“ | Are we allowed to check things out like a library? | ” |
— Abigail to Artie, "The Sky's the Limit"
|
Abigail Chow[1] is the new owner and operator of the Bed and Breakfast to replace Leena. She was a psychotherapist, then photographer, before she was brought to the B&B. She was asked by the Regents to help Artie cope with his grief, and in general to aid in the psychological well-being of Warehouse agents. She is also the Keeper of the history of the Warehouse for her generation.
Biography[]
Not much is known about Abigail's life before the Warehouse except that she was a psychotherapist and she gave up the profession after she met a patient she claims she couldn't help. Abigail lost faith in herself and her ability to help people, so she decided to become a photographer. A portrait-sized picture she took currently hangs in the B&B, and she began to travel the world taking pictures.[2] She met Adwin Kosan in Burma while she was taking pictures of political prisoners. He offered her a job and then she was on the next plane to South Dakota.[3]
Abigail first makes an appearance in the episode The Sky's the Limit, where Mrs. Frederic introduces her to Artie while he is reorganizing the shelves. Mrs. Frederic tells Artie that a request has been made for him to give Abigail a tour around the Warehouse.
Abigail tries to make small talk with Artie throughout the tour, but Artie seems annoyed by her. She is intrigued by Julia Child's Apron and the Original Ginsu Knife. She then tries to touch an artifact (the apron), which, to her shock, gets her a slap on her hand from Artie. He tells her that the artifacts are dangerous and people could get hurt. Abigail attempts to persuade Artie to talk about the grief she can see him holding in, instead of keeping it all bottled up. Artie senses that Abigail might be using techniques to 'cure' him, and thus deduces her own previous occupation as a psychotherapist. In a rage, he leaves her to find her own way out of the aisles and storms off.
Abigail, still trying to find her way out of the aisles of artifacts, is startled by Mrs. Frederic appearing out of nowhere, and is asked about Artie's condition. She responds that Artie is typical of the kind of patient who drove her out of that line of work. Abigail then asks Mrs. Frederic which artifacts she could use to numb Artie's pain, to which Mrs. Frederic replies that this is not what they do. The caretaker tells her that their job is to prevent the use of the artifacts. Abigail seems determined, however, and informs Mrs. Frederic that "If I'm going to play in your sandbox, I need to be able to play with your toys."
Abigail returns to Artie's Office with a pair of boots and instructs Artie to put them on. Artie refuses and Abigail is frustrated by his stubbornness, which reminds her of a past patient. She tells Artie how upset she is that she did not manage to save him (the patient) and has promised herself that she will not live through it again, thus, she is determined help Artie to face his guilt and grief.
In the B&B, Abigail was trying to tend to Leena's dying plants, troubled about Artie, comparing him to her past failure. She questions her presence at the B&B and how she's going to fail, yet again. When Artie appeared and finally opened up about how he murdered someone he loved, Abigail was relieved that he was willing to talk about it, and she gently asked him to sit and talk with her.
In Instinct Abigail reappears in her PJs, not impressed by the breakfast that the agents have prepared for themselves, and saying that the cereals are not gonna cut it. Artie calls Claudia about the earthquake in the Warehouse and checks that nothing unusual has happened in the B&B. He then asks all of them to meet him at the FISH.
During the events of this episode, Abigail began to notice Claudia's dislike of her, between being blamed for eating Claudia's banana and not thought experienced enough to be involved in such a crisis. Despite this, Abigail proves herself a quick thinker, brainstorming solutions and realizing how the Warehouse operates. Her quickly grasped ability to speak 'Freakenese' (as dubbed by Claudia) impresses everyone, even Claudia.
However, confrontation eventually occurred between Claudia and Abigail when Claudia asked Abigail to fire a Goozooka at the artifact-induced energy vortex plaguing the Warehouse. The latter of the two panicked and said that just because Claudia didn't like her wasn't a good excuse to send her into an energy vortex. Claudia admitted that it wasn't that she didn't like Abigail, but was worried that the psychologist would snitch on her to the Regents that lately the Warehouse had been attacking her, thinking that meant the Warehouse hated her and making it impossible for Claudia to be the caretaker. Abigail calmed Claudia down, saying that she wasn't a spy for the Regents, and suggested to Claudia that maybe the Warehouse was just trying to get her attention with the sparking attacks, giving the younger agent the confidence to enter the Vortex and fire the Goozooka.
The duo walked back and Abigail sensed that Claudia doesn't have a positive take on psychotherapy and said that she (Abigail) was here to help, or not, up to Claudia.
