We’re following up on Claudia’s issue this week. Claudia’s
sister, Claire, was presumed dead in a car crash, but she’s apparently alive
and Artie k new about it and has been lying to Claudia. Claudia is not happy.
Talking with Jinks and looking at the case it’s further clear that the car
accident that was supposed to have killed her sister looks like an Artefact
related badness.
She makes a big elaborate plan on how to hack in when Artie announces from the door “or I could show you”. Artie realises there’s absolutely no way he can stop Claudia researching so he’s going to help at least then he can watch her. And he’s not lying (Claudia knows, she checked with Jinks’s lie detector woo-woo).
So, Artie takes Claudia and Jinks to an Artefact they’ve
used before that shows memories; not her memories, but Artie’s memories. It was
a Warehouse case and, yes, Artie worked on it and she’s going to see what
happened through his memories – which Claudia still finds second best to
actually seeing her sister.
(Also ulterior motive is that if this is settled Artie gets to not be stared at by Jinks and his lie detector for the rest of his life. Though Jinks may do that for fun).
Back into the memories, into Claire’s school, where Claire is causing chaos by floating in a tornado and throwing dangerous black wind everywhere which she is using to break stuff and terrorise people.
As memory ghosts, they follow Artie around (looking at
Claudia’s parents who died when Claire was supposed to have died).
Cut to going to Claudia’s old house and her parents
trying to take Claire to see a doctor. Artie tries to take Claudia away so she
doesn’t see what happens but Claudia insists – and Claire loses her temper, the
black wind appears and she throws her parents’ car against a tree repeatedly.
Her parents are inside and die in the crash. Claire faints.
Memory Artie and Mrs. Frederick watch. Memory Artie goes in the house to check on Claudia as a child and young Claudia identifies the music box (Frances Farmer’s Music box) as the cause of the problems which had been thrown in the fire. The fact Claudia recognised it as a child marked her as someone special to watch as Artie tells Mrs. Frederick.
But the music box was destroyed – there was no way to
neutralise it so its power remained in Claire, ready to be unleashed whenever
she was angry. They tried everything, sedatives, anti-psychotics, but it didn’t
work; they ended up putting her in an Artefact induced coma. But Claudia now
wants to know if it’s her fault – did she throw the music box into the fire?
They return to the Warehouse and Claudia walks away,
unable to talk about what she saw yet. But later she decides she wants to use
the Memory-Shoes on Claire’s memories. Artie doesn’t want this to happen
because the Memory-Shoes aren’t safe, but Claudia rejects his mission to keep
her safe all the time; and Jinks offers to go with Claudia in case Artie’s
protective instincts are shutting down the visions.
They take Claudia to where Claire is kept, Artefacts
keeping her healthy, but sleeping. They go back in her memories (Claire a
silent guide with her eyes closed) to see Claire buying the music box at a
jumble sale (even as child Claudia tells her not to with her unerring Artefact
sense). On the day of the car crash, her parents argue with Claire and child
Claudia keeps blaming the music box – so Claire uses her new telekinesis wind
to throw it into the fire. Claire destroys it.
They come back to the present and Claudia and Artie are
revealed it wasn’t Claudia who destroyed the box – and even though the silent
guide Claire was in obvious distress watching the scene, she still stayed long
enough so Claudia could see and be reassured.
Myka is facing a much more daunting, terrifying test –
tea with Mrs. Frederick (ugh, is that tea? Is that weak, slightly tinted water
what Americans call tea? What is that?!) Mrs. Frederick also wants to know about
Myka’s baby making plans (because she’s had a life threatening scare and it may
change her priorities) which Myka takes as a question as to how dedicated she
is (because she is so very dedicated to her job). But she says she’s need to
find someone anyway…
And Pete arrives and asks what about him. Myka’s come back is an awesome “see, I already have a child.” But Pete suggests having kids with him (poor Myka – for some reason it seems even worse now Pete has that tragic hair), Mrs. Frederick uses her very very useful teleport power to quickly bail on this discussion. That’s it – that’s the super power I want! TELEPORT FROM AWKWARD CONVERSATIONS! Pete suggests that in 10 years if neither of them find a significant other then… Myka suggests a murder/suicide pact. And she hopes for an Artefact that will kill them before she has to do it
That was some quality snark from Myka, good job, keep
that up.
Anyway, time for the Artefact of the week – in DC a lobbyist
for fracking who has a nice little in with a congressman suddenly starts drowning
in a gym. Nowhere near the water. It’s an anti-corruption Artefact that kills
industry lobbyists? Clearly urgent action is required to make it 10 times more
powerful!
Apparently not and Pete and Myka are called in – and they
meet another 2 Secret Service people as well, Elise and Ted, who they know from
before. A little more pressure pushing together Pete and Myka as a couple (and
more little hints that Pete really wants it to happen). They’re there because
while the victim was a lobbyist there were a lot of VIPs around. They also find
the victim coughed up sand as well as water – sounds unpleasant.
But the big news is they’re alllll working together and that Myka and Pete have a reputation now for doing woo-woo cases. So how do they keep the secret and work with Ted and Elise?
Investigating they find the lobbyist was pushing for fracking on protected lands; so the list of enemies is pretty huge. And Pete flirts with Elise who is very not interested. Then bothers Myka with his plan for platonic baby making
Time for the next victim to die the same way! A senator
who was just ripping up a letter from a constituent, Harriet, he was ignoring.
