Warehouse 13 Reviews: Season 4, Episode 6

Warehouse 13 opening titleEpisode 6: Fractures

This one starts out with Steve researching a way to break the weird connection between him and Claudia … preferably without dying himself. Artie says he’ll help later, but right now he’s meeting his kinda-sorta girlfriend, Dr. Vanessa Calder, so he’s a bit distracted. Pete and Myka bring in something he asked them to hunt down for him … a copper bell that looks like it belongs on a bicycle. Artie says he’s considering asking Vanessa to move closer to the Warehouse so they can see each other more often than once a month. The others wish him luck and he leaves. In Rapid City, South Dakota, a priest working at a thrift shop thanks aKristen after being taken over by Alice volunteer (Kristen) for all her help on the latest charity drive. Kristen goes into the back of the store to find a mirror, but it turns out to be not just any mirror … this is Lewis Carroll’s mirror, and the spirit of crazy-girl Alice Liddell is still trapped inside. (You may remember Alice from the 1st season episode “Duped”.) Alice tricks Kristen into switching places with her, sending Kristen’s spirit into the mirror while Alice takes over Kristen’s body.

The priest hears glass breaking and Kristen emerges from the back, but she’s not the same innocent girl he knows. She acts all vampy, asking him repeatedly about someplace called L’Etoile, then kisses him. He protests, so she stabs him and whacks him in the head with a candlestick. She takes off Alice almost breaks Pete's fingerin the store’s van, driving like a maniac; I guess Alice is from the 19th Century, so it makes sense she wouldn’t know how to drive. Alice decides Kristen needs to show off her bod a bit, and while she’s unbuttoning her shirt she gets broadsided by a truck. At the hospital later, Pete and Myka have been called to check out Kristen, who’s restrained in her hospital bed, cursing and screaming that she’ll kill everyone. The priest (who survived her attack with minor injuries) wonders if she’s possessed, but Pete and Myka wonder if she’s telepathic when she recognizes them. She flirts with Pete, then almost breaks his finger, so he and Myka decide to check the thrift store.

At a hotel, Artie meets Vanessa and he’s so happy to see her he’s almost giddy. You’d think they’d get down to the banging right away, but he tells her he’s booked them at a fancy restaurant. At the Warehouse, Claudia asksArtie and Vanessa greet each other Steve why he’s been to reluctant to leave the Warehouse lately and he evades the question, as usual. In Rapid City, Pete and Myka check out the thrift store and find blood and broken glass in the back room. Myka realizes it’s mirror glass and in the frame of the busted mirror, they find a tag identifying it as Lewis Carroll’s. They know the mirror is supposed to be in the Dark Vault, but before they can puzzle too much over that, Myka figures out that Kristen has been taken over by Alice.

In the hospital, Alice tricks an orderly into loosening one of her restraints after getting the location of L’Etoile from him. She rewards him by bashing his face in and taking off … but first she retrieves a shard of mirror from her Alice distracts the orderly with Kristen's breastspersonal effects. Pete and Myka show up a few minutes later and find the messed-up orderly. They follow a blood trail outside and find Kristen on the ground. She convinces them she really is Kristen by describing the emptiness she felt being trapped in the mirror … something Myka remembers well from when Alice switched places with her. They realize Alice has found a way to jump bodies and wonder how they’ll track her now. Luckily, an ambulance driver comes out of the hospital and freaks out because his ambulance is missing. The stolen ambulance zooms by on the street, which is a pretty good clue as to where Alice is.

They call Claudia to locate the ambulance and she sends them some tracking software so they can find Alice. Claudia and Steve decide they’d better figure out a new artifact to trap Alice in (since the mirror’s not an option now) and figure out how the mirror got out of the Dark Vault in theClaudia and Steve find the black diamond first place. They check the Dark Vault and find a black diamond near where the mirror was. Steve recognizes it and mentions the box of black diamonds he and Artie found last episode. Claudia has no idea what he’s talking about, which is strange because Artie said he was going to tell her. Steve fills her in: someone with a beef against Artie has been stealing artifacts from the Warehouse and sending them out into the world. Leena shows up to help devise a way of containing Alice.

In Rapid City, Pete and Myka track Alice to a gas station and see her use the mirror shard to jump from the body of an EMT to some dude in a car. Before they can stop her (or him, I guess), she spills gasoline all over the place and Myka fights the firelights it up. Pete and Myka have to deal with the fire, letting Alice escape. They decide it’s time to call Artie. He and Vanessa are at a fancy restaurant and she’s telling him a story about a bike she had as a kid that had every girly accoutrement imaginable except a copper bell. (Yeah, she’s told him this story before.) Artie stammers out that he’d like to see her more often, but before he can give her the bell, Pete and Myka call to tell him about Alice. They say Alice is looking for something called L’Etoile, which just happens to be the restaurant Artie and Vanessa are at. Artie notices the waitress’s reflection in a serving tray and sees that she’s Alice.

