All of this has happened before
Oct. 3rd, 2012 11:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
swatkatCoherence is overrated, but I'm going to try anyway. It's just that I've been browsing Tumblr - finally, because I was avoiding spoilers - and it seems I'm a little out of sync with parts of Tumblr fandom that shows up in the few Warehouse 13 tags I follow. Here's the thing - I think the main plot in S4 has been stellar by W13 standards, even if there were weak episodes and some ~convenient plot developments (Steve's off the Metronome just like that, really?), and the mid-season finale ranks right up there with the season opener in terms of quality. I've been disappointed by Myka's relative lack of involvement in the main plot so far, but it has put Artie/Claudia/Mrs F a lot more into the spotlight, and that's really worked for me as a viewer. This is an ensemble show, and it figures that Myka will occasionally have to take the backseat in order to let the other characters shine. And then there's the matter of HG Wells.
It's not news to anyone who's known me for even a shortish period of time that HG is my favourite character on the show. I started watching Warehouse 13 - randomly! out of order! - because I was intrigued by the idea of a female HG Wells. She made - continues to make - my inner twelve year old ridiculously squeeful. She's the Han Solo of the show, the one who steals the show with her swagger the moment she steps in. She makes me wonder if she ever hung out with Julia Verne, and contemplate cracky time travel adventures in the age of dinosaurs/future dystopias. I ship Myka/HG to an extent approaching tinhattery. I also think that HG is a character who works best in small doses, and the show writers know it and have used her sparingly for that very specific reason all throughout, even before Jaime Murray started working for Defiance. A large part of HG's HG-ness comes from the aura of mystery and adventure surrounding her - she appears and disappears; you never know what she'll do next. She's a woman out of time, she's an exile inching her way towards redemption, she's larger than life - too large, in my opinion, to fit into the frame of the show as it exists now.*
I have been rewatching a lot of the show in the past month or so with RL friends (who are now hooked to the show, I must add), and what impresses me is the sense of history that they've tried to create since day one. Artifacts get re-used, characters keep returning, and more importantly, we're reminded, always, that the Warehouse is an entity that larger and more important than any of the agents who serve the Warehouse. The Warehouse has been there since the beginning of human history, and the Warehouse will be there even after the protagonists of Warehouse 13 have passed. Warehouse 13 has its own history: its early days mark a massive shift in global politics, its progression over the years map the history of America (Rebecca, in a man's world; Artie and the Cold War; Mrs F, who perhaps had been the caretaker of the Warehouse even before the Civil Rights Movement). Former agents - rogue or otherwise - keep showing up, reminding us of the various ways their lives are forever tied to the Warehouse (Jane Lattimer, as the Guardian, is shackled), and the various ways the Warehouse shapes and changes them, not always for the best. As Myka reminded us early this season, the Warehouse has a way of turning its best minds insane - and hasn't that, in many ways, been an over-arching theme all throughtout? MacPherson, Helena, and of course, Artie now.
As a HG fan, I have been delighted by how much of Artie's plot this season has been about Helena. No, let me explain - I'm not claiming it's a substitute of more screentime for Helena, simply that it's something that works very much for me in terms of storytelling choice. The season's main plot involves the after-effects of time travel, and as our resident time travel expert, it makes perfect sense for Helena to be at least somewhat involved. But what really works for me is this sense that we keep getting about Artie's story, that it's tied to Helena's story, which, in turn, is tied to this larger narrative about the Warehouse and its agents - that on the other side of endless wonder lies madness, utter despair.
There have been hints all throughout - parallels, down to the 'we made a good team' with Dr. Calder. And as I watched Artie ruthlessly manipulate everyone to his own end in the midseason finale, there was a sense of inevitability about it; an odd sense of irony as Artie - who stubbornly wouldn't trust Helena for the longest time - ended up endangering the world in a way Helena only contemplated doing. Myka and Helena's yellow crayon moment saved the world on that day, but Claudia's attempt to do the same could not possibly work because evil!Astrolabe-whammied!Artie is a more formidable villain than Helena at her crazed, despairing worst.
But if one over-arching story about the Warehouse is about how it drives its agents to madness, there's also another story that lies at the heart of this show: that story is about hope. Miracles happen in the Warehouse every single day. As Claudia reminded us, Steve wasn't supposed to be alive and yet there he was. And what really gets me is that now, after everything, after two seasons of heartbreak and angst and noble self-sacrifice, HG stands for that hope now. Artie used the Astrolabe to return hope to the world, and in the process he also gave us back Helena, who is living, breathing proof that there is such a thing called a second chance, there is such a thing called redemption even after you've fallen far. That there's hope - hope for Artie, hope for Claudia, hope, also, for the rest of the world. I have glorious fangirl fantasies about HG sweeping in and saving the day (and, if I'm reading the narrative direction correctly, they're saving that up for later, when the Astrolabe plot is finally resolved; just like they're saving up the Myka&HG reunion for a later point - because I will believe many things, but I will not believe that the writers do not know how great they are together), but the thought of HG Wells standing for hope and redemption instead of being a mere cautionary tale makes my heart swell. She has come so far. ;_____;
* Which is of course why the Warehouse 12 show NEEDS to happen, wherein Helena is front and center - the making of the legend whom we meet at the beginning of S2.
