Please, someone tell the producers to watch a real procedural. I've been kind of nice to them so far, but it's already the fifth episode and they haven't been progressing very fast in the artifact finding department, even regressing in this episode. The banter between all the characters has improved and is by far the best thing about the show, but the main part of the episodes, finding the artifact, is still very, very, very, weak.
Hopefully if they aren't going to improve on the procedural element of the show, they will write in a majority of people just talking to each other. It was fun watching Claudia interact with Artie and Leena. She's a bit wild, apparently extremely smart, and kind of has a dirty mouth. Overall I think she's a great character and plays off the other two quite well. I can't wait until she speaks with Myka and Pete.
Since the artifact finding was so lame and disorganized, I don't really want to go into detail. Someone is wearing a Native American fox skin coat which allows the user to go through anything. This person stole some ugly statue from an auction house and Myka and Pete investigate. There were 2 bidders, Gilbert Radburn and Jeff Weaver whose father is a weasel, so he is the natural suspect. Weaver is played by Syfy alum Joe Flanigan who compared to Tricia Helfer a couple weeks ago did not a very good job. He just didn't come off as the rich-guy-who-wants-to-atone-for-his-father-by helping-Native-Americans-reclaim-their-past kind of guy. Did I just do that?
It turns out that there's a guy called LaSalle that Weaver is helping. LaSalle works for Radburn as a spy. I thought the LaSalle nonsense was unnecessary and totally pointless. They barely explained his motivations (his uncle) and the whole time I was wondering what the hell this dirty guy was for. There are 4 statues for each Indian element and together something bad happens. Weaver decides to transfer the statue and on the way, the man with the coat steals it, throwing Pete out the truck. At the hospital, Myka is really concerned for him, but he tells her to eat with Weaver and try to get information. It seems like Myka is always yelling "Pete!" because something bad might have happened to him, and she always concerned, even though from the third episode, she supposedly hates men.
Artie calls Pete who miraculously heals from his injuries, finds a hidden panel in Weaver's house, and opens a room full of stuff about Walter Burley, the guy who made the statues and LaSalle's uncle. Unreasonable search and seizure? The fourth amendment? Apparently Pete and Artie think "Badgy" allows Pete to go through Weaver's house even though the only reason is because Jeff's father and Radburn had tried to sell all the statues together years ago.
Radburn captures LaSalle skulking outside his house and takes a bracelet telling him how to arrange the sculptures. Put in a row in the morning, they form a map to a Lenape cave with a bunch of artifacts. At the same time, Claudia helps Artie find the cave. The ending is pretty lame, anti-climactic, and made no sense. Radburn picks up the artifacts which gives him lots of power, Pete, Myka, and Jeff show up, he throws them around, Pete takes the arrows and stabs Radburn. Radburn blows up into some light, and then Artie recruits Claudia to work in the warehouse.
Yeah, it really ended like that. With all the interconnected parties involved, there was really no resolution, especially since Radburn had stuck LaSalle in his wall earlier. There was no real upside to the story except getting the artifacts back. Usually in these Native American stories, there are usually some comments about how they were mistreated and some kind of redemption. Instead, this episode used Native American mysticism as a source for the artifact and left it at that. No historical or cultural significance.
I know it may seem I'm coming down hard, but after a few episodes in, there needs to be improvement on all fronts. I guess I can live with convoluted stories, but I would like to see more. A few weeks ago, I said the procedural part was too plain, but not in the way people are motivated to do things. The artifacts are never really explained, and there are huge jumps in reasoning that always leads them in a right direction. In most procedurals, there are small steps and usually a couple in the beginning that don't pan out, but reveal something else that may be useful later. In Warehouse 13, there is a lot of nothing going on until a huge break from one of the characters with minimal evidence to back it.
Score: 8.5/10 (dialogue ftw)
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