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"The Greatest Gift" is the thirteenth episode of Season Three of SyFy's Warehouse 13, that aired on December 6, 2011.

It is the Season Three Christmas special.

Plot[]

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In Florida, it's Christmas time and something strange is afoot. Pete and Myka arrive posing as power workers just as a reindeer bursts out of the front door of a house. Christmas lights and decorations then begin attacking Pete until Myka retrieves an apparently cursed red reindeer nose. The reindeer on the lawn turns back into a dog and Pete is saved from the decorations. In gratitude for helping to save her dog, the young girl living in the house gives Pete a candy cane. Back at Warehouse 13, the team prepares to separate for the holiday season.

Claudia is trying to get Artie to wear a red coat for going out with Vanessa in Las Vegas. However, Artie's father is planning to spend the Christmas with him and is not happy with Artie for going to Vegas, and Hugo is planning to join Artie and Vanessa in Las Vegas. Therefore, Artie wants to stay in the Warehouse. He offers to exchange Warehouse duty with Pete, but Pete joyfully stays behind in the Warehouse rather than go shopping with his mom and sister. Myka tells Artie that he can spend the Christmas with her and her family, making a veiled threat that Vanessa would spend time in Vegas with Hugo instead. Artie then takes the red coat and decides to go to Vegas.

As Pete goes to put the reindeer nose away in the Christmas aisle, several artifacts accidentally fall, including a brush with tan-colored bristles. Pete puts the artifacts back on the shelf and walks to the office. In the office, he finds two Warehouse agents Sandra and Raymond, who are surprised to see him. When the agents draw their weapons at Pete, he insists that he's an agent and he demands to see Artie. A voice informs him that Artie hasn't worked there for years . The voice belongs to James MacPherson, Artie's nemesis who died years before.

At first, the Warehouse agents think that Pete may be a random victim of an artifact, but Pete insists that MacPherson is evil and has killed many people. He tries to explain that he was in the Christmas aisle placing artifacts before he returned to the office. When MacPherson suggests taking him to Leena, Pete suggests that Leena would know him and back him up. However, Leena doesn't recognize him. When Pete tells her that Leena told him that he has an aura that's in tune, Leena informs Pete that he doesn't have an aura. Raymond answers a Farnsworth call from Sandra and she states that Pete is dangerous, she tells Raymond to take Pete to "The Box". Raymond goes to grab Pete and he knocks out the other agent before he can. He explains to Leena that MacPherson believes that the artifacts should belong out in the world and has been secretly selling artifacts on the black market and then leaves. Mrs. Frederic overhears Pete.

Pete tries to call Myka at her father's book store but Mrs. Bering answers it. However, she doesn't know Pete. When Pete asks about Myka, she tells him that Myka is a federal agent and hasn't come home since three years ago, when her father died. Out of desperation, Pete tracks down Myka at her Secret Service office and tries to make her remember him, but she has no idea who he is. He tells her that she can speak many languages, her high school crush was Kurt Smoller, and she can't watch movies where animals die. However, Myka now considers him as a stalker and lets the security guards throw Pete out of the building.

Back at the Warehouse, MacPherson is worried about Pete's escape and he orders Sandra to find him after Raymond failed him.

Later, Pete finds Myka again at a bar and he promises to leave her if she tells him why she's alone on Christmas Eve. Myka tells him that people love her and that her secretary gave her a fancy pen. However, Pete knows that she bought the pen herself because no one gives a fancy pen for Christmas. Pete tells her that in his world, she's loved by the wondrous things in Warehouse 13...and that her father is still alive.

After a few more personal details about her father convince Myka, Pete tells her they need to find Artie. It turns out to be easy, since Myka had Artie arrested while trying to recover an artifact, and his actions were misconstrued as an assassination attempt on the President. In prison, Pete explains to Artie that he is a Warehouse 13 agent and that MacPherson made the world wrong. Artie buys Pete's story immediately and he demands to know which artifact he touched. Pete tells him that he was working in the Christmas aisle and was putting back Rudolph's nose when several artifacts fell. Artie theorizes that Pete touched Philip Van Doren Stern's Upholstery Brush and that he is experiencing a reality in which he was never born. Myka wants to know that in the other reality, whether it was possible for her father to be alive with Pete's help. Artie explains that their lives are more intertwined than they realize. Myka and Artie come on board the quest to recover the artifact, and he is released from prison thanks to some unexpected help from Mrs. Frederic. While leaving the prison, Artie explains to Pete that he was injected with a solution that reacts violently to painite in the Warehouse's walls, the same solution injected to MacPherson in Pete's reality.

