Episode 5: Cangku Shisi
Last episode, Artie told Claudia that her sister Claire (who’s in an artifact-induced coma to keep her from freaking out and using her telekinetic powers) was missing. Claudia and Artie go to the building where Claire was held to look around. Claudia isn’t impressed with the security and Artie reminds her that she broke in as well. They use the durational spectrometer to look back in time and see what happened, but what they see shocks them … Benedict Valda is the one who took Claire, but Valda died in Egypt. Of course, we viewers know this is the Valda from Paracelsus’s alternate timeline. Speaking of Valda, we see he’s
taken Claire to a hotel room somewhere and attached a weird eyepiece to her head, making her look a bit like a Steampunk Borg. He wakes her from the coma and she’s not happy, but Valda quickly demonstrates the function of the Borg lens … it lets him control Claire telepathically. (The super-soldiers in Paracelsus’s alternate Warehouse wore the same lenses on their eyes.) Claire tries to fight back, but Valda causes her incredible pain through the psychic link, which stops her resistance. Valda takes over her motor functions, including her telekinesis.
At the Warehouse, Artie figures out this is the alternate Valda and realizes he must have the missing Versailles fork that kept him from disappearing when the timeline reverted to normal a couple episodes ago. Claudia is 
pissed off about Valda taking Claire and starts looking for traces of him. She quickly figures out he’s been hiding in the Dead Agents’ Vault, in the room belonging to his mainstream counterpart. Myka asks Pete to come search the room with her, but Pete’s freaked out about being alone with Myka since last episode, when Kelly told him he’s in love with Myka. He talks Steve into joining them and they check out Valda’s room. They find a bunch of artifacts and plans strewn about. Pete’s still acting weird around Myka and she figures he’s had too much sugar.
Pete finds a file on Claire and wonders if Valda plans on replicating her powers to create an army of psycho-kinetic soldiers. Myka realizes the Mainstream Valda’s key to the Regents’ Vault is missing. Pete, Myka, and Artie head to the Valu-Mart in Lakeshore, where the Vault is hidden in the
cold room. They find the manager (and secret Regent), Keeler, face down on the floor, dead. When they turn him over, there’s an inukshuk under him that gives off a blast of freezing cold. Pete and Myka are blown right out the door and Artie is flash-frozen. When Pete and Myka re-enter the frozen room, they see Artie is now a popsicle. Pete tries to chip the ice off the inukshuk so he can neutralize it, but as soon as he removes some ice it immediately re-freezes. Myka figures it was William Parry’s inukshuk, so they’ve got an hour before Artie freezes to death. Pete suggests they use Butz’s glasses to warm Artie internally and they call Steve to bring the glasses.
In Rapid City, Valda and Claire sit on a bench in a park full of people. A black 
car pulls up nearby and Valda gets a call from the occupant. He tells the guy to put in some earplugs, as he and Claire do the same. Valda forces Claire to start Oliver Sacks’s record player, which knocks out everyone in the park. Valda tells the unseen observer that all the people will start having seizures and die in an hour or so. He tells the guy to imagine what weapons like that could do to an air-traffic control tower, the New York Stock Exchange, or a military base. Valda has Claire give the guy a mason’s square and says he should place it in the location they’ve chosen, and the plan can begin.
At the Valu-Mart, the glasses warm Artie up enough to keep him alive. Steve also brought the earthquake-inducing walking stick and Pete uses it on the
inukshuk. It knocks the ice free long enough for Steve it bag it and Artie thaws out, though he’s still a little out of it. They get a ping about the park in Rapid City and Myka and Pete go to check it out, leaving Steve to take care of Artie. Pete’s still reluctant to be alone with Myka and Steve figures that out, although he doesn’t know why. At the Warehouse, Claudia is going through Valda’s stuff and finds an empty record sleeve. It used to contain Chuck Yeager’s favourite record, which sets off a sonic boom if anyone gets too close while it’s playing.
In Rapid City, Pete and Myka notice the EMTs have succumbed to the coma-inducing record player, so they put in earplugs before getting out of their car. Myka stops some more EMTs from suffering the same fate, while Pete 
goes to stop the record player. But when he gets close, the sonic boom sends him flying. Claudia shows up to let them know what’s going on. She’s brought Charles Atlas’s trunks, but Pete’s too out of it to wear them. Myka dons the trunks, wades through numerous sonic booms, and smashes the record player. Everyone in the park wakes up and Pete pantses Myka before the trunks can drive her into the ground. She falls into his arms, but Pete’s freaked out by the proximity and drops her. At the Valu-Mart, Artie checks the various strongboxes to figure out what Valda stole. When he realizes what it was, he tells Steve Valda is planning to steal the Warehouse.
Artie calls the others to tell them Valda took the Setting Maul of Hiram Abiff. (Pete: “The Getty Mall at Highcliff? What?”) Hiram Abiff is the guy who supposedly built the Temple of Jerusalem and is revered by Masons, Templars, and general conspiracy theorists. Abiff’s tools—maul, compass, square—can be used to move the Warehouse to a new location. The square
is set where the new Warehouse is to be set up, the maul (which is an old-fashioned hammer in two pieces) is struck against the new site’s cornerstone, and the compass sweeps through the old Warehouse, converting everything to energy and reassembling it in the new location. Valda already has the square and now he has the hammer handle, so they have to find the hammer head before he does. Artie says it’s hidden in the birthplace of the host country, which for America is apparently the Green Dragon Tavern in Boston, where the Boston Tea Party was planned.