He tells Pete and Myka he’s at L’Etoile and signals to Vanessa that something heavy is about to go down. He knocks Alice down and he and Vanessa take off, pulling the fire alarm on the way out. When Pee and Myka show up, there’s a big crowd outside, any one of which could be Alice thanks to her new body-jumping trick. Artie realizes she’s after him, but still doesn’t mention that Brother Adrian is the one who sent her because ArtieSteve and Claudia's auras switch used the astrolabe to turn back time. At the Warehouse, Leena says there’s a hookah pipe that can draw a person’s soul from their body and trap it … just what they need to contain Alice. It’s on top of a pile of boxes and junk, so Claudia climbs up to get it. She knocks over a spear that just misses Steve, but bathes him in electricity. Claudia feels the shock and Leena sees Steve and Claudia’s auras switch back and forth. Steve asks if Claudia is okay and she assumes Artie told him about her phantom pains and that’s why he’s being a mother hen lately. While Claudia retrieves the hookah, Leena asks Steve about the aura-switching thing, but Steve says they’ll discuss it later. Obviously, he still hasn’t told Claudia about their connection.

Outside L’Etoile, Pete and Myka use Myka’s mirrored sunglasses to check random people, looking for Alice. A fireman heads for Artie with an axe and Myka shoots the axeMyka takes a shot at him, knocking the axe from his hand. Alice jumps into a woman and takes off, but by the time Pete and Myka find her, Alice has jumped into another body—this time a middle-aged executive-type guy. Pete and Myka realize Alice wants to kill Artie, so they know she’s still around, but with such a crowd it’s impossible to figure out whose body she’s in. Vanessa says they can draw Alice in, since she’s after Artie, so they head back to the hotel where Steve and Claudia are waiting with the hookah.

Artie hands out compacts (with mirrors) and sends everyone to cover an exit while he acts as bait in the middle of the lobby. He tries to get Vanessapeppermint patty to go somewhere safe, but she insists on helping. He finally agrees, although he accidentally gives her a Peppermint Patty instead of a compact. Myka feels bad that Alice is going to be trapped in an incorporeal hell again, but Pete reminds her Alice was kind of a homicidal maniac before she went into the mirror. Myka mentions how the Warehouse has a way of turning everyone connected with it into a psycho and Pete wonders how long it’ll be before they succumb.

The executive dude comes into the lobby and body jumps into a bellhop. When Artie and Steve go to check the unconscious executive, Alice (as the bellhop) grabs Vanessa and threatens to cut her throat with the mirror Vanessa possessed by Aliceshard. She drags Vanessa up to Vanessa’s room and Pete kicks the door down and Teslas the bellhop. Unfortunately, Alice has already jumped again … this time into Vanessa. She grabs Artie and holds the shard to his throat. She drags him into the bedroom and Artie asks if Brother Adrian sent her to punish him. She pretty much confirms it and says she’s going to do unspeakable things to Vanessa’s body before killing her. The others bust in and Artie elbows Vanessa in the ribs. She lets go and Claudia prepares to use the soul-sucking hookah on her, but Alice jumps into Claudia’s body and smashes the hookah across Pete’s face.

Claudia picks up the shard and goes after Artie, which reminds him of his dream about Claudia stabbing him (although, in the dream, she was usingSteve blasts Alice with the Tesla an antique dagger instead of a broken piece of mirror). Steve jumps in front of Artie, taking the shard in the chest. Because of his connection to Claudia, she feels the pain, which distracts Alice long enough for Steve to grab the shard. He blasts the shard with his Tesla, reflecting it onto Claudia, which drives Alice out of Claudia’s body and into the shard. Steve puts the shard in a neutralizer bag; I’m not sure if that kills Alice or just incapacitates her; either way, the immediate threat is ended.

Artie tries to break up with Vanessa, saying his life has recently gotten more complicated and he doesn’t want to endanger her. She doesn’t really accept that and tells him to call her when he realizes how stupid he’s being. He Artie tries to break up with Vanessanever did give her the copper bell. Back at the boardinghouse, Steve finally tells Claudia about their physical connection. He’s worried she might die if he gets hit by something lethal, but she says they’ll figure out a safe way to release him from the metronome. They meet with Pete and Myka and tell them about the black diamonds and that someone is trying to undo Artie’s work. They all wonder who might be behind it, and why. (And how, since there haven’t been any alarms set off.)

In the Dark Vault, Artie rails out loud at Brother Adrian tying to cut him off from people he cares about, like Hugo and Vanessa. He checks the hiding place where he stashed the astrolabe, then yells into the emptiness some more, saying he’ll stop Adrian somehow. After Artie leaves, we see Leena was in the Vault and heard everything he said. I’m not sure if we’re supposed to believe Leena’s working for Brother Adrian (willingly orLeena lurking in the Dark Vault otherwise), which would explain how the artifacts are getting stolen with no trace. Or maybe Leena just happened to be there (she’s holding a neutralizer bag, so maybe she was shelving the mirror shard) and her overhearing Artie will let her know something’s up with him—not that she hadn’t already noticed his weird behaviour lately. I’m thinking it’s the latter, since Leena looks confused after overhearing Artie’s rant. I guess we’ll find out in upcoming episodes, but I hope Leena’s not hypnotized again; they already did that bit with MacPherson.