Warehouse 13 Reviews: Season 4, Episode 10

Warehouse 13 opening titleEpisode 10: We All Fall Down

Last episode, we found out that Artie’s use of the astrolabe to turn back time created a second personality inside him … an evil personality. All the stuff that Artie claimed Brother Adrian was doing—stealing artifacts and sending them to friends and family—was really Artie himself. Leena figured it out too and tried to stop Artie from going to the Dark Vault to get the astrolabe. Pete had a major bad vibe when he and Myka were coming back to the Warehouse and we saw Leena lying on the floor, apparently dead. Pete and Myka get back and Leena’s nowhere to be found.Myka and Pete find Leena's body They notice alarms going off in the Dark Vault and the Bronze Sector and split up to check things out. Pete finds the Dark Vault trashed, but Myka finds something much worse in the Bronze Sector … Leena’s body. They call Mrs. Frederick (she’s still at the Vatican with Steve and the real Brother Adrian), who tells them Artie is responsible for shooting Leena. They don’t believe it, but Mrs. Frederick explains about Artie’s evil personality; she reassures them the astrolabe is safe, since she gave it to H.G. Wells to hide. While they’re talking, Claudia shows up at the Warehouse and immediately knows something’s wrong.

Naturally, Claudia can’t believe Artie killed Leena, but Mrs. Frederick explains that the evil created when the astrolabe was used is inside Artie. Claudia can't accept that Artie is evilThe real Brother Adrian confirms that, mentioning that Robespierre was the last person to use the astrolabe … right before he went nuts and started the Reign of Terror. Claudia still can’t accept that Artie is irredeemably evil and Mrs. Frederick says her team will look for a cure but the others have to find Artie before he does something even worse. She warns them Artie is a tough opponent, not least because he knows them so well, all their strengths and weaknesses.

Pete sees Leena outside the office, but Myka and Claudia don’t see anything. Pete figures his grief is making him hallucinate and he has to accept that Leena is dead. As they’re trying to figure out what to do, Artie shows up inPete and Myka put out the fire the office. He says there’s something wrong with him and he needs the astrolabe to set things right. When they won’t tell him where it is, he turns all snotty and threatening. Claudia realizes they’re talking to a hologram and when the alarm goes off they rush to the IRS Quartum, which is on fire. In the IRS Quartum (which has nothing to do with income tax, it houses artifacts from the Holy Roman Empire), they douse the fire and figure Artie must’ve wanted something specific from that section.

In Rome, Brother Adrian finds a book that says whoever uses the astrolabe creates a dark double of themselves. The dark personality will eventually take over, eliminating the good side, so if they can’t reach the real Artie Leena's spirit guides Petebefore his evil side takes over, he’ll be lost forever. At the Warehouse, Myka and Claudia are trying to figure out what Artie might’ve taken from the IRS Quartum before starting the fire; they think he might have stolen some old files from Warehouse 8. Pete sees Leena again and follows her to a room full of torture implements. She points to a cabinet and Pete finds a hidden compartment with some notes and photos in it. The notes are the research Wells did on the dagger Artie sent her to find.

When they talk to Mrs. Frederick, she tells them about Artie asking Wells to find the dagger after dreaming about Claudia stabbing him with it. Claudia wonders if the dreams were Artie’s evil side tricking his good side into retrieving the dagger because Evil Artie needed it for something. The dagger once belonged to a Spanish duke who was around in the heyday of the Holyreviewing the notes on the dagger Roman Empire, so it fits with Artie ransacking the IRS Quartum. Pete says they need to think like Artie and Claudia figures she can track him if she uses some cyber-stealth techniques Artie isn’t familiar with. She finds Artie (under an anagram of his real name, which suggests the good part of him is trying to help them) heading to Budapest to get the dagger. Claudia decides to stay behind so Artie’s dream can’t come true, and Pete and Myka head for Hungary. I’m wondering if Artie’s dream of Claudia stabbing him is how he gets cured of his evil side?

In Budapest, Artie’s passport gets flagged (thanks to Claudia’s hacking skills) and he’s held as a security risk, giving Pete and Myka time to find the dagger. Unfortunately, it’s no longer in Budapest; the guy who owns it lent it to a museum in Prague. Claudia has also figured out Artie’s plan; there Chinese Orchidwas an artifact in Warehouse 8 called the Chinese Orchid, sent to Europe in the 15th Century to make the West stop putting pressure on China to trade with them. The Orchid caused the Sweating Sickness epidemic, which convinced the West to leave China alone. The Orchid was found by Warehouse agents and encased in an unbreakable material, then hidden away somewhere. Artie obviously wants the dagger to break open the casing around the Orchid and unleash the Sweating Sickness, potentially wiping out half the world’s population. (The Sweating Sickness was a historical malady that started out of nowhere, killed a bunch of people, then disappeared.) Since that would be even worse than resetting time with the astrolabe, Artie must think they’ll hand it over to avoid such a fate.

