We open with a great deal of depressing. The Warehouse is
destroyed, the artefacts gone and a whole load of people are dead. Claudia,
Lena, Myka, Pete and Artie all gather in grief and loss. Time for dramatic
scenes, tearful memories and painful flashbacks. All of which I’m glad of –
because this much loss should be accompanied by grief and pain and it needs to
be impactful
Artie has the watch though, Macpherson’s watch, that may
be a key to bringing something back. But
they don’t’ know what it does or what the side effects can be and, as Myka wisely
says, they can’t just selfishly use an artefact to bring back the people they
love without realising the consequences. Of course, blowing up the Warehouse
comes with other consequences – the destruction of the Eturnium chamber, made
of the world’s hardest metal, it was destroyed in the blast – and it contained
Pandora’s box.
Turning on the television, they learn the world’s economy
has collapsed, there’s rioting in the street and there are mass suicides. At
the bottom of Pandora’s box, hope remained – and with the destruction of the
box, the world lost hope.
With that established, side effects of using the watch
seem pretty minor in comparison; reading that it has “push the button” written
on it in Portuguese (everyone gives Myka a look for speaking Portuguese and she
has a little snark moment which was really needed to counter the heavy
emotion). Pushing the button, the watch became a stop watch – they have 23
hours to use whatever fail safe they have. The back of the watch has black
diamonds in it – which means something to Artie – who rushes to the warehouse
in characteristic “I’ll tell you later” style.
At the Warehouse, Pete catches the American football –
the ball that continually travels around the world we’ve seen since season 1. It’s
an Artefact tracker and, inside, is a computer and a database and the last
resort they have. Between internet and rugby ball they find the Brotherhood of
the Black Diamond, a sect based on the Templars based in the South of France
Lena has to join one of the Regents to find an Artefact
that was in Warehouse 13 that they can use to diffuse the bomb – going back in
time won’t help anything if they can’t actually stop the bomb. Claudia wants to
stay and use the Metronome of immortality on Steve, she’s done the maths, even
if they do save the Warehouse, they won’t be saving Steve – but if she does
bring him back it will be into a world without hope; faced with that, she
agrees to go with Artie, Myka and Pete. But Claudia is determined – she will
save Steve after they have fixed the Warehouse
Arriving in France, the loss of hope is already affecting
them – Pete isn’t flirting and everyone feels cold. And they’re already been
followed by the Brotherhood, not very subtly (Pete waves at them). At their
base, they split up, Claudia and Artie to steal with Pete and Myka to distract.
Have they considered asking? I mean, loss of hope is probably something the
Brotherhood won’t enjoy either. Distraction begins with a gay joke and the
massive plan of “hit the big one” (Myka is going to murder Pete one of these
days).
Claudia and Artie, after much amusing banter (I love
these two) and much cleverness, find Magellan’s Astrolabe. But it’s missing a
bit. And then the Brothood arrive along with Pete and Myka – dramatic language,
some tesla-ing and Claudia gets locked in a hole. They need to find the rest of
the astrolabe to reset time so they can get Claudia out as well. Examining the
changing watch they find it’s now set to 4:18 – so much brainstorming as to
what that can mean, and it doesn’t help that they have so much knowledge
between them. It eventually leads them to the Vatican – the basilica of St.
Peter – off they go, leaving Claudia behind.
Chaos is breaking out as the world goes longer without
hope. They enter the tunnels to the Vatican – but leave Myka behind in the
process. They find the alidade – but the brotherhood shows up again and in the
fight, Peter gets stabbed… to death. He won’t remember when time is reset – but
Artie will remember losing another agent. Especially since the dying
Brotherhood man reveals that Artie cannot tell anyone what happens when he sets
the astrolabe back – and that the astrolabe will create a terrible evil as
well. Evil vs World without hope. Right, serve me up some evil, folks.
Lena’s research turns up that the bomb was so powerful
because it was powered by all the hatred of the Nazi regime – Artie considers
an Artefact of pure peace would be good at counteracting it – Ghandi’s dhoti.
Back in time, Artie has just freed HG Well and Myka in
the big showdown at the end of season 3. He instantly confuses them (as he
does) revealing he knows about the bomb and rushing to get Ghandi’s dhoti, they
put it on the bomb and… it doesn’t work. HG and Myka put their brilliant heads
together and point out the bomb is fuelled by hatred and it’s that they need to
diffuse – Walter Sykes’s hatred
Another rush to stop Pete killing Sykes (more confusion as to how Artie knows about this) instead to bring him back to the Warehouse – throwing him to the floor, they use the dhoti on Sykes – and diffuse the bomb and he dies. The Warehouse is saved….
Epilogue time – and Artie is arguing with the Regents and
Mrs. Frederick (she’s back!!!!) about bringing back HG Wells since she redeemed
herself by sacrificing herself for Myka, Pete and Artie at the end of season 3.
He is so vehement that they agree to bring HG Wells back as an agent. Of course
Mrs. Frederick is suspicious, partly because she’s Mrs. Frederick and,
therefore, awesome and partly because she now has a grey streak – which isn’t
supposed to happen since the Custodian of the Warehouse is unaging.
Now for the consequences: Claudia leaving in the middle of the night (presumably to save Steve) and Artie having an nightmare about Claudia stabbing him.
Well, that fixed a lot – which I’m relieved about because
that was faaaar too much loss at the end of season 3. It remains to be seen
what else is fixed. I found the sacrifice/loss of getting the astrolabe to be a
little excessive though – as we lost more people, as Claudia got lost and Myka
was captured it became obvious that time was most certainly going to be reset. Which
means when we had Pete’s dramatic death scene it felt a little… anti-climatic?
Though Artie’s acting more than gave it impact.
I’m not happy that, again, Lena takes a back seat to the
proceedings. But at least we have Mrs. Fredericks back – I worried that she
would be considered disposable.
So we're set up for aa new season and... I'm both excited and worried. Is Claudia going to be the next big bad? And/or Steve? I hope not - she's one of the best characters on the show and the world doesn't need another gay villain!
So we're set up for aa new season and... I'm both excited and worried. Is Claudia going to be the next big bad? And/or Steve? I hope not - she's one of the best characters on the show and the world doesn't need another gay villain!
