Autostraddle March Madness: Canon vs. Fanon Champion – WAYHAUGHT!

We started this contest with 64 couples: 32 canon couples and 32 fanon couples, each set among four regions. We went through six rounds of voting with thousands of folks weighing in. It was, technically, a contest between ships — and the fandoms showed up and showed out — but ultimately, it was an experiment…a way for us to figure out which brand of storytelling we found more palpable. Do we prefer canon couples and their stories, devised in writers’ rooms and beamed into our homes, or do we prefer being the captains of our own ‘ships, building on the those beamed-in stories and injecting queerness where television writers wouldn’t dare?

For the thousands of folks who voted in our Canon vs. Fanon finals, the answer is a unequivocally canon…and, in particular, the canon relationship of Waverly Earp and Nicole Haught of Wynonna Earp.

For a better view, you can use the full-size version of the bracket or check out our updated Challonge bracket.

For the third year in a row, our March Madness champion is from a show that had — at least at the time — completed its run. In 2018, Everything Sucks won just after being cancelled by Netflix and the following year, Juliana Valdés of Amar a Muerte won after completing its run on Univision. This year, Waverly and Nicole take the top prize for Wynonna Earp just days after its final episode aired on SyFy. These contests become part of the fight…part of chains of emails, tweets and letters that seek to convince another network or another streaming service to carry these stories forward. But while Wynonna Earp‘s strong performance in March Madness might be partially driven by fan’s grief over losing the show…the real answer to why it won might lie in the original conceit for this contest: Canon vs. Fanon.

We take refuge in fanon because, too often, canon fails us. Shows tout their diversity but then regress back into the same habits that have kept queer stories marginalized for years. They center their straight characters and give their queer characters something to do every now and then. They give straight couples long love scenes with romantic montages and we get the blink and you missed it kiss. Writers craft beautiful coming out stories or love stories and then have absolutely no idea what to do with queer characters thereafter. And that is, of course, if you’re fortunate enough to have showrunners and writers who are brave enough — God, are we still doing this? — to go with the chemistry on the canvas.

Oh, and then there are the tropes. We’re someone’s best friend. We’re queer but without a single love interest in sight. We’re a crazy killer. We’re the duplicitous bisexual. We want kids above all other things. Or, worst of all, we become someone’s victim…dead before we can ever really have a life.

But, as I was reading Valerie Anne’s recap of Wynonna Earp‘s series finale, I was struck by this portion:

Wynonna Earp started in April 2016, less than a month after the Bury Your Gays trope came to a head with the death of Lexa kom Trikru on The 100. So many queer characters had died by the time that episode aired, and Lexa wasn’t even the last. But in the Season One finale of Wynonna Earp that June, Nicole Haught, resident lesbian, was shot but ultimately survived because she was wearing a bulletproof vest. It felt like a “fuck you” to the Bury Your Gays trope, which it was, but it also felt like a direct response to Lexa’s death, which it technically wasn’t. The episode was written and filmed before episode 307 of The 100 ever aired, which honestly makes it more special, in my opinion. Because Wynonna Earp was always going to do right by us, the timing of it was just a lucky coincidence.

It strikes me that, perhaps, Wynonna Earp is the anti-thesis of all those things that push us towards fanon. Maybe the reason its run in this competition was so successful was because Emily Andras studiously avoided the tropes that have doomed canon ships in the past and crafted two well-rounded characters. She told The Mary Sue, “If I had known I had eight seasons, I probably would’ve pushed the wedding a little later, probably would’ve found another reason to keep Wynonna and Doc around, but the wedding really felt like a gift to the fans who have supported us – including members of the LGBTQ community. It’s very rare for two gay characters, particularly women, to have a happy ending on TV. That was not something I was going to compromise on.”

Maybe they were the anti-fanon. Maybe Waverly and Nicole were the only couple who could’ve won this all along.

But also? I think it matters to be seen…literally. Maybe by seeing a chosen family and witnessing love triumph over everything, we can start imagining the possibility for ourselves…no matter where we are in the world. Canon is seen, not just by us — as fanon often exists within a bubble — but by our friends and families. Maybe they see Nicole and Waverly and see the things that you can’t yet bring yourself to say aloud. That matters. It matters a lot.

We incorporated a few facet in this year’s March Madness contest: a bracket competition. I was excited to bring one of my favorite facets of the NCAA tournament to our unique brand of Madness. We received 891 predictions — though not all those brackets were complete — and now we have our winner!

Congratulations to the bracket, aptly named “Canon Wins.” The winner picked the correct winners in 52 of March Madness’ 63 contests which is jaw dropping 82.5% correct. That’s considerably better than my paltry 62% so I guess I’ll stick to making TV brackets instead of predicting them. Congratulations, “Canon Wins:” bragging rights are yours and some Autostraddle swag is on the way!

Autostraddle March Madness: Canon vs. Fanon Final

Despite what this contest (and the 2018 edition) might suggest, I don’t ship couples. With rare exceptions, I’ve always said, “I don’t care what happens, just as long as the story is good.” So when I say I never imagined this contest to be another battle in the long line of internet shipping wars, you know I mean it. Instead, what I was really interested in — besides introducing people to new shows, perhaps — was figuring out why Fanon still calls to us.

We’re living in the renaissance era of canon queer ships right now. There have never been as many queer folks on television as there is right now. When you think about the earliest depictions of lesbian and bisexual women on television — like Tara and Willow on Buffy the Vampire Slayer or even Bette and Tina on The L Word — could they have imagined a world where couples like Syd and Elena of One Day at a Time or Callie and Arizona of Grey’s Anatomy even existed…much less got front-burner stories that were even more dynamic than their straight counterparts?

These days, stories spring up faster than even the TV team can rush to cover them. Streaming services have led the push for year-round content…so even when you’re not seeing new episodes of your favorite queer character on one show, there’s an opportunity for you to discover a new one on a different show. There’s more diversity within those depictions too: more characters of color, more non-binary people, more trans people. Even genres that had previously been reluctant (read: scared) to feature queer characters are embracing them now: we’ve got trans and non-binary superheroes and an entire world of queer animated characters.

And yet, fanon still exists…and, surprisingly, it’s more popular than ever. According to a recent analysis of Top 100 F/F ships from Archive of Our Own, 54% of the most often written about couples are fanon, compared to just 33% being canon. It’s unsurprising, perhaps, that our finalists in this Canon vs. Fanon contest are among the top 10 most written about ships on AO3 last year.

“Truthfully, sometimes the only thing canon ships really have going for them is that they’re canon,” Lynne Arlington, the brains behind the most read Supercorp fic on AO3, told me. “But most of them time: canon is just bad. A canon ship surviving an entire run of a series in a coherent and interesting way is kind of a rarity.”

And that gets to the heart of it, right? Fanon allows us to utilize the backstory developed on-screen without having to subject our characters to the unnecessary drama that oftentimes constrains television writers. We’re able to avoid tropes that TV writers just can’t…mostly because they don’t know enough about queer fandom to know what the tropes are. Fanon embrace the chemistry between two characters and letting that dictate story, instead of forcing story to dictate chemistry. Fanon allows for queer community in a way that canon often doesn’t…there can be (and should be) more than one queer couple in a space at a time. After all, if there’s one thing that this canon renaissance has taught us for sure, it’s that there are never enough.

And, on that note, a look at our championship bracket:

For a better view, you can use the full-size version of the bracket or check out our updated Challonge bracket.

CANON CHAMPION: Waverly and Nicole – Wynonna Earp

Representing Team Canon is Waverly and Nicole from Wynonna Earp. The Sci-Fi/Fantasy region is always our toughest of our March Madness contests but Waverly and Nicole managed to overcome some stiff challenges to make it to the finals. They competed against four popular ships — ThunderGrace in the opener, AvaLance in the Round of 32, Sanvers in the Sweet 16 and Cophine in the Elite 8 — and managed to defeat each one. What’s been incredible about WayHaught’s progression is that, with each round, the support seemed to grow more fervent, even as their opponents grew stonger. In past years, for Waverly and Nicole, that hasn’t been the case: they’ll start strong, dominate in the early rounds and fizzle just ahead of the finals, but this year — perhaps driven by the show’s (possible) end — Wayhaught’s fan support has been growing and growing.

But even I thought they’d met their match in Amar a Muerte‘s Juliana and Valentina. After seeing their run through the 2019 contest, I knew how formidable the Juliantina fandom could be. They’ve powered their ship to a spin-off and a movie, surely they could pull off another win here…but Waverly and Nicole were not to be denied. I watched the lead volley back and forth between Juliantina and WayHaught as the votes flooded in, but in the end, the pair from Wynonna Earp moves on to to represent Canon couples in the finals.

FANON CHAMPION: #2. Lena and Kara – Supergirl

Representing Team Fanon will be Lena and Kara from Supergirl. Admittedly, I thought that the Final Four was just a formality…of course, SuperCorp would win. I thought that Supercorp’s true test had been in the Sweet 16 — a battle with the formidable Swan Queen — and after that, it’d be smooth sailing into the finals. But Autostraddle readers had a different point of view: their semi-final match-up with Eve and Villanelle was a surprisingly close one, with Supercorp pulling it out in the end.

The SuperCorp pairing hasn’t been as formidable through their half of the bracket as our canon ships were and the competition wasn’t nearly as fierce. Does that mean that they’re a weak finalist? I wouldn’t be so sure: according to the aforemention fanfic study, they were the most popular fanon ship on AO3 last year. If the fandom’s got that much energy behind it, they could easily pull out a victory here.

What’s the allure of SuperCorp? According to Arlington, “there’s a real substance to it…of two women with legacies and complicated pasts finding a connection with each other and trusting each other, and that substance got more and more strong as season two went on and has really kept building over the last few seasons. Their relationship (platonic or otherwise) has become an anchor on the show that has kept me tuning in week to week.”

#1. Waverly and Nicole – Wynonna Earp vs. #2. Lena and Kara – Supergirl

As always, you’ve got 48 hours to cast your ballot in this final round of Autostraddle March Madness. We’ll be back on Wednesday to announce the winner and which reigns supreme: CANON or FANON!

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“Wynonna Earp” Episode 412: We’ll Always Have Purgatory

Wynonna Earp series finale recap below! Major major major spoilers for the whole show! 

