MacPherson’s on the loose, Leena is the one who let him and another unknown character free, Claudia has been framed as the mole, and Artie was killed in a Warehouse explosion set off by MacPherson. The season 2 premiere has plenty of pieces to pick up following season 1’s finale, and pick them up it does. The series continues with the more serialized approach that it adopted around the end of the first season, and the result is an episode that begins by setting the new season up as an enthralling exploration of the world of Warehouse 13. I don’t know if it will live up to what this episode promises, but if it even comes close, that’ll be good enough.

Surprise, surprise, Artie’s not actually dead. If you re-watch the explosion that occurred in the season 1 finale, you’ll see that he stuck his hand in his pocket as he was consumed by the flames. Remembering other incidents from that episode, it’s fairly easy to figure out what the writers are going to use to bring him back safely: he had the Phoenix. The Phoenix brings him back to life, but this of course means that someone else has to die. The least important nearby character is Mrs. Frederic’s bodyguard/driver, so he has to take this one for the team.

As for the whole Leena-masquerading-as-Claudia deal, it doesn’t take long for the characters, especially Artie, to figure out that Claudia probably isn’t actually responsible for letting MacPherson and the mystery prisoner loose. This is good. I was preparing myself to be disappointed here, as agents operating in a world in which almost nothing is as it seems should be aware that when a supposed double agent waves at you in the security camera, there’s probably something tricky going on. However, the writers realize their characters are smarter than that. In fact, not only do they quickly realize that Claudia is not the mole, but they also quickly figure out who the mole is (Leena, if you don’t remember). Yet, there is another twist to be unraveled in this affair. Mrs. Frederic displays more of the perceptiveness that a woman like her should have and investigates the matter further -- by choking Leena and thereby causing a mind-controlling pearl to fall out of her ear. It all goes back, of course, to MacPherson.

That mystery prisoner MacPherson and Leena released from bronzing? It turns out to be none other than H.G. Wells. Oh, and that H.G. Wells I just told you about? He turns out to be a (hot) chick. And that chick I just told you-- Sorry, I’ll cut it out with that. MacPherson wants to get something out of the Warehouse's Escher vault, a constantly shifting maze of stairs and walkways in which the personal items of anyone who is bronzed are contained, and Wells is the only one who can help him make it through without getting lost in it for eternity (which is pretty much what happens when you get lost there). Wells knows the whereabouts of a vest that allows its wearer to move at blazing speeds, and such speed will allow her to run through the Escher vault quickly enough to avoid getting caught in its shifting of paths. The only hangup is the vest's requirement of antimatter for fuel, but MacPherson does some scheming to acquire this from Claudia’s unknowing brother, Joshua. No sweat.

I actually don’t see why they had to include the whole antimatter thing. We didn’t need a reason for MacPherson to actually help Wells out to remain involved in the scheme. She already owed him plenty for freeing her from her bronze entrapment. If anything, this serves as a way to bring Joshua back into the immediate story, but that, too, is already accomplished when Claudia contacts him for asylum during the short time that everyone thinks she’s the bad guy. But that’s okay. The plot still works. It’s just not quite as efficient as it could have been.

MacPherson and Wells craftily time their Escher vault heist while Artie, Pete, and Myka are still investigating things in England (where the villains went to acquire the vest and antimatter), but Artie catches on pretty quickly and makes it back soon after the thieves have arrived. Wells goes into the vault while MacPherson waits outside, but Pete and Myka make it to MacPherson before he gets a chance to escape. When Wells returns to see that MacPherson has been caught and is about to tell Artie everything, she cuts his necklace -- you know, the one that keeps his blood from turning into acid -- and he dissolves into nothing.

