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"She's pretty scary, man."
 

Irene[1] Frederic, most commonly referred to as Mrs. Frederic, is the Caretaker of Warehouse 13.

Biography[]

Early Life[]

Very little is known of Irene's life prior to joining Warehouse 13. She is presumed to have been born around the 1850s or 1860s[2] in Britain or one of its colonies,[3] and had a sister.[4]

Joining Warehouse 13[]

Irene's sister was the Caretaker selected for the first iteration of Warehouse 13. However, due to complications arising from its design, it burned down in 1898,[5][6] killing her sister in the process.[4] Between then and April 27th, 1914,[7] the next and current iteration of Warehouse 13 was constructed and Irene was selected as its Caretaker, a task for which she was "always resolute".[8]

After becoming its Caretaker, Irene ceased to age. At some point before or after this point, she was known to have had a husband[8] and at least one child (a son),[9] the latter of whom she likely never told of her career.[10] Eventually, her husband and child/children died while she lived on.[9]

Warehouse Career[]

Mrs. Frederic was the Caretaker of Warehouse 13 and as such is connected symbiotically to the Warehouse.

Her role as Caretaker first comes to light in Buried when Warehouse 2 awakens and reaches out to find its Caretaker, defaulting to the current one. As maintaining two connections would soon kill her, Pete, Myka, and H.G. Wells went to Egypt to shut down Warehouse 2, while Claudia stayed behind with Vanessa Calder. As Mrs. Frederic's death drew nearer, Vanessa prepared to use the Caretaker ribbon to transfer the role to Claudia, whom it was meant for upon Mrs. Frederic's passing, but the others manage to shut down Warehouse 2 in time.

In Reset, Mrs. Frederic uses her fading connection to Warehouse 2 to see that when H.G. betrayed them, she stole something from the Warehouse from a rack of spears. Later, when they couple this with the horseshoe-like shape of the item H.G. left on her daughter's coffin, Artie realizes that she had acquired the Minoan Trident. After H.G.'s arrest, Myka presents Mrs. Frederic with her resignation, unwilling to risk making another mistake that jeopardized the entire world, as she did in trusting H.G.

In the episode "Stand", she dies in front of Claudia Donovan and Leena due to the Warehouse's destruction. Oddly, her body seemed to decay a lot faster than normal, possibly making up for the time her aging was ceased.

In "A New Hope", through the use of the astrolabe, Artie was able to bring back both Mrs. Frederic and H.G. Wells. Mrs. Frederic spoke to Artie and asked what he did, noting that part of her hair has gone grey.

In "No Pain, No Gain", it is revealed that she has the ability to predict the birth of an artifact before it happens, a skill she teaches Claudia. It is also revealed that her son, mentioned in Shadows, is long dead, and her elderly grandson is in a retirement home.

In "Second Chance", Mrs. Frederic removes the astrolabe from the Dark Vault and gives it to Helena for safekeeping, in case Artie should succumb to Brother Adrian's threats, and tells Helena to go into hiding. Before Helena exits the Vault, Mrs. Fredric warns her not to trust anybody.

Mrs. Frederic also states in "Beyond Our Control", "We All Fall Down" and "The Truth Hurts", that she made a promise to Leena long ago. On the day Leena became an agent she foretold her own death, Mrs. Fredrick promised to help her avoid that fate, though Leena said there was nothing she could do to stop it.

In the Season Four finale, Claudia used the Caretaker ribbon to disconnect Mrs. Frederic from the Warehouse in order to prevent her death when Paracelsus took over. After capturing him and rebronzing him, somehow the connection between Mrs. Frederic and the Warehouse was restored; however it was mentioned by Artie that it was weaker than before.

In "Cangku Shisi", its revealed that Mrs. Frederic's sister was the original Caretaker of the Warehouse, but died in the fire of the first version. Upon death her connection was given to Irene to take over her duties.

In "13.1", Douglas Fargo calls her: "The scary lady with the beehive."

Trivia[]

  • The name "Irene" is one of the Greek goddesses who personified peace. It was also a common name in the Byzantine Empire, and was borne by an 8th-century empress who was the first woman to lead the empire; she originally served as a regent for her son but later had him killed and ruled alone.
    • The name "Frederic" is of German origin, and means "peaceful ruler."
  • The only Warehouse personnel on a first-name basis with Mrs. Frederic are those that are not Warehouse agents (the Regents as her superiors,[1] Abigail Chao as the Warehouse Keeper,[11] and Vanessa Calder as the Warehouse doctor[12]), and as such are not considered her subordinates.
    • The only exception to this may be Leena, who was an unspecified Warehouse employee and proprietor of the Warehouse-owned bed-and-breakfast. As Mrs. Frederic only met her after she was hired,[8] she was not recommended by her to be hired[13] and thus may not be considered her subordinate the same way agents are, and could have simply referred to her as "Mrs. Frederic" out of respect.
    • In a moment alone with her, Pete referred to her by her first name in "Endless". He is the only agent to ever do so.
  • When Daniel Dickinson searched for information on Mrs. Frederic after she had Myka transferred to Warehouse 13, he found a woman who had worked for the United States Treasury Department in the 1950s. As Mrs. Frederic's first name is not mentioned at all, it is unclear if he had indeed found Irene Frederic or another woman entirely. Myka believed that the Frederic that Dickinson had found couldn't be Mrs. Frederic because the latter is too young, which may have been an intentional reference to the then-mystery of how Mrs. Frederic remained the same age over such a long period of time.[5] Ultimately, this information is never brought up again, and conflicts with information later revealed about Mrs. Frederic's past (especially by the 1950s, when she would have been Caretaker for four decades at minimum), rendering it moot.
  • She enjoys martinis.[14]
  • She does "a lot of crossword puzzles", which helps her remember the Penrose triangle password to the Escher Vault.[15]

Appearances[]

References[]

  1. 1.0 1.1 Breakdown
  2. By the third season of the series, characters' ages were retconned to be similar to those of their actors regardless of what they were stated to be previously. By the first season, CCH Pounder (born in 1952) was in her late 50s (57). Assuming the same or similar age for Mrs. Frederic and working backwards from 1914, the year the second iteration of Warehouse 13 was established with her as its Caretaker, she would have presumably been born around 1857.
  3. It is implied by Mrs. Frederic's accent and Paracelsus's Swiss nationality that a new Warehouse's Caretaker is selected in advance during the reign of and from the territory of the Warehouse before it. As Warehouse 12 was located in Britain during the British Empire, and CCH Pounder was born and raised in British Guiana (providing her accent), Mrs. Frederic is presumed to have come from somewhere in the British Empire.
  4. 4.0 4.1 Cangku Shisi
  5. 5.0 5.1 Pilot
  6. Grand Designs: Bonus Chapter
  7. Lost & Found (see this image)
  8. 8.0 8.1 8.2 Endless
  9. 9.0 9.1 No Pain, No Gain
  10. Shadows
  11. All the Time in the World
  12. Buried
  13. Adwin Kosan: "You seriously believe that there's not a thorough and complete vetting process by which the agents of Warehouse 13 are selected? Mrs. Frederic recommends. Regents discuss. And I make the final decision." Vendetta
  14. Implosion
  15. "Time Will Tell"
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