Previously on Wynonna Earp, Waverly grew wings and made Nicole her angel’s shield, Jeremy lost his job and his boyfriend but helped save Purgatory, Wynonna and Doc had half a decade of love and heartbreak, and Waverly and Nicole fell in love and the very fabric of sci-fi television and queer representation was changed forever. Casual.

We open on a red wedding that feels like a bad omen for a big gay wedding episode of teevee. A woman in a white wedding dress with a blue sapphire heart wields an axe and chops everyone up and ultimately chops herself up, too. Seems chill and fine…

…until we cut back to present-day, where Waverly is taking that very same wedding dress out of a box, impressively bleached clean of the bloodshed. Waverly holds it up to show Wynonna and it hits them both anew: Waverly is getting married.

You know what was fun about the first half of this episode? I wasn’t sure the wedding was going to happen the way they planned/hoped but I never once worried someone was going to die. What a world!

Later, Nicole is putting flowers into the back of Wynonna’s truck, smiling lovingly as her big day comes together, when Wynonna snaps her out of her reverie. The Earp heir is inspecting her sister’s wedding cake with wee spectacles and has determined that it’s not vegan, like they ordered. It’s buttercream! A disaster!

“BE STRESSED WITH ME” is a relatable mood.

Nicole isn’t worried about it, she jokes about just not telling Waverly, but Wynonna is holding on to a thread about it. She wants this day to be perfect for her baby girl, but Nicole promises her that it will definitely not be perfect. Nothing that has ever happened on the Homestead has been perfect. But Wynonna wants this to be the exception, BECAUSE of that. She reminds Nicole that both of Waverly’s dads died right here and Nicole probably thinks maybe they had that intervention for Wynonna too soon because she could use a little loosening up right now.

“Do we need to do shots of banana liqueur to calm your nerves?”

Waverly comes out, just as chill as Nicole, and they’re both all cute and smiley about their impending nuptials. Wynonna tries to get HER on her level of stress about the buttercream, but Waverly is also too busy basking in the bliss to be stressed. Besides, this isn’t her first vegan rodeo, and she has cupcakes in the freezer.

Wynonna takes her nervous energy into the barn where she is dutifully hacking at a plank of wood with a knife when Waverly’s dress catches her eye. Next thing you know she’s wrapped up in a coat despite the beautiful sunny day and storming to Doc’s RV, things literally falling apart around her as she walks, and tells him that she felt compelled to try on the dress…and now she can’t get it off.

I hope Melanie Scrofano is on another gay show I can cover soon, I’ll miss screenshots of her very expressive face.

They flirt a bit while Doc tries to get it off but he can’t even cut it off her so when they hear a familiar jeep approaching Wynonna DIVES inside the RV before Waverly can see her. Waverly is here to give Doc a gift and ask him an important question. The gift is Wyatt Earp’s saddle, restored to its former glory. And the question is whether he’ll be her best man. Doc has been one of the only people to not underestimate her from the jump, and has always been a rock in her life like no man has been before. Not her ex-boyfriend, neither of her fathers. Maybe it would have been Uncle Curtis, if he were still with us, but at this point in Waverly’s life, Doc Holliday is the best man she knows. And not because he’s perfect, or even always good, but because he is constantly trying to be better.

“Remember that one time you saved me from mean girls at a bachelorette party? Good times, good times.”

Doc asks about Wynonna, but Wynonna is going to stand with Nicole. Because they’re best friends. No take backs. Doc accepts Waverly’s offer with pride in his voice and she squeals with delight and scurries away. With a hiss of a reminder from the hidden Wynonna, Doc asks Waverly where she got her wedding dress and she points him toward a quant boutique…

…named CURSEY’S. Sweet angel what did you DO.

Wynonna and Doc make their way around the bridal shop, when they get the pearls scared out of them by a wispy wacky woman in a bridal gown…who is also Charlotte Sullivan,

I’ve had a crush on Charlotte Sullivan since I was approximately 10 years old, this was a lovely surprise.

Gail Peck, ladies and gentlepeople!!

The dressmaker tells them that the dress will make Wynonna kill everyone at the wedding, and the only way to kill the dress is with the silkworms that made it. Or to kill the person in the dress, but Wynonna and Doc think they’ll try their luck with the bugs. Wynonna isn’t about to let some haunted hussie ruin this day for Waverly. No matter how pretty she is.

Also this character was named after/absolutely a gift for my friend Bridget Liszewski from the TV Junkies who also happens to be one of the greatest gifts this show has given to ME so really it was a win-win-win.

Back at the Homestead, Jeremy and the brides-to-be are surveying the sudden damage to all the wedding goodies and can’t figure out what the heck happened. Jeremy spots a caterer and gets a funny feeling in his groinal region so he storms off to accuse the man named Damon of being a demon. Damon thinks he’s giving him shit because he knows he’s gay, which sounds pretty rich coming from the guy who is about to officiate a marriage between two women.

Waverly and Nicole follow the trail of destruction into the barn and see that Waverly’s dress is missing, at which point she realizes she doesn’t actually like the dress after all. Nicole points out that only the wedding stuff is trashed…and then they both realize at the same time that this means they have a haunted wedding dress on their hands.

I love when people on supernatural shows remember the supernatural exists!

On their hunt for silkworms, Doc dives into a dirty pond and while he’s fruitlessly looking for silkworms, Wynonna sees her name on a note sticking out of his jacket that she’s holding and reads it, sadness washing over her like she was the one who jumped in the pond. The note is a goodbye letter, and he tries to justify it; he’s a human man now, the imminent danger has passed, what’s left for him here in Purgatory?

Me reading all my friends’ tweets about how much this show means to them.

Back in the barn, Waverly and Nicole have set up an impromptu murder board and research station, where they start seeing a pattern of wedding murders that Waverly never noticed before because, well, there’s a lot of murders. They trace it back to a dressmaker named Bridgitte, who Waverly confirms is the wackadoo that sold her the dress, and who was the first to have a red wedding, killing all her wedding guests after being left at the altar.

“Do you do want to check for new ones or do you just want to read Stay the Night again?”

Nicole can understand the sentiment; if Waverly left her, she would, and I quote ,”Fuck shit up.” This assertion makes Waverly smile a sly smile and pounce on her girl.

As Doc puts on dry clothes after his impromptu dip, Wynonna calls him a coward. He scoffs and says she’s one to talk; a hero in war but a coward in love. He does say though that, in his defense, he wasn’t just going to leave a letter. He was just drafting his goodbye. He asks her to come with him when he goes, but she fights back tears and changes the subject instead. They have earthworms to paint.

Meanwhile, Jeremy walks in on a post-coital WayHaught who apologize but solving crime makes them horny.

We were just…solving crime…in a friend way.

Jeremy tells them he found their culprit and is surprised that at the same time he says demon caterer, they say haunted wedding dress. That’s when he realizes he fucked up but good. Waverly feels bad for JerBear but she has a flapper to stop so she runs off with a shotgun and a pun.

Wynonna and Doc bring their faux silkworms to Brigitte the Dressmaker, but she’s not fooled. She is, however, amused at their sad attempt and delights in the fact that they’re all going to die.

I love that Waverly just straight-up shopped here and bought something from this kooky lady and was like, “Yeah I’m sure this is fine and totally normal that she wears a wedding dress to sell wedding dresses.”

Wynonna tries to reason with her, says that failure is never irreversible, and that she’s determined to give Waverly the perfect wedding day. Brigitte is suddenly confused about whose wedding it is but before she can ask more questions Waverly comes bounding through the door, chasing Brigitte around with a banner that I definitely thought said WHORE at first.

I’m just saying it doesn’t feel entirely off-brand for the homestead to have had a WHORE banner lying around.

Waverly saves the day with a spell and Wynonna is ready to send Brigitte to hell but Waverly says not today. Just this once, everybody lives. And besides, she has sympathy for this woman who was left at the altar; no one deserves that much pain. Brigitte is still confused as to who’s marrying who but she appreciates the understanding.

WHO LOOKS THIS GOOD THROUGH A VEIL AND WHILE USING THAT VOICE. Witchcraft.

The Earp sisters go back to the homestead where Waverly decides to wear Mama Earp’s wedding dress instead. We’ll take regular baggage over a homicidal curse any day. Waverly can tell something is weighing on her sister but Wynonna plays it off as wedding day feelings.

Nedley goes to the house to give Nicole her boutineer and finds her nervously pacing.

Instead of Cursey’s, I see Nicole went to Lena Luthor’s online shop (L’etsy) to buy a custom suit.

She takes the flower from him and says she has one more thing she needs from him. And then she asks her to walk beside her down the aisle, like he’s been walking beside her since he first saved a little redhead girl from the Cult of Bulshar.

FOUND! FAMILY! FEELS!

He accepts like the proud papa he is and takes her outside where the wedding begins.

The song sings happy words like, “Every up and every down made us who we are now, wouldn’t change it for the world.” The sign does not in fact say WHORE, but “Where you go, I go.” It’s a makeshift wedding and a makeshift family and it’s absolutely perfect.

Wynonna walks Waverly down the aisle, looking beautiful and delicate in blue as she leads her favorite person on this planet to stand with her best friend. Before letting go of her arm, Wynonna presses her forehead against her sister’s and reminds Waverly that she’s the best of us. Still, always.

THE EARP SISTERS ARE VERY IMPORTANT TO ME DOT TUMBLR DOT COM

Jeremy officiates, wrapping Nicole and Waverly’s hands together with twine as Nicole promises her angel to stay by her side on every adventure and to hold her hand when the firelight grows dim.

“She says I smell like safety and home. I named both of her eyes forever and please-don’t-go.”

Waverly says she’s grateful for the bulletproof vest Nicole once wore (which…same) and a love stronger than she’s ever known and promises to always stand beside her.

“My love, my love, my love, she keeps me warm.”

The music swells and the camera pans over the chairs labeled for people they’ve loved and some they’ve lost and Jeremy tells the beautiful brides they are officially married. You may kiss the bride.

“When you’re afraid and you’ve lost all hope, I’ll lead the way. I will walk you home. It’s all gonna be alright, from now til the end of time. I’ll take your hand and I won’t let go.”

Rachel is so grateful to be part of this family and tells them all they’re inspiring heroes to her. She didn’t know what to get them as a gift, so she decided to sing them a song, and it’s perfect.