I applaud the writers for killing off a villain so prominent as to become a main character himself, but there is more depth to his death than the risks of the writing. An exchange he has with Artie just before his death is one of the single best moments on Warehouse 13 so far. He tells Artie that it was he who slipped the Phoenix into Artie’s pocket, because he wanted him to die and resurrect having seen the “darkness” and “emptiness” that MacPherson himself witnessed upon dying in the past. He wanted Artie to see that “it’s all for nothing.” However, Artie experienced something totally different in his death. “I saw light, peace, hope,” he tells MacPherson. MacPherson responds with his last words: “All this time I thought I knew the truth. I’m sorry Arthur.” This sudden change of attitude might be pushing the boundaries of believability a bit, but it works as an explanation for MacPherson’s villainy. Knowing that someone has gone bad because he has looked into the void of reality -- however false that void may have turned out to be -- is far more interesting than understanding a villain as simply being greedy. Furthermore, the fact that he wanted to reveal the truth of existence to Artie adds even more depth to his character. You’ll never hear me say this again about the death of a TV series’ major character -- I often complain about writers being unwilling to let major players die -- but given this new view of MacPherson, I actually wish we could see more of him. That is not much more than a personal wish, though. His death is fitting and proper for the story.

The fact that Artie’s death experience was exactly the opposite of MacPherson’s is also interesting. It would be arbitrary and too easy to say simply that MacPherson saw the wrong thing. Perhaps the series is presenting the death experience as one in which we see the world as we understand it or as we have prepared ourselves to see it, regardless of how we consciously think we understand the world. Right now we don’t have enough information to go by. I don’t know whether further episodes will explore this concept or whether it is even necessary that they do. Maybe it’s better left a complete mystery. But the fact that the show is creating such massive and cosmic mysteries bodes well as a demonstration of the writers’ desire to explore anything and everything to at least some degree.

As for Wells, Artie and Mrs. Frederic discover that she took her ring, locket, and compact out of the vault. At the end of the episode, we see her beginning work on a novel she has been thinking about during her time encased in bronze. I don’t know where all of this is going, but it can’t be good. You can be sure we’ll see her again.

This episode also introduces a few dark elements into the mythology of the Warehouse. For one, we learn that when people are bronzed, they remain conscious. Yes -- for as long as they are bronzed. This adds a huge weight to the concept of bronzing even the most vile figures, and it adds a questionable morality to the Warehouse’s operations. How must one feel being a part of an institution that is willing to put people through such eternal torture? On the other hand, though, you have the obvious argument that these people could potentially do infinite harm if allowed to live (or even die). Smartly, it is left to us to come to an opinion concerning the morality of the situation. On a smaller but similar note, MacPherson also explains to Wells that there is a certain over-curious agent that has been wandering the Escher vault for twenty years, unable to find his way out. These things are introduced to add a degree of seriousness to the affairs of the Warehouse. In that, they succeed.

The humor is toned down ever so slightly in this episode, and I don’t know whether that is a sign of a shift in style or simply a result of this episode being darker than most of those that precede it. Honestly, some of the Banter (mostly that of Pete and Claudia) became a bit too much for me in season 1. At times I felt that Pete’s puns were forced into the dialogue even when there were no good puns to be found. I didn’t feel that as much this time. Pete has a few too many movie references that are probably supposed to make us bounce and smile in agreement like Claudia might do, but overall it is more balanced. I love Pete’s borderline naïve question to Artie, “Did you know that when you're bronzed you can still think?” as well as his instinct to ask whether the Warehouse’s library of first editions of every book in history also includes comics. Even Artie has a welcome moment of childlike wonder when he briefly takes off a special pair of path-illuminating glasses to glance around the Escher vault, despite the strictest orders from Mrs. Frederic not to do so. This ratio of humor to sobriety I can certainly deal with.

Warehouse 13 has been a good show from the beginning, but it has generally lacked the willingness to take risks. This first episode of the new season seems to be a direct response to that sentiment. The show has pulled in its audience, and now it’s telling us that it plans to go to deeper and darker places. If it keeps this up, we’re in for an awesome season.