Episode Title: "The New Guy"
Writer: Jack Kenny
Director: Stephen Surjik
Previously on "Warehouse 13":
H.G. Wells (Jaime Murray) earned a pardon from the Warehouse Regents on the recommendation of Myka Bering (Joanne Kelly); which in turn led H.G. to join Myka on the Warehouse field team with Pete Lattimer (Eddie McClintock). However, it was an elaborate ruse on H.G.'s part in order to gain access to artifacts that would allow her to destroy the world because of her inability to deal with the death of her daughter.
At the very last instant, Myka was able to talk H.G. out of going through with it. But Myka was so stung by her betrayal that she abruptly resigned from the Warehouse, leaving Pete, Claudia Donovan (Allison Scagliotti) and their boss, Artie Nielsen (Saul Rubinek) behind.
Story:
Chaos erupts a music museum for no apparent reason. The law enforcement personnel on hand believe that a bomb is in the building, but ATF Agent Steve Jinks (Aaron Ashmore) guesses that it is something else. He spots Pete sneaking into the building and he follows him in. Shortly, we see Claudia and Artie also inside the building while attempting to neutralize Jimi Hendrix's guitar before it takes out large area with its power. As Pete tries to free a scantly clad woman pined into a phone booth, Steve holds Claudia and Artie at gun point as they try to lie their way out of the situation. However, Steve can tell when they're lying and he only lets them save the day when they tell him the truth.
Afterwards, Artie shocks Steve into unconsciousness and he notes to Claudia that Pete didn't even hit on the girl that he saved. Later, Steve finds that his superiors don't believe his story about what he saw, but Mrs. Frederic (CCH Pounder) appears to him in his apartment and she offers him a job as the newest agent of the Warehouse. Once Steve arrives at the Warehouse, Claudia greets him at gun point and she teases him before escorting him inside. Almost immediately, Steve and Pete have friction between them before they are assigned to investigate a woman who died under strange circumstances.
Pete and Steve soon find that a second victim died in a similar way to the first. Both victims perished after receiving pages that depicted famous death scenes from Shakespeare's plays, which caused them to utter the bard's words with their last breaths. Steve and Pete also run into resistance from FBI Agent Sally Sikowski (Ashley Williams), who seems unusually uncooperative with them. They soon realize that the only connection between the two victims is a banking conference at a local hotel. Steve suggests brushing up on their Shakespeare to predict the next death, but Pete has a better idea: he brings Steve to see Myka.
Pete finds Myka working at a local bookstore and she refuses to help. But one look at Steve convinces her to offer her expertise. Myka explains that the pages were ripped out of a lost folio of Shakespeare's plays that were cursed by an actor that the bard refused to cast. Whoever touches a page with a death scene suffers the actual demise found on the page unless the victim says the line from the play before they die. Pete then curtly excuses himself and tells Myka that they don't need her help any more. However, Steve sticks around long enough to say that Pete was lying.
At the hotel, Steve is slipped another death page from the lost folio and he begins choking to death. Myka arrives just in time to make him recite the line that frees him from the curse. Afterwards, the three of them team up to scan the hotel security cameras for footage of the man who sent the page to Steve. Once they find him, they race to the banking conference where the man is already in progress of handing out more death pages to the executive panelists. As Steve and Pete try to get past Sikowski's men, Myka saves the victims the same way she helped Steve.
Sikowski grudgingly thanks Steve and Pete for their help. Later, Mrs. Frederic appears to Myka and asks her to return to duty at the Warehouse. And to make sure that she does, Frederic allows Myka to speak to H.G. Wells via a holographic relay. H.G. actually manages to get through to Myka and convince her to retake her destiny. Shortly thereafter, Myka resumes her position at the Warehouse, much to the delight of her friends. But Steve isn't going anywhere. As Pete points out, "you only leave the Warehouse feet first." Elsewhere, a mysterious individual orders the death of the man who passed out the cursed pages. And his executioner turns out to be none other than Sally Sikowski herself.
Breakdown:
"Warehouse 13" certainly didn't waste any time getting Myka back involved with the team. After the cliffhanger in last season's finale, it would have been interesting if she had stayed away longer or if she had conducted a few investigations of their own. The choice to bring her back so quickly makes it seem like the writers felt that the audience wouldn't have any tolerance for a real change in the status quo for any length of time.
Until you see Aaron Ashmore's name on the opening credits, Steve has basically got a target on his back. Ashmore's overall portrayal was fine, but it's readily apparent that Steve's "you're lying" trick is going to get old very quickly. In fact, it was spent by the third time in this episode that Steve did it... and then he did it again more than once! It's a potentially useful ability, but it's also making Steve into a pretty one note character. Was there anything memorable about Steve besides his parlor trick?
Eddie McClintock gave a more restrained performance than usual; which means that Pete wasn't the human loony tune that he usually is. If he acted like a human being more often, Pete would be a lot easier to watch. It was also fun to see Pete essentially being called out for his lame jokes by eliciting almost no laughs for his one liners. Joanne Kelly was also solid as Myka and it was good to see her back in action with Pete and Steve.
Artie and Claudia are usually the most interesting duo on this show, but they were hampered this week with an inane subplot about ancient Greek statues of Zeus and Hera that ultimately didn't add anything to the episode. That was a pretty flimsy way to give them something to do in the story.
The artifacts used for the murders were an effective use of the show's mythology. But the biggest issue with this episode is the new female antagonist, Sally Silkowski as played by Ashley Williams. From her first scene in this episode, Silkowski seemed incredibly vapid and annoying. The revelation that she's working with the currently unnamed villain against the Warehouse team didn't do anything to change that first impression. I just hope that the writers resist the urge to make Silkowski into Pete's new girlfriend so that she has a bigger role before ultimately betraying him.
Aside from some relatively minor issues, the season premiere of "Warehouse 13" was still the most entertaining show on Syfy last night. That probably won't change for the rest of the summer.
Crave Online Rating: 8 out of 10.
For a second opinion review of this episode by Crave Online's Comedy Channel Editor, Sax Carr, go on to the next page!