Also she sang the song that was playing during the first WayHaught kiss I’M FINE IT’S FINE EVERYTHING’S FINE DON’T TOUCH ME

There is a joyful montage and gods it’s so nice to see them all SMILING and laughing and dancing and being able to BREATHE, at least today, at least for now.

“And it starts in my toes, makes me crinkle my nose, wherever it goes, I always know, you make me smile, please stay for a while now.”

Wynonna toasts her best friend and her baby sister, happy as can be that two people she loves so much are in love with each other.

How often do people genuinely love their in-laws??

Nedley is a little tipsy and trying to share his champagne with the cake toppers when Rachel and the Billy formerly known as Invisible Monster Teen approach. Nedley is planning on taking Rachel on a fishing trip and she’s so excited that she wants to bring her maybe sort of boyfriend with them. After a warning Billy to keep his lures to himself, Dad says yes and Rachel squeals with glee.

Next page: Are you crying yet? If not, GET READY. 

Autostraddle March Madness: Final Four

Well, the college basketball season is officially over.

It’s always a weird time for me because March Madness is this period that I absolutely love… and, in North Carolina, it’s a time of year unlike any other (so much so that lawmakers here are trying to build a holiday around it). The pace is fast and frenetic but then you hear “One Shining Moment” and then it just stops. No more games to watch, no more commentary about the match-ups, no more predictions to make… it’s all over.

My first, post-championship activity is to check how I did in my bracket competitions. For the men’s tournament, things did not go well early: of the teams in the Sweet 16, I only picked six correctly. I thought for certain that that would doom me in our group’s contest but I was able to rebound in the subsequent rounds, finishing in a distant second place overall. Over on the women’s side, I did much better, guessing 90 percent of the games correctly, including the eventual national champion.

How’s my luck been in our Challonge competition? Respectable. Of the 891 brackets submitted in the competition, I’m currently sitting at #97. I struggled a bit early but, with each round, I’ve climbed my way up to the leaderboard. My correct predictions of 3 of the 4 final couples boosted me almost 50 spots in the standings. Unsurprisingly, my TV teammate, Valerie Anne — expert at all things fandom — is doing better than me: ranked #63, having made accurate predictions in 40 contests thus far.

For a better view, you can use the full-size version of the bracket or check out our updated Challonge bracket.

How does your bracket look? Will anyone catch Autostraddle reader, Ava, who currently sits atop the leaderboard? How about we get started on making our picks for the Canon vs. Fanon finals?

On the Canon side of the bracket in the Elite 8, I thought the match-up between Waverly and Nicole and Cosima and Delphine would be a hard-fought one but that proved not to be the case. WayHaught carried their momentum past the Science Girlfriends to advance to the next round. On the other half of the Canon bracket, Juliana and Valentina got their first real challenge of the tournament in their Elite 8 match-up with Callie and Arizona. Juliantina advanced to the Final Four, but their margin of victory was the smallest of their run thus far.

That sets up at Juliantina vs. WayHaught final in the Canon region. It feels serendipitous to have these two couples in the final: if ever there were two pairings that have been sustained by their fandoms, it’s these two. Both fandoms fought for their favorite ship and won: earning Wynonna Earp another season and securing Juliana and Valentina a spin-off. They are a testament to the power of a (canon) story well told.

CANON: #1. Waverly and Nicole – Wynonna Earp vs. 8. Juliana and Valentina – Amar a Muerte

Over on the Fanon side of the bracket, the match-up between Supergirl and Xena turned out to the most competitive match-up of the Elite 8. Still, though, Kara and Lena were able to comfortably dispatch Xena and Gabrielle and move onto the Final 4. They’ll meet with another “are they canon or are they fanon” ship in the Fanon Finals: Eve and Villanelle. The Killing Eve couple was able to easily able to brush off a challenge from Betty and Veronica of Riverdale.

This should be an interesting match-up. While Supercorp would seem to have an advantage, Eve and Villanelle’s dominance in the last few rounds suggests they’ve got some momentum behind them too.

FANON: #2. Lena and Kara – Supergirl vs. #2. Eve and Villanelle – Killing Eve

As always, you’ve got 48 hours to cast your ballot in this round of Autostraddle March Madness. We’ll be back on Friday to unveil who will represent CANON and FANON in the final Canon vs. Fanon showdown!

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Autostraddle March Madness: Canon vs. Fanon — Elite 8

Ever wonder where the phrase “March Madness” comes from? Famed broadcaster Brent Musburger made March Madness part of the broader lexicon when he used it to reference the NCAA tournament in the 1980s, but the phrase actually dates back to 1939. According to the lore, Henry Porter coached the Athens (IL) High School Warriors to a second place finish in the annual statewide high school basketball tournament. Describing the fans’ excitement about the tournament, Porter wrote, a “little March madness may complement and contribute to sanity and help keep society on an even keel.” The sentiment resonates right now: if ever there was a moment where we all needed something to keep society on an even keel, it’s this one.

That “contributing to sanity” part, though? After the excitement of of the weekend’s games, I’m not sure March Madness is doing much for my sanity.

All three women’s games this weekend — the semifinals on Friday, the finals last night — were phenomenal (mediocre refereeing notwithstanding). South Carolina came within inches of beating Stanford, the tournament’s overall #1 seed. It was heartbreaking to watch Aliyah Boston and the Gamecocks fall just short of their season-long goal. Then, in the nightcap, basketball fans had a fairytale realized: David slew Goliath, as Arizona — an undersized, underappreciated team that had never been to the Final Four before — came in and defeated perennial powerhouse, UCONN. The Wildcats’ defense suffocated the Huskies and ensured that no one would overlook them ever again.

And then the Finals? ARE. YOU. KIDDING. ME?! The Cardinal had beaten the Wildcats twice already this season — both times by double digits — but this time, Arizona just would not give up. Everytime Stanford went on a run, Arizona would answer: ramping up their defensive pressure and turning their defense into offense. In the end though, Stanford’s defense collapsed on Arizona’s Aari McDonald and dared anyone else to beat them… and the Wildcats just couldn’t do it.

𝐂𝐑𝐎𝐖𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐋 👑🌲#GoStanford pic.twitter.com/h08aAU0s3y

— Stanford WBB 🌲🏀 (@StanfordWBB) April 5, 2021

Also? There was a men’s semi-final that was very exciting. Not as exciting as Morgan William’s buzzer beater to end UCONN’s 111-game win streak in 2017 or Arike Ogunbowale’s back-to-back buzzer beaters in 2018, but you know, it was nice.

But now that those women are done (for now), we should get back to the business of selecting our final four competitors? Here’s how your Sweet 16 votes winnowed our field:

For a better view, you can use the full-size version of the bracket or check out our updated Challonge bracket.

Since we’re getting down to our final eight choices, we’ll break down the match-ups in their respective regions: Canon and Fanon.

On the Canon side, we had our closest match-up of the Sweet 16 between Cosima and Delphine and Brittany and Santana in the Classic sub-region. At one point, the girls from GLEE stormed ahead by a few hundred votes but then Orphan Black fans came back to give them the lead. It’s the second close match-up that Cosima and Delphine have survived, as they narrowly defeated Tara and Willow in the Round of 32… perhaps, they’re the Arizona Wildcats of our March Madness?

In the Sci-Fi/Fantasy sub-region, Waverly and Nicole easily dispatched Alex and Maggie in the Sweet 16. I was a bit surprised by the ease of the victory — after all, Alex made her way to the March Madness finals two years ago — but given that Wynonna Earp may be completing its run, perhaps I should have expected the fervent response. It’s worth noting that the past two winners of this competition have been part of shows that were also concluding. Is that a good omen for Waverly and Nicole in this competition?

#1. Waverly and Nicole – Wynonna Earp vs. #5. Cosima and Delphine – Orphan Black

In the Grown sub-region, Callie and Arizona easily fended off a challenge from Kat and Adena in the Sweet 16 and moved onto the Elite 8. The Calzona fandom came out strong in the third round of competition and they’ll need all that strength when they meet Juliantina in the Elite 8. The pair from Amar a Muerte dominated through the Baby Gay sub-region but have they met their match in the longest running lesbian couple on television? We’ll see.

#3. Callie and Arizona – Grey’s Anatomy vs. #8. Juliana and Valentina – Amar a Muerte

Over on the Fanon side of the bracket, I’d picked Buffy and Faith to win the Classic sub-region in our Challonge competition but when all the votes were counted, it was Xena and Gabrielle who came out victorious. They’ll meet the great ship, Supercorp, in the Elite 8. The Supergirl /Once Upon a Time match-up was one of the most anticipated match-ups of the entire tournament… and while it was closer than some of our other match-ups in the Sweet 16, the fandom still gave Supercorp a 400-vote margin over Snow Queen.

#2. Lena and Kara – Supergirl vs. #6. Xena and Gabrielle – Xena: Warrior Princess

Betty and Veronica continued their dominance in the Baby Gay sub-region, edging out Spencer and Aria by 300 votes. But our favorite Riverdale ship may have met their match in Eve and Villanelle. The pair from Killing Eve easily made their way through the Grown sub-region, even scoring an overwhelming win over Alex and Olivia in the sub-region’s finals. It was amazing to see a ship that kicked off in 2000 and still has a fervent following be dispatched so easily.

#1. Betty and Veronica – Riverdale vs. #2. Eve and Villanelle – Killing Eve

As always, the clock’s set: you’ve got 48 hours to cast your ballot in this round of Autostraddle March Madness. We’ll be back on Wednesday to unveil the couples that have made it to the Final Four!

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“Wynonna Earp” Episode 411 Recap: In the Arms of An Angel

Previously in Valerie Anne’s Wynonna Earp, Rachel told Wynonna she was her family and she looked up to her, Waverly stole her own book from the Garden but couldn’t read it, Black Badge went buckwild and started kidnapping demons, Mercedes got shot, Cleo became the Clanton heir, Jolene activated Dark Angel Waverly and told Wynonna that her journey was over.

We open on Mercedes, bleeding out from her gunshot wound and being dragged into the cell the BBD Agents called the “feed pen” and left to die. All the blood is making Doc vamp out, and Jeremy is doing his best from keeping the gunslinger from eating their friend. Jeremy cries out, wishing he had a little help from the Earp sister, but as we’re about to see, they’re a bit tied up at the moment.

