Last episode, Artie used the Astrolabe to set back time
by a day to save the Warehouse, save the team and stop Pandora’s box ending the
world. There’s going to be a downside to this, of course, but compared to the
alternative? Well, let’s just say the downside better be pretty damn horrendous
to justify going back to it.
In Philadelphia, in a diner someone has locked the patrons
inside and released a YE GODS OF MERCY THAT’S UGLY! On them. The patrons attack
it desperately since there’s no way out – the police arrive. And they find
they’ve just beaten up a poor innocent guy called Joe.
At the Warehouse, Artie is sad about Claudia’s absence
and worried about the consequences of using the Astrolabe to save the world –
something only he remembers. He sends Pete and Myka to Philadelphia to deal
with the mob (and has a little twitch moment when Pete makes a “turn back time”
comment). They leave and Artie has another twitch moment when a priest from the
Vatican – one of the Astrolabe guys (who was killed in the brief alternate
time-line, though only Artie remembers that) shows up.
He wants to report that Magellan’s Astrolabe has been
stolen and *gasp* used. And he wants Artie to find it so they can find the
thief and make them undo the time reset they did – because it’s the only way to
get rid of the formidable evil using it unleashed (I say again formidable evil
vs Destroyed Pandora’s box – scales still point pro-evil here). Poor Artie
nearly swallows his own tongue several times.
Claudia, meanwhile, has had a major make over and is
infiltrating the regents and their eye-of-Horus tattooed guards (rule 1 of
secret societies? They shouldn’t have openly displayed secret symbols). She
does a great job of infiltrating the building most excellently though she has
to resort to tesla-ing people when Artie grabs her wrist – busted.
Claudia is determined to get the metronome and bring
Steve back. And she asks Artie, if he could use an Artefact to set things right,
to undo a huge, stupid tragedy, wouldn’t he do it? Yeah, there goes the tongue
swallowing again; but Artie is adamant, it’s dangerous to use Artefacts. But
then Regent Janeway arrives – the decision has been made, they’re allowing her
to bring back Agent Jinks – something Artie adamantly opposes and storms off.
And goes to see the priest to try and narrow down what kind of evil he’s facing
from the Astrolabe – he just knows it’s unimaginable and personal. The last
time it was used during the French Revolution and caused the reign of terror.
Regent Janeway takes Claudia to Steve’s body and talks
her through metronome-ing him back to life. After much drama and tension – it works
and everyone lives.
It is going to take a while for Steve to get used to the
idea of being dead and alive again – it’s going to take some getting used to
and he’s not sure how to feel about it.
In Philadelphia, Myka and Pete are asking their awkward
questions and finding out only that everyone had the same hallucination,. No-one
was drinking and no-one was drugged. Without other options, they shut down the
diner. But across town, in a dental office, the same thing is happening with a
hapless guy forced out a window by staff who think he’s a big gribbly monster.
More investigating and more dead ends – no common factors
at all from the people who experienced the hallucination and nothing connecting
them to the diner. And yet another hallucination happens – a man sees a gribbly
monster where his wife is. Only this time a man hands her a key first, asking if
she dropped it – she hands it back and then people see the monster. It’s picked up by Lena and Pete and Myka go to
investigate. They find the panicked wife locked in a closet – and the husband
has to be knocked out because he’s still seeing a gribbly monster.
After interviewing her they learn about the man and his
silver key which actually fires up Pete’s memory – Lovecraft’s Cthulu. All of
the monsters feature in Lovecraft’s work and Lovecraft suffered from waking
dreams, night-terrors which he blamed on a silver key – the key to the gate of
dreams. And Pete and Myka at last realise they need to look at the victims (or
their houses since they’re dead or comatose).
Following clues they connect it to a baseball game and
from there they connect it to Teresa Hicks, a woman who died in a post match
riot at that game. (The connections aren’t awful but are a bit stretchy).
Looking at the CCTV footage they see Teresa fall and the people who pushed her
or didn’t help her – all were people who were the victims, monsters in the eyes
of Ron, Teresa’s fiancé, who is now seeking revenge. And they get a likely
candidate for another victim.
Myka goes after Ron Hadsell, the fiancé (and finds lots
of model tentacles which doesn’t help her tentacle phobia) while Pete tries to
get in touch with the next victim. Pete runs into him, chases him down to a
local gym and tackles him – where he gets the key used on him and all those
people at the gym with big heavy weights see a big gribbly monster. Even Myka
over the phone just hears roars.
But she’s not a fool and when she arrives she does realise the big scary monster is Pete (thank you, I was spared cursing at the screen) and holds back the mob of gym people trying to kill him. At least until Myka sees Hadsell and sets off to bring him down and goo his key – just before one of the gym patrons axe-murders Pete.
Back at the Warehouse we have a conclusion, and chief
Regent Kosan is not happy with Claudia or Regent Janeway for bringing Steve
back – it seems Regent Janeway went against orders and policy, the awesome
rebel that she is. The consequences are that Jinks is linked to the metronome
and the Warehouse and regents forever – and since they don’t know the downside,
the metronome remains with the Warehouse, and Jinks remains under lifetime
supervision. Any dangerous downside, the Regents will take action.
And Artie has a detection ping for a dagger – a dagger he has seen in his visions, wielded by Claudia which may be connected to the Astrolabe.
I am frightened of what’s going to happen with Agent
Steve. I am definitely glad he’s back, especially since the
Eureka/Alphas/Warehouse 13 shared universe
has an absolutely awful record when it comes to erasing GBLT characters,
so that’s a plus. But using an artefact always has consequences, that’s one
thing they’ve hammered home over and over again – so I’m really afraid of
what’s going to happen here, with this character. I’m also side-eyeing that
Jinks has, effectively, become the property of Warehouse 13 constantly under
the threat of death.
I do think it’s a little sloppy and unlikely that Myka
and Pete didn’t think to look at possible connections between the victims
rather than assuming it’s automatically going to be an Artefact on the people
hallucinating. With no connections, it was the next logical step.
