Warehouse 13: Duped Review

New TV shows often falter out of the gate as they try to find a rhythm that works. Warehouse 13 has found theirs and it’s a jazzy, off-beat rhythm with a note of humor that runs throughout. I say Duped was their best episode to date owing to two big factors; Joanne Kelly’s dual performance and the style of new director Michael Watkins.

When I say Michael Watkins is new, I only mean to this series. He’s a long-time TV director and producer whose credits include Smallville and X-Files.  Last night’s episode had a glitzy, artsy style that worked so perfectly with both the Vegas plot line and the twisted notion of Wonderland.  I loved the montage that juxtaposed the roulette table with Myka getting dolled up to head out. And there are several hotel room scenes made more interesting because he shot through a vase of flowers. Small details but they add up to a cool style that you may not consciously notice but it gets through.

In the episode, Pete is using Lewis Carroll’s mirror to play ping-pong with himself. I love the way he uses the warehouse as a giant toybox as I know I’d be tempted to do the same. Myka comes by, things go sideways, the disco ball from Studio 54 lights up and the mirror comes crashing down. Being a child of that era, I got a big kick out of the sudden burst of disco music that filled the warehouse as the rays of the glitter ball lit it up like a star gone nova.

But when the dust settles, Myka is trapped in the mirror and her sexy alter-ego (which is really Alice from Wonderland) comes out to play. Of course, no one notices the problem until Myka and Pete are in Las Vegas looking for an artifact that is turning two con artists into perpetual winners.

Jillian and Gary were interesting villains but they’re story got kind of lost in the whole Myka through the looking glass tale. We’re teased with the idea of a coin that shows the future, thus they can see which number is going to hit on a roulette wheel and place their bets accordingly. But when you rub the coin to activate it, it actually burns the skin and with increased use, it appears to cause irreparable damage to the arm and maybe more.

This small fact could have been an interesting thing to explore — how much pain is a person willing to tolerate in exchange for winning? We don’t get to do much of that because Myka (Alice) goes after Gary and boy is she mad when he doesn’t have the coin on him.

Joanne Kelly does a terrific job playing Alice in Myka’s body. She’s raw and sexy and violent — everything Myka is not. And I nearly choked when she slammed Pete up against the wall and kissed him. I love how he said this was the giveaway (even though it wasn’t.)

So evil Alice subdues Pete then takes off for the Warehouse to destroy the mirror with White Rabbit thrumming through the background. It doesn’t get better than that.

Of course, her plans are foiled by Artie and Claudia and Leena, whose had a bigger role these past few weeks and I like that. Leena is to Warehouse 13 as Astrid is to Fringe and I think they’re both under used.

The one thing I didn’t buy in this episode was the very end where Artie says he’ll lock up the mirror — tomorrow — then leaves it out. The disco ball glints and we’re supposed to get that this may not be over. Cute, but it makes no sense for Artie to leave a dangerous artifact on the floor for no reason what so ever.

Favorite lines:

Artie: We do not converse with reflective entities.

Claudia: Why?

Artie: Two words, Bloody Mary.

Did you also catch Pete’s “Kirk, out” ?

As much as I liked this episode, next week’s looks even better and it’s being handled by the same director so I’m expecting to be wow’d.

What did you think of this week’s episode of Warehouse 13?

SyFy Photo: Philippe Bosse