-ended by a woman who disappeared while they were arguing. Then Kinser fired her (and was blown away) and her boyfriend was ranting at her outside and he was burnt to a crisp as well. Megan figures any time she gets upset, people die; just thinking about that is upsetting her now, which doesn’t make Myka and Claudia feel too safe.
In the past, Jane tells Mrs. Frederick the Warehouse can get along fine without her, but Mrs. Frederick says they need her particular talents, since this case involves a kid. That gets Jane’s attention and she says she think about it. In Portland, Claudia realizes that Megan was nowhere near Kinser
when he died, so maybe the artifact was something they both had contact with. They tell Megan she has to come to the t-shirt shop with them to check things out. Megan’s not too thrilled with that idea, but they talk her into it. Outside, Megan’s landlady starts giving her shit and gets disintegrated. Megan freaks and runs off, but Myka is fascinated by the landlady’s shadow burnt into a sign. The shadow is at a different angle from where Megan was standing, so the artifact must’ve been perpendicular to where they were. Myka goes to check the nearby rooftop, sending Claudia to find Megan.
In the past, Jane decides to help Mrs. Frederick and goes to see a kid who’s wearing some kind of rawhide bracelet on his wrist. It apparently enhances his physical abilities (and gives his eyes a weird dark shade), which Pete 
doesn’t think is all that big a deal. He’s still pissed off that his mother never told him the truth even after his dad died. In Portland, Claudia finds Megan in a cemetery (great place to get away from people) and they bond over the weirdness they’ve both experienced. Myka finds glitter on the roof across from Megan’s place, so either it’s a stripper or someone from the t-shirt shop. Megan points out that the disintegrations started when she was still in Indiana and Myka says someone must’ve followed her.
Myka remembers Megan looking through her yearbook earlier and goes to check it against the list of employees at the shop. One of them (Jeff) went to school with Megan, but she says she barely remembers him. Myka finds Jeff
lurking in the backgrounds of a bunch of Megan’s yearbook photos and figures he’s a psycho-stalker, which means Megan could be in danger too. Myka says Megan and Jeff probably had some small interaction in school that Jeff has blown way out of proportion, so now he’s killing people to try and be helpful. Myka says they’ll need Megan’s help to get Jeff without him using the artifact against them.
In the past, Pete and Jane watch as a young Artie (and James MacPherson) bag the kid’s bracelet, setting his life back on the proper course. Pete wonders why Jane decided to go back to being a Regent, since it can be so emotionally draining. Jane says it was Pete’s father who convinced her, and 
they flash back to an earlier memory. Pete and his dad are arm-wrestling and Pete says he worries his dad might die and wishes he’d quit being a firefighter. Pete’s dad says somebody has to face danger to keep people safe, even if it takes them away from their families … and it’s their love for their families that makes them do it. The younger Jane overheard that and it convinced her to become a Regent again. Pete is ready to hang around and enjoy some more memories, but Jane insists they go back to the present … which is ironic, since Pete was supposed to be the one to pull her back to reality.
In Portland, Megan goes by the t-shirt shop and pretends to remember Jeff so he’ll show her how he’s killing people. We find out she once told some assholes to stop picking on him during a field trip, so that’s the origin of his
obsession. He shows her some binoculars, but soon realizes she’s setting him up. Myka and Claudia show up and Jeff grabs Megan. I don’t know why they didn’t just Tesla both of them, since it’s non-lethal, but Claudia does point out that using their Teslas against a nuclear artifact might be a bad idea. Jeff drags Megan into the loading bay of the shop and Myka and Claudia head inside.
Jeff tries to blast Myka and Megan decks him and takes off. He’s already locked the doors and when Myka jumps him, he knocks her down … so much for her hand-to-hand skills. Before he can immolate Myka, Megan distracts 
him, and when he tries to fry her, Claudia uses a digital scanning gun to blind him. He drops the binoculars (which turn out to be the ones Paul Tibbetts carried on his Hiroshima run) and Claudia bags them. At the Warehouse, Jane asks Artie about the bracelet from thirty years ago (which belonged to Carlo Collodi, the guy who wrote Pinocchio and gives the wearer control over his own body, but also delusions of power). Jane remembers the kid who had the bracelet was named Walter Sykes, and he was in a wheelchair; he used the bracelet to enable him to play baseball like the other kids (for a team called the Aztecs, which connects with A-to-Z Technologies, I guess), but Mrs. Frederick says it would’ve planted a seed of darkness in his soul.
Maybe it did anyway, because we see the grown-up Walter Sykes (played by Anthony Michael Hall) talking to Marcus Diamond about plans he has to move against the Warehouse … especially Jane and Pete. Obviously, Sykes is
the shadowy guy we’ve seen in previous episodes giving orders to Diamond and Stukowski. Diamond mentions that Steve Jinks is vulnerable now that he’s no longer an agent and Sykes agrees. We see Sykes has killed another Regent (a guy named Archer), who had a book that may help Sykes get around the defenses provided by Jane’s Shackle. We also see that the weird dark shadow in Sykes’s eyes caused by the bracelet is still there.