Warehouse 13 Recaps: Episode Three "A Faire to Remember"

After the shipping drama of last week it was nice to return to some good old fashioned artifact chasing and the usual ensuing hijinks in this week’s episode.

Pete and Jinksie investigated an unusual death at a Renaissance Faire which naturally gave Pete the opportunity to dress up and get into the spirit of things while his colleague was less than enamored by his surroundings. Elsewhere Claudia was attempting to save her sister and causing all manner of drama in the process.

Highlights of this week’s episode:

• Claudia and Claire’s Garbage sing-a-long at the coffee shop (made even better by the wonderful singing voice of Allison Scagliotti).
• “I can’t imagine life without my sister.”
• Pete walking around with a giant corn cob minutes after his arrival at the Faire.
• “Swords!”
• Whammied Myka finally revealing her feelings about going through her cancer scare alone.
• To someone dressed as a giant chess pawn: “You know they’re just using you, right?”
• Pete & Jinksie chasing a fortune-teller through a Renaissance Faire.
• “I’m not a cliche. I don’t watch the Oscars either.”
• Claudia and Claire brokenly singing together through tears.
• “Dammit, I’m getting old. I used to be faster than the KGB.”
• Artie’s heartfelt apology and broken “damn it” when Myka hugged him.
• “From now on, we do everything together… We’re family here. None of us have to go through anything alone. Ever.”

With all the focus on Claudia’s plot and the potential for a Pete/Myka relationship to suddenly become canon, Jinksie hasn’t had a whole lot of screen time lately. It was great to see him out on an artifact hunt with Pete and taking the lead a little more this week. The Ren Faire setting could have been used badly so it was especially refreshing to see the series maintain his non-stereotypical character by having him be the one rolling his eyes at the costumes and showy atmosphere whilst refusing Pete’s entreaties to dress up as a knight. Pete, of course, was in his element; honestly I was surprised only by how long it took him to end up in costume.

Away from the episode’s main case, Claudia was going behind Artie’s back in an effort to free her sister from the influence of Frances Farmer‘s music box. As we know well by now, combining artifacts is rarely a good idea but that doesn’t seem to stop the cast from trying out the technique any time something bad happens.

Really, you would think that by now Claudia would have figured out that stealing artifacts and messing with them rarely goes well–remember Volta’s lab coat?! Seeing her reunited with her sister was sweet although it did bring back the ongoing issue of “where the heck is Joshua in all this?” We have no idea how aware Joshua is regarding his sister’s fate but it does seem more than a little surprising that he has barely been mentioned at all through this entire arc.

As uncomfortable as it was to hear Myka’s angry revelations during the time she was whammied by the music box, it was nice to see the show giving her hastily wrapped up cancer arc a little more emotional context. The conclusion did feel a little cliched as Claire retook her place inside the artifact-induced coma to save a woman she barely knew, but that didn’t stop her final scene with Claudia from being utterly heartbreaking–and dammit now I can’t listen to “When I Grow Up” without crying.

The final scene of the episode really encapsulated what I love about the warehouse as the group reunited as a family and agreed not to keep secrets from one another anymore. Knowing that the cast were aware they were filming the show’s final episodes at this point, and therefore would soon be going their separate ways for good, it was especially hard to hear the way Artie’s voice broke during those final lines. I know that I found myself wondering just how much of that was Artie and how much was Saul?