Wynonna looks up at the creature that wears her sister’s face and calls her beautiful and terrible even though she’s definitely more of the first thing than the second.

“I really didn’t think it got hotter than Gooverly but I guess I was wrong.”

Wynonna asks about the fog but Dark Angel Waverly says it’s not necessary anymore now that she’s here. She barely remembers Jolene, calls her “the body’s other half,” and says she helped Waverly. And it is incredibly unsettling to hear her talk about Waverly in the third person.

Wynonna wants her sister back but Waverly says something not unlike what Charlie/Julian said once, that man is no longer her concern.

I really wish that’s how I had come out to my parents. “Mom, Dad, I have something to tell you…The affairs of men are no longer my concern.

But Wynonna says, “I am no man.”

Wynonna won’t watch this being take over her baby girl’s body and so Dark Angel Waverly helps her along by taking away her sight altogether. “It’s her turn, Wynonna,” she says, ignoring Wynonna’s pleas to not leave her alone in the dark and leaving the Earp heir alone and sightless in the middle of Murdertree Forest.

Me when I take out my contacts.

Back where Wynonna left them, Cleo is filing her nails and teasing Rachel, trying to sever the bonds Li’l Valdez has to Wynonna.

“We’re supposed to all be ladies, and be nurturing and care, is that really fair? Boys get to fight, we have to share. Here’s the way that that turns out: We always understand how to slap someone down with our underhand.”

Cleo says Wynonna lied to her about Billy being the Reaper they sent into the fog, and suggesting that just because Rachel considers Wynonna family doesn’t mean Wynonna feels the same.

I haven’t been a teenager in a long time but that fear that someone I think of as a best friend doesn’t feel the same about me persists.

Jolene’s hair catches fire and Cleo says that means she’s dead, and that the Reaper will go after its next target now, which I imagine is the real reason she wove Wynonna’s hair into the first spell. But now that Cleo has Rachel on her hook, she wants to use her to do something that would benefit them both: she wants to de-reap Billy.

Back at the BBD waystation, Mercedes is continuing to bleed a lot and of course is not conserving energy and is instead giving everyone the play by play about it, which isn’t helping the whole Doc hunger problem.

In Doc’s defense, she DOES still look amazing even covered in blood.

Jeremy tells Mercedes to stop saying “the b word” and Freddy the Werewolf jumps in to try to help stop Doc from snacking on a Red Delicious.

In the woods, Rachel has apparently agreed to do whatever it takes to de-reap Billy and she’s bleeding on a Clanton rock. Cleo says something about this tying her and Billy together forever, which I’m sure is a totally chill and fine thing for these teenagers.

While Rachel is bleeding, Cleo is stalling, reaching for Rachel’s gun as the girl bleeds for the youngest Clanton.

I wanted to chastise Rachel for not asking more questions before bleeding on this rock but I’ve done the same thing in D&D so I’ll just zip it.

Wynonna stumbles through the Murdertrees, only able to make out shapes and shadows, when she hears the footsteps and chain rattling of a Reaper approaching. (I imagine she can also smell him.)

She tries snarking, she tries pleading, she even tries calling out to Waverly as the steps get ever closer.

“Please be my strangely apathetic and newly wingèd sister and not a monster!”

But then she’s caught, not by a Reaper, but by Billy. He has been successfully de-reaped, and he hands Wynonna the gun she just can’t seem to hold onto these days.

As someone who has formed emotional attachments to inanimate objects in quarantine, I have a new appreciation for the relationship between Wynonna and Peacemaker.

She can tell he’s not a Reaper anymore because he can hold the gun, even though I’m sure his diction helped, too. She tells him she can’t see so he offers her his hand, proving once and for all he’s back to being the good, sweet boy we once knew.

Things are looking bleak in the feed den, with Doc begging to eat the practically-dead-anyway Mercedes, but Jeremy holds him close and says he’s not doing this to torture him, in fact just the opposite. He knows this would kill Doc, to come to and find out he ate an innocent woman, a friend. So instead Jeremy offers himself. He’s lost Robin and his job already. And if Doc is going to succumb to the monster within, he’ll have lost Doc too. He calls him brother. But this works because who could hurt Best Boy Jeremy, and Doc hugs him instead of biting him.

Doc feels like he can hold onto his humanity now but the problem is, he’s still not sure how they can get out of the cell in time to save Mercedes; he can’t open the bars alone, and Freddy the Werewolf can’t help because iron, like silver, hurts werewolves.

Mercedes thinks of a way, though, to feed two birds with one scone. What if Doc turns her into a vampire, which would both save her life and make them strong enough combined to get out of the cell.

Get to survive AND get to be a vampire? Sounds like a win-win to me.

They ask again for explicit consent, which is very sweet especially considering it was her idea in the first place, and as soon as she takes her true final form, she helps Doc break through the bars.

I didn’t see it coming until right before I watched this episode, but thinking about it now, Vampcedes feels like it’s always been an inevitability.

The new monster squad struts down the hallway like badasses, freeing all the other prisoners as they go.

Meanwhile, out in the forest, Nicole is making her way back to Wynonna when she picks up BBD activity on her walkie and overhears them saying that they’re going to wipe out all the remaining townspeople, and that’s something she just can’t stand for. So she trusts Wynonna to handle the Waverly situation (and in fact would trust no one else to) and runs off to save the city she has sworn to protect.

Apparently Dark Angel Waverly was just trying to make a dramatic point, because Wynonna’s blindness fades as they get to the part of the woods where she was expecting to find Rachel and Cleo, but instead just finds Rachel’s blood and Billy’s tooth.

“Do you even go here?”

Billy tells Wynonna that Cleo is unhinged and that they have to find her and save Rachel. Billy thinks they’re probably at the Clanton ranch, but Wynonna a) knows that’s definitely a trap because this ain’t her first rodeo, b) isn’t exactly in a hurry to get back to the place that her and her sister committed a double homicide. Plus she has some other things to deal with right now, like a possessed sister and a missing baby daddy, to name a few. But Billy says Rachel is counting on her; even back before he got turned, he remembers Rachel telling him about how awesome Wynonna is. Billy says this is what Waverly would want Wynonna to choose, and Wynonna says that’s a low blow, because she knows it’s true.

Gen Z really is going to save the world, aren’t they?

Billy can’t go with her because if he goes back to the ranch he’ll get re-reaped, but he can go try to fix his tooth problem while she gets Li’l Valdez back. After he’s gone, Wynonna has a little pep talk with Peacemaker, saying they’re going to do things a little differently this time.

“No one can say what we get to be. So why don’t we rewrite the stars?”

She also says she hopes Waverly has mellowed out, and if she means got less Dark or Angely, the answer is no. But she’s about as mellow as a celestial being could be while watching the world burn during a CRISIS and wearing a thigh ribbon.

I think this episode is going to give me a wing fetish.

Inside, the Monster Squad almost reaches safety when a poisonous gas starts to fill the air. They find themselves nose to nose with Agent McJerkface, and think their number is up, until they realize that actually he’s being held at gunpoint by one Nicole Haught. He doesn’t understand why she’s doing this, calls them all monsters, but Nicole says they’re her friends. And the werewolf is also her florist, thank you very much.

“He is helping me create a bouquet of lilies and moonflowers for Waverly and you will put respect on his name!”

She tells McJerkface that while she’s in charge, Purgatory is going to be an inclusive place. All species welcome; the only rule is, no assholes. Which I think is a lovely rule to live by.

Everyone starts to fight their way out, and Jeremy uses a doohickey to see if there’s a path through the fog and is surprised to find the fog is gone. So he starts leading people away while Doc decides to go in and get any stragglers. Before he goes back in, he has a flash where he hears voices, and Mercedes accidentally calls him “sire” when asking if he’s okay but all he knows is he has to get ready. When he’s inside, he hears more voices, so he loads his gun to prepare for whatever is coming next.

Cleo, having a literal captive audience in Rachel, is rambling about her mommy issues, getting angry when Rachel says her own mom was a hero. She’s furious about being punished for the sins of her mother, about the things no one ever told her, about being left all alone. She wants it to be over. And thus is delighted when Wynonna shows up to save Rachel, as predicted.

I mean Wynonna got off a bus to run into danger for a woman she didn’t even know in the pilot, we all knew she’d show up for Rachel.

She calls Rachel a master bait-er (which had big Buffy Dracula Episode vibes imho) when Holt the Reaper stumbles in. Because that’s what happens when a Clanton dies (unless they’re fed to other Reapers like Mam.) Cleo tells Wynonna now why she’s so desperate to get rid of the curse. Mam never warned her about the voices, and how the Reapers follow her, constantly crying out to be fed, demanding revenge, and never sleeping. Wynonna looks at her with more understanding than Cleo could ever know, because her dad also prepped a different sibling for the dangers to come, and never told any of them the full extent of it. But Cleo is determined to free herself of this curse; she’s found a way to pass the Clanton heir title to her greatest enemy instead.

“I finally know why we have branding equipment on a farm with no cattle.”

She thinks this will give Wynonna yet another burden to bear. She thinks the Earps are her family’s greatest enemy, which makes sense from where Cleo is standing. Waverly Earp killed her mother, Wynonna killed her big brother. Rachel, an honorary Earp, is the reason her baby brother is dead. And so she’s excited to watch Wynonna kill everyone she loves the way she’s had to watch her own family die. Cleo’s lip quivers and you can tell that for her, this is a last resort.

Next page: Go ahead and get an extra box of tissues and some Advil for your sobbing hangover. 

Autostraddle March Madness: Canon vs. Fanon – Sweet 16

Tonight, the NCAA women’s tournament kicks off their Final Four on ESPN. Stanford and South Carolina will tip off first. It’s tough to know who will come out on top, these teams are so well-matched.

South Carolina’s playing their best basketball of the year at exactly the right moment, with Aliyah Boston anchoring their offense in the post. Their defense has been stellar all tournament long — they held Texas scoreless in the fourth quarter in the Elite 8 — and can bring their brand of physicality to tonight’s game, I give the Gamecocks the edge.

But don’t count out the Cardinal: they play true team basketball and, on any given night, anyone can step up and lead them to victory. They’re no slouches on defense either, ranking second in the country in FG percentage defense, so we could be in for a defensive slugfest tonight. The thing I like about Stanford is their ability to shoot the ball from three, averaging 38.3% from long range this season. If they can get going from behind the arc, Stanford could win this thing handily.