Artie and Steve go to the Warehouse to get the compass, which is kept in one of the safest and most secure locations … or not. Yeah, the compass is gone, already moved by Valda into position for the transfer. Artie says the compass could be anywhere in the Warehouse, which is a pretty big space to search. In Boston, Pete, Myka, and Claudia go to the site of the Green 
Dragon Tavern, which is now buried under a different bar. They wonder if they’ve beaten Valda there until they find another dead Regent. A tremor from below tells them where Valda is and Claudia runs ahead to help Claire. When Pete and Myka get to the cellar, they find Claire holding a section of brick wall (which was hiding a secret room) over Claudia’s head, threatening to crush her. Claudia urges her to fight back, but the eyepiece is too powerful for her to shake off Valda’s influence. There is a sign that Claire is still fighting to break free; a tear rolls down her cheek, Locutus-style. Claudia urges Claire to fight harder, but Valda emerges from the hidden room and forces her to push the three agents into the hidden chamber and slam the brick wall back in place.
Valda assembles the hammer and the compass begins its sweep of the Warehouse, converting everything to energy. Artie freaks out, seeing his life’s work about to be stolen away. He figures the compass must be under the Warehouse someplace, so he and Steve go to look. In Boston, Pete, Myka, and Claudia can’t budge the brick wall. Claudia (being the next Caretaker of the Warehouse) feels it when the artifacts start disappearing.
Myka realizes there must be a back way out if the tavern was used as a meeting place for revolutionaries. Pete pulls a Shaggy and accidentally finds the way out; he even refers to Myka and Claudia as Daphne and Velma. In the Warehouse, Artie and Steve find the compass on a slowly revolving plinth. They spray it with neutralizer, but that has no effect, so it’s time for Plan B. They use special Silly String to coat the plinth and stop it from revolving. It works … kind of. The plinth grinds to a halt, but is straining pretty hard against the Silly String.
In Boston, Claudia tracks Valda on CCTV and sees that he got into a limo with diplomatic plates … from China. They call Artie and he tracks the limo to an airstrip where a plane took off a while ago. Artie figures China is the destination for the new Warehouse, since they’re the only ones with the money and technology to recreate the Warehouse the way Valda wants, sterile and dedicated solely to scientific breakthroughs like the one in Paracelsus’s alternate reality. They figure since Valda is already airborne it 
might be too late, but Pete reminds them about Sykes’s portal to Hong Kong. They head back to the Warehouse and we get some meta-comments about how they’re not ready for things to end. (Yup, this is the second-last episode … sniff.) Claudia wonders why Valda is keeping Claire alive and Artie has a theory: Mrs. Frederick is the second Caretaker of Warehouse 13, taking over after the death of her sister. Artie figures Valda is going to make Claire the Caretaker of the new Warehouse, with him controlling her like a puppet. Claudia is ready to kick Valda’s ass and save Claire, but Artie says Valda’s influence might be too deep to bring Claire back. Claudia is convinced Claire can fight back and Myka agrees. They head through the portal to stop Valda before he can strike the cornerstone and consecrate the new Warehouse, completing the transfer permanently.
As soon as they leave, the plinth breaks free of the Silly String and starts revolving again, converting more artifacts to energy. Artie says it’s time for
Plan C … destroy the compass and hope it doesn’t blow the whole Warehouse to hell. At the National Stadium in Beijing, Pete, Myka, and Claudia arrive to find artifacts beaming in from the Warehouse. They figure they have time to find the cornerstone before Valda, but he’s already there. Claire uses her telekinesis to pin them against the wall and Valda welcomes them to Warehouse 14 … his Warehouse. He tells Claire to kill them slowly so they can see all the artifacts arrive, then he leaves to find the cornerstone.
At the Warehouse, Artie tries to blow up the compass, but it doesn’t work. He tells Steve there is no Plan D, then grabs a rope and wraps in around the plinth, trying to stop it by sheer force. Artie admits the rope isn’t an artifact, 
it’s just a rope, and exhorts Steve to grab the other end and pull. In China, Claudia tries to get through to Claire with little success, She tries a different tactic, singing “When I Grow Up” by Garbage. That gets through to Claire and she starts singing along. Valda’s hold on her is broken and she keels over. The eyepiece still won’t come off and Claudia wonders if she could reverse the lens and send the rage-inducing telekinetic power into Valda. Myka says that’ll just make him more powerful, but Pete says he has an idea that might solve two problems at once. He tells Claudia to reverse the lens while he and Myka find Valda.
Valda has found the cornerstone and is ready to strike it with the hammer, officially consecrating Warehouse 14. Pete jumps him and they grapple on the floor as Myka grabs the hammer. Claudia reverses the lens on the eyepiece and tells Claire to concentrate on sending her telekinetic powers to
Valda. Valda knocks Pete away and realizes he now has Claire’s power. He uses it to take the hammer back from Myka and is about to consecrate the new Warehouse when Pete tells him to check his pockets. Yup, Pete lifted the fork from Valda while they were fighting and he drops it in a neutralizer bag. Valda instantly disappears from existence and Claire is fine. She removes the eyepiece and her murderous rage and unchecked telekinesis are both gone.
Myka pulls the hammer apart, which instantly returns all the artifacts to Warehouse 13. Artie and Steve notice and congratulate themselves on saving the Warehouse. Steve mentions it might’ve been something the others did in China, but they choose to believe they’re responsible. Later, Claudia gives Claire her old guitar back and talks about how she’s destined to be Caretaker 
of the Warehouse. Claire says she was destined to be in a coma her whole life, but that changed. At the Warehouse, Pete admits to Steve that he’s in love with Myka and Steve’s lie detector sense tells him it’s true. Myka and Artie put the compass back where it belongs and we get some more meta-commentary about how they’re not ready to leave yet. The compass activates again by itself and Mrs. Frederick calls to tell them there’s a problem. Valda’s actions have set into motion events that even she might not be able to stop. Yeah, it’s the end of an era; join me next week for the final episode review of Warehouse 13.