I might have mentioned, at one point or another, that zombies bore me to tears. There’s just not a lot one can do with the concept. Zombies are more or less undead, and want to eat people (or their brains). And that’s about it. Every zombie movie and/or television episode I’ve ever seen has boiled down to the same plot. The only originality tends to be how the zombies came to exist, and sometimes, the nature of the characters dealing with the scourge. Which means, for me, this episode of “Warehouse 13” was a bit of a letdown.
I understand that the writers were playing with the tropes of the subgenre, and considering how zombies have been so popular in the past several years (for reasons that continue to perplex me), I suppose that they were going to do something like this sooner or later. Making it the effect of eating from a greasy taco truck is a somewhat inspired choice, given Pete’s culinary preferences.
But even turning the anticipated tables and making Myka one of the “infected” didn’t change much for me. It’s great that this was just the effect of an artifact, so most of the victims were able to be restored, but I just couldn’t get into it. I kept looking for other things to be interested in during the course of the episode, which is never a good sign.
One highlight was the return of Claudia’s Open Mic Night performances. Alison Scagliotti has a wonderful voice, and I think it’s entirely plausible that a guy would fall for a “rocker chick” like her. I also found her attempts to avoid an artifact-driven death to be oddly amusing, considering that it was a subtle way to point out that the Warehouse was basically trying to kill her. An effect of the infestation from a few episodes back, perhaps? (Considering that they never really touched on that again?)
The focus on Claudia gave the writers an excuse to address the Jinks issue, but I had the impression that more time had passed, enough so that Claudia’s phone calls didn’t really make sense. Regardless, we saw the inevitable recruitment pitch from Marcus, and things have been set up nicely to make it seem like Jinks is really being punished for questioning the Regents. At his point, I’m completely convinced that it’s all an elaborate sting operation, since whom better to send into such a situation than a man who knows all about deception?
It still feels like a bit of a filler episode, tucked between the two-part Regent tale and the two-part finale. That alone wouldn’t have made it a disappointment, but the nature of the “A” plot was such that I was hard-pressed to enjoy it. That said, while I give this a below-average score, I openly acknowledge that it could very well be a result of my own preferences.
Writing: 2/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 0/4
Final Rating: 6/10