I’m truly torn: my head’s with Stanford, my heart’s with South Carolina. We’ll see what happens.

The nightcap’s going to be a fun match-up as well: UCONN vs. Arizona. It’s hard not to think the Huskies have the advantage going in: they are, after all, perennial national championship contenders and that have been on this stage 21 times before (compared to just once for Arizona). But I like an underdog…and this Arizona team’s coming into this game with a chip on their shoulder and absolutely nothing to lose. I like what the Wildcats can do from three and, if they can draw the UCONN posts into some foul trouble, we might have and upset on our hands.

But while we get excited for the women’s games tonight, we’ve got our own bit of March Madness business to handle. Over the last 48 hours, you’ve cast your ballots and winnowed the 32 remaining couples down to 16. Here’s how things look for the CANON VS. FANON Sweet 16:

For a better view, you can use the full-size version of the bracket or check out our updated Challonge bracket.

In the Classic sub-region, the canon battle between Tara and Willow and Cosima and Delphine was one of the closest contests of the tournament thus far. The lead volleyed back and forth multiple times over the past 48 hours but ultimately the couple from Orphan Black pulled it own.

Meanwhile, Brittany and Santana coasted to a relatively easy win against the L Word powerhouse, Shane and Carmen. The win isn’t entirely unexpected — we do love Brittana around these parts after all — but the announcement of GLAAD’s upcoming tribute to Naya Rivera and news of her final role in the upcoming animated Batman movie….well, that’s enough to provoke a lot of nostalgia for even the non-GLEEks among us.

Canon: #3. Brittany and Santana – GLEE vs. #5. Cosima and Delphine – Orphan Black

Over on the fanon side of the bracket, things shook out a little differently: both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Xena: Warrior Princess easily fended off challenges in the Round of 32. Apparently, GLEE nostalgia doesn’t extend to everyone.

Fanon: #4. Buffy and Faith – Buffy the Vampire Slayer vs. #6. Xena and Gabrielle – Xena: Warrior Princess

The canon side of the GROWN sub-region offered some of the toughest choices in this tournament: Emma and Nico or Kat and Adena and Petra and JR or Callie and Arizona? I thought it interesting that voters went with the “older” couples in both cases: Emma and Nico got together on Vida during its second season in 2019, while Kat and Adena connected during The Bold Type‘s first season in 2017. Callie Torres first met Arizona Robbins in the bathroom at Joe’s during Grey’s fifth season (2009), while Petra didn’t hire JR to defend her until until 2018. We’ll see if that trend holds in this final match of the sub-region.

Canon: #3. Callie and Arizona – Grey’s Anatomy vs. #4. Kat and Adena – The Bold Type

Our other most competitive match-up of the second round came in the Grown fanon sub-region. After battling back and forth, Alex and Olivia edged out Callie and Addison. Admittedly, I’m surprised that the Callie Torres love didn’t carry over from canon to fanon, but I’m chalking it up to the inescapable advertising for the Benson and Stabler Law and Order reunion. Personally, if Alex Cabot isn’t involved, I am not interested.

The Special Victims Unit team will meet Eve and Villanelle in their Sweet 16 match-up. The Killing Eve pair easily dispatched a challenge from the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling to make it to the third round.

Fanon: #1. Alex and Olivia – Law and Order: Special Victims Unit vs. #2. Eve and Villanelle – Killing Eve

In the battle of the former March Madness champions in the Baby Gay region, Juliana and Valentina of Amar a Muerte came out on top. The fandom is definitely proving themselves stronger than their #8 seeding. They’ll face Emily and Sue from Dickinson in the Sweet 16, who pulled off what I’d consider to be a bit of an upset by dispatching Casey and Izzie. I guess that long wait between Atypical seasons — the show just started shooting its fourth and final season — took some wind out of the sails of the fandom.

Canon: #6. Emily and Sue – Dickinson vs. #8. Juliana and Valentina – Amar a Muerte

Over on the fanon side of the bracket, Betty and Veronica of Riverdale continued their dominance, despite an incredibly strong showing by Maya and Riley of Girl Meets World. The battle between the top two Pretty Little Liars fanon ships was closer than I’d anticipate with Spencer and Aria eeking out a victory. That makes for an interesting match-up in the sub-region’s finals: which fanon couple from a murderous town will reign supreme? Who’s your money on: Riverdale or Rosewood?

Fanon: #1. Betty and Veronica – Riverdale vs. #2. Spencer and Aria – Pretty Little Liars

It’s been all chalk — that is, all the higher seeds have won — and the trend continued during the Round of 32 in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy category.Wynonna Earp‘s Waverly and Nicole easily defeated AvaLance from Legends of Tomorrow. With each round, WayHaught seems to be picking up strength so I like the couple’s chances as we head into the final rounds of this tournament. Standing in their way, though, will be the equally strong pairing of Alex Danvers and Maggie Sawyer, who advanced to the Sweet 16 despite a formidable challenge from Nomi and Amanita from Sense8.

Canon: #1. Waverly and Nicole – Wynonna Earp vs. #2. Maggie and Alex – Supergirl

Let’s be honest: we all knew it was going to end here. No matter how many great couples there were in the fanon portion of the Sci-Fi/Fantasy sub-region, this final match-up felt inevitable: Emma and Regina vs. Lena and Kara. Swan Queen vs. SuperCorp. Both easily dispatched their opponents in the last round, ultimately earning almost the exact same vote totals. This will be the match to watch in the Sweet 16.

Fanon: #1. Emma and Regina – Once Upon a Time vs. #2. Lena and Kara – Supergirl

“Wynonna Earp” Episode 410 Recap: Calling All Angels

Previously on Wynonna Earp, Wynonna got her heart broken by a judgmental cowboy and went on a bender about it, Rachel released Reaper Billy back to his sister, Waverly and Wynonna learned about the mind-melting fog creeping into the Ghost River Triangle the hard way, and we had three episodes in a row of laughter and goofs so we knew this attack on our feelings was coming but it didn’t stop it from hurting.

We open in a Dolly Parton 9 to 5 music video, with a peek into what Wynonna’s day to day has looked like later. She tumbles outta bed, stumbles to the forest, with a flask full of ambition and, I imagine, whiskey. Every day the same. Kick open the door, down a demon, come home and pass out. Rinse and repeat.

Working 9 to 5, what a way to make a living. Barely gettin’ by, it’s all taking and no giving.

Until one morning she wakes up and reaches out for Peacemaker and finds it isn’t where she dropped it the night before. She makes her way to the kitchen, chases some Tylenol with some banana liqueur, and tries to break it to WayHaught gently that she seems to have misplaced a certain buntline special.

She didn’t even look at the label. What if Waverly upcycled that into an olive oil decanter?

But when she turns around to see her sister’s reaction, likely expecting annoyance, worry, or even anger, instead she sees Waverly and Nicole looking at her and her morning shot with a deep sadness in their eyes. After they talk for a minute, Waverly reveals she took Peacemaker because they need to talk.

Frankly I give Wynonna credit for staying there as long as she did. As soon as I saw Waverly’s face I would have noped out so fast.

You can tell this is something Waverly and Nicole have talked about, something that pains Waverly to do, but she’s known for a while it’s a conversation she had to have. She tells Wynonna that they love her very much, and Wynonna instantly recognizes it as the intervention it is. Whether it’s for the alcohol or the demon hunting, I’m not sure Waverly even knows, all she knows is that her sister is hurting and won’t ask for help even though it’s clear she needs it.

“These aren’t tears it’s just the banana liqueur trying to escape through my eyeballs.”

Wynonna fights back tears and tries to grab Peacemaker from Waverly, but Waverly won’t give it. Knowing this is being used as collateral for this conversation, Wynonna decides she doesn’t need the gun today and storms off. Waverly chases after her and Wynonna spins on her heels and yells at Waverly; how dare she act like what she’s doing is wrong when everything she does is for Waverly. Wynonna is saving everyone’s life, so what if she needs a little whiskey to do it? Waverly is worried that maybe Wynonna is enjoying the demon killing a little too much, and while that may be true, I think it’s something Waverly has been worrying about herself, too. So it’s not an attack when she says it, it’s a gentle opportunity to talk about it.

“Listen, if Willa were here I’d have her be the bad guy and break this to you but I’m all you’ve got so listen up.”

But Wynonna feels attacked.

Wynonna squares off with her baby sister. She’s doing this for HER, she’s doing this for everyone. She has to do this or people will die. Wynonna points out how Waverly killed a Clanton, same as her, and no one seems to be up her angel ass about it.

It gives me belly rumblings when these two fight.

Waverly tries not to burst into tears as she makes one final attempt to reach Wynonna. She has one last move to try to get her big sister to hear her. She compares Wynonna to Ward.

Wynonna does hear this, but it hurts her. Deeply. She calls Waverly a sanctimonious asshole and storms off.

Waverly goes in to find Nicole waiting patiently for her and collapses into her arms. “I’m not judging her,” she explains, and it’s true. “I’m just trying not to lose her.”

“Wynonna has always been my most important pers–This uniform smells like chicken.”

Nicole holds her girlfriend tight, wishing there was more she could do, offering to stay with her so she doesn’t have to be alone.

“There’ll be no strings to bind your hands. Not if my love can’t bind your heart.”

But Waverly tells Nicole to go. She has a job to do now. And besides, Waverly has some shenanigans of her own to get up to. As soon as Nicole is out of sight, she calls Doc and meets him by the stairs in the forest. He brought the book she took from the Garden and we finally (finally!) learn which one she took: the one labeled Waverly Gibson. She took it because she thought it was the easiest way to get information about everyone else, since she considers them such important parts of her life. Maybe she was afraid Nicole wouldn’t be in Doc’s, or Rosita wouldn’t be in Nicole’s, but if she took her own she would have access to everyone in her galaxy. Though what she thought it would tell her is beyond me, and honestly beyond her too, because it’s blank.

“This isn’t how it worked in The Magicians.”