(Myka notices that Ted has a parking ticket which is apparently suspicious and
will, no doubt, be relevant later). Myka also notices the water the Senator
choked on was salt water. While Elise and Pete interview Diane, the senator’s
chief of staff (and Pete causes minor chaos touching things) who confirms that
he probably worked with the lobbyist because the senator was very much
Team!fossil fuels. And both were working on the same bill; along with 10 other
senators.
Pete and Myka try to call Elise and Ted – but their
phones are turned off, which is odd. Myka and Pete are suspicious by all the…
well, non-clues and vast assumptions. Really, there’s so little basis for their
suspicions it’s beyond dubious. Convinced Elise and Ted are involved they
decide to go to where Ted got his parking ticket… because… reasons.
They go and decide the best thing to do is hold their
colleagues at tesla-point. Yes… really. It turns out their nefarious scheme was
to get married. They kept it quiet because the agency frowns on such
fraternisation. Interruption! There’s another victim
A real estate buyer with no apparent connection to
anything political. (Also more tension between Myka and Pete) but they find
Freddie, the new victim, went from a bar tender to mega-rich so go to his old
job to check the connection. More talk about relationships (Elise re-evaluated
what she wanted in life after a pregnancy scare which is definitely supposed to
be a take on Myka) and Ted is convinced he sees something between Pete and Myka
Anyway to the case, they recognise the logo of the hotel
and remember a big political drama in the past when a woman, Julia, disappeared
during a big political shindig at the hotel. Unproved allegations of affairs,
blackmail, murder et al flew after an anonymous tipster spilled lots of alleged
scandal; the speculation destroyed a senator’s (Kelton) career and marriage and
he committed suicide. That anonymous tipster was probably Freddie, who got a
convenient “inheritance” at the same time. The senator who just drowned won Kelton’s
seat after the scandal; Myka thinks someone’s out for revenge on Kelton’s
behalf against these people who destroyed Kelton. And the next victim will be
Nancy, the reporter who broke the story.
They go to her – and she denies all knowledge, right
before she starts coughing up sea water. They use the Artefact they’ve prepared
– silver from the mines of the Atacama desert, the driest place on Earth, to
stop the drowning. Having saved her life, Pete and Myka brainstorm what
triggered the attack – the last thing Nancy said was she had nothing to do with
the conspiracy. A lie. The drowned senator also lied to his constituent when he
promised to looking into her issue before tearing up her letter. The fracking
lobbyist told the congressman that fracking was absolutely safe before he was
attacked. Their drownings are all triggered by lies (can we have 10 of these in
politics?) They talk to Nancy again and she admits she was paid to run the
story – by Diane, the senator’s chief of staff who objected to Pete touching
everything.
They confront Diane and she admits that they heard about
the woman’s disappearance and made up the whole scandal to implicate Senator
Kelton so they could win the election. They watch her in case she’s the next
victim and she shows them a nifty sword hilt she has – an old souvenir that
screams “Artefact” which she shows to Ted and it glows. Ted continues bickering
with Elise which they have been doing since the marriage – and he lies. And
starts to drown. Diane makes a run for it while Myka uses the Atacama silver to
save Ted; he manages to tell her about the sword hilt.
Myka and Pete brainstorm about Alfred Dreyfus’s sword hilt (and Pete actually having some input for once) and Elise hears all this and has to digest. It also gives them time to think of Diane’s motives – she’s retiring from politics because she “doesn’t have the stomach for it.” So she’s murdering her co-conspirators out of guilt. This woman has an… interesting conscience.
With a random leap of logic they decide Diane’s last victim must be Julia – the girl who went missing that gave them ammunition for the scandal. Now that does seem a stretch. They send Elise with the Atacama silver to the hospital because Nancy and Ted’s lungs keep filling with water. They find the paper trail, including the money that was paid to Julia
They arrive at the scene just as Diane has used the hilt
on Julia and is now trying to provoke her into a lie. Diane runs and barricades
herself in a room – and uses the hilt on herself; then deliberately lies,
claiming her innocence, that she hasn’t hurt anyone. The hilt kicks in; but
Pete and Myka get to her in time to neutralise the hilt.
All ends well, back to the Warehouse (with Elise and Ted
keeping their secret because of the secret marriage thing). And Pete is serious
for once in saying how he’s always there for Myka and if she wants to talk
seriously about babies et al, then yes, he’s therefore her. Which is kind of
declaring his interest – before running away like a schoolboy.
And Claudia declares she’s not giving up on Claire.
The scene with Mrs. Frederick and Myka is awkward and
there’s a big sense of “woman-must-breed” there which Myka has had to deal with
before. Buuuut, pulling back a bit I think there’s another angle as well – in that
the team have, again, helped save Mrs. Frederick and dealt with Mrs. Frederick
up close for an extended period of time. She isn’t just some distant, ominous
authority figure. In other words, Mrs. Frederick is trying to be Myka’s friend
(she’s painfully awkward, her topic of conversation is terrible and Myka is
terribly nervous). While Myka, of course, is seeing her boss asking questions. This
is one of those dynamics that would be awesome to see play out – if only this
weren’t the last season!
There is this ongoing issue that Myka – brilliant,
intelligent, hard working, doing a job that has literally saved a gazillion
lives – is somehow missing something because she isn’t a mother. No-one looks
to Pete as a father (though, admittedly, this could be because he’s a
manchild).
This whole Pete and Myka… I get it, it’s been building
for 5 seasons but I feel almost like they’ve reached the last season and are
now pushing the fast forward because now we have so much crammed into one
episode.
The episode itself was clearly a vehicle to throw these 2
issues, the plot being fairly meh with some big logic leaps.
