“Buried” is episode eleven of season two of Warehouse 13.
This episode opens at Leena’s with Pete serving Kelly breakfast. Which is a banana. Well, half a banana – they have to split it. They are getting on better – until she suggests that Pete move in with her. His immediate response is to say that Artie likes all his agents live under one roof. Which doesn’t sound terribly plausible when Kelly thinks he works at the IRS. So he asks Claudia, H.G. and Myka for advice, before deciding that’s a bad idea (Claudia’s boyfriend, Todd, had to change his identity and move to another state at the end of “Vendetta” – okay, that was because he was in Witness Protection, not to get away from her). H.G.’s answer is more unexpected (Artie now trusts her after the events of the previous episode, “Where And When”). During the discussion Mrs Frederic appears – and everyone but Pete disappears. She says that Pete is allowed to reveal the true nature of his work to one person. Not one at a time – one in total. So you need to get it right. So this is on Pete’s mind throughout.
In Alexandria in Egypt there are three men. One sends a text message to his eight year old sister – and another says that they aren’t supposed to be there, and not to do it. The message is sent anyway and the person who says not to do it dries out very quickly, apparently mummified, followed by the second man. Back in the Warehouse, Mrs Frederic suddenly collapses and in Alexandria the third man mummifies too. It seems likely that, whatever they were doing, they were detected by the text message. Mrs Frederic then starts speaking in another language. H.G. says that the language is Demotic, the tongue of ancient Egypt. The phrase she repeated is ‘The penalty is death.’ Mrs Frederic does not speak Demotic. Claudia, whilst searching, finds out about the death of the three students on Egypt.
According to one of the students’ parents (John, the one who sent the message), he and his friends were supposed to be in Peru. Which is not near Egypt. So, why were he and his friends in Egypt when they weren’t supposed to be. The hieroglyphics on the photo that John sent his sister mean something to Mrs Frederic and Artie. Apparently they are related to the lost Warehouse, Warehouse 2. During the Roman conquest in 31 BC, the Warehouse was buried due to not having enough time to move the artefacts (clearly the Warehouses have been going a long, long time). So, how did three students manage to stumble across the lost Warehouse? The rediscovered Warehouse has apparently woken up. On doing so, it looked for its, long time dead, caretaker. Not finding said person (as they were dead), it fixed on Mrs Frederic, the caretaker to the current Warehouse, which is why she is being affected. This will kill Mrs Frederic. Warehouse 13 will also die as a result. So Warehouse 2 needs discovering and shutting down.
Myka, Pete and H.G. head to Egypt to meet the expert on Warehouse 2. Who is Mr Valda. Who Pete attempt to kill during a moment of artefact-induced madness in “Around the Bend”. Which doesn’t always do wonders for relationships. The location of Warehouse 2 is the Valley of Alam Nafaza, where the students’ camp was. They have a map, but how did they get it? With the Warehouse being active, the students triggered a trap and were mummified alive. Warehouse 2 is full of such traps, and the Warehouse agents of the time are the only ones who knew how to safely pass them. Pity they are probably two millennia dead. H.G.’s idea as to what a British archaeologist should be wearing in the 21st century appears to be from the cinematic version of Lara Croft.
What is happening in Egypt is also having an effect on Mrs Frederic. The students never even got past the entrance, so there are plenty of traps to escape. Given that Mrs Frederic starts saying the Demotic phrase ‘One must die’ things do not look promising.
So how did the students find Warehouse 2? Was someone behind them? A cliff-hanger ending leading into the next episode, “Reset”.