TV Review: Warehouse 13 1.08 – “Duped”

Review: Warehouse 13 1.08 – “Duped”
Original Airdate: August 25, 2009
Rating: TV-14 (Not recommended for persons 14 years of age or younger)

Screencaps from krissiecaps at LiveJournal.

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

I suppose I better say I’m not surprised at all about the general plot of this one. It begins with the crew, Pete, Myka and Claudia with price gun scanners, taking inventory of the Warehouse à la wholesale-store-closing time. While doing this, Pete decides to use the mirror of Lewis Carroll to play a pick-up game of ping-pong with himself. Myka gets pissed at this, as per usual, and harasses her partner. In the unavoidable struggle, Pete and Myka drop a disco ball that is self-luminescent and plays Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive,” which is revealed by Artie to be the disco ball of the famed Studio 54, which elicits a little dance from Claudia in another part of the Warehouse. During this struggle Myka ends up holding the mirror while the light from the ball shines.

The next day a staff meeting is held at Leena’s B&B. There is only one small problem: Myka is behaving very, very odd, not just a little quirk here or there — no, I’m talking about a whole new personality. At the morning briefing Artie gives Pete and Myka their next assignment: a couple in Las Vegas have been on a suspiciously long and stable lucky streak.

Cue Frank Sinatra’s “Luck Be A Lady” and the images of Vegas casinos.

Once there, Pete and Myka stalk out the couple (played by Erica Cerra, Battlestar Galactica & Eureka, and Niall Matter, Eureka) and see that they are indeed getting lucky. While Pete and Myka get ready for the night on the job, Myka has a bit of a weird obsession with mirrors. Meanwhile back at Warehouse 13, Artie and Claudia are left with the clean up job after the scuffle. When they lift the mirror, they do not see themselves, but rather they see Myka, at least her “real” inner self trapped in the mirror.

Long story short, Myka is possessed by the spirit of the real Alice and she is planning to use the object, an old casino chip that allows the wielder to see one minute into the future, to destroy the mirror. Pete, after convincing Erica Cerra’s character to give up the coin and take all their winnings and run, after it is discovered that it wears away the persons hand, does his best to go back to Warehouse 13 to stop “Myka” from killing Myka. With the help of Claudia and her “gadget-of-the-week,” they manage to trap Alice back and release Myka for a scene with lots of hugging.

I gotta say that this episode was wickedly awesome. Of course there were some small minute letdowns: the fact that there were not a lot of exterior location shots and a personal distaste for a certain style of music, which shall remain unnamed (I apologize to anyone who likes that style of music). I gotta say that I did enjoy the dynamics between Pete and Claudia, which seem to be going along the lines of brother and sister; and the dynamic between Myka and Pete, which in this episode we actually get to see them kiss, FINALLY! It was about time! Once again, the dead-pan humor helps move things along.

Overall, with all things taken into account, this episode gets 5 out of 5 stars.

Good going SyFy!