“Vendetta” is episode nine of season two of Warehouse 13.
This episode opens at night in Washington, D.C., at the U.S. Secret Service headquarters. Dickinson is going into his office in what looks like a pretty quiet building. The overhead light doesn’t work when he tries it, but he sits at his desk and logs into his computer. At this point a figure, which we only see mostly the gloved hands of, enters the office with a chain stretched between their hands.
Dickinson gets up and goes for his gun but the figure pulls the chain tight and it glows with artefacty-light, causing Dickinson to hunch over in extreme pain before falling to the floor. The figure then downloads Artie, Pete and Myka’s files from Dickinson’s computer.
At the Warehouse, Pete gets a call from former flame and fellow agent Katie Logan, who tells him that Dickinson is dead. Artie, Pete and Myka go to Washington. Every bone in Dickinson’s body has been pulled from the other. At this point Artie says that it’s all his fault.
In “Implosion” it was revealed that Artie, under his old name, was a former employee of the NSA who was wanted for treason. Now he reveals why this is. Back in the 70s, Artie was trading items to the Soviets, items he thought were simply antiques. Back then he didn’t know they were artefacts. He was trading them for people being held in Soviet gulags.
One of those items was what he thought was simply a rusty old chain, but it came from the rack of Tomás de Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition. Which is what killed Dickinson. When Artie discovered that the items he was trading had power, he turned himself in, which is when Mrs Frederic came into his life.
At Dickinson’s funeral, Myka is approached by H.G. Wells. She, too, is looking for the chain and, when she helped Myka and Claudia in “For the Team”, Wells stated that she wanted to return to the Warehouse, as she no longer has anything in this world. Artie was not exactly receptive. Myka wants to know what Wells did that was so bad she was bronzed. Wells says she asked to be bronzed. After her daughter was murdered, she looked for a means of reversing the murder. After her third attempt to find something resulted in the death of a fellow agent, she asked to be bronzed in the hopes of waking up in a better world. Is Wells telling the truth?
At the funeral Artie spoke to a former friend from the NSA. Someone photographed the meeting. Said person is in his office at the NSA when someone enters with another artefact, a piece of wood. The figure blows over it, and causes the man to die of hyperthermia. This was another artefact that Artie sold. Seems unlikely to be a coincidence. This time the person got a list of Artie’s relatives, the ones he got released from the gulag. Shortly before the man was killed, Wells was seen entering the building. Is she hunting the artefact or going after Artie? Myka did not tell Artie immediately, and he doesn’t take it well when he finds out. She still says she’s trying to help. Artie’s feelings are getting in the way. There is a connection with Artie’s former Soviet contact. The motive would seem to be revenge. With it being personal, there is no official government backup. Also, it involves a trip[ to Russia, and Artie has stated that he didn’t change his name to hide from the U.S. government.
Back at the Warehouse, Leena is trying to make Todd and Claudia work things out. In “13.1”, Todd said he didn’t want to be with her any longer. Claudia was not happy. They are starting to get along better when he gets a text and disappears. So Claudia starts stalking Todd. She finds out that there’s more to him than meets the eye and he seems to be checking up on her as well. Which leads to an amusing misunderstanding.