This season’s season-long story arc (e.g., the “big bad”) was an interesting and plausible premise for the Warehouse, and I’m glad the writers decided to run with it. With all of the artifacts the agents are nabbing away from the public, there’s bound to be a couple out there that have powers a person would gladly take, side-effects and all. We’ve seen that happen time to time, but it was only a matter of time someone would decide that item was worthy of a life-long endeavor to get the artifact back again. What the WH13 agents need is a Men-in-Black-like mind wiping device, so the public isn’t seeing them take these amazing artifacts away from them, with their purple gloves and goo.
This finale is reminiscent of the first season finale, when we were left believing Artie perished in the Warehouse 13 tunnel explosion. Back then, I thought it was pretty easy to assume that Artie was holding onto a particular artifact — the Phoenix — in order to stave off death, which turned out to be the case. In this finale, however, things were left a bit less ambiguous; I’m not sure how I feel about that. One one hand, trying to figure out how the show will continue in its fourth season would be some cool talking points for the next few months; on the other hand, maybe we’re left with what appears to be the obvious path forward, only to have things turn around on us completely next season.
Take for example Jinks’s death. There’s no denying he’s dead as a doornail, but I can’t be the first person to right-away assume that whatever was keeping Marcus Diamond alive would be what brings Jinks back to life. And, just like that, Claudia brings that up as her intent. It removed the guessing for what’s to come, when at the same time it’s possible it won’t happen at all. Though, it would be cool if Jinks were allowed to be an immortal member of the team … but at what cost? Likely he’ll be back for at least a portion of the premiere, only to be left to die when an awful side-effect is discovered, or that Steve simply doesn’t want to be kept alive with an artifact. Then there’s also another artifact. …
That artifact would be the pocket watch, initially given to Artie by MacPherson in season two (“Mild Mannered”). At a moment when viewers could have been left with one hell of a question to ponder before season four commences, we’re shown what’s likely to simply reverse at least some portion of what transpired within the past couple of hours. Obviously we’ll left to believe that the pocket watch can alter time in some way, allowing Artie to rewind back a bit and change what went on, hence rescuing the warehouse and poor Mrs. Frederick … and possibly Jinks. If the pocket watch is able to go back in time, I have a tip for Artie: make H.G. put that force field over the bomb, not you guys! Did that not irritate the hell out of anyone else — that she didn’t put the field around the bomb instead of the people?
Speaking of annoying decisions, when Sykes was using the riding crop artifact to control H.G. to aim a gun at his lackey’s head, to force him to make the chess piece move … why didn’t he just use the riding crop on the kid, to force his hand to move?
It was noted somewhere before that Regents possibly attain their high status because of being affected by artifacts in some way, permanently. I’m starting to wonder if regent Jane Lattimer’s artifact “gift” is keep intuition, which she appears to have, along with her son, Pete. Did the artifact’s abilities pass onto her son?
Annoyances aside, it was one hell of a finale. I, for one, hope the happenings in these two hours aren’t simply wiped away with a simple use of Artie’s pocket watch, and instead we’ve got a whole slew of new things to deal with. A zombie-like Jinks, perhaps? Some insight into why Mrs. Frederick died along with the warehouse’s destruction? (My guess is she’s kept young and alive via one of the artefacts in the warehouse, and she died when it was destroyed.)
Clacked by Keith McDuffee 
on Oct 03, 2011 @ 23:00 EST5EDT
I hope the warehouse stays gone and they build a new warehouse 13 in a new location, some new small weird town. It would be fun to see a season of “restocking” the warehouse with all sorts of new things. See what super techie-freaky computer system Claudia comes up with for safeguarding the warehouses’ secrets. I hope they give Myka a boyfriend at some point (though I thought Myke and HG were going to hook up at some point). I liked Jinx a lot, Claudia needs a break from despair. While she did get her brother back – it’s too soon for her to feel such loss again Pete telling Claudia to back to the car – was that heart-breaking or what? I actually got teary-eyed. I will miss HG Wells, if she is truly dead – I loved the character.
*POST AUTHOR*
But wouldn’t it need to be called Warehouse *14* then?
I guess it depends. If a warehouse is destroyed, is the name then retired or do they rebuild it and rename it Warehouse 13 again? I mean with every Enterprise Starship – they renamed it the Enterprise and just added a letter but rarely was the ship referred to as the Enterprise A, B, C, etc…more often then not it was just the Enterprise. The same thing could be held true here as well.
Considering Alexandria was one of the original warehouses and it was destroyed, I’m guessing they’d go with 14.
Well Arti had that watch in his hands so theres got to be a time travel thing going on with that.
