WAREHOUSE 13 Returns With an Anti-Bang
Episode 401 “A New Hope”
In which Kivas Fajo and Data discuss the physics of infinite causality loops and.. — wait. Wrong show.
To see Saul Rubinek and Brent Spiner together again was a fun bit for us Star Trek fans, even though Spiner’s Templar priest doesn’t have much to do in this one. But it’s clear from the promos that he’s back next week, so we’ll see where that takes us.
SPOILERS AHEAD
This episode is not much of a surprise, in that we know Artie has the reset button in his hand: MacPherson’s watch. We just don’t know – and apparently, neither does Artie – how the watch works as a device to erase the past. And I know I said I would be disappointed if this were the case, but it’s just one of those things you have to accept in a science fiction show. Sometimes they include a comic book death. So as we start the episode with the warehouse, H.G. and Mrs. Fredric all dead, we know that’s not going to last. So, knowing the destination, you just have to sit back and enjoy the ride.
Of course, it’s not going to be something easy, as Artie and the gang have only 24 hours to find the rest of the artifacts that will allow the time-wash to work. So, there’s a “ticking time bomb” trope going on along with the well-worn “everyone falls” trope. In the course of the story, we see each one of the team fall victim to some circumstance. Myka gets arrested, Claudia gets buried alive, and Pete gets stabbed with a Templar knife.
Except we know it’s all going to be erased when Artie gets the rest of Magellan’s astrolabe, which makes the whole episode pretty much an exercise in patience. It’s like superhero movies. You have to tell the origin story first before you can tell the story you really want to tell.
Although Claudia’s comparison of Artie with Winnie the Pooh was priceless.
Some more world-building in the show gives us one of the reasons why the warehouse is important to the world, as one of the artifacts stored there is Pandora’s Box – which contains hope. When that’s destroyed with the warehouse, the world pretty much descends into Watts Riots mode. So, it’s important that hope exists, even though it’s kept in the box. The warehouse keeps the box safe, which allows hope to continue to exists. That’s quite a bit of responsibility.
And Artie has to live with the responsibility of going through with his plan to reset the last 24 hours, despite the dire warning from Spiner’s dying Templar. Although given the choice between a personal hell and the world being there, the needs of the many etc. etc. So of course Artie’s going to go through with it. And this sets up the arc for the season, as the show’s going to be getting away from the “artifact of the week” bit and do something a little deeper.
Darker, too? It certainly appears that way, given that Claudia walked out of the boarding house with her hoodie up (and presumably she still has the metronome). Even though her obsession with bringing Jinx back to life borders on psychotic, though, and I have a tough time buying that Claudia would be willing to choose Steve over the entire world. And what’s Steve going to be like as the undead anyway?
