Warehouse 13 Wednesday: Runaway

EPISODE 4.16 "Runaway"

Original Air Date: 10 June 2013

PETE: "Look, don't blame me if you get swallowed up by lava"
MYKA: "I'm totally blaming you."

 Warning: this review contains spoilers

The episode started out with a blast, or rather an oozing of molten lava. A couple of prison inmates escape with the help of an artifact that spews molten lava like an acetylene torch on high spray reminiscent of a WWII flame thrower. The artifact is a Amphora from Pompeii originally owned by a merchant who survived the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D. The prison escapees have ties to a gang called The Turks. Things get interesting quickly as it is revealed that the US Marshal, assigned to tracking down the escapees,  Liam Napier (Charlie Weber) is the ex-boyfriend of Steve Jinks.

Meanwhile for plot B Artie is planning surprises for Claudia's 21st birthday. While collecting some artifacts from the warehouse to enhance the party decorations, which includes Jerry Garcia's blackbulb - a black lightbulb that enhances any artwork by converting the visuals to neon colors to make the colors literally "pop" out, Artie gets "popped" by an original bouncy ball which repeatedly hits his face and the face of Ludwig Van Beethoven's Clock. The clock causes the victim to hear Beethoven's opuses and eventually go deaf. He and Claudia discover they need to find a specific statue that neutralizes the clock's effects to restore Artie's hearing.

While tracking the escapees Myka and Pete having realized that Liam is Steve's Ex manipulate things to pair up Liam and Steve in the investigation. One of the escapees is killed by the other and the remaining escapee is hunting down Turk gang members to keep his son from joining them, but he might be a bit too late.

Steve and Liam eventually make up and together with Myka and Pete retrieve the amphora. I found it interesting that Myka didn't burn her hand off when she closed the lid of it to stop the flow of lava, maybe a little miscue from the special effects. Artie and Claudia retrieve the neutralizing statue and the team celebrates Claudia's birthday at a nightclub sans clowns at a night club A la The P3 in "Charmed". The final scene is complete with a music act in the form of Cherie Currie (of The Runaways with Joan Jett) who brings birthday girl Claudia on stage with her, hands her an acoustic guitar, and with no previous rehearsal they jump into the Runaway's hit song "Cherry Bomb". Anyone who has seen the biographical movie "The Runaways" (2010) is probably sick of that song as it was repeated ad nauseum in that film. This is the second or maybe third time the series has showcased the singing/musical talent of "Claudia" played by Allison Scagliotti.

Had they left out the Charmed-esk end scene I probably would have liked this episode a little better (I love Charmed but the final scene in P3 with some current yet obscure new wave/pop/rock band was way over done in that series), but then without the scene there would be one less reason for this episode to be called "Runaway". The three inspirations for the title seem to be the prison escapees, Jinks original split with Liam and of course Cherie's appearance.

I give this episode  3.4 Warehouse Artifacts***.4