She worries she made the selfish choice and that’s why it’s blank now, otherwise what explanation is there? Doc says the Garden was full of mysterious things and they probably shouldn’t read too much into it. She tells him about the Throne then, about how it took away her ability to care about anyone else. Doc said that sounds like hell, and Waverly said it felt like heaven. And honestly, I think they’re both right. Caring about other people is the whole point of life, in my opinion. It makes all the good things better and all the bad things bearable. But good lord can it be exhausting. Especially to someone who cares as deeply and as often as Waverly. Energy cannot be created nor destroyed. When someone like Waverly gives you comfort or support, she trades a little of her light for your darkness. She takes a stone from your burden and gives you a feather in return. And after a while, it starts to get heavy. And when you care about someone, you worry about them. And when you live in a town like Purgatory, that worry is turned up to 11 at all times. A persistent clench, a constant held breath. To be able to set all that down, to be able to stop worrying for once about Wynonna, Nicole, Doc, Jeremy, Rachel. To be able to breathe.” Waverly wouldn’t be Waverly without all this love she has for her family, blood or chosen, but I can see it’s temptation, is all I’m saying.

Doc and Waverly’s rumination is interrupted by Dallas and Remy, two of Amon’s lackeys, who are starving and looking at Waverly like Wile E. Coyote looks at Road Runner.

“How rude.”

Doc tries to get them to stand down but they’re too hungry to tap into their humanity right now, so Waverly whips out Peacemaker and wields it with adorable confidence.

Me playing Fortnite: Feeling tough, being largely ineffective.

But despite it coming through in a pinch for her once before, it remains a hunk of metal in her hands, so Doc tells her to run, and run she does.

Unfortunately the fog has spread and before she knows it, Waverly is running through it, covering her breathing holes very poorly, and trying to find her way out.

Me between when I watched my screener and when the episode aired trying desperately not to spoil the person in the next screenshot.

She eventually hears her name being called and follows it to what I can only assume is the Boobie Munch Cabin and stumbles inside, where the fog seemingly hasn’t permeated yet. But inside there are no breast alligators to be found, only an old enemy lurking in the shadows.

Jolene.

But you? you’re not allowed. You’re uninvited. An unfortunate slight.”

Waverly is horrified, she watched Wynonna shoot her, she watched Bulshar take her, but she apparently didn’t die, and when Wynonna defeated Bulshar, his murder tree vines released her. Isn’t it the worst when an enemy you thought you defeated shows up after poison air forces you to isolate yourself from your friends and family?

Gosh if only this show were relatable at all.

Jolene is thrilled to see her better half again…so thrilled, in fact, that she smashes Waverly’s head into a pole and ties her up.

Back in the forest, Remy and Dallas try to explain to Doc that they’re out hunting for food because the Glory Hole was raided that morning, when BBD agents descend upon them as if to prove their point. They tranq Dallas and Doc and say they can leave Remy behind because he’s “not on the list.”

Rachel, realizing the intervention is finally over, goes to the barn to find Wynonna. Wynonna is pissed and taking it out on a punching bag. Rachel looks at Wynonna with admiration and hope and asks if Wynonna will train her; she wants to be able to defend herself…she wants to be like Wynonna.

Sweet girl, you’re already more like Wynonna than you realize. You’re already a fighter, a survivor.

Wynonna doesn’t love this plan but knows she can’t just say no so she takes Rachel to the woods to throw her in the deep end and hope she decides she doesn’t want to learn how to swim after all.

At some BBD facility near a bus full of newly dead senior citizens, Cleo puts on her brightest and most innocent smile and applies to leave the Ghost River Triangle. She is eventually approved, even though Billy the Reaper is lurking nearby and smelling up the place.

“Oh that’s just my cheese collection in my purse, don’t worry about it.”

Back by the Homestead, Rachel skulks through the woods like Simba learning how to pounce and Wynonna sits nearby correcting her form. She tells Rachel she has to flirt with danger, not sneak up on it, and Rachel isn’t sure Wynonna is taking this teaching gig seriously.

I wouldn’t learn much if Wynonna was in charge of my education on any given topic, and it wouldn’t have anything to do with her teaching skills.

Rachel calls Wynonna her family and Wynonna chokes back her feelings and rejects the sentiment. I imagine Rachel is hurt by this but the truth is it’s proof Wynonna cares about her. She feels cursed by her name and doesn’t want it for her lil Valdez. She says maybe the Gibson line is fine but Earp? Nobody should want to be an Earp. Because Earps are doomed to be alone.

“Wynonna Earp” Episode 409 Recap: I Dream of Ginny

Previously on Wynonna Earp, Wynonna slept with Amon the demon bartender, Rachel released Billy the Reaper from the basement, Nicole was uncharacteristically uncomfortable in the sheriff’s office, Cleo told Doc about Haught’s deal with Mam Clanton to trade Doc for Waverly, and Doc tossed Amon to the metaphorical wolves after Amon tried to kill Wynonna and Waverly.

We open with an old west style stare-off, Wynonna vs. Nicole, Earp vs. Haught.

:a hawk caws in the distance:

:sound of a tumbleweed rolling by:

It turns out they are sparring and boxing, exchanging quips and jabs, uppercuts and titty punches, and it’s all very cute and snarky.

Wynonna does some of her best bonding via sparring sessions.

Waverly enters just as Wynonna knocks Haught over, saying she’s the only one allowed to sweep her off her feet, and for a second I thought cupid was back, but then I realized that the 90s romcom glow was just in my head and Waverly’s entrance was normal, I was just swooning.

:sings: “There she goes, there she goes again.”

Waverly makes a joke about not knowing who to cheer for, and Wynonna says she should cheer for her because she got Haught off the Homestead and into town. The Earp sisters turn on Haught then, gently coaxing her like a feral cat to come with them. They want her to be the sheriff again.

I don’t know how you say no to these two.

But Nicole doesn’t want to hear it. The town didn’t vote for her, and she doesn’t want to be the backup plan just because Hoyt is gone. She’s also tired of talking about it, so she makes some excuse about wedding planning and tells the Earp girls she’ll see them at trivia tonight.

Waverly looks to Wynonna and says there are Purgatorians in the sheriff’s office who need help but Wynonna also doesn’t want this responsibility. Waverly pleads with her; it’s not like she has a Black Badge assignment right now, and with Amon gone the town seems quiet. Which are famous last words. It’s like when someone starts a meeting by saying it will be quick and/or easy.

I don’t know why no one suggested Waverly be the community leader in this situation.

And as if to prove my point, we cut to a “quiet” part of town where a man stumbles across a dead body who seems to have been killed by way of two wee puncture wounds in the neck. The man says that the Earp heir is going to be pissed, and is worried he’ll be put on the chopping block for this, since his teeth are also particularly pointy, him being a werewolf and all.

Instead of going to do any wedding planning, Nicole goes to Shorty’s where Nedley catches her trying to sneak some free beer from one of the unbroken taps.

Me in college but stealing maraschino cherries.

Nedley also thinks she should be the one to take charge in this town, and thinks she’s only resisting because she is, and I quote, “butthurt.”

“Not sure how I feel about my dad saying the word ‘butt’ to me but okay.”

Nicole claims she can’t possibly be sheriff right now because she has a teenager to take care of who is a full time job, and Nedley points out that if she were really spending that much time with Rachel she might have noticed that Little Valdez let her reaper boyfriend out of the basement.

Meanwhile at the sheriff’s office, Wynonna joins Waverly to theoretically help but instead she dismisses everyone’s concerns. Pharmacies being out of moisturizers and neighbors getting douchebag paint jobs on their cars seems incredibly insignificant when you deal with life and death situations every day. Waverly pulls her aside and tries to explain that the people are stressed; less supplies are coming through the BBD border, supernatural activity is on the rise.

So the Earp girls try to calm the crowd down, saying everything is fine…Until Jeremy comes in covered in blood, proving that things are not, in fact, fine. They try to cover it up by saying it’s cherry pie but even this regular joe schmoe of a citizen can tell they’re lying and says as much.

Jeremy Chetri isn’t exactly known for his subtlety.

Jeremy leads the Earp sisters to examine the dead body that was brought in and they recognize him as the guy who won trivia last week. Waverly says that at least he won’t be at trivia tonight and looks as horrified with herself as Wynonna and Jeremy look that such a ruthless thing came out of such a sweet angel’s mouth.

Who said that?

Wynonna says she understands, before she was knocked out of the competition, she was obsessed with trivia night, too.

When Jeremy shows them the puncture wounds in the vic’s neck, Wynonna gives a little whoop of joy, assuming this is the work of the hottest vampire in town and that finally he stooped to her level and can’t hold his grudge anymore. She floofs her hair and prances off to “interrogate” him, Waverly watching her go with a bit of sadness in her eyes.

Wynonna heads down to the Glory Hole and accuses Doc of leaving his pizza crust out in the open for everyone to find, trying to be stern but mostly looking smug that he is down with her in the pit of depravity.

Wynonna in gold leather pants, checking her reflection in her flask, holding Peacemaker and strutting into the Glory Hole…that’s it, that’s the show.

Doc says it wasn’t him, even when Wynonna holds up Peacemaker to trigger his vamp face. Amon’s old crew steps up to stand up for him, and Wynonna is surprised Doc has gone from being the “I walk alone” broody type to the guy with minions.

Back at Shorty’s, Nicole calls Rachel down into the basement to talk. Rachel thinks this is a gayntervention but Nicole and Waverly would support her even if she’s straight. She asks Rachel about Billy and Rachel calls her out for lying to her about his fate. Nicole agrees that was possibly not the best choice and asks if they can just be open and honest from now on. Rachel asks if this includes the “chicken kicker” thing but based on the look on Nicole’s face I imagine that’s off the table. Rachel gets defensive and promises not to mention it ever again.

I know she’s supposed to be her legal guardian but this has such big sister energy and I’m here for it.

Rachel apologizes for letting Billy out but says for what it’s worth, he seemed pretty weak. Nicole forgives her and, upon learning Rachel is listening to a podcast about Lady Gaga, asks if she’s sure she’s not even bi. It’s very endearing. (Enqueering? Moving on…)

In the spirit of putting everything on the table, Rachel looks up at Nicole and says that Doc would probably forgive her if she was honest about that, too, and Nicole looks at her charge with a deep appreciation.

Joke’s on Nicole, all of Gen Z is queer and they don’t feel the need to come out about it.

Across town (or across the street? who’s to say), Waverly goes to see Jeremy, who is examining the body of a second victim, this time a butcher. He was killed the same way as the first guy, and was also a trivia champ. Also, based on other wounds on the body, Jeremy is starting to think the puncture wounds aren’t bite marks at all. While casually handling the body while they chat about Doc and Wynonna’s coldness as of late, Waverly notices that the skull feels lighter than a dead head should.