When he learns of Artie's release, MacPherson deduces that Mrs. Frederic is working against him. He orders his agents to bring Pete and Artie to him dead or alive.

Meanwhile, Pete leads the team to the psychiatric facility where Claudia is being held. Artie suggests that Pete and Myka wait outside Claudia's room. Artie walks into her room and sees a whole wall devoted to finding her brother and blaming Artie for his disappearance. Claudia locks the door and starts electrocuting Artie. But Pete is able to win over Claudia by telling her that Joshua is alive and they can free him once they break into Warehouse 13. Shortly thereafter, Raymond and Sandra catch up to the team, but Pete's reunited friends knock both of them out.

Back at the Warehouse, Mrs. Frederic confronts MacPherson about the intruder, but he uses Cecil B. DeMille's Riding Crop to control her body and bronzes her before telling his agents to return to the Warehouse and that the Warehouse is under attack.

At the B&B, Pete and the team are looking for a necklace that allows Artie to walk into the Warehouse. However, Leena discovers them, but she recognizes that Artie is there for good. She gives him the necklace artifact. Using Pete's inside knowledge and Myka's Arabic, the team gets in through the back door of the Warehouse and Pete reiterates that they are all a family in his world. He also points out that Artie is like a father to Claudia.

Inside the office, Claudia easily breaks through the security system, but it falls on Artie to save her from an invisible sword-wielding MacPherson before Sandra and Raymond capture them. Elsewhere, Pete and Myka are caught in an infinity-band. Myka suggests that they run in opposite directions to stretch and break the band. However, they find that MacPherson has removed all of the Christmas artifacts in the hopes of destroying the one that Pete touched...which would make this reality permanent. Pete and Myka catch up to MacPherson and his goons just as they attempt to bronze Artie and Claudia. Sandra and Raymond go down, but MacPherson slips away.

Team Pete confronts MacPherson in the Lehmann Sector as he begins dumping Christmas artifacts into molten Earth. Artie uses the Lenape Cloak to get on the platform behind MacPherson and they struggle for the brush. Artie takes a leap of faith and tosses the brush to Pete moments before MacPherson rips off the necklace and murders him. Peter leaps over the furnace to catch the brush and he lands back home in reality... with a candy cane in his back pocket again. Pete is so overjoyed to be back among his friends that he even hugs Mrs. Frederic, who doesn't appreciate the gesture. As it turns out, everyone, including Vanessa, is snowed in for Christmas Eve, allowing them to watch the big fight from Las Vegas. But when Pete learns that the fight has been preempted for "It's A Wonderful Life," he screams.[1]

Cast[]

Main cast[]

Guest Starring[]

Co-Starring[]

  • Skyler Wexler as Catie
  • Fiona Carver as Mom
  • Mathew Lyons as Dad
  • Ieva Lucs as Sandra
  • Scott Yamamura as Bartender
  • Glen Gaston as Prison Official

Artifacts and Gadgets Featured[]

