“Breakdown” is episode eleven of season one of Warehouse 13.
This episode opens at Leena’s with Pete and Myka finishing some paperwork, but Artie isn’t telling them where they are going to. Except not to Mrs Frederic. They are also being couriered and Artie is delivering them. Pete and Myka have the day to themselves and Claudia is in the warehouse doing chores. She’s repairing a self-cleaning vacuum. And using a snow globe to chill her Coke. Probably not what that was supposed to be used for.
Whilst Claudia is repairing the zipline, the vacuum malfunctions and distracts Claudia, who loses her balance and goes out over the middle of the Warehouse on the zipline, knocking a lever as she does. The vacuum then hits a button and unfastens the line, sending Claudia into the shelves, knocking quite a few things off – including sending a can of sticky string into the Neutralizer Processing Center. Which jams. Which does not look good. That probably stops all the artefacts from getting out of control. At which point Myka and Pete arrive and can’t see Claudia, but can see that there is a problem. The neutraliser dispersal system is now not working, which really does not sound good.
Pete and Myka start looking for Claudia and get attacked by a Baylor Dodgeball. Every time they get hit by one of them, the ball splits into two. Previously, before ending up in the Warehouse, the balls had bludgeoned several people to death. Shortly afterwards, Myka and Pete discover that the neutraliser dispersal system is offline – leaving them with a host of deadly dodgeballs.
The Warehouse static balls are getting bigger but they find Claudia in a duplicate of Leena’s. She’s fine; unfortunately, they are now stuck in a building where the outside door leads back inside through another door. All the other possible exits lead back into the house. So they need to figure out just how they can get back out of the house. Outside, the artefacts in the Warehouse are on the verge of getting seriously out of control. So, even when they get out, they have a bigger problem to deal with. Fixing this problem in the limited amount of time left will require going into the most dangerous part of the Warehouse.
After delivering the reports to the courier, Artie is then approached by Mrs Frederic’s bodyguard, who says that she wants a word. It’s not just her, though – it’s also the higher authority of Warehouse 13. The Regents (including Benedict Valda, played by Mark Sheppard, who has appeared in Battlestar Galactica, Doctor Who, The X-Files and Star Trek: Voyager as well). None of whom Artie has met before. They – especially Valda – don’t seem totally happy with Artie either. Or with how Myka and Pete have been performing. But it’s really Artie they are concerned with – and MacPherson, Artie’s former partner who was seen in “Implosion”. Artie also doesn’t know just what’s happening in the Warehouse in his absence.