“I would know about the weight of an empty skull, I married one.”

She uses a laser pointer to discover that both victims have been…relieved of their brain. They imagine it’s probably a demon, stealing brains for god knows what.

Cut to Rich Dotcom from Blindspot eating a brain sandwich while a woman sits idly by, seemingly unfazed by the disgusting sight before her.

I blame the patriarchy for normalizing men being gross.

Back at PPD HQ, Wynonna arrives to get debriefed by Waverly and Jeremy. Wynonna calls them murderinos and asks about her “least favorite murderer,” the nerd squad has a literal murderboard, and Jeremy says the word “unsub” while he and Waverly fight over the profile and whether the killer is a demon or a twisted serial killer. My true crime loving heart fully exploded.

Wynonna is disappointed to learn that they determined it’s definitely not a vampire, and Jeremy and Waverly’s back-and-forth gets a little ruthless (complete with Jeremy insulting Waverly’s online degree) as their mini competition to be right about the unsub devolves into a fight about who will win trivia.

Me explaining how JJ and Emily should have been canon on Criminal Minds.

Wynonna tells them to calm down and tries to distract them by messing up their murderboard when suddenly they hear a duck quack. Could it be a horse-sized duck here to murder them all? No, it’s just Waverly’s rubber ducky keychain she set out for people to use as a bell if they needed help.

Next page: Winner winner chicken dinner. 

“Wynonna Earp” Episode 408 Recap: If U Seek Amon

Previously on Wynonna Earp, we learned that Waverly Earp wasn’t only a metaphorical angel but also literally born of a celestial being, the gates to the Garden opened, Wynonna lost Peacemaker then found it again, WayHaught got engaged, and Wynonna went on a bender after a fight with Doc and slept with Amon.

This week, we open on a butt.

Wynonna’s butt, specifically. She wakes up with only her boots and her gun to her name and covers herself with a tray as she inches away from the horny demons (literally, they have horns) setting the Glory Hole up for some kind of game night.

Oops, I did it again.

Amon asks her to leave so she wraps herself in some vagina curtains with a tasteful boa belt and struts to the Purgatory Police Department so she doesn’t have to hike all the way home mostly naked.

We then cut to a pumpkin patch where some Black Badge agents are patrolling. Apparently never being scarred by a single Goosebumps book in their life, they walk right past the terrifying scarecrow wearing Widowesque finger jewelry. So they never see it coming when all of a sudden it leaps off its post and pitchforks them to death.

Back at the Homestead, Waverly is gleefully decorating the front porch and Nicole, knowing full well there’s no way trick-or-treaters are making it all the way out to the Earp property, is amused at her gal’s Halloween spirit.

I deeply appreciate that Waverly was determined to climb on banisters to decorate instead of asking her tall girlfriend to help.

Also this is neither here nor there but I adore it when the smaller half of a couple is on a top step and the taller is on a bottom step so their heights are temporarily reversed. So cute. Anyway, Waverly tells Nicole she’s going to spend some quality time with her sister today, and Nicole is fine with that because her and Rachel are going to the Big City to do some wedding shopping anyway. Waverly jokes that Nicole doesn’t need a white dress if she wears a white hat, specifically her stetson.

“If I said I want your body now, would you hold it against me?”

Before they can break in another set of stairs, however, Waverly gets a cryptic text from Wynonna and knows she has to go see what her sister means when she says, “Bring pants.”

Jeremy beats Waverly to Wynonna’s side and is surprised to find her clothed in vagina curtains but honestly not as surprised as someone who has never met Wynonna might have been. He tells her that his new boss is on his ass to get Agent Earp to deliver and she hasn’t brought them a demon in weeks.

Me explaining to coworkers that “EOD” means “before I go to sleep” not “5pm sharp.”

Waverly interrupts the debriefing, entering the room dressed as a ladybug, which I believe is a nod back to Season 2 when Wynonna is listing lipstick names and Waverly thinks they’re doing a bit and says “flaming ladybug” which Wynonna steals as a nickname for herself later in the episode.

I could have just used this for 90% of the captions but I’ll say it once and you’ll just feel it the rest of the ep: THE EARP SISTERS ARE VERY IMPORTANT TO ME DOT TUMBLR DOT COM.

Jeremy tells Wynonna that he has a job for her and needs her to get the Extractor and bring in a demon scarecrow named Rotten Jack but not kill him. Waverly tells Jeremy they simply can’t do BBD’s bidding today because they have big Halloween plans. She’s determined to have her Earp Sister Day. And she brought Wynonna a costume.

Waverly’s face screams, “I solemnly swear I am up to no good.”

You would think Waverly would be soured on B. Spears because that’s who Nicole and Shae were seeing in concert when they decided to get married, but then again, who could blame them for being hyped up after seeing Toxic performed live.

“When I’m not with you, I lose my mind.”

While the Earp sisters head out for some Halloween happenings, Doc goes to the Glory Hole, dressed like Freddy Mercury, possibly for no reason other than he felt like it. It’s not like Waverly was hosting a proper Halloween party, right? Either way, I’m not mad at it. We love bisexual icons stanning bisexual icons. Amon explains the demon game night situation to Doc, saying they’re taking bets on who Rotten Jack will kill and when. Doc isn’t amused and thinks Amon is asking for trouble, but Amon doesn’t care what Doc thinks because he’s been slacking on his Glory Hole liquor duties. Amon then starts his quick descent from morally ambiguous demon to wretched man, feeling over-confident in his Earp heir immunity since he had sex with her, clearly not knowing that Wynonna shot her own big sister when she went too far past the line.

Doc knows better and also is still harboring a bit of resentment about their most recent fight so he just laughs in Amon’s face and stalks off.

Elsewhere in the Ghost River Triangle, Waverly and Wynonna follow a map Jeremy gave them to find the Extractor, and end up at a cute little trailer set-up. They knock on the door (Wynonna delivering a perfect, “It’s Britney, bitch”) and when it opens they’re surprised to find their old pal Casey the Half-Demon.

I love that Waverly relented to doing this task but first she was going to braid her sister’s hair if it killed them both.

Back at BBDHQ, Jeremy blows off his boss similarly to how he blew off the Earp girls, determined to get to this meeting he’s been mentioning. When he gets there, it seems to be a group therapy session, and he seems to be there for a cute boy with a lil bandage on his nose. Jeremy gets excited when this cute boy remembers something he told him before, and at first it seems like awkward flirting, but then Jeremy calls him Robin. Robin looks at him with friendly eyes, but not the familiar way he once looked at our favorite Doc-obsessed, science-loving nerd.

Back at Casey’s trailer, Waverly and Wynonna do their darndest to convince Casey to give them the Extractor when finally he explains that HE’S the Extractor. And he doesn’t want to go with them.

I would like to note that Peacemaker never glows when Wynonna points it at Casey. She was never going to actually hurt him.

He gets worked up that they’re working with BBD, he feels betrayed by his buds. “We cooked chili together!” he exclaims as he opens a can to blind them with some kind of magic flash, puts on a gas mask, and runs into a nearby field. The Earp sisters follow, Wynonna echoing his chili words back at him, but suddenly they find themselves surrounded by fog, as docile as Dorothy in a field of poppies. By the time they find their way out of the fog, they not only don’t recognize each other, but they can’t even remember their own names.

“What’s my name?? Don’t let me be the last to know!”

Fictional Amnesia is always really interesting to me because as someone who minored in psychology and also took a cognitive neuroscience class in college because I’m an idiot who thought they would be the interesting way to fulfil my required science credits, I learned a lot about long and short-term memory, and how brain injuries and other amnesia-causing situations (including drugs or trauma) will affect everyone so differently. Like on paper it might seem weird that they remember that what Wynonna is wearing is a school uniform but not remember it as a Britney Spears costume, and frankly it IS weird, but it’s not impossible. Brains are weird, is what I’m saying. And memory is a mystery, especially to me, someone who will find herself in a whole room reaching a specific direction without knowing why until seeing the thing I was about to pick up reminds me.

When they make it back to Casey’s campsite, Waverly immediately punches him square in the face.

Casey is shocked that “the nice one” who demanded they use vegan ingredients during the Chili Cook-Off FOR FREEDOM just cold clocked him but he eventually calms them down and convinces them that they’re just super high and uses their map to point them toward home.

The Earp sisters are feeling giddy and silly so they stumble off toward what they hope is a car they can hopefully drive, not even realizing they left behind Peacemaker.

When they get back to the Homestead, they start investigating the house to figure out who they are. As someone who just played the video game Gone Home for the first time where I basically had to learn about “my” family by exploring their house, I found this delightful.

Between the giant spoon and the giant moccasin and the giant VALDEZ scrawled across the wall I can imagine it being a confusing home to peruse.

Wynonna thinks maybe they’re roommates, but Waverly knows that they’re sisters, somehow. Wynonna thinks it’s awfully cute that they’re sisters and they live together and skips off to find mail with their names on it. They accidentally swap names and, like drunk girls incorrectly solving an escape room, start to incorrectly assume things about their lives. Wynonna thinks she works at Shorty’s, because she likes the way Rachel’s dirty shirt tastes of whiskey and Waverly feels drawn to the cop uniform she found and remembers loving punching Casey so she assumes she must be a cop.

Lick first, ask questions later wouldn’t be MY first investigative technique but you do you, bb.

Waverly starts to talk about the rush she felt when she punched Casey, but since Wynonna isn’t feeling like herself, she doesn’t clock it as a red flag and they decide to go to Shorty’s, where surely Wynonna is working for Halloween.

Next page: Taste of a poison paradise.

“Wynonna Earp” Episode 407 Recap: Glitter In The Air

Welcome back, Earpers!! It has been…a very long time. Seven months, seven years, time is broken, there’s absolutely no way to know how long it’s been. But the important thing is that we’re back and Team Earp is just as Earpy as ever. So let’s dive right in.

Previously on Wynonna Earp, Waverly and Doc got stuck in the Garden and Nicole unwittingly made a deal with Earp rival Mam Clanton to get them out and started barfing frogs, Waverly killed Mam Clanton to save her girlfriend, Wynonna killed Holt Clanton to try to put an end to their feud, Doc broke up with her over it, and Waverly proposed to Nicole.

