This article may contain spoilers.

While last week's episode "Magnetism" was a continuation of the stand-alone creepy-artifact-affects-people-in-bad-way theme, "Claudia" took a decidedly darker turn. Both episodes bookended a story arc used to introduce a new Warehouse regular, Claudia, who had her own secret agenda.

In "Magnetism," we watched Artie fend off the attempts of the mysterious computer hacker to pin-point the Warehouse's location using the power grid. However, that episode ended with the ominous warning words lighting up the internal power grid, "knock, knock," indicating that the hacker had finally found the Warehouse's front door.

To counter-balance Artie's efforts to stymie the hacker, we distractedly watched Myka and Pete track down the offending artifact wrecking havoc on a small town which was bringing out its inhabitants darkest desires: a nun who only wanted to fly like a bird from rooftops, an old woman who wrote profanities on hospital walls, and a violinist smashed his instrument into smithereens. Clearly, all were exhibiting acute signs of violence.

In the midst of tracking down the elusive object hidden in plain sight, we also suffered through Pete and Myka's endless bickering, which escalated to the point that they had be hosed down in purple goo at the Warehouse and which later compelled Myka to repeatedly punch Pete in the nose after she too had been exposed to the artifact. For, apparently, the artifact releases a person's subconscious desires and Myka's secret desire was to strike back at men who she felt were suffocating her.

So with Artie fully preoccupied and Myka and Peter engaged in their all consuming power-struggle, it is an absolute miracle that they manage to locate the artifact at all. But after several false starts with a pocket watch and a too-friendly paramedic, the artifact was ultimately located -- in a chair gifted from Father of Hypnotherapy himself, James Braid. In a convoluted explanation, we learned that the chair's iron springs released a person's subconscious desires when combined with the right voice, which then acted like a tuning fork. Mostly, all of this was just another red-herring to distract us from real story. It was not until the very end of Magnetism, when we saw the message: "Knock, knock," that it began to dawn on us that a more serious threat was looming on the horizon.

It was in the episode "Claudia" that the true story began to emerge. For within the first five minutes, Artie is quickly and efficiently kidnapped -- and by a girl no less!

The hereto unknown Claudia Donovan is a ghost right out of Artie's past -- or at least her brother is anyway. For 12 years ago, Artie mentored a young genius by the name of Joshua to learn the secrets of Rheticus' Compass, an artifact thought to be capable of human teleportation. But due to their inexperience with the artifact, Joshua was trapped in an alternate dimension; thus leaving his little sister (also a genius) to grow up and track down Artie for failing to live up to his promise to rescue Joshua.

With Artie tied-up (literally), Pete and Myka were at a loss on how to find Artie. It was only with the trusty guidance of Mrs. Frederick that they were able to get a lead on who might have Artie and how to track the culprit down.

Unfortunately, in a classic case of Stockholm-syndrome, Artie began to identify with and care for his captor, Claudia. After watching her physically suffer with fainting spells and nose bleeds resulting from Joshua's spirit attempting to communicate, Artie threw in the towel and became a believer and decided to help rescue Joshua.

While the episode was dark enough with Artie having to face the consequences of a failed experiment costing a young man his life, it was equally chilling to hear Mrs. Fredericks response to Arties quizzical query of Where am I going? and she eerily said Back to the beginning. Many may interpret that exchange to mean that Artie must face the sins of his past for what he did to Joshua and Claudia, but looking a bit deeper, those visions seem to portend a trip further back in time for Artie to face and account for everything he has done so thoughtlessly and relentlessly in the name of protecting the world from the artifacts.

The question ultimately became: Is the price of global security too high a cost when it is at the expense of those we love?

What Worked

The opening scene in Magnetism with Myka and Pete reenacting a "Mission Impossible"-type retrieval of Marie Antoinette's guillotine blade in a Paris museum was awesome. It made good use of both of their skills and showed them working flawlessly as a team.

Later in that same episode, then they were no longer working as seamlessly together, Pete got in the best line by telling Myka: "If you asked me how I was going to die, I would have said that being beaten to death by my partner was low on the list!"

Additional cool tid-bits were the revelations about Pete, such as he is a recovering alcoholic and he has a deaf sister. While not entirely painting the picture of who Pete is under all that goofiness, the glimpses are refreshing and reassuring that behind the protective mask that he wears, there is a real man with real flaws and a live beating heart.

It was also nice to see Artie offer to lend an ear and shoulder, if need be, whenever Myka wanted to talk about what is like to lose a partner on the job. While it was initially hard to see why Myka and Pete felt panic-stricken over Arties kidnapping, by the end of Claudia, we too became quite attached to Artie, who we had only previously known as the man-behind-the-curtain. He is now the man who we want by our side saving the world too.

What Didn't Work

The writers dependency on juvenile dialogue to punctuate transition scenes, such as Petes needling remark to Myka who was ogling the hunky paramedic: "Myka, I want you to be careful. I want you to use a condom", too which Myka sarcastically retorted: "That's hilarious," still feels like the show is lowering the bar on humor. It should aim higher. After all, if the audience is sophisticated enough to understand all the scientific theories, as well as references to arcane, mystical and historical artifacts, it can understand higher standards of humor too.

Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due

Magnetism was written by Jack Kenny and directed by Jace Alexander. Claudia was written by Jack Kenny and directed by Jace Alexander. "Warehouse 13" stars Eddie McClintock, Joanne Kelly, Saul Rubinek, Genelle Williams and Allison Scagliotti.

"Warehouse 13" airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on Syfy.