It's not news to anyone who's known me for even a shortish period of time that HG is my favourite character on the show. I started watching Warehouse 13 - randomly! out of order! - because I was intrigued by the idea of a female HG Wells. She made - continues to make - my inner twelve year old ridiculously squeeful. She's the Han Solo of the show, the one who steals the show with her swagger the moment she steps in. She makes me wonder if she ever hung out with Julia Verne, and contemplate cracky time travel adventures in the age of dinosaurs/future dystopias. I ship Myka/HG to an extent approaching tinhattery. I also think that HG is a character who works best in small doses, and the show writers know it and have used her sparingly for that very specific reason all throughout, even before Jaime Murray started working for Defiance. A large part of HG's HG-ness comes from the aura of mystery and adventure surrounding her - she appears and disappears; you never know what she'll do next. She's a woman out of time, she's an exile inching her way towards redemption, she's larger than life - too large, in my opinion, to fit into the frame of the show as it exists now.*
I have been rewatching a lot of the show in the past month or so with RL friends (who are now hooked to the show, I must add), and what impresses me is the sense of history that they've tried to create since day one. Artifacts get re-used, characters keep returning, and more importantly, we're reminded, always, that the Warehouse is an entity that larger and more important than any of the agents who serve the Warehouse. The Warehouse has been there since the beginning of human history, and the Warehouse will be there even after the protagonists of Warehouse 13 have passed. Warehouse 13 has its own history: its early days mark a massive shift in global politics, its progression over the years map the history of America (Rebecca, in a man's world; Artie and the Cold War; Mrs F, who perhaps had been the caretaker of the Warehouse even before the Civil Rights Movement). Former agents - rogue or otherwise - keep showing up, reminding us of the various ways their lives are forever tied to the Warehouse (Jane Lattimer, as the Guardian, is shackled), and the various ways the Warehouse shapes and changes them, not always for the best. As Myka reminded us early this season, the Warehouse has a way of turning its best minds insane - and hasn't that, in many ways, been an over-arching theme all throughtout? MacPherson, Helena, and of course, Artie now.
As a HG fan, I have been delighted by how much of Artie's plot this season has been about Helena. No, let me explain - I'm not claiming it's a substitute of more screentime for Helena, simply that it's something that works very much for me in terms of storytelling choice. The season's main plot involves the after-effects of time travel, and as our resident time travel expert, it makes perfect sense for Helena to be at least somewhat involved. But what really works for me is this sense that we keep getting about Artie's story, that it's tied to Helena's story, which, in turn, is tied to this larger narrative about the Warehouse and its agents - that on the other side of endless wonder lies madness, utter despair.
There have been hints all throughout - parallels, down to the 'we made a good team' with Dr. Calder. And as I watched Artie ruthlessly manipulate everyone to his own end in the midseason finale, there was a sense of inevitability about it; an odd sense of irony as Artie - who stubbornly wouldn't trust Helena for the longest time - ended up endangering the world in a way Helena only contemplated doing. Myka and Helena's yellow crayon moment saved the world on that day, but Claudia's attempt to do the same could not possibly work because evil!Astrolabe-whammied!Artie is a more formidable villain than Helena at her crazed, despairing worst.
But if one over-arching story about the Warehouse is about how it drives its agents to madness, there's also another story that lies at the heart of this show: that story is about hope. Miracles happen in the Warehouse every single day. As Claudia reminded us, Steve wasn't supposed to be alive and yet there he was. And what really gets me is that now, after everything, after two seasons of heartbreak and angst and noble self-sacrifice, HG stands for that hope now. Artie used the Astrolabe to return hope to the world, and in the process he also gave us back Helena, who is living, breathing proof that there is such a thing called a second chance, there is such a thing called redemption even after you've fallen far. That there's hope - hope for Artie, hope for Claudia, hope, also, for the rest of the world. I have glorious fangirl fantasies about HG sweeping in and saving the day (and, if I'm reading the narrative direction correctly, they're saving that up for later, when the Astrolabe plot is finally resolved; just like they're saving up the Myka&HG reunion for a later point - because I will believe many things, but I will not believe that the writers do not know how great they are together), but the thought of HG Wells standing for hope and redemption instead of being a mere cautionary tale makes my heart swell. She has come so far. ;_____;
* Which is of course why the Warehouse 12 show NEEDS to happen, wherein Helena is front and center - the making of the legend whom we meet at the beginning of S2.
