Frances Farmer's Music Box is an artifact featured in "Secret Services".
Effects[]
The music box infects the victim, when wound up and opened. It causes the victim to have extreme telekinetic outbursts, which is activated by anger. When activated, the victim rises with trails of dark energy rotating around them and glowing eyes. It can amplify one's anger and bring their emotions to the forefront, as seen when Myka was affected and was angry over. It also seems to provide some sort of invulnerability to the infected, as evidenced by Myka being unaffected by Artie's tranquilizing dart. However, it cannot defend against mental control. The extent of this apparent invulnerability is unknown.
History[]
Discovery[]
Around the 1990s to early 2000s,[1] Claudia Donovan and her older sister Claire went to an outdoor sale in their hometown of Kenswick, Minnesota.[2] Claire became interested in one of the items on offer, Frances Farmer's music box. When she picked it up and opened it, the music box played and immediately infected her with its power. Claudia, due to her innate sense of artifacts and their nature, sensed the music box was "bad" and tried to persuade Claire not to buy it, but was ignored. Claire purchased the music box and took it home.[3]
Over time, the power of the music box began to show its negative impacts on Claire, causing her to experience heightened and easier to trigger episodes of anger coupled with telekinetic powers. This resulted in her first "incident" at her high school where she terrorized her art class and began throwing things around the room, attracting the attention of Warehouse 13 agent Arthur Nielsen, who was witness to the events. Claire and her parents had a meeting with school staff in an office while Artie and Irene Frederic watched from outside, deciding that Claire will need to be under watch.[3]
Sometime after, at their home, Claire began fighting with her parents about dealing with her anger issues. Claudia repeatedly tried to explain that it was the music box's fault, prompting an annoyed Claire to telekinetically throw it into their fireplace and destroy it, permanently sealing its powers within herself with no vessel to return them to. Their parents then led Claire outside under the pretense of taking her "for a drive", which Claire believed was a cover-up for sending her away to a mental hospital or detention center. When her mother angrily attempted to force her inside of the car, this triggered a telekinetic outburst where Claire forced her parents into their car and violently smashed it against a nearby tree, killing them both, before collapsing unconscious.[3]
Artie and Mrs. Frederic, who had been watching the home from afar in their own car, were witness to this event and deeply disturbed. While Mrs. Frederic sedated Claire, Artie went inside to check on Claudia, finding her alone. Claudia told them that the music box was what affected Claire and showed them its remains, indicating to them that she had a rare ability to sense artifacts. Mrs. Frederic arranged for Claudia to stay with a relative (presumably her older brother Joshua Donovan), and insisted that Claire be taken into Warehouse custody for safe containment.[3]
Aftermath[]
Without the music box available to return Claire's powers to, the Warehouse had no choice but to keep Claire in a perpetual artifact-induced coma within the Regent Châtelet. Over the years, Artie spent much time trying to figure out a way to cure Claire to no avail, whilst keeping her status a secret from Claudia even after she joined the Warehouse.[3][4]
In "A Faire to Remember", Claudia tried curing Claire. Claudia knew that the energy of the Music Box was inside Claire and the energy couldn't be returned to the the Music Box as it was destroyed, but Claudia was hoping to transfer the energy from Claire to Alessandro Volta's Biscuit Bin by use of Bob Dylan's Bus Transfer Ticket. Claire awoke from her coma and was no longer suffering the effects of the Music Box. However, Claudia didn't know Artie had already tried to cure Claire by combining the Biscuit Bin and the Ticket years earlier and didn't work then because the energy has to be transferred to a living person. The Music Box energy was now inside Myka and was destroying the Warehouse. She was angry over things she was not previously expressing openly, such as her having to go through her cancer scare alone. Claire decided to reabsorb the energy and go back into a coma because she didn't want anyone else to take her place.
In "Cangku Shisi", the alternate Benedict Valda used Chester Moore Hall's Achromatic Lens to control Claire. While Claire was under Valda's control, she could perfectly control her telekinetic powers being able to move even small delicate objects like the needle on Oliver Sacks' Record Player into place without any damage. After Claire broke free of Valda's control, Claire used the lens in reverse to invade Valda's mind and psychicly transfer the energy of the music box to him.
After Pete neutralized the Louis XIV's Silverware Fork Valda had which was the only thing keeping him in our universe, Valda was erased from existence along with the music box's energy.