  • Leg Lamp: An artifact currently housed in the Christmas aisle of Warehouse 13. Reference to A Christmas Story. Effect(s) unknown.
  • Lonely Ornaments: The display says that those who would put up the ornaments will die of loneliness on Christmas Day. Located in the Aisle of Noel.
  • Philip Van Doren Stern's Upholstery Brush: When touched, it sends people to an alternate reality where they were never born. Only the person affected will remember everything about their previous existence. Once 'bonded' to a person, it won't work for anyone else until it is touched again, reversing the effects. Kept in the Aisle of Noel. The main artifact of this episode.
  • Rudolph's Nose: A glowing red nose that seems to make Christmas-y objects come to life, but with a noticeable aggressive attitude. Was supposedly created when a Christmas pageant went horribly wrong. It was discovered at a home in Ft Lauderdale, Florida. Supposedly was activated when the power to the lights was switched on. In the Aisle of Noel.
  • Cecil B. DeMille's Riding Crop: Gives the user control of the victim's body.
  • Honjo Masamune: Turns itself and its wielder invisible.
  • Brigadier General Laverlong's Elephant Walking Stick: Causes an earthquake when the tip of the stick strikes the ground.
  • Lenape Tribe's Cloak: Allows the wearer to become ghostly & walk through walls when the cloak's hood is up.
  • William Shakespeare's Lost Folio: Causes those who read the pages to die the same way as the characters depicted. In this timeline, the Warehouse somehow learned of its existence, and Raymond and Sandra were pursuing it before James had them focus on Pete instead.
  • (Unintelligible, presumably "Tametan" or "Tibetan") Travel Bag: Can cause severe backache. Seen in the Aisle of Noel below the Convincing Dreidels.
  • Convincing Dreidels: Seen in the Aisle of Noel. Seem to be able to spin on their own.
  • Red Stocking: Effect(s) unknown. Seen on the screen when MacPherson was looking at the Aisle of Noel's inventory.
  • Wooden Wheelchair: Effect(s) unknown. Seen on the screen when MacPherson was looking at the Aisle of Noel's inventory.
  • Burning Electric Firelog: Exact effect(s) unknown. Implied to be able to burn perpetually without a power source.
  • Hearn (unintelligible): Induces strong desire for crime-(inelligible). Mostly harmless, but ill-(inelligible). Presumably the several toy sports balls seen next to Rudolph's Nose.

Quotable Quotes[]

Claudia: Not now, gramps. I'm being awesome

Trivia[]

  • It is unknown when this episode takes place. It features Trailer and mentions Steve's departure, placing it after "The 40th Floor", but cannot take place before or after "Stand" as that episode takes place October 27, 2011[2], and Steve has not yet been resurrected.
    • However, this episode is canon, as Pete's encounter with Stern's Brush is mentioned in "Grand Designs", which itself takes place after "Insatiable" (and, by extension, "The 40th Floor").
  • Artie says that, according to the Manual, the Bronzing process is painless; however, in "MacPherson", Artie says that no information on the Bronze Sector is kept in the Manual to avoid the risk of someone learning of its prisoners and de-bronzing them.
  • In the scene transition introducing the Midwest Psychiatric Hospital at which Claudia is staying, it reuses a segment of Claudia's screaming from when she was entrapped by the asylum doctors in "Don't Hate the Player".
  • "The Greatest Gift" re-aired on December 21, 2012 in the vacated 10/9c slot that was left by the season three finale of Warehouse 13's fellow Syfy show Haven. Haven's penultimate episode was originally going to air on December 14. But due to the episode's subject in light of the Sandy Hook massacre that occurred several hours prior to the airing, Syfy moved the final two episodes of Season 3 to January 17, 2013 with holiday repeats from Eureka and Warehouse 13 airing in their place.

Errors[]

  • When Artie asks Pete if he touched a brush and Pete says it hit him when it fell, it didn't. He actually picked the brush up to put it back on the shelf. However, this could be Pete simply not remembering it correctly due to all the commotion going on after he put it back. The main goof is when Artie asked if brush he touched had a red handle and Pete says yes. The brush is actually entirely white. If Artie actually knew about the brush then he would know the right color. This was probably just some confusion between the prop department and the writers.
  • When the group are at the Warehouse's alternate entrance, Pete mistakenly says that Myka used it to smuggle Helena G. Wells out of the Warehouse. In reality, it was James and Leena (the latter having stayed at the B&B) who did so.

References[]

Warehouse 13  :  Season 3
#01 "The New Guy" #07 "Past Imperfect"
#02 "Trials" #08 "The 40th Floor"
#03 "Love Sick" #09 "Shadows"
#04 "Queen For A Day" #10 "Insatiable"
#05 "3... 2... 1" #11 "Emily Lake"
#06 "Don't Hate The Player" #12 "Stand"
"The Greatest Gift"   (Christmas Special)
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