It takes three to win a race between the tortoise and the hare
This week’s escapade involved Claudia (Allison Scagliotti) inadvertently bringing the roof down on the Warehouse (literally) and it was a rush against the clock to keep the Warehouse from exploding.
The fable story of the race between the tortoise and the hare was the perfect allegory for what Pete (Eddie McClintock), Myka (Joanne Kelly) and Claudia had to accomplish. While Pete may be the jack-rabbit, always in a hurry to rush to the end and Myka is like the slow-and-steady tortoise, plodding slowly and surely along, this fable story does not quite fit our tripod-team, for Claudia was the 3rd wheel – the necessary and unexpected element needed for them to win the race against the clock.
Frequently, the weekly adventures are easily balanced between Pete and Myka. But this time, it took quite a bit of Claudia’s ingenuity to keep them from succumbing to a brutal and nasty fate. Her inspired use of the self-cooler snow-globe shaker was brilliant — to cool the sticky-string to the point of breaking and thereby saving them all. Just goes to show that even the simplest of inventions can be a life-saver!
While Pete, Myka and Claudia were tied-up with Warehouse catastrophes, Artie (Saul Rubinek) was bravely facing an inquisition by the Regents at a seemingly innocuous cafe. Artie initially participated in the mock-trial, tripping over himself to explain his actions which had jeopardized not only a number of artifacts but also the agents under his command. But Artie finally figured out that it was not he who needed to be worried. It was the Regents who were afraid and they were not sure if Artie was the man who could keep them all safe. Once Artie realized he had the upper-hand and he had nothing to fear, Artie threw the gauntlet down to his straw-man jury, “Either fire me, kill me or let me do my job — and do it fast before [MacPherson] does it for you!”
It is not certain why the Regents are so petrified of MacPherson, but they clearly are. They were merely seeking to test Artie’s tenacity in pursuing MacPherson, even if it imperils his team. It was an interesting and perhaps foreshadowing of the difficult choices that Artie will have to make to save the world from whatever evil plot MacPherson has hatched.
What Worked
This week’s episode was all about the cool and creepy artifacts. First, gotta love Claudia as the girl who created a self-propelling, self-cleaning vacuum cleaner. Then to have The Cure’s “Just Like Heaven” playing in the background was like a small slice of heaven. Quite a nice nod to those of us sick of the house-cleaning chores and who would wish to have such a cool device created for our everyday use.
Just as inventive and useful was the snow-globe shaker, which Claudia demonstrated was a great way of keeping beverages cool.
Then there was the Baylor Dodgeball which was cutesy though a bit scary. But watching Pete and Myka figure out a way to subdue the lethal self-replicating dodgeballs was funny and added a nice bit of levity during this week’s doomsday theme.
Additionally, the sinister sticky-string was a stroke of genius as it quickly gummed up the works of the Neutralizing Processing Center and started the countdown clock. It also brought the funny in a bad situation where we nearly witnessed Claudia and Myka become human gear oil because they failed to use the purple protective gloves when handling an artifact – even one as silly as the sticky-string.
Also pretty cool was Sylvia Platt’s typewriter (carefully sealed in the mysterious Dark Vault) which both enthralled and captivated Pete to the point it nearly sucked the life out of him. As Pete stood entranced, it was particularly nice comedic touch for Myka to grab the only nearly non-artifact — a broom — to briskly push Pete out of the typewriter’s deadly sphere of influence.
And last, but not least, there was the booby-trapped replica of Leena’s bed and breakfast with its Portrait of Dorian Gray painting — meaning whatever you did to the house was reflected in the picture and whatever you did to the picture happened to the house. Watching our trio (ala The Three Stooges-style) try to escape was delightful physical-comedy fun.
Thus, it is no wonder that with artifacts like those lurking in the Warehouse shadows that it is necessary to have a steady stream of the purple goo to neutralize their influence. And, after this week’s adventure, the team may be inspired to up the level of the stability-shield to have a greater neutralizing effect in case of future accidents which could trigger the artifacts and their dangerous abilities.
After such a close-call and such a wide-array of near catastrophes, it was with some hesitation that Claudia asked Artie, “Are we not in trouble?” But after the day he had gone through and the worries about MacPherson hanging over him, Artie merely absent-mindedly replied, “You had it under control, didn’t you?” The look on Pete, Myka and Claudia’s faces to such a nonchalant response was priceless.
What Didn’t Work
As delightful as it is to see Mark Sheppard, it seemed like a waste to merely have him appear as a spineless-Regent grilling Artie without conviction. Sheppard always works best when given a darker and more ambiguous role. It would be cool to see him unleashed or perhaps aiding Macpherson in his nefarious plans.
Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due
‘Breakdown’ was written by Michael P. Fox and Ian Stokes and directed by Eric Laneauville. ‘Warehouse 13’ stars Eddie McClintock, Joanne Kelly, Saul Rubinek, Genelle Williams and Allison Scagliotti. ‘Warehouse 13’ airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on Syfy.
