Warehouse 13 Reviews: Season 4, Episode 3

Warehouse 13 opening titleEpisode 3: Personal Effects

This one starts with Steve and Claudia retrieving Steve’s personal effects from the Dead Agents’ Vault. They head to the office for an important meeting. Well, maybe “important” is an exaggeration; Pete wants to talk about the bathroom schedule at the boardinghouse now that Steve’s back. Leena reminds him that he’s the one who takes 30-minute showers, which Pete isn’t inclined to give up. (Pete: “Also, I used the rest of the peppermint body scrub.”; Steve: “Oh, that was mine.”; Pete: “Well, you weren’t using it.”; Steve: “That’s because I was dead.”; Pete: “Oh, gonna play that card.”)Pete calls a meeting Luckily Artie has a real mission for them; a maid in Devil’s Lake, North Dakota (about four hours away) went to hospital with spider venom in her system. Steve recognizes the symptoms as being caused by one of the (numerous) artifacts that Walter Sykes had gathered. They figure out that one of the houses the maid cleaned was a front for Sykes, so Artie sends Pete and Myka to check it out … and warns them if the house is full of artifacts, it could be a powder keg waiting to blow.

In Devil’s Lake, Pete and Myka find the house empty and unlived-in. They figure it was just a place for Sykes to store artifacts and hide out after blowing up the Warehouse. Myka finds the spider token but Pete finds something much more ominous … the padlock on the basement door has Jesse finds the pipebeen busted open and the basement is full of empty crates. We see some punk in a pawn shop with a bunch of junk—obviously the missing artifacts—trying to get as much money as he can. The pawnshop owner goes to check the value of some stuff and the punk finds a pipe in the box that causes wind to blow inside the shop when he puts it in his mouth. The pawnshop owner finally settles on $650, which the punk says isn’t nearly enough, but he doesn’t have much choice; he ends up keeping the pipe, since there’s obviously something weird about it.

At the house, Myka notices a security system near the front door and figures whoever took the artifacts must’ve known the security code. Claudia gets them the address of the security company and they talk to the goofball whobad at escaping works there. He hits on Myka (terribly), then tries to climb out a window (also terribly) when they ask about the house. He admits his friend Jesse was the one who robbed the house after he gave Jesse the security code. Jesse was supposed to sell the loot and split the money with him. Pete and Myka head to the pawnshop but Pete gets a heavy vibe right before they go in. He pulls Myka back just as the store window explodes outward.

Pete and Myka call for back-up and everyone—Artie, Claudia, Steve, and Leena—shows up. They find a few artifacts left after the explosion (the owner is fine, just a bit singed), but a number of artifacts have already been sold. The owner tells Myka about the pipe that Jesse kept, so Artie sends her ghost in the lingerie storeand Pete after Jesse, while the others divide up the remaining artifacts to be tracked down. At Jesse’s place, Pete and Myka find the place trashed and a huge hole in the ceiling, but Jesse’s nowhere to be found. Claudia and Steve track the first artifact (sunglasses that make the wearer invisible) to a lingerie store. Yeah, the dude that bought the sunglasses works at a lingerie store … talk about dumb luck. The clerk says he was around earlier but she hasn’t seen him lately. A client comes running out of the changing room half-naked, saying there’s a ghost back there. Obviously a very horny ghost.

At Jesse’s apartment, Pete and Myka notice what looks like lightning burns on the walls and when Myka checks Jesse’s laptop, she finds out he was checking the location of a bank. I guess we know what he plans to do with the artifact. Artie and Leena track an artifact (Napoleon’s violin) to a musicviolin ofdeath school where they take it away from a girl who’s practicing … and inadvertently firing off balls of energy. Artie says the violin is riddled with contagions, but when the teacher asks if she and the kid should be quarantined, he tells them to wash their hands. The next artifact on their list is a set of golf clubs. (Artie: “ A Jew and a black woman go to a fancy country club … all we need is a priest and a horse and we could do the whole joke.”)

Outside the bank, Pete and Myka find a chaotic scene. Apparently a rogue tornado hit and tore out part of the wall where the ATM was. As an after-effect, it’s snowing. Pete and Myka realize Jesse smashed the ATM on purpose, which means he’s getting better at using the artifact’s powers. We practicing on a forkliftsee Jesse at an old factory with a bag full of cash, but he still says it’s not nearly enough. He uses the pipe to create a localized whirlwind, lifting a forklift into the air and says it’s time to do some serious damage. Pete and Myka visit Jesse’s mom, who tells them that Jesse has a bad temper that’s been getting him in trouble for years. Myka asks for some water and snoops through Mrs. Ashton’s bills and overdue notices. She points out that the bank Jesse robbed is the same one foreclosing on the Ashtons’ house, but since it’s the only branch in town, she isn’t sure where Jesse will hit next. Pete says that since Jesse is affecting weather, maybe that’s the way to track him.

At the lingerie store, Claudia is trying to find the invisible dude in the back while Steve watches on the monitor. The clerk says that’s against policy and when Steve tells her he’s gay, her response is, “Oh my god, do you watch Revenge?” I think Revenge was a show loosely based on the Count of Monte Cristo, but I have no idea what that has to do with being gay. (For the record, Steve seems bewildered too.) Steve spots the guy on the monitor andwatching Claudia and the invisible perv on the monitor realizes he’s like a reverse vampire … he shows up on camera but can’t be seen by the naked eye. When the guy tries to run, Steve uses the clerk’s cell phone to see him and clotheslines him. The guy freaks out when they remove the sunglasses and he’s blind, but Claudia tells him it’s just an after-effect; he’ll be blind for twice as long as he wore the glasses, which serves him right for being a Peeping Tom, I guess. Claudia bags the sunglasses and they head out to find the next artifact. Steve’s arm hurts from clotheslining the dude; strangely, so does Claudia’s, even though she was nowhere near him.

