“There’s Always a Downside” is episode four of season four of Warehouse 13.
In the previous episode, “Personal Effects”, Artie engaged the services of someone not on his team to recover the artefact he detected at the end of “An Evil Within”, the artefact that he saw Claudia using to kill him in “A New Hope”.
At the Warehouse Artie says that Hugo had discovered an artefact. He is sending Pete and Claudia to check it out, and Claudia objects, saying that Jinks is her partner and, because she brought him back from the dead, she owns him now. Artie, he is grumpier than normal, is not having it. Myka and Steve are going to New Orleans; the patients of a therapist have had serious problems cured, literally overnight. As everyone leaves, Artie takes Pete aside and asks him to keep an eye on Claudia to see if she’s okay.
In New Canaan, Connecticut, Hugo has Bobbie Fischer’s marbles, an artefact he spent time looking for in the 70s. He received them by FedEx. Which is a tad unusual. And perhaps suspicious. His nephew had already used them, to write a paper really quickly, because of an upcoming inter-school tournament that has a lot riding on it, and seems to be suffering from a side effect. Dunking the marbles has no effect on the problem – it seems the nephew had lent out four of them. Things are pretty tense, and the side effects of the marbles will make the situation worse. Much worse.
In New Orleans, Jinks and Myka are struggling to find a connection between the patients. Jinks is clearly troubled, but he doesn’t want to talk about it (he also doesn’t appear to have told anyone yet about the connection Claudia now has with him – she seems to get the pain of his injuries). He is also uncertain as to how stopping what looks like a beneficial artefact is actually a good idea. The trail then leads to a jazz club.
Brother Adrian (with Hugo, that makes two Star Trek stars in the episode, albeit different series) has returned to see Artie, who tells the former that he hasn’t had any luck tracking down the person who took Magellan’s astrolabe. Brother Adrian says that’s why he’s there – he has something which he believes will help them track down the thief. A spur belonging to a very successful sheriff, which can help them track the movement of the astrolabe. Artie is less enthralled by the idea, and says he isn’t allowed to use the artefact and it needs research. Brother Adrian has already done the research.