WAREHOUSE 13: "Trials" and Tribulations

Warning: Spoilers ahead!

Okie doke, to start things off we know that last week Myka came back and Steve “Jinksy” Jinks is a new member of the team from ATF.

This week we start with Flight 667 descending when, suddenly, the pilot starts having an issue, gets what only can be described as Super Villain eye syndrome, and forgets what he’s doing or why he’s even on the plane.

Back at Leena’s, Myka is just waking up and there’s a lot of internal reflection on her part about why she left the Warehouse.  The action gets started after breakfast when Artie sends Pete and Myka to Seattle to investigate the pilot’s case and also sends Jinksy and Claudia on their own mission to Boston (to retrieve the knife of “Typhoid Mary”).  Aaaand!  This is going to be Claudia’s first case on her own (well, with a partner, but she is “senior officer” on the case as she so graciously enjoys).

In Seattle, Pete and Myka get up to speed on the pilot who is losing all of his memory and is regressing at a rapid rate.  We cut to a surgery room where a surgeon is suddenly subject to the same fate (Super Villan eye syndrome!).  Point of interest: why couldn’t it have been someone with a job that wouldn’t have gotten someone killed?

In Boston, Jinksy and Claudia are at the auction house.  Steve misses his guns and action, Claudia (again, graciously) refers to him as a “poopy-pants” and proceeds to win the knife in the auction.  Buuuut, there’s a hitch: the knife has been stolen.

So, after a little digging into records, signs point to an Owen Larsen who had been janitor for just a week before quitting that day.  “Coincidence, thy name is Larsen.”  Steve and Claudia leave the auction house…but they’re being watched!  Dun, dun, DUUUN!

Myka is talking with Leena on the Farnsworth when Pete brings their essential clue…the connection between the pilot and the doctor is the restaurant they ate at back in April.  It was on the same night a young waitress from the place was murdered.

Pete and Myka follow that with an awkward “everything is fine/you can say anything” moment in which Pete replies, in Pete fashion, with a spew of movie quotes (starting with the geek nod of the week to Star Wars fans).

Pete visits the restaurant where everything took place, meets a pushy waiter who says the cops are scaring customers away and it is revealed that the two victims are being called as witnesses to the murder trial.

Back in Boston, Jinks and Claudia are on stakeout waiting for Larsen and Steve tries boosting Claudia’s confidence in herself…the problem is her mistaking of intentions.  After thoroughly ensuring embarrassment via a rambling about not having time for the possible sparks, Steve reveals that he’s gay!  Poor Claudia, awkward doesn’t suit her well.

On the opposite side of the country, Pete is trying to get some answers from the lawyer and the young man accused of the murder.  Jeffrey, the defendant, insists his innocence and the lawyer offers up government conspiracy as an answer for the regressions.

Myka, with the mother of the murdered girl, is getting a story of desired justice- not revenge, and so the mother seems unlikely.  As she goes to leave, a pushy young reporter by the name of Courtney Moore is there for an interview.  She is insistent on the alleged being the killer.

Back to the stakeout of awkwardness, Steve and Claudia are talking about Claudia as an agent and her desire to perform well.  In this discussion, she admits to having no government agency training and also to being institutionalized before they spot their man and approach him.

Upon being surrounded, he maces Jinksy and runs off…into the door of a nearby vehicle opened by none other than Artie.  The knife is spotted as it falls from the bag, then a bum knee is passed on from Larsen to Artie via the artifact, and the week-long janitor gets away by car.

Back in Seattle, the best friend and primary witness of the prosecuted, Eric Bell is the next victim of the regression.  As Pete and Myka emerge into the hallway, Pete is affected and thus  Myka witnesses the Super Villan eye syndrome.

And so, Myka goes to talk to the reporter…the only link she has between everyone.  After accusing her, the reporter falls victim as well.

In Boston, Artie tries to explain that he just “wanted to see Claudia in action” and wasn’t “bad”-spying on her.  Claudia’s computer program pinpoints where to find Larsen and Artie leaves them to catching the guy.

As it turns out, Larsen was intending to cure someone, not sicken them.  His son, dying of leukemia, had no hope and he took it upon himself to take the disease from him so as he could live his life.  He is sure he’s going to be arrested, but Steve explains (as Claudia put it to him earlier) they “don’t go after bad guys.”

Okay, final warning…here’s the artifact.

Myka, back at the station, knows that the lawyer had stood up to the pushy reporter and watches the video of it to find the oddity in the frames.  Sure enough, the artifact is in plain sight: it’s a tie clip.

In the jail, the lawyer is questioned about it.  It was a gift to him, left without a note, and it has an engraving on the back of “WW.”

With Leena on the Farnsworth, we learn that “WW” stands for Walter Winchell (noted newspaper and radio commentator) who had a tie clip and matching set of cuff links.  We also learn that a young “Louis Thompson” worked with Mr. Winchell.  Now, the real kicker is that Mr. Thompson’s granddaughter, Sara Bell, lived in Seattle with her son: Eric.  (For those of you not keeping score, Eric is the primary witness/best friend of the prosecuted.)

When Myka gets back to Eric’s hospital room, he’s miraculously recovered and gone home…where she heads next to confront Sara.  The mother, protecting her son, threatens to drop the cuff links into the garbage disposal when Myka pulls out her gun.  Eric emerges and begs his mother to be rational and Myka manages to shoot out the garbage disposal.  Eric himself hands over the cuff links.

At the hospital, the tie clip gets destroyed and then Myka restores Pete’s memories.  Lastly, she apologizes for leaving the Warehouse and for not talking to Pete about it (about time!).

So, in the end everything works out: Eric is in jail, Jeffrey is out hugging his girlfriend, Larsen is with his son and grandson, and everyone from the team is eating breakfast on Leena’s sun porch.

Oh, and why did Eric kill the waitress?  He was dating her, and they got into a fight.  Nobody knew about their relationship, not even his best friend.

And that internal Myka-voice?  She was speaking to the Regents in a trial of her own.  She admits confidence in her job, but that she needed to prove it to herself.  She also called Pete an “extraordinary partner” (but don’t tell him that).