Now that the gang is finally back together (and all living), it's time to get back to artifact business, and they've got a doozy this week, as the evil Sykes has managed to reach beyond the grave to torment everybody one more time. Weird science!
But first we get a scene that scared the hell out of me. Steve is in his room ... packing up his things. A wistful Claudia looks on, and I could imagine her thinking, "I brought you to life, and now you're leaving me? Typical man." Thankfully, it's a false alarm, as Steve is just moving his things from the Dead Agent's Vault back to the B&B. And I agree with Steve that the vault is about the creepiest thing in the warehouse, besides the Lupe Velez toilet bowl and Roberto Benigni Academy Award.
Claudia and Steve head to the mission briefing where Pete is giving a very Pete-esque speech about how now that everyone is back, there need to be guidelines about who gets what in the B&B. He's talking about the water situation, but I would've loved to hear his big "SNACKS" debate. Leena tells him that the house is old, and he simply can't take 30 minute showers, but Pete needs his, ahem, "power shower," and he wanted to use up the rest of the peppermint body scrub.
Steve points out that the scrub was his, but he couldn't use it because he was, you know, dead, and Pete accuses him of using the "dead card." Yep, things are definitely back to normal.
"And if you're going to take a shower right after I do, I recommend you let the water drain completely first. Trust me."
Artie interrupts to announce the next mission. A cleaning woman in North Dakota was hospitalized with all of the symptoms of a spider bite, but she had no marks on her. The venom inside her was from a rare South American spider named ... something something big ass spider (I couldn't understand the name).
Actually, Steve interrupts Artie with the name of the spider, and says he's seen the artifact that causes it. It's a small wooden token that was part of a collection of artifacts that belonged to Sykes, and he kept them in large crates labeled Acme A-Z Technologies, but by the time he moved them, Steve was dead. Ugh. The dead card again, Steve?
They find out that Sykes had a house he was keeping for appearances, and Pete and Myka head out to investigate.
Pete demonstrates his "Power Shower" faces. Seriously, let it drain completely.
Pete and Myka search through the Sykes house and realize that the crates in the cellar have been broken into, and the artifacts are gone. But curiously, the alarm in the house never went off, so they deduce that the thief must have known the alarm code. They head over to the alarm company, and the nervous employee literally tries to jump out a window to escape them. Could he be hiding something?
He quickly breaks down and confesses that he let a friend into the house to rob it, and the plan was for the friend to pawn whatever he found, and they would split the money. Pete and Myka head over to the pawn shop ... just in time to see it explode.
After the dust clears, Claudia, Steve, Artie, and Leena (making a rare investigation appearance) show up, and they learn that six artifacts from the Sykes collection have been sold, and are out there somewhere waiting to cause trouble. And worse, the thief kept one of the artifacts for himself... a very strange pipe (more on that later). Myka and Pete are assigned to go after the thief with the pipe, Leena and Artie will search for golf clubs and a violin, and Steve and Claudia will go after a waffle iron, birdcage, and sunglasses. The race is on!
Everything you need to know about Pete Lattimer
"Thongs give me a rash"
*Actual Jinksy Quote
Steve and Claudia
Let's start with our favorite pair, who head over to a lingerie shop to find an employee who may have bought the sunglasses. It turns out that the glasses belonged to John Macready, the pilot who first developed Raybans, and the sunglasses "reflect light so well that the wearer becomes invisible to the human eye, though they are still visible through cameras. When taken off, the user becomes blind for twice as long as the time worn."
But why would a straight male lingerie shop employee want to be invisible? The question is answered when a half naked woman runs from the dressing rooms, screaming about a "ghost."
Claudia heads into the back to investigate while Steve watches from the security monitor, prompting this exchange between him and the salesgirl, which is the best scene of the episode.
Salesgirl: "You're really not supposed to be watching the dressing room monitors. It's corporate policy."
Steve: "It's okay, I'm a federal agent. Also, I'm gay."
Salesgirl (wide-eyed and excited): "Oh My God, do you watch Revenge?"
Steve (confused and a little frightened): "Umm .... No."
