WAREHOUSE 13 Recap: ‘Past Imperfect’

Sometimes I find it hard to fairly analyze an episode of WAREHOUSE 13. It appeals to a wide audience, and I’m not a sci-fi expert or anything like that, so I realize there might be elements to an episode like “Past Imperfect” that I just don’t “get.” But even beyond all of that, this episode really seemed to fall flat. Thoughts from you? More on this later.

The episode begins at Union Station in Denver where Pete and Myka are attempting to snag a pick axe. While Pete is doing the dirty work, Myka is his back-up. But she gets distracted when she sees Leo — the man responsible for killing her former partner, Sam — at that exact location. You’ll remember that Sam was also her love interest (even though he was married at the time) and she felt responsible for his death. He also appeared to Myka a few times in visions earlier in the series. While Myka is freaking out, Pete is having a reaction to the artifact — gray smoke/dust is escaping from his throat, almost like a tracheal implant.

Myka manages to help him in time, but she’s more concerned that Leo is back in town. When she and Pete watch the video footage of station, Pete recommends that they bring in the Denver Secret Service — Myka’s old team. She hesitates and figures that the team also blames her for Sam’s death.

Meanwhile, on a Wisconsin farm, Claudia and Steve Jinks are in the attic of a barn, searching for a particular doorknob. Their cover story is that they are part of a show called “Artifact Roadshow.” Ha! When Jinksy grabs a particular doorknob, it sears his hand, so they know they have a winner. As he and Claudia are leaving the farm, a dog moseys up to them. It seems like a nice dog, but it’s also strange, as the farm owner didn’t have a dog. Suddenly, Steve is struck with what appears to be a poison dart. As Claudia starts to help him, she’s also struck. The darts have some sort of circular ring to them — though, for some reason, the darts are never really investigated. Maybe they’ll show up later in the season? When they recover, they realize the doorknob has been stolen from them. Artie encourages them to at least bring the dog back to the warehouse.

Back in Denver, Pete and Myka are approached by Zack (played by the awesome J. August Richards), a former co-agent of Myka’s. They are also joined by Jim, another former agent. They track down Leo, but when he’s on a tour bus and spots Myka, he makes a run for it. When he escapes, Myka is annoyed and blames Pete.

As the case continues and they realize they are dealing with a time-stopping artifact, Myka waffles back and forth between confidence and confusion. She consults with Alison, Sam’s wife, and she gives her a card — one of those with an annoying song. She doesn’t understand what it means until she realizes that Sam made copies of his work. When she listens to the entire song, the end features a copy of a recording of Leo talking with someone else from the Denver Secret Service, someone who is planning to set Sam up. Myka realizes he wanted her to have that info.

Myka and Pete confront Zack, and he’s shocked. Jim joins them and sets off the artifact just as Zack pulls his weapon on Pete. Myka isn’t affected by the time-freeze and, realizing that Jim was in cahoots with Leo (and therefore assisted in keeping her occupied so she’d be too late to save Sam) she attacks Jim and then saves Pete by shoving Jim into the path of Zack’s bullet.

At the warehouse, Artie and the dog share two hats once owned by a magician and his monkey. The magician used the hat to tell what the monkey was thinking. Artie figures perhaps the dog can remember the license plate number of the car that was at the scene when Claudia and Steve were attacked. Artie barks out some numbers, and sure enough, they are good data. Steve and Claudia look it up, and Steve and Artie are shocked to realize that the car was rented by none other than Sally Stukowski under an alias.

From where I sit, all of the potentially good elements were there — delving into Myka’s past, another chance to see Agent Sally Stukowski do some evil, and J. August Richards (GUNN FROM ANGEL! WHOO!) guest starring! But the end result just was not cohesive or serious enough to work out. It seems strange to call WH13 out on not being serious enough, since a lot of times, I love its lighthearted quality. But this ep relied on cheap hijinks (hooking Artie and the dog up to those hats, Claudia and Steve chasing the dog around the warehouse, Claudia slobbering profusely) instead of quirky punchlines, and it showed.

I wish I could say that besides the doggy b-plot, Myka and Pete’s case was better, but it also felt disjointed, and for that I blame the way the writers have used Myka’s character over the past few years. This episode was a microcosm of how they’ve tried to make her interesting, smart, sexy, sometimes emotional, sometimes rational. But more often than not, that hodgepodge of “characteristics” means she just ends up looking confused — staring at Pete with wide eyes and coming to conclusions after the fact. When a character is constantly confused like that, it leaves the audience confused, especially if it doesn’t seem like it’s the writers’ intent to have it that way. They WANT her to come off as interesting, smart, sexy, emotional and rational, but for me, it never plays out that way and I find I don’t really care what happens to her.

Perhaps I’m being too harsh, but it doesn’t seem like anyone is doing Myka’s character any favors. Here’s an example: we’ve already seen Myka quit the warehouse recently and re-join the team. And JUST when we’d all agreed that it was time for them to STOP mentioning that, we get this case where she gets discouraged and she quits on the team who wants to solve her ex-partner’s (in and out of bed) death. What are the writers trying to prove here? Is it that she’s still having issues of loyalty? Will she still quit on Pete if it gets tough?

I know I’m sort of getting off on a tangent here, but one way the show managed to keep her character relevant in the past is that she was getting closer to Pete while also getting advice from Artie and sharing girl talk with Leena and Claudia. What are your thoughts on this and Myka’s character? Are the writers setting the viewers up for a bigger change, do you think?

Maybe I’m just over-thinking it. I’d love to hear your opinion on this and on the episode as a whole. Did you like the two cases? Are you curious to know more? Let’s discuss!