Warehouse 13 Recap: “The Greatest Gift” Christmas Special

Fans of Warehouse 13 on Syfy Network who are still feeling melancholy over last season’s downer finale where H.G. Wells (Jaime Murray) sacrifices herself and the entire Warehouse 13 burns down will rejoice in this year’s Christmas Gift to fans, titled, “The Greatest Gift”; an homage to Frank Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life. Warehouse 13’s Christmas Gift to fans follows Pete Lattimer (Eddie McClintock) in his discovery of what life would be like for his friends if he never existed. The whole show builds up to a tear jerker ending where he realizes he’s touched every single person’s life and made it better. His life does have meaning. This may be a Christmas Special, but make no mistake fans; this is the best episode of Warehouse 13 EVER!

The show opens on an overly decorated Christmas house with Pete and Myka Bering (Joanne Kelly) in utility company uniforms, when Christmas lights suddenly grab Pete and drags him away. Meanwhile, Myka rushes to relieve the roof top Rudolf of its nose. Myka manages to get Rudolf’s red nose in the bag and tag so all returns to normal. The reindeer turns back into the family pet Jack Russell Terrier, and the Dickensian boy turns back into a statue. A little girl, Katie, runs out of the house to thank Pete, “Thank you for saving Lucky”, with a kiss on Pete’s cheek and a candy cane. Pete puts the candy cane in his back pocket. Hint: this will be important later.

Back at the Warehouse, as agents busily get ready to depart the Warehouse to celebrate the holidays with their loved ones. Pete goes off to the Christmas aisle to drop off the Rudolf nose he just retrieved with Myka, where driedels and fake fireplaces roam; when he accidentally ‘brushes’ up against a cursed object, an innocent looking upholstery brush, and all is not well. He walks back into the office and is shocked to see two strange agents, “Who are you guys? How did you get in here? Where’s Artie?“ The agents pull their guns on him and a voice from the back says, “Arthur hasn’t worked here in a very long time.” Pete turns to see who it is. “MacPherson (Roger Rees), but you’re dead!” Cue the opening theme music.

Turns out, nobody recognizes Pete, and nothing is what Pete remembered, “This is nuts, the last time I saw you, you were nothing but a pile of dust outside the Escher vault.” The agents with guns demand, “You break into our security system and you want to know who we are?” MacPherson asks, “This may sound strange to you, but you may have come into contact with an artifact.” Pete continues, “Is this some kind of a joke? I was coming back from the Christmas Aisle. I come into Artie’s office with MacPherson in it.” MacPherson decides to take him to Leena’s. “Leena (Genelle Williams), she knows me, she’ll back me up.” Turns out Leena doesn’t know him. Pete manages to escape and calls Myka’s mother from a phone booth. Turns out Myka’s father is dead and Myka hasn’t been home from Washington DC in two years. Pete traces Myka to DC and she has no idea who he is either. Pete starts to unwind when Myka refuses to believe him. He tries to convince her that they are partners tracking down artifacts to keep the world safe and store them in a warehouse in Minnesota, started by Alexander The Great in 1315. She obviously thinks he’s a loon and sounds the silent alarm and security guards take him away. The next scene, Pete chases her down to a bar. She can’t get rid of him! They make a deal, “Just answer one question and I’ll leave you alone forever. Why are you spending Christmas Eve alone? Because the Myka I know, have people who love her." Myka tries to play off a Mont Blanc pen as a gift from her secretary. Pete knows it’s a ruse. “You bought the pen for yourself, because nobody would buy a pen unless they had a deep and reverent love for the written word. My Myka has a deep and endless wonder for the world. That is my Myka.” Pete finally breaks her down and she agrees to help him. “Artie Nielsen (Saul Rubinek). Do you know where he is?” “Yes, he’s right where I left him.” Turns out Artie is in prison. Artie knows Myka as the agent who arrested him. But Pete says, “I need you to take a leap of faith with me. My name is Peter Lattimer. I’ve worked at Warehouse 13 since we met at the Blood Stone.” Artie believes him, and asks if by chance, if he touched anything. Pete remembers putting back Rudolf’s nose in the Christmas aisle and touching an upholstery brush. Pete reaches for the candy cane the little girl Katie gave him, but it’s not there. “Of course it’s not there,” says Artie. "You touched Philip Van Doren Stern's upholstery brush.” Myka mentions Stern’s work and the name of the show, “The Greatest Gift”, to wit the movie, It’s A Wonderful Life, is based on. “If you touched that brush, your life was swept away. You were never born, “says Artie. Pete is still fighting it, “I was born. I even saved the world a few times. But because I wasn’t there, Myka arrested you. MacPherson somehow convinced the regents he was rehabilitated.” So, finally, Myka believes him. Artie, “People’s lives are far more intertwined than we realize.” Myka gets Artie released. The officer says, “You can have Artie for 24 hours. Someone higher up is pulling the string. Mrs. Frederic (CCH Pounder).” Artie reminds them he cannot step inside Warehouse 13 because MacPherson injected him with some sort of kainite that will dissolve him as soon as he enters the Warehouse. They resolve to reach Leena who has the antidote necklace artifact.