In What Matters Most Abigail was seen cleaning out the gooery with Steve, listening to him detail how worried he was that he wouldn't be able to get to find the one person to share the Warehouse with, and was unable to warn him that the goo was about to blast onto the talking agent's face. Later, Abigail was able to help Steve realize that he was questioning his finally belonging in the Warehouse family with the arrival of his stuff, and that the family was for now his one person, convincing him to open up to his family and give more of himself to the group. Taking her own advice, Abigail brought down a photograph she took to be hung up downstairs. Though she hesitated and started to take it up to her room, she was convinced by everyone else to keep the portrait downstairs, which made her seem pleased.
In All the Time in the World, it is revealed to Mrs. Frederick by Adwin Kosan that she is the Keeper. A person born once a generation who acts as a living memory for the Warehouse and its restricted history. Using Queen Ka'ahumanu’s Lei Niho Palaoa, she accessed the history of Warehouse 9, discovering that the reason Paracelsus was bronzed then removed from the records was because he was the original Caretaker of Warehouse 9.
In Endless Terror, Paracelsus was now Caretaker of Warehouse 13, but Abigail informed Artie about the nature of the Eldunari and how he could break Paracelsus' connection with the Warehouse. Artie successfully broke Paracelsus' connection, but that didn't matter as Paracelsus shortly thereafter traveled back in time and altered history which was his true goal all along. In this altered time line, Paracelsus has been Caretaker of Warehouses 9 through 13 and is the sole authority over the Warehouse. As for Abigail, Paracelsus somehow discovered a way to literally wire her brain into the Warehouse's computer so that Abigail was like a living search engine and Paracelsus could learn all of the secrets she keeps as the Keeper of the Warehouse just by typing on his computer. Fortunately, Pete and Myka were able to follow Paracelsus back in time and stop him from changing history and thereby turn everything back to normal.
In the now unaltered Warehouse, Abigail informs Artie that the Regents want her to meet them abroad so she'll be leaving the Warehouse for a while.
Personality[]
Abigail appears to be very determined when work has to be done, and quick to learn and find solutions to complicated problems. She's someone who doesn't get frighten easily as well (as mentioned in "The Sky's the Limit" where she introduced herself to Artie). However, she also seems to be haunted by the memory of the patient she couldn't help, rattling her self-confidence and making her doubt her ability to assist anyone.
Trivia[]
- Although she is the current proprietor of the Bed and Breakfast after the death of Leena, she does not cook for its residents.[4]
- However, according to Steve, Abigail "orders in really well."
- When Kelly Hu was decided on to portray Abigail, some of the writers pushed to change her surname to Hu so as to make her "Dr. Hu", a reference to the show Dr. Who.[5]
- Abigail was likely not intended to be the Warehouse Keeper when she was originally added to the show, or aspects of her backstory involving her recruitment to the Warehouse and identity as the Keeper were altered between her addition and the revelation. In her debut, she claims that the Regents hired her as a therapist for Artie, and when alone after an argument with him that leaves her thinking he will continue to refuse her help (which is also what compelled her to quit her job as a therapist in the past), she wonders to herself why she was brought to the Warehouse.[6] Later, she explains how she was introduced to the Warehouse: being approached by Adwin Kosan while abroad, who tells her about the Warehouse (implicitly, informing her of its existence for the first time). She tells this to Steve, who can tell when someone is lying, and she thus must have been telling the truth.[3] She later tells Mrs. Frederic that it was "necessary" to keep her identity as the Keeper a secret from her,[7] which is both inconsistent with prior information and may be an in-episode excuse as to this sudden addition to her character.
- These inconsistencies may be explained through extrapolation and convolution, such as that she was not explicitly telling lies to Steve and instead merely omitting details, something he would not detect, or that she was not aware of her status as the Keeper until after Kosan told her of the Warehouse. In any case, it is still left unclear why her identity was kept secret and for what reason, in the end, she was truly recruited to the Warehouse.
Appearances[]
Season Four[]
Season Five[]
- Endless Terror
- A Faire to Remember (Mentioned)
References[]
- ↑ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2607524/fullcredits?ref_=tt_cl_sm#cast
- ↑ The Sky's the Limit
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 What Matters Most
- ↑ "A Faire to Remember"
- ↑ Michael Jones-Morales: "When we locked her (Kelly Hu) in for casting, there was a little bit of push among some of the writers to rename the character Dr. Hu." Jack Kenny: "Yeah, she was gonna be Abigail Hu, so we'd call her Dr. Hu." Season Four DVD, "The Sky's the Limit" episode commentary
- ↑ Abigail: "What am I doing here...?" The Sky's the Limit
- ↑ All the Time in the World