At the country club, Artie and Leena find the golf clubs (once belonging to Bobby Jones) in the lobby, but the 9-iron is missing. They also find the guy who bought the clubs (Conway) half-unconscious with a bloody head aftermath of the truck dropwound. Pete and Myka track a low-pressure front to the factory and find an armoured truck guard handcuffed to a railing. He says a rogue tornado plucked the truck up and set it down at the factory and some punk cuffed him. Pete and Myka go inside and find Jesse controlling a huge vortex of air. They try to get him to hand over the pipe, but he says he’s running out of time. The armoured truck drops down out of the sky, almost landing on top of Pete and Myka. After digging themselves out of the rubble, Pete and Myka find the truck cracked open like an eggshell and Jesse—and the money—are gone.

Myka mentions a bandage she saw on Jesse’s arm, like the kind they put on after you give blood. Pete remembers a medical book at Jesse’s place and Jesse saying he was running out of time. They figure maybe Jesse is sick and that’s why he needs money. At the country club, Conway says his wife wentgolf widow nuts and whacked him with the 9-iron; apparently any small annoyance turns into a murderous rage when someone is holding one of the artifact clubs. To be fair, Conway is kind of a dick, so his wife probably had a lot of resentment built up. Artie figures she’s probably taking out her frustrations on Conway’s friends and sure enough, we see her pounding them with the club, complaining how her husband spends all his time with them (and hasn’t even taken the damn Christmas lights down yet).

At the bird sanctuary, Claudia and Steve have found another artifact, a birdcage that turns birds homicidal like something out of a Hitchcock movie. They sprint for the car and dunk the birdcage in the neutralizer goo, angry birdschased by crazed birds the whole way. Once the cage is neutralized, everything’s fine, although Claudia is sure one of the birds bit her on the neck. Steve says she has no wound, but he realizes he has a bloody bird bite on his neck, which really makes him wonder. At the country club, Artie grabs the 9-iron away from Mrs. Conway and it starts to affect him. He gets pissed off, ranting about how he saved everyone and made a huge sacrifice but can’t even take credit for it. Leena sprays neutralizer on the club and Artie pretends his rants were meaningless, but Leena knows he’s hiding something.

After using Claudia’s program to hack hospital files, Pete and Myka find out Jesse has been making anonymous blood donations for a while now. They go to the hospital and find Jesse’s mom and his brother Ronald, who has myocarditis. Since Ron (and Jesse) have a rare blood type, it’s hard to findJesse's mom and brother proper blood donors and Mrs. Ashton is happy to hear Jesse is the one who’s been anonymously donating blood. She’s less happy when she finds out he’s been robbing banks to pay fr a heart transplant. We see Jesse talking to Garner, the administrator (played by Dee Wallace), telling her he has the money for Ronald’s transplant. She tries to explain that transplants are about more than money and Ronald’s case is complicated by his rare blood type, but Jesse won’t listen. He grabs her and pulls out the pipe.

Pete has a vibe that Jesse is in the hospital and Myka notices a vortex forming above the roof. They head up and try to talk some sense into Jesse, storm on the roofbut he gives them one hour to start fixing Ronald or he’ll level the hospital. Jesse’s control over the artifact is pretty precise now; he uses lightning to disarm Pete and blows Pete, Myka, and Garner back through the door. Garner starts evacuating patients as she tells Pete and Myka that finding a viable heart donor for Ronald is very difficult, pretty much impossible within the next hour. When Claudia and Steve show up and find out what’s going on, Claudia gets an idea.

Myka goes out on the roof to distract Jesse as Pete puts on the invisibility sunglasses and slips out behind her. Unfortunately, a plastic sheet over the air-conditioner flies loose and lands on Pete, letting Jesse know someone else is there. He causes a gust of wind that blows the glasses off Pete’s face. Pete is blind, but tackles Jesse anyway, causing him to drop the pipe as theyJesse sacrifices himself roll close to the edge of the roof. The storm dissipates, but before Jesse can grab the pipe again, Myka has him covered with her gun. Myka explains that Ronald needs an exact match for the heart transplant and Jesse says he understands. He grabs the pipe and brings a lightning strike down on himself, killing himself to save his brother. When Garner comes out to the roof, Myka mentions that Jesse is the match they need to save Ronald, so Garner has her people start prepping for the operation. Would a heart from a guy struck by lightning be viable? I thought electricity damaged heart tissue?

Afterwards, they hear that Ronald will be fine and Pete gets his wounds bandaged. They’re glad to finally be done with Sykes and all his bullshit. As they’re leaving, Steve jams a safety-pin in his own finger and notices that Artie calls in a favourClaudia feels the pain. Yup, the metronome has created some kind of physical link between them, but Steve’s the only one who knows so far. Back at the Warehouse, Leena tries to get Artie to talk about whatever secret he’s keeping, but he clams up again. After she leaves, he calls someone and says he needs an artifact retrieved “off the books”. He says he needs this mysterious someone (Wells maybe?) to find a certain artifact before it finds him. We see him holding a photo of the dagger Claudia stabbed him with in his nightmare.