Hey dose anyone know the name of that Ridding Crop artifact? I wanted to rename an item in Team Fortress 2 after it.
*POST AUTHOR*
Team Fortress 2! Sweet!
Yeah it was called Cecil B. Demille’s riding crop.
An answer to the question
“why didn’t he just use the riding crop on the kid, to force his hand to move?”
Although it was not explained at all, I think that possibly the Cecil B. DeMille’s Crop can only control one person at a time. Either that or the writers just hoped no one would notice it :D
I think the real concerning question is, what happened to the dog.
The riding crop wasn’t used on the boy because Syke’s didn’t know what chess move to make. He needed Wells to give the answer, which she might not have done without the crop being used. I mean, she probably would have given an answer to save the kid, but Sykes had no way of knowing that.
The biggest ending ever and as for mrs Fredrick. I think she died because the warehouse is gone. And what about her son. If I remember right she says to Petes mom about a kid of her own. Another thing if the watch brings back time before jinks dies wouldn’t sykes come back?! Also When is Pete gonna date mika WHEN! Also would mrs laddamer turn evil. That’s the reverse effect of the braclet. So many questions AND NO DOG!!!!! OH THE HORROR!!!!!!
I’m not going to lie … Jinks’ death probably had more of an impact on me than any TV death I’ve seen in quite some time. Maybe because I didn’t see it coming (and by see it coming, I mean being spoiled out an “upcoming death” months in advance), but most likely because of Claudia’s scream. She’s just too much of a “positive” character to have to endure that type of loss.
I was bothered by HG Wells not putting the shield around the bomb, but that’s TV logic for you, what with the noble sacrifices and the desire to finish a character’s arc (I guess I really have to go back and watch the back half of last season, which I kinda ended up skipping).
I don’t think, though, that the metronome will be used on Jinks, but instead of Mrs. Frederic.
I, too, will be disappointed if the watch will be used to just turn back time and erase what happened. That would really be a cheap out.
I think the reason Wells couldn’t put the shield around the bomb is because it was designed to exclusively to activate and protect Warehouse 13 and it’s agents.
Did anyone else notice the shot to the metronome after Mrs. Frederick died? I’m wondering if Claudia will have to choose whether to bring back Mrs. Frederick, for the good of the Warehouse or Jinxy, her friend.
ok, enough with the why didnt she put the FField around the bomb, its easier to deflect an explosion then to contain it. As for the dog, he was probably at the B&B. And we will not be seeing warehouse 13, he will rewind the clock. On another note, they could have just touched the Phoenix, which I think HG might have.
That be weird if shed been touching the phoenix but also a little corny. The death of hg wells was to make up for trying to destroy the world. Also the risk of putting a shield that small around an exposion so be would have likely would have made it worse if it failed. Mrs Fredric is dead no matter what unless that watch turns back time.
Warehouse 14 ? That’d be interesting. Relocate it in Key West, Puerto Rico, or Honolulu instead of the windy, chilly Oklahoma / Nebraska / wherever prairie ! :)
Sure, they could use the watch to just go back in time & change everything or PREVENT everything from being destroyed, prevent H.G. Wells & Mrs. Fredericks from dying, Claudia could bring Steve back to a semblance of life with that metronome, but it would be something of a cheat. other sci – fi series’ have done that kind of thing. If they’re going to kill people off, it should not be REVERSIBLE. Serious, believable drama demands that even characters we care about & love should stay dead when they get killed, otherwise the character death is a cheat ( keeping in mind that some beloved science -fiction characters such as SG’s Daniel Jackson & SG Atlantis Dr. Carson Beckett, also Star Trek’s Spock have been ” resurrected ” in various fashions because of their popularity ).
YESS!! FRIGGEN PUT THE FF OVER THE BOMB. Wow, and here I was lead to believe HG was revolutionary.
The forcefield bothered me, too, but all I can think of is the firecracker analogy. In the palm of your hand, a small burn, maybe. In a closed fist, no more fist. If she had tried to contain the blast in the forcefield, it wouldn’t have worked too well. Better to protect life and know it’ll work, than to contain the bomb and have it not work at all.
Ms. Frederick is gone, she was linked to the Warehouse and without the Warehouse she’s dead. Claudia will be the new “Ms. Fredrick”, since that is her fate.
I for one, have no opinion on the save the people vs. contain the bomb thing. HG has < 56 seconds to decide what to do, knee jerk reaction is to save people. Never once occurred to me to contain bomb… Besides, does protection from Bomb = containing bomb ?
