“The New Guy” is episode one season three of Warehouse 13.
This episode doesn’t follow on from the season two finale, or possibly it was simply the Christmas special, “Secret Santa”, which didn’t really match up with the sequence, but instead from the end of “Reset”, where Myka had left the Warehouse due to guilt over helping H.G. Wells become an agent again. Which almost resulted in the destruction of the world. Or at least the human part of it.
The episode opens in Jersey City where there are huge electrical arcs discharging. A man has been arrested, but one of the ATF agents says that it wasn’t him, because he can apparently tell when someone is lying. His partner is not impressed. The agent sees Pete (who appears to be sporting a new hairstyle) enter the building and follows him. Claudia and Artie are already there. The arrested man had decided to play on Jimi Hendricks’ guitar in order to impress a date, and the Warehouse team was there to swap it out – but they didn’t arrive soon enough. The guitar is what’s shooting arcs of electricity around – and starting fires. Claudia has also invented the Tesla guitar. The agent who followed earlier catches Claudia and Artie and questions them. He can tell when they are lying but, when they tell the practically unbelievable truth, he believes them. Which is definitely unusual. The agent continues questioning them. So Artie Teslas him.
When the ATF agent, Steve Jinks, returns home, he hears a message from Mrs Frederic on his answer phone telling him to turn on the light. He hasn’t noticed that she’s actually standing behind him, with a new minder, and turning on the light reveals her. She’s there to make him an offer – to be Myka’s replacement (followed by a new, much shorter, credit sequence).
Pete, Artie and Leena are unpacking the artefacts from Warehouse 2. Artie is telling Pete he needs a new partner. Pete does not want a new partner; he wants his old partner back. Artie has not managed to get Myka to return, and he, and Mrs Frederic, have tried. Outside, Claudia is welcoming Agent Jinks. Pete is still arguing about his new partner with Artie.
In Denver, a reporter receives a gift basket filled with figs. She’s working on a major story when, after removing a piece of paper from the gift basket, she gets bitten by invisible snakes. The paper catches fire and she starts quoting Cleopatra. And then dies of invisible snake poison.
At the Warehouse, Artie is showing Steve around. Pete wants Claudia to come out with him (as does Claudia, who thinks Steve should start off in the Warehouse). Artie disagrees. Then what looks like a storm breaks out inside. There are problems in the ancient archives. Before they can start fixing the Warehouse, they get a ping from Denver. So Pete and his new partner head out there. They do not make friends with the local FBI agent.
A man receives another piece of paper. This one shows the murder of Julius Caesar. He gets stabbed to death by invisible knives and quotes Caesar as he does (both victims have quoted Shakespeare). He worked at the same hotel that the first victim was working on a story involving. Denver, incidentally, is also where Myka’s family bookshop is. She is an expert on Shakespeare. The murders are presumably connected to an investment bankers’ meeting at the hotel.
The Warehouse appears to have problems with statues of ancient Greek gods. Who are generating lightning bolts. Which is making things a little unsafe.
This season’s new plot thread opens up.