Claudia tells them Mrs. Frederick is heading to Budapest to get Artie, but when she gets there, Artie is gone and his guards are tied up. Video footage shows he used the Barometer from the USS Eldridge to stop time for 47 seconds … long enough to get away. Mrs. Frederick tells the others andMrs. Frederick finds guards tied up Myka says she and Pete are heading for the museum in Prague. They don’t know that Artie is listening in on their frequency. Steve meets Claudia in Berlin; they’re going to the site of Warehouse 8 to look for the Chinese Orchid before Artie can get his hands on it. Warehouse 8 (or what’s left of it) is buried under a modern office building. Apparently the agents didn’t want to take a chance on moving the Orchid when Warehouse 8 relocated, so they left it buried in an airtight vault deep underground.

In Prague, Pete’s wondering how things can ever be normal again; even if they cure Artie, he did kill Leena, so how will he deal with that? And will he steve and Claudia in the caveeven remember? Myka doesn’t have any answers, but says they’ll figure it out together, as a family. In Berlin, Steve and Claudia make their way down through tunnels to a door, which Claudia opens with a key she brought from the IRS Quartum. They’re a bit disappointed to see all that remains of Warehouse 8 is an empty limestone cave. The Orchid is nowhere to be found, but there is a crude drawing of a bridge etched onto the wall.

In Prague, Pete is momentarily distracted (“Oooh, Myka, this thing looks like a Klingon battle-axe; you think they’d mind …?”), but they find the dagger in a display case. Artie shows up and proves that his evil side is in control; he pushes their buttons, calling Pete a buffoon who’s one step awayMyka and Pete being hanged from the bottle and using Artie as a substitute father after letting his own father die. He then rips into Myka, saying her sense of intellectual superiority will insure she winds up alone. As they’re distracted, Artie pulls out a noose (which belonged to Isaac Parker, the famous “hanging judge”) and tosses it over a beam, which pulls everyone in the museum up in the air where they’re strangled by invisible ropes. Artie takes the dagger and leaves Pete, Myka, and the other museum patrons hanging.

Pete manages to swing over and grab an axe (which looks more Viking than Klingon), which he uses to sever the noose, freeing everyone. (Myka: “That was amazing.”; Pete: “Yeah, well, today was not a good day to die.”) Pete and Myka call Mrs. Frederick to tell them Artie has the dagger, and Claudia Artie meets the Steinbruckscalls to say they can’t find the Orchid. Mrs. Frederick recognizes the drawing on the cave wall as a crude code; the stone bridge refers to Franz Steinbruck, the caretaker of Warehouse 8. In Zittau, Germany, Artie makes contact with two brothers and their sister—Johan, Hans, and Anja Steinbruck—and convinces them that rogue Warehouse agents are after the Orchid. The Steinbruck family moved the Orchid during World War II to keep it away from the Nazis; Artie tells them he needs to find the Orchid and that the rogue agents are very dangerous and will say anything to get their hands on it.

The Steinbrucks believe him and lead him to a mill where the Orchid is hidden. Pete, Myka, Claudia, and Steve are waiting for them and Artie’s bullshit has convinced the Steinbrucks they’re the bad guys. Claudia tries toSteve and Claudia fight the Steinbrucks get through to Artie’s good side, but it doesn’t work. Johan uses some cymbals to knock Claudia and her friends down with a sonic pulse, giving Artie and the Steinbrucks time to get inside the mill. Pete and Myka go after Artie, while Steve and Claudia chase the Steinbrucks, who are going to get the Orchid. Claudia Teslas one of the brothers and she and Steve get into a brawl with the other two. Steve kinda gets his ass kicked and has to chase Johan, leaving Claudia to take care of Anja. (“Sprechen Sie headlock?”)

Myka and Pete find Artie and Myka gets the dagger away from him. Pete tells her to take the dagger out of Artie’s reach, so she heads up to the top floor, where Steve and Johan are facing off. Myka distracts Johan long Artie holds a gun to Pete's headenough for Steve to deck him. They find the Orchid in its unbreakable glass case hidden behind the stone wall. Before they can decide what to do with it, Artie shows up holding a gun to Pete’s head. He asks for the Orchid and the dagger, but Myka tosses the dagger down a shaft into the millstones. She says the dagger will be wrecked, so Artie may as well let Pete go. Artie threatens to shoot all of them, then uses the barometer to stop time. He grabs the Orchid and heads downstairs, grabbing the dagger just before time restarts.

Claudia tries to get through to the real Artie, begging him to stop before heClaudia stabs Artie kills millions of people. Artie tears into her, saying she’s an insolent brat and that he never loved her. He busts the glass protecting the Orchid with the dagger, which bounces away. Claudia grabs the dagger and realizes what Artie’s dream means; she stabs Artie just as he tosses the Orchid into the air. Using the dagger seems to have cured Artie (or maybe killed him … it’s pretty close to his heart) and Pete makes a dive to catch the Orchid. He grabs it before it hits the floor, but the Orchid the pestilence goes out the window to infect the worlddissolves into some kind of black smoke (or pollen, I guess) that propagates everywhere. Pete, Myka, and the others inhale it, and the pollen spreads beyond the mill and out into the world, infecting everyone. We’ll have to wait until next episode to see if everyone dies of sweating sickness.