Episode Recap: Don't Hate the Player

It seems the geniuses in Eureka can handle any challenge, so Claudia is stumped when a panicked computer programmer named Gibson calls to tell her that Fargo, a Eureka resident and sometime-love interest of Claudia, is in serious trouble that only she can help him out of. She, Pete and Myka fly to Palo Alto, where they discover that Fargo developed a video game that envelops all your senses. While he and his colleague, Jerry, were testing it, they got trapped inside the game - probably because they drank from the hallucination-inducing tea set that used to belong to Beatrix Potter.

The Warehouse team is furious, but agree to help. Claudia and Pete must enter the game, armed with controllers that will eject them and the lost boys back into the real world, while Myka maintains a clear line of communication from the outside.

Artie and Jinks, meanwhile, respond to a call from their dear frenemy, FBI Agent Sally Stukowski, who tips them to a strange happening in an art gallery. Artie sees a painting that he knows to be an Artifact - Van Gogh's long-lost "Stormy Night" - but when he and Jinks return that night to steal the painting and keep its identity secret, Stukowski ambushes them. She "accidentally" sneezes on it, bringing it to life. A huge gust of wind blows out of the painting, nearly blowing them all away. Artie neutralizes it with goo, but in the confusion, Stukowski flees with the painting.

As Artie and Jinks puzzle over how to escape the cop car and the felony charges they find themselves faced with, Stukowski returns. She talks the cops into releasing the Warehouse agents, and hands them back the painting, with an odd apology. They know something's off, but they can't tell what.

Myka soon learns that the tea set amplifies fears and anxieties, and each player's worst fear is controlling them inside the game. The biggest demon, however, belongs to Jerry, who split up with his girlfriend recently because he was afraid she would reject his marriage proposal. In the game, his mind has turned her into an axe-wielding monster, so Myka enters the game to get Jerry to overcome his fear and propose to the woman he loves. As soon as he does, she transforms to her lovely, normal self, and the players are returned to the world of flesh and blood, where Jerry makes a real-world proposal his first order of business.

Everyone is happy to return to the Warehouse and settle in. Pete and Myka situate the tea set in safety, but on the other site of the Warehouse, Van Gogh's painting is releasing thousands of tiny, destructive robotic agents all through the Artifacts...