“No one’s ever broken into Warehouse 13," says Artie. Pete, “That’s not true. How well do you remember Claudia Donovan (Allison Scagliotti)?” The next scene brings us to Claudia’s room inside a mental facility, which is a classic psychopath’s room. She’s got newspaper clippings about her brother and Artie taped over her entire wall. “Hello Professor,” says crazy Claudia. Pete screams through the door, “Your brother Joshua is trapped in an inter-dimensional space. You’re not crazy. We’re going to save him, but you have to help us break into a large depository of artifacts somewhere in Minnesota.” This news jars Claudia so much she snaps out of it and hears Pete out. Meanwhile, Mrs. Frederic barges in on MacPerson at the Warehouse, “Hello James.” “Mrs. Frederic”. The two have a stand off until MacPherson uses the riding crop artifact once again to bend people to his will. He bronzes Mrs. MacPherson and lures the agents back to the Warehouse, “The Warehouse is under attack. No one can be trusted.”

The agents are rummaging through Leena’s Bed & Breakfast. Leena can tell, something wasn’t right. She takes off her protective charm necklace and puts it on Artie. Back to the entrance of the Warehouse, it’s snowing like crazy. Artie finds the secret entrance to Warehouse 13. Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves was based on it. “So what do we say, ‘Open Sesame?’” “Only if you can say it in Arabic.” Myka immediately remarks, “If ta ya sim sim”. She says it was in the first edition of Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves. Brainiac saves the day, again.

Pete takes the door on the left, because he has a vibe. They enter through a narrow walkway which reveals the entire Warehouse. "Hi honey, I’m home," says Artie. Claudia is in a hurry to leave and save her brother, but Pete reminds her, “The three of us, we’re your family too. I’m like your brother. Myka is like your sister. Artie is so much like your father it’s annoying. In the real world, we’ve already rescued Josh. The four of us, we work here every day, surrounded by this endless wonder. And Artie makes the best cookies in the world.” The Warehouse family bond is sealed once again. Artie breaks the spell, “Do you know how to get to the Aisle of Noel?” Artie tells him the way. The camera does that zooming thing, which is always good value. Myka and Pete finds the aisle, but MacPherson has set a trap. The aisle elongates and they seem to be not moving at all. Then the aisle lengthens, and Pete says, “That’s artifact ‘ju ju’ at work. Damn, it’s MacPherson. He set a trap.” “How do we usually solve this stuff?” asks Myka. Pete says, “We blow it up, we break it, or we outsmart it.” Myka turns on her Einstein brain and solves it, “In algebraic geometry, if we have an infinity loop, all we have to do is we both run as fast as we can, in opposite direction. We just might be able to snap ourselves out of it.” They run, which appears to be in place, but the camera effect drags half of the screen behind them, and it works! They pick up the pace and continue on their way. They get to where they need to be, but the Christmas aisle has been cleaned out. “Ah, humbug”, exclaims Pete. Pete and Myka heads back to the office and sees that MacPherson has taken Artie and Claudia to the Bronze section. Why? So they can be bronzed, off course. They have to cut them off first. But how? They get on ‘the ride’, which is the zip line that stretches across the entire Warehouse. This has got to be the biggest thrill at the Warehouse, and it's not even an artifact. Pete surprises MacPherson and his goons, “Hey goon squad.” He’s got Brigadier General Laverlong’s Elephant Walking Stick, an artifact which causes an earthquake size shake, rated at least 7 on the Richter scale. They disarm the bad guys and continue to search for the brush. Artie thinks MacPherson is heading for the Layman Vortex. Artie explains, "In 1939, Layman discovered earth has a super-heated core. The Warehouse has been heated by this core since 1943." They see MacPherson dragging a bag of toys like a bad Santa. He’s locked in the agents and opened up the floor to reveal the earth’s core. Pete tries to stall. Since MacPherson still doesn’t know which artifact it is, he destroys them all, one by one, protecting himself, off course, by purple latex gloves. Always amusing. Artie and MacPherson struggles and the brush is knocked almost off the railing. Artie and Pete both make a leap of faith. As MacPherson rips the protective amulet off Arties’ neck and he turns into dust, Artie throws the brush into the air at Pete, Pete jumps in the air to grab the brush before he and the brush falls into the super heated earth’s core, and Pete wakes up in the Aisle of Noel with the brush in his hand. He feels the candy cane in his back pocket, which is the sign that everything is back to where it should be. He is so relieved he makes snow angels on the aisle, while the Warehouse dog licks his face.

The last scene has Pete bursting into Leena’s B&B, where he finds all his friends. Nobody’s gone home for the holidays because this is the worst snow storm in South Dakota history. Myka comes out with airline information. Pete is so happy he kisses Myka. “Of course you’re going to see your dad, because he’s still alive. This is the best Christmas ever. Claudia, without me, you would still be in crazy town.” Artie comes out with cookies. “Artie, you would still be in jail. Leena, you eventually do the right thing. You, Mrs. Frederic. I am what is keeping you from being bronzed.” Pete gives her a big bear hug. The room is so quiet you can hear a pin drop, “I kind of crossed the line didn’t I?” says Pete. Mrs. Frederic suffers his hug and says, “We won’t speak of it again.” Pete’s exclaim to everyone, “I really, really, really love you.” is met with disdain. All is well again and they settle down to watch what they think is a feature boxing match in Las Vegas on TV when a voice over says, “Now we bring you, Frank Capra’s classic, It’s A Wonderful Life, and we hear Pete’s scream echoing in the distance.

It’s safe to say, Warehouse 13 works best when characters play their originally scripted self. Myka is best when Myka is using her super intellect to solve artifact puzzles. Pete is best when Pete is clowning around. Claudia is best when Claudia is crazy with her conspiracy theories. Artie is best when Artie is explaining how the artifacts are cursed. Mrs. Frederic is best when Mrs. Frederic is looking stiff. Warehouse 13 writers take note, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Get back to what made the characters fan faves in the first place. More Warehouse 13 Christmas Specials!