Warehouse 13 Wednesday: All The Time In The World

EPISODE 4.19: "All The Time In The World"

Original Air Date: 01 July 2013

PETE: "We can't just go digging holes all over Istanbul."

 Warning: This review certainly contains spoilers

This episode was a fun episode but was not as exciting as some of the other Season Four episodes.  Some fans of the show already disagree with me and think the whole season stinks. I think the second half has been one of the best half seasons. I had to alter my Spoiler Warning notice slightly due to the fact that this episode continues from the previous episode "Lost & Found" and relies on that episode and a few other recent episodes for the plot and some of the guest character backgrounds and IDs. There were some facts from "Lost & Found" that I did not want to reveal in my review last week but due to their importance to this episode's main plot I am forced to reveal for this one. Please excuse me for that.

OK so to start things off with a Bang and a Boom we know from last episode that Nick (Josh Blaylock) has freed Paracelsus (Anthony Head) from the Bronze sector and that they have now bronzed Claudia. One of the facts from last episode I didn't want to spoil, but is a major plot point ***SIGH***. Using some artifact that wasn't explained Nick shows Paracelsus a Reader's Digest vision of the last few hundred years to bring him up to speed. They leave and later the team assumes that Nick has been kidnapped by Paracelsus.

Steve is first on the scene to discover Bronze Claudia and notifies Artie and the team with the disturbing news. Using a recording of a warehouse artifact a durational spectrometer to try to figure out what Nick and Paracelsus were up to. Shortly after viewing the recording, Myka notices that several artifacts are missing from the inventory. They try unsuccessfully to debronze Claudia but the Bronzing Machine isn't working. The reason Artie discovers is that the bronze statue (Stele) that powers the machine is gone. They find a note on the inside of the panel that held the bronze stele that says "Sutton knows what I want". So it is off to find Sutton (James Marsters).

Through flashbacks from a few centuries ago we learn that Paracelsus is responsible for making Nick and his parents Charlotte (Polly Walker) and Sutton immortal by using an artifact known as The Philospher's Stone (a geode). Artie and the team had found half of the stone last episode. After being made immortal the stone was cut in two by Sutton years ago and he made a ring out of some of the crystal inside that gave him the power to revive dead plants. At the bed and breakfast where they are holding Charlotte, we also learn that Paracelsus is Sutton's brother. In an odd sort of way that helps explain why he chose them for his immortality experiments. In the flashbacks he explains that he need a man, a woman and a child, to see how gender and age are affected by the process. Charlotte explains that over the centuries she and Nick have learned how difficult it is for him to be stuck in immortality at age fifteen stuck between childhood and being a man. Both Charlotte and Nick wish for him to become mortal again to end his eternal suffering of not being able to love someone naturally.

The need to debronze Claudia is made more urgent due to deterioration due to Paracelsus using the bronze stele directly and not the bronzing chamber. The team needs to save Claudia super fast. Mrs. Frederic (CCH Pounder) tells Artie that there are some restricted files that she needs to find to help the situation, and that will explain the mystery surrounding Paracelsus. Artie and Steve notice that Mrs. F. is walking away instead of her usual vanishing act. She discovers that the files she needed were redacted. She also seems to be quickly developing dementia. Regent Mr. Kosan explains to Artie that as the caretaker of the warehouse she is "hardwired" into it and he takes him to the heart/nerve center of the warehouse where they discover a problem that is causing Mrs. F's rapid development of dementia and declining health.

Several artifacts are used to try to help stabilize Claudia until they can unbronze her which they eventually are able to do successfully. Through Mr. Kosan we learn that there is a Keeper of the warehouse who is the "living memory" of the warehouse that can access the redacted information from the files concerning Paracelsus. It turns out that the keeper is Abigail (Kelly Hu). It is through her that we discover the actual cause of Mrs. F's condition and another secret of Paracelsus that will of course be partly carried out in next week's episode which is the season finale and a big end of season cliffhanger. I'll keep some of that info under my hat until next week's review.

I give this episode 3 Warehouse artifacts ***

Warehouse 13 Wednesday: What Matters Most

EPISODE 4.17 "What Matters Most"

Original Air Date: 17 June 2013

Claudia: "All right, Bilbo Baggins, you're on!"

 Warning: this review may contain spoilers

Once again, in my opinion, we have an episode where the B plot is more interesting than the A plot. It concerns a more exciting artifact with effects that are more apparent when first discovered. Finding the artifact though is potentially more difficult but fortunately, Team Warehouse finds it, maybe too fortunately but I'm getting ahead of things.

Things start off in a posh gated community suburb in Ohio where the area District Attorney goes out to get his morning paper, screams about burning up and dies, the initial report Artie receives is he died of several symptoms and suspected poisoning. Myka and Pete are sent to the picture perfect "1950s" suburbia to investigate. Meanwhile in New York there is a report of a teenager writing graffiti in the form of advanced mathematical and physics formulas instead of the usual gang tagging. After some minor bickering at the B&B, partly because of some breakfast scones Abigail made/bought, Artie and Claudia go to the big apple, while Steve remains behind with the excuse that the rest of his stuff finally arrived and he needs to "unpack". He and Abigail will be the subject of Plot C cleaning out the Warehouse neutralizer/Gooery and Steve getting his chance to be analyzed by Abigail and follow her advice.

Myka and Pete have little time to figure out what the artifact is that they are looking for and who has it. They are eventually led to the neighborhood gossip who turns out to have been widowed and took her revenge on neighbors who had "sinned". The artifact is a salt mask form the time of Sodom and Gomorrah, made from the impression of Lot's wife who was turned into salt for disobeying God's order to not look back at the city of Sodom while he was destroying it. Of course the show doesn't specifically say it was Lot's wife they just said it was made from someone who was "encased" in salt (slightly inaccurate Biblical references). The housewife baked some of the salt into some cookies and whoever ate the cookies were punished by their greatest unconfessed sin.

Artie and Claudia find the boy who is suffering from seizures caused by is young developing mind being tapped by Orville Wright's aviator goggles. The goggles allow the wearer to psychically tap into someone's mind and sending them into a trance to use their brainpower to perform a mental task and mirror it. The boy claims to be an orphan who has been in the foster system and doesn't want to return to anymore bad foster parents. Claudia having "been there, done that" takes pity on him and invites him back to the B&B for a while until he can decide where he wants to go.

Overall I enjoyed the episode, but as I said the A plot was not as exciting as the B plot. There were a few very strong emotional moments near the end that I won't spoil. Also the mysterious lady from a few episodes ago, who was named in this episode's "Previously  on Warehouse 13" prologue, Charlotte Dupres (Polly Walker) looks to be returning next episode. I have a feeling that she will be involved in Season Ending Cliffhanger as she is part of an ongoing season arc.

I give this episode 3 Warehouse artifacts ***