Secondly, yes, I too fell for the whole whatever is keeping Marcus alive…That was after, I thought that Jinx would have had a life-saving artifact on him the whole time, that from the get-go everyone would know his life was in danger…And having the bad guys think he was dead, was a part of the plan. I do hope he is back next season. He and HG added a much needed arc to the show…
I wouldn't mind a bit of a redo, which some-how I believe they will do. We lost too many "core" characters, and yes, I believe Jinx/HG have become core characters…It's how it was apparent Jinx was undercover. They personalized him to much, for his character to be meant only to become rogue. Plus, it's always a pleasure to watch Michael Anthony Hall, so I do hope we get an "alternate" ending.
Lastly, I think the hole Riding device use, was to show us HOW controlling Sykes needed to be…It wasn't just a means to an ends. Thusly, just getting the portal open, wasn't his only needs. He makes that clear, wanting to make Jane suffer with watching her son die, before her own death.
I think he had to use the crop on HG to keep her under control – the boy was already locked in the chair, so he wasn’t a threat. And she knew the man who invented the device, so he needed her to figure out the booby trap.
The climax was emotionally devastating enough that I’m glad they ended with the pocket watch scene giving a bit of hope. It would be more of a cheat if they went a whole year without giving the audience that little hint.
The office was only destroyed in a digital explosion, so it’ll be Warehouse 13 again. I’m assuming the pocket watch only goes back one hour or less, and either gets destroyed or has some other drawback to prevent its use every week.
Mrs. Frederick was the Caretaker for the Warehouse, and I believe DanGarion’s explanation is completely correct. I suspect it isn’t tied to a specific artifact, that she’s looked the same age since she took over from the previous Caretaker, and that her body at the end reflected her true age. So her son is likely long dead, and the same fate will probably befall her when she steps aside for Claudia.
I’m betting on Jinks not wanting to be kept undead forever through the metronome, but it will allow Claudia the goodbye scene she was denied here.
Another one here who didn’t blink about H.G. using the jury-rigger barrier to protect people. As others have mentioned, it’s a simple question of physics. H.G. was only able to re-route a portion of the barrier, so it has much less power than the entire dome covering the Warehouse. If she had put the Blitz stone in the tiny barrier, the pressure of the blast would have been thousands of times greater than the explosion that we witnessed fill the enormous space. The combination of the two factors made H.G.’s choice much more likely to succeed. She did say, “I just hope it lasts,” indicating that even this solution was not certain to protect them.
Also, the first thing H.G. says to Myka is, “I’m sorry. It was the only way I could think to save you.” As with Myka and the Janus coin, neither of them are thinking rationally where the other’s continued existence is concerned this episode. They even end with the device of the slow zoom into the two of them staring into each other’s eyes as the rest of the world, signified by Artie and Pete’s pleas to find another way, fades away around them.
The riding crop was more sadistic, as Sykes used it to force H.G. into being responsible for the kid’s death either through the puzzle or through shooting him. Also, as with Pete and Jane, Sykes was expecting Pete and Myka to follow him (he called out to them by name seconds after they arrived), and was counting on putting Myka in the chair to force H.G. to do her best to solve the puzzle. If he was holding the gun instead of H.G., they would have just shot him.
The logic of these questions was fairly apparent to me. More troubling were the unanswered questions of how Stukowski, who was according to the newspaper article about her death a real FBI Agent, ever passed a single psychological exam at the Bureau, and how two U.S. Secret Service agents entered the People’s Republic of China with their duty sidearms (they could at least have passed off the Teslas as toy gun presents for children).
Loved Claudia’s slow, deliberate ending of Marcus best. Called back to how dark she was when she originally broke into the Warehouse and kidnapped Artie.
For me, the perfect opening scene for next season would be the dog trotting up to the burning remnants of the Warehouse, holding the Football in his mouth.
The reason she didn’t put the force field around the bomb is that she wasn’t sure it would hold it. And she wanted to save the agents not the warehouse. She even says “This should hold. I think…”
When Pete had that look of shock on his face after he ran up the stairs and then told Claudia to back out I thought to myself, “Could Steve really be dead?”
Then when Claudia ran up the stairs and screamed I thought, “I think he rally is dead!”
Then when they showed him dead I realized it was true. I literally jumped out my chair and yelled “YES!”
I’ve been doing the happy dance ever since. Dang I hated that character.
So for next season let’s hope Claudia uses the metronome on Mrs. Fredricks and Steve-o stays dead. But, somehow I think Arty is going to turn back time with that stopwatch and bring everybody back to life including Agent Jinx.
Then I will just not watch Warehouse 13 anymore.
i want h.g. to come back so myka and her can be together