People Involved[]
Users[]
Affected People[]
- Major Benedict Valda (infected; deceased/erased from existence along with the artifact's power)[5]
- Claire Donovan (infected;[3] cured)[5]
- Myka Bering (infected (temporarily); cured)[6]
- Mr. and Mrs. Donovan (killed by Claire's telekinesis)[3]
Real World Connection[]
Frances Elena Farmer was an American stage, film and television actress. She is perhaps better known for sensationalized accounts of her life, and especially her involuntary commitment to a mental hospital.
In October 1942, Farmer was stopped by police for driving with her headlights on in a wartime blackout zone, and was jailed under suspicion of drunk driving. The following month she traveled out of state for a film production that never reached fruition, and came home to discover that in the meantime her mother and sister-in-law had sold her home without her knowledge to strangers and took all her belongings for storage. Several months later in 1943, a warrant was filed for her arrest after not paying the remainder of her fine, and was simultaneously accused by a hairdresser of having attacked them and dislocated their jaw. She did not surrender to her arrest peacefully, and was dragged from her hotel room naked. During the subsequent trial, she behaved erratically and threw an inkwell at the judge.
Farmer was subsequently admitted to a sanitarium, where she was given insulin shock therapy to put her in induced comas without the consent of her family. Her mother eventually managed to take legal guardianship of Farmer and they lived together, but they fought intensely during this time until it culminated in a physical altercation that convinced her mother to commit her to another hospital. Farmer escaped and was returned multiple times until she was finally kept for five years, during which she was kept in the hospital's high-security ward for its violent patients.
Farmer was eventually released and made a life for herself in society, but still faced hardships in her family and love life. In 1965, during the run of the play The Visit (in which she played character Claire Zachanassian) she was involved in a drunk-driving crash. When confronted by police, rather than answering as herself, she embodied and responded as Claire and was arrested. Following reports of the incident, the next night's performance was completely sold out and she was met with "the most thunderous applause of (her) career", and in her words marked it as her "finest and final performance. I knew I would never need to act onstage again. I felt satisfied and rewarded."
Trivia[]
- The front of the music box bears Frances Farmer's handwritten initials, "FF". Specifically, they resemble her signature as written by 1935 and 1958, with simple and non-cursive styled F's,[7][8][9] spanning the period both before and after her alcoholism and hospitalization.
- According to "Secret Services" episode director Robert Duncan McNeill: when researching to create the prop, the props department found Farmer's signature and how it seemed changed over time "as she deteriorated", and so went with the "more deteriorated version" of her signature so as to imply her history's involvement in its power.[10]
- When the series finished filming, the music box prop was gifted to Bob Goodman as a series wrap gift, presented in a commemorative series-themed crate.[11]
- To raise funds for the Entertainment Community Fund to support the 2023 WGA strike, the music box prop (along with its accompanying commemorative crate and a pair of rubber Neutralizer gloves from the prop department) was put up for auction on July 27th, 2023 and sold on August 6th for $1,020.[11]
Appearances[]
- Secret Services
- A Faire to Remember (mentioned)
- Cangku Shisi (mentioned)
References[]
- ↑ The timeline of the show regarding Claudia's age and the events of her life before joining Warehouse 13 are inconsistent and subject to numerous retcons.
- ↑ Secret Services (see this image)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 Secret Services
- ↑ The Truth Hurts
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Cangku Shisi
- ↑ A Faire to Remember
- ↑ https://entertainment.ha.com/itm/movie-tv-memorabilia/autographs-and-signed-items/frances-farmer-signed-letter/a/7011-50199.s (Web Archive)
- ↑ https://www.historyforsale.com/frances-farmer-typed-letter-signed-05-09-1958/dc322981/58 (Web Archive)
- ↑ https://www.rrauction.com/auctions/lot-detail/li/322476403641014/cat/0 (Web Archive)
- ↑ Robert Duncan McNeill: "You know what's funny about that music box? I remember, someone found- I think it was you, Jack- found her autograph, or how her signature changed-" Jack Kenny: "No, they found it." McNeill: "Props found it? (...) how her signature changed as she deteriorated. And so we chose the more deteriorated version of her signature to put on the box, just to imply that that's part of what was going on." (Secret Services; Season Five DVD episode commentary)
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 https://wgaragesale.ggo.bid/bidding/package/14229398 (Web Archive)