“When your eyes go, you stop painting. When your knees go, you stop dancing and when you can’t do what you do best, you walk away with dignity.” ~ Monty the Magnificent
In “The Sky’s The Limit,” Artie sends Pete and Myka to Las Vegas to investigate a body that has fallen from the sky. When the two arrive in Vegas, they discover the body was that of a young man who had been partying the night before with his buddies. Pete and Myka barely manage to get much information from the friends before they pass out again and leave with various souvenirs and trinkets the group had gathered during their night out. Following their path, Pete and Myka end up going to various hotels and casinos ending up at a strip club, where Pete is more than happy to stay… for days…. watching for the artifact. I have to say the look on Myka’s face after Pete volunteers to remain at the club for days was hilarious!
Pete and Myka begin to think his mysterious levitation has something to do with the club, until another body – that of a 40 year-old teacher from the Midwest – falls from the sky. After a bit more investigation they discover the two victims had both recently been to see the famous magician, Val Preston, prior to levitating. When they go to talk to Val, they find him extremely rude and obnoxious just before he levitates into the sky and disappears as well. They talk to some people that knew Val and discover that, though he was the biggest magician in Las Vegas, this was only due to his adept thievery of other magicians’ tricks, so I suppose his was a rather fitting death, succumbing to the magic of another. He did die, right? I don’t remember if they said what happened to him after he floated away…
They find a video taken by Val at the show of a magician named Monty the Magnificent, who, after noticing Val taping the show, uses him as a volunteer and levitates him for the show. They go to speak to Monty, but he insists that this is no trick. The levitation is real magic and tells them if they want to see his magic they have to come to his show. That night at his show, Monty decides to prove the trick is safe by levitating himself, but when he attempts to do the trick, Pete levitates instead. When Monty fails to levitate himself, he runs off and the assistant, Rose, tells Pete and Myka he was probably scared about losing control of his magic.
Pete and Myka go to Monty’s house where they discover Rose is his granddaughter and find information about Saint Cupertino, a seventeenth century friar known for his ability to levitate people. They realize Rose is the one controlling the artifact, a medallion from the friar, and wanted them out of the way in order to give her grandpa one last hurrah. With Val Preston gone, they figure Rose and Monty probably intend to take over Val’s big outdoor show. They get to the Maximus hotel just as Monty starts the trick and levitates Rose across the plaza. With Pete in the car for safety (tricked to go there because of cookies in the glove compartment, which probably would have worked on me too), when Monty …or should I say Rose… performs the trick it triggers the second levitation in Pete. He flies out of the sunroof and catches Rose in order to prove to her that the trick is dangerous. She stops using the artifact and returns to the ground, just as Myka grabs it from her neck and bags it, causing Pete to crash to the ground….I bet she just couldn’t wait to do that!
Rose begs them not to tell Monty about the medallion because it’ll crush him, just as he approaches and overhears what she says. He realizes it’s a “cheap trick” and is discouraged, thinking he’s a fool to have believed it was real, as he sulks off. Pete and Myka decide to cheer him up in the best way they know how by taking him to the warehouse for a glimpse at the real magic that surrounds them daily. A simple curiosity here, the medallion was basically magical, so why would knowing that the magical medallion was causing the levitation have crushed Monty? Wouldn’t that have instilled a belief in real magic just as showing him the various artifacts in the warehouse would?
Meanwhile, Artie sends Steve and Claudia to Watford, England to investigate some jockeys that fall from their horses during a couple races and are completely drained of adrenaline. In England, they learn that the jockeys were in top form and the owner has nothing to hide, so he leaves them to investigate. When Claudia notices Steve’s reaction (and obvious lying) about knowing something about the regents visiting Artie, he tricks her into finding out the information they need with her hacking mojo instead of calling Artie. Tricksy Jinxy.
After doing some research, Claudia finally gets Steve to admit that he had been watching Artie as Regent Kasan had requested and had reported back to Kasan about Artie’s erratic behavior, which is something Steve refuses to apologize for doing. She, more or less, admits he’s right and they continue their investigation into the adrenaline-drained jockeys. They go to a fancy-schmancy, hoity-toity club to speak to the man who owned both of the horses that lost their jockeys and as Claudia attempts to get information out of him, another jockey falls from his horse, a horse that this man had “neither owned nor been on.” Claudia flirts with him to get his files on the horses and in a surprisingly quick attitude turnaround, the man willingly gives her the files she had been asking to see. Like I said, that was quick…
After poring over the files, they discover one single commonality between each horse: every one of them had been to see the vet before they raced. After speaking to the vet, they discover the injuries the vet treated on each horse could have been caused by animal abuse. The vet gives them the name of a stable boy who had reported the injuries and while Steve heads to find the stable boy, Claudia goes to find another horse that had an injury reported by the boy earlier that day. Steve gets the boy to tell him the artifact is a piece of an old blanket used by Sitting Bull, and unable to get the jockey to willingly get off the horse, Claudia jumps on as the horse takes off and manages to bag the blanket as they ride.
Just after she gets off the horse, Professor Sutton’s ex-wife meets Claudia and checks to make sure she’s all right as she conspicuously takes Claudia’s picture and sends it to someone with the mysterious message, “This is your target.” Maybe she is the evil one after all! When Claudia and Steve return to the warehouse and put the blanket in its place, Claudia is suddenly struck by electricity and though this is quite humorous to Steve who has been relentlessly laughed at for his fear of horses, it does seem to be a result of the professor’s ex. What exactly is she up to?
While everyone is away investigating pings, Artie remains at the Warehouse where Mrs. Frederic introduces him to the new owner of the B&B, Abigail Chow. Artie begins showing her around and then manages to deduce after speaking with her for a bit that she was formerly a psychotherapist and immediately shuts her down. After talking to Mrs. Frederic, Abigail convinces Mrs. Frederic to let her use an artifact to get through to Artie. She takes Pancho Villa’s boots and tells Artie that when he wore the boots he was never bothered by his actions and tells Artie to put them on. Frustrated by Artie’s stubbornness, she ends up spilling that she lost a patient who had suffered from his own grief much as Artie is suffering. She tells Artie that his grief is something he has to battle until he’s finished with it or it’s finished with him, because if he doesn’t “it will eat him alive.” Later at the B&B, as Abigail questions her decision to come to the warehouse, Artie seeks her out to tell her about Leena and find a way to deal with his grief as he “doesn’t know what to do about it” and Abigail offers to talk to him. Artie has a lot to deal with, and I can’t help but feel bad for the poor guy. Though I don’t like seeing Leena gone, Abigail doesn’t seem like a bad person, so it should be interesting to see how she plays into the warehouse and interacts with the rest of the team….especially Pete, because she’s pretty and he’s, well, he’s Pete!
