“The Brotherhood is more powerful than you think.” ~ Brother Adrian
Last week the team traveled to Devil’s Lake, North Dakota to retrieve the last of Sykes’ artifacts after they were stolen from his safe house. Pete and Myka tracked down the artifact thief as Steve and Claudia teamed up to find three of the stolen artifacts and Artie and Leena teamed up to find the rest. While tracking down the artifacts, Steve began to notice a physical connection with Claudia and Artie almost revealed his deep, dark, Astrolabe, world-saving secret to Leena.
In ‘There’s Always a Downside’ Artie decides to send Pete with Claudia to recover an artifact from former Warehouse agent, Hugo Miller, while Steve and Myka follow a possible artifact lead in New Orleans with miraculously cured psychiatric patients. While everyone is gone, Artie receives yet another visit from Brother Adrian bent on finding the Astrolabe and undoing what has been done.
After Hugo calls about an artifact, Artie decides to send Claudia with Pete to retrieve it, so Pete can keep an eye on Claudia and report back any problems or issues to Artie. When Claudia and Pete arrive at Hugo’s, they find that he has come into possession of a bag of marbles from Bobby Fischer that cause incredible focus to the possible detriment of health and sanity. Once they drop the marbles into the purple goo, they realize that the bag is incomplete. Hugo’s nephew borrowed some of the marbles to his friends so they could get a leg up on the competition during the I.M.T. – Interschool Multi-discipline Tournament.
Claudia, Pete, Hugo and his nephew split up to collect the four missing marbles, only to find the final marble had been confiscated from one of Hugo’s nephew’s friends and was now in the hands of the headmaster who was bent on getting rid of the school board, no matter the cost. They manage to track the headmaster to the furnace room beneath the gym where all the students, alumni, faculty and the school board are gathering for the tournament.
Pete goes to the furnace room to find the headmaster mixing together chemicals that will cause the entire gym to fill with a poisonous gas once the furnace kicks in, so Claudia and Hugo work to evacuate the gym, while Pete shuts the furnace down. After successfully stopping the headmaster’s plans, Pete adds the final marble to the bag and they neutralize the marbles.
Meanwhile, Myka and Steve travel to New Orleans to investigate a slew of cases where a psychiatrist’s patients have been miraculously cured of their ails. While investigating the office, Myka finds a notice on a bulletin board that connects the patients to a jazz club. When they arrive at the jazz club, they notice a prodigal musician, Ethan, playing his trumpet while in severe pain.
They soon realize that his pain is a result of taking on the pain of others. Though Ethan initially dodges their questions, he eventually admits to using the pain to be a better musician. Feigning a collapse, Ethan uses a flask artifact on Steve when he goes to help him. Steve’s pain starts to transfer to Ethan and Claudia, still working on retrieving the marbles with Hugo and Pete, collapses short of breath. Steve exclaims that Ethan will hurt Claudia if he doesn’t stop and Myka breaks them up. They neutralize the artifact, sending the pain back to each person Ethan had taken it from.
Steve then explains to Myka that he noticed last week that whenever he gets hurt, Claudia feels it. He admits that he hasn’t told Claudia because she wouldn’t let him do what he feels is the only solution – taking himself off the metronome. Myka talks some sense into him and when they return to the warehouse, Steve asks to stay close to home for a while, under the pretence of getting back into the hang of things.
Meanwhile Artie’s paranoia seems to be getting worse and is heightened when Brother Adrian arrives to continue the hunt for the Astrolabe. Artie attempts to thwart Brother Adrian, but fails when Brother Adrian tricks him with a store-bought spur he claimed to be an artifact. Brother Adrian admits he suspected Artie was the one who used the Astrolabe after their prior meeting. He continues to insist that Artie must use the Astrolabe to undo what had been done. Artie refuses, believing the evil he created is his and his alone to deal with, but Brother Adrian points out that it would affect more than just him. He further insists Artie use the Astrolabe to reverse the effects, but after Artie continues to refuse, Brother Adrian threatens to dismantle Artie’s life work as Artie had dismantled his.
When everyone returns with the artifacts, Artie asks Pete about Claudia’s behavior once more. Pete tells Artie that Claudia is fine and mentions Bobby Fischer’s marbles. Artie pauses with a look of dread and sends Pete away, immediately running to find a black diamond sitting where Bobby Fischer’s previously collected marbles were supposed to be.
Obviously a lot happened in this episode. It was great seeing the teams mixed up a bit. They all work so well together, it wasn’t at all disappointing to see them separate and head off with different partners. There were, of course, some funny Pete moments (international monkey…) and one of the best lines of the night again attributed to Pete: “Throw in some deadly marbles and Harry Potter becomes Full Metal Jacket.” Who doesn’t love a good Harry Potter reference…or two? HOGWARTS!!
And of course let’s not forget Claudia and Steve’s cracks at Artie in the beginning of the show. Artie’s reaction to Steve, who clearly is not supposed to make jokes at his expense, was priceless. That is a privilege slated for Claudia, and Claudia alone. Good to know.
Kidding aside, the two most intriguing plots of the season were amped up a bit more when Steve tells Myka about his connection to Claudia. I’m curious to know exactly how strong that connection goes. So far we’ve seen Steve get hurt and Claudia feel it, does it work the other way around? I can’t remember if Claudia has gotten hurt, but if she did, would Steve feel it? Not to mention Steve’s idea to remove himself from the metronome. Good plan, but what if the connection goes that far? Stop the metronome, kill both…or maybe even just kill Claudia.
And then there’s Artie. Artie and Brother Adrian. Brother Adrian who is so determined to get the Astrolabe back that he is willing to go back through Artie’s life of artifact collecting and unleash them on the world and Artie stuck between an artifact and the Black Diamond Brotherhood. Let’s face it; Artie doesn’t have much choice here. How can Brother Adrian be so sure that the evil Artie created is worse than what Artie reversed? Or is Brother Adrian right, and it is much worse? Is it going to eventually be necessary for Artie to undo what has been done, even if it means Steve, Pete and Mrs. Frederick must die while Claudia is trapped, Myka arrested and the warehouse destroyed? I’m curious if this is leading up to a season finale when he actually must do just that.
And how exactly did Brother Adrian get into the warehouse to take those marbles and send them to Hugo anyway?
One thing is certain: don’t mess with the Black Diamond Brotherhood.