"Will you be my Nolan?"
Claudia can't see the culprit, but Steve can see him in the monitor, and when he runs out, Steve clotheslines the guy, knocking him to the ground. Claudia snags and bags the glasses. One down, two more to go! They head off to find the next artifact, but Claudia grabs her upper arm first, in obvious discomfort. Why should Claudia's arm be in pain, when it was Steve's arm that brought the guy down? Oh well, I'm sure it's nothing.
They head off to the bird sanctuary next, and have no problems finding the birdcage ... or the killer birds that it causes. Steve carefully picks up the cage and tosses it to Claudia, and they both make a mad dash to the car to secure it, but not before Claudia get pecked on the neck ... or she thinks. Strangely, there is no mark on her neck, but Steve notices that he does have a bird peck on his neck, in the same area that Claudia thought she had been injured. Steve senses a pattern happening. A horrible, downside-to-the-metronome kind of pattern.
Steve always has his choice of peckers.
Leena and Artie
Meanwhile, let's move over to Leena and Artie, who have no trouble retrieving the violin, but run into a bit of a snag trying to get the golf clubs back. They belonged to golfer Bobby Jones, who stormed off the course at the 1921 British open after dumping his clubs on the green. They find the clubs, but the nine iron is missing, and whoever wields it will find "a minor annoyance magnifying into a furious rage."
It ends up in the hands of a discontented mother and regimented wife, who takes out her frustrations on her husband and his golf buddies. Just as she's about to major damage, Artie manages to grab the club from her, transferring the bad juju to him. As Leena tries to get the handy spray neutralizer out to nullify it, Artie starts spouting off about how he's had to sacrifice everything, but he can't tell anyone that he saved them, as Leena looks on in astonishment.
They neutralize the club, but when Leena asks Artie what the hell just happened, and what did he mean by all of that, he brushes it off, and changes the subject.
"And I still can't believe I lost Daphne Moon to that OCD asshat Niles Crane!"
Pete and Myka
So Pete and Myka are tasked with finding the thief with the pipe, and after a series of incidents involving freaky weather, they realize that whoever uses the pipe can cause ... freaky weather. The thief is named Jesse, and if he looks familiar, it's because he's played by Brian J. Smith, who provided plenty of eye candy on Stargate Universe.
Jesse is not actually a bad guy,he just needs money so his sick younger brother can get a heart transplant. That's why he's using the pipe to knock over banks and armored cars, and that's why he threatens to destroy the hospital if Dee Wallace doesn't save his bro.
"I'm sorry, there's just no way we can fix his heart. Is there any way he can ... wait for it ... phone home?"
Pete and Myka head to the roof to try and stop him, but when he almost blows them off the building, they have to come up with a different plan. Luckily, Steve and Claudia show up, and they decide that their only option is for Pete to don the invisibility glasses and try to take him out. Jesse catches on to the plan, but not before Pete is able to knock the pipe out of his hand, bringing blue skies back.
Jesse is ... heartbroken ... when he realizes that not even the money he's gathered to pay for the surgery will be enough to save his brother, as they still need a compatible donor. So he does what he needs to do. He grabs the pipe one more time and brings a lightning bolt down, killing himself, and thus giving his brother the compatible ticker he needs.
So Jesse did have a good heart, after all. Well, hopefully.
The inevitable result of too many "Power Showers."
So with all of the artifacts accounted for, the gang heads back to the Warehouse, but first Steve needs to perform one last test. He picks up a pin and pricks his finger. He feels nothing, but Claudia immediately says "Oww" and shakes her finger ... as it had just been pricked by a pin. Oh jeez. Confirmed!
The episode ends with Artie making a call to a mysterious stranger asking for help finding the stabby artifact that's haunting his dreams.
Another great episode, and unfortunately we now know that the metronome downside is a whopper. Claudia feels Steve's pain ... and not in a BFF way. It'll be interesting to see where they take this. Can Claudia also feel Steve's pleasure? Because that would be intriguing, especially if Steve takes any "Power Showers," or if he actually gets laid.
What did you think of this week's episode?