And that barely grazes the surface. I love this wacky show.

The mid-season premiere opens in sunny Purgatory, a bit of an unusual but not unwelcome sight. Wynonna is stumbling through the woods, Peacemaker in one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other. Nicole is giving Waverly a ring in the middle of a motel parking lot on a very familiar couch.

This was a really cute and sweet moment but I can’t think too hard about where that couch has been or I get itchy.

Waverly and Nicole go to Shorty’s to celebrate their engagement for the second time, which is actually just a pre-toast before the next night’s engagement party. I think the tally so far is 2.5 proposals so I guess 2.5 engagement parties is good, too. It’s been a little over a month since the last engagement and Doc and Wynonna are still fighting, hence Wynonna’s day drinking. Nedley is taking over Chrissy’s juice bar and turning it back into Shorty’s (but leaving some of the plants) and Billy the Reaper is still living in the basement.

:fights the urge to make an enGAYgement joke: :clearly fails:

On her jolly jaunt through the murdertrees, Wynonna finds a demon and is ready to do her duty when she realizes it’s Amon of Glory Hole fame. Wynonna is drunk and over it and ready to send him to hell anyway, but ultimately spares him. She just wants him to remember that his life (or…afterlife? Unlife?) is in her hands.

Get someone who looks at you the way Wynonna looks at her magic demon-slaying gun.

Wynonna stumbles her way back to Shorty’s and Waverly sighs at her sister’s drunken reproach of Doc. She wishes they would just fight and make up already instead of this persistent avoidance of one another. When asked why she wasn’t at the toast, Wynonna lies about planning a bachelorette party and even though it wasn’t even a good lie, Nicole and Waverly placate her and let her drag them to an empty strip club where it’s male dancers.

I love how all three of them not only have very different expressions, but also are dressed for three very different events.

There’s another drunk bride there who loves Waverly’s bisexual bob and drags Nicole away for bride-to-be shots and Waverly tells Wynonna that Nicole just wants a quick, quiet wedding. Wynonna might be drunk but she still knows her sister and remembers the bridal scrapbooks Waverly has been making all her life. Wynonna encourages her sister to ask for what she wants and she’s right; Waverly will regret it if they don’t at least talk about it.

Meanwhile back at Shorty’s, Nedley asks Rachel why she’s hanging around, and Li’l Valdez says she doesn’t really have anywhere to go because she doesn’t like being alone at the Homestead. Nedley hires her as a barback and she’s so excited she forgets her manners and teases him for eating Calamity Jane. RIP.

Now I’m imagining a slow day at the bar, Rachel trying to teach Nedley TikTok dances, him being surprisingly good at them.

At the slapdash bachelorette party, the next stripper up is a man named Dimitri with peculiar scars on his back and Waverly recognizes him from the motel parking lot earlier. After his set, he plops down next to Waverly and Wynonna and laments that love is like the tooth fairy. Wynonna thinks he means it doesn’t pay as much as you’d think, but what Dimitri means is that it doesn’t exist. And suddenly I’m a big fan of Dimitri.

Also Dimitri is pan and he says so right out loud and it’s delightful. Waverly insists that love is real and is willing to bet on it, forgetting where she lives and that in Purgatory you can’t just say things like that. Dimitry slips a small vial into Waverly’s pocket and she’s none the wiser.

Later, Waverly and Nicole make their way to the Purgatory Sheriff’s Office to look for a marriage license. Cleo Clanton has been MIA since her brother and mother died but Nicole still remembers where they kept them. Alone in the place they first kissed, Waverly starts to pull Nicole closer but Nicole gets squirrely about it, maybe left over from when this was where she worked and it wasn’t appropriate.

“Kiss me, out of the bearded barley. Nightly, beside the green green…BUNNY?”

Waverly is confused, it’s not like there’s anyone else here. Except she was wrong about that. In only having eyes for her girl, she didn’t notice someone sitting at the desk of the abandoned office. The one, the only: Bunny Loblaw. She is a one-woman City Hall, determined to keep order in this riff-raff infested town if she has to build stocks in the town square. Waverly is flustered and a little glitter floats off of her and lands on Nicole. But it quickly becomes clear this isn’t edible glitter from the strippers when Nicole is overcome with a vision of Waverly in the slow-mo glow of a 90s rom com.

Finally everyone else can see what I see when I look at Waverly Earp.

And all of a sudden, Nicole can’t keep her hands off Waverly, despite Bunny loblawing insults at her and her girl. Waverly is trying her best to say serious and use her adult voice to demand Bunny give her a marriage license while Nicole all but humps her leg.

Me @ my friends the second we’re all vaccinated.

Eventually Bunny relents and Waverly shakes her hand to show there are no hard feelings when a piece of glitter falls on her and now Bunny is in love with Waverly, too.

Waverly leaves before she can really register this change in attitude and her next stop is to bring Amon a peace pie, hoping he can wrangle his demon buds into having a truce day to help her convince Nicole to have a proper wedding, since the constant threat of attack is one of the things keeping her hesitant. Waverly accidentally turns her sweetness up to 11 and boops his nose and while she regrets it immediately, it works in her favor since he gets glittered and falls for her too.

Waverly finds Doc lurking around and they talk briefly about Mam Clanton but Waverly doesn’t remember what happened exactly, just remembers touching her. She doesn’t want to think about that right now anyway, she just wants to think about love.

When Waverly finds Nicole in the barn, where she sent her to cool off, Nicole leaps up like a puppy dog. She found Waverly’s wedding scrapbook and will do literally anything Waverly wants. Waverly doesn’t know what’s wrong but she knows something’s off; did Nicole touch the goo? Get possessed by the ghost of a horny teenager? Is she just Eve shapeshifted again? Did Jolene charm her? Honestly it’s a wonder they don’t have safe words for this by now.

I also am untrusting when people are overly nice to me, so I feel this.

Waverly leaves Nicole to continue to cool off while Nicole just calls after her about needing a wedding hashtag, sounding like Twitter when the ship first set save. WavNic? HeatWave? WayHaught? Nah, definitely not that last one.

As she leaves the Homestead, Waverly runs into Bunny Loblaw, who is here with a bajillion roses to profess her love for Waverly Earp. Waverly simply says, “Nope!” and ignores Bunny’s pleas and promises of a Bend it Like Beckham movie night as Waverly leaves to figure out what the hell is going on with everyone.

Waverly finds Wynonna drunk as a skunk in the trunk of her truck and Wynonna is highly entertained by this turn of events.

When the baby sister has to be the big sister because big sister is a hot damn mess.

Waverly doesn’t get why she’s suddenly everybody’s thing, and despite Wynonna insisting that’s nothing new, Waverly has a theory about when exactly things started to get all Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered up in here.

Meanwhile, Doc Holliday goes to look for Cleo at her ranch and finds the last remaining Clanton curled up in a ball near a corpse and crying. She begs him to kill her and as he looks at her with surprise and he’s hit with that slow-release glitter and is taken by the Can’t Hardly Wait effect, too, showing us that it’s not just Waverly people are falling for.

I’m low key in love with Savannah Basley and I can’t wait for her to have more scenes with the rest of the Earp crew.

He flirts with her, gently and softly, and she’s confused about it but flattered and agrees to let him help her.

Next page: Valerie Anne finally realizes love is not a lie. 

The Final(?) “Wynonna Earp” Trailer is Here

On Friday, Earpers learned that our beloved reluctant hero/cursed gunslinger/badass babe with a taste for whiskey Wynonna Earp might not be returning to us for a season five. The bright side is, this knowledge comes in the middle of Season Four, so we still have six more episodes waiting for us that we now know we should truly savor.

And from the looks of this trailer, there will be plenty to enjoy.

One thing I’ve loved about Wynonna Earp is how much it always feels just like it should. The music, the jokes, the chaos, the stress. It’s all so Earp. It looks like Wynonna goes on a bit of a bender, Nicole and Waverly’s wedding planning proves to be difficult on a hellmouth, Doc’s in danger (must be Tuesday), and once again something is making our baby girl scream her sister’s name. The Earp sisters are very important to me dot tumblr dot com.

WayHaught also good.

I’m sure it will be nothing but wedding bliss and honeymoon phases for these two in 4b!! No danger or angst at all!!!

Can’t wait to dive back into the chaos with you all.

Season 4 continues on March 5th at 10pm EST on SYFY. See ya there, shittickets!

“Wynonna Earp” Will Say Goodbye To WayHaught In Season 4B

As any fan of Wynonna Earp knows, getting the fourth season both made and aired has been quite the feat. Renewals, cancellations, re-renewals… and then a global pandemic. But finally, finally Team Earp is returning to us (and on Fridays again, no less) for the second half of Season 4 — which looks like they might be the last episodes of the show.

Wynonna looks like me in quarantine in this shot.

The first half of the season left us with some questions about Eve, some actions that will surely have emotional consequences, a lone Clanton on the loose and surely displeased, Wynonna finally reunited with Peacemaker, and a WayHaught proposal. Who knows what these final six episodes have in store (I learned early in Season 1 that guessing is futile because when you think this show might zig or even zag it has a chili cookoff FOR FREEDOM so there’s no use trying to predict anything) but one thing Wynonna Earp has always done well is staying true to the heart of these characters we’ve grown to love over the years, so I’m sure Waverly and Nicole are in good hands, even if those hands will put them through the angst machine a bit before it’s all said and done.

I won’t lie, Wynonna Earp has been my favorite show since Orphan Black and my whole heart is invested; from the characters to the stories to the people behind the scenes creating the show. There are so many queer people on screen — including Dominique Provost-Chalkley and Kat Barrell, who play everyone’s favorite bisexual angel and lesbian sheriff respectively – and even more behind the scenes, and it’s been so fun to watch them have fun making this show. So this news is a bit of a blow, but I’m holding onto a little kernel of hope that this isn’t really goodbye.

In the press release, showrunner Emily Andras said that she was proud of these last six episodes on SYFY, and goes on to say, “I have been honored to tell Wynonna and her family’s story, and along with Seven24, Cineflix and CTV Sci-Fi, are hopeful we can continue to share their inspiring tales in the future.”

So maybe that means the studios will be looking for a new home for the show, and if any fandom can convince a new network to pick them up, it’s Earpers. Whatever Emily wants, however she wants this to end, that’s what I want too. It’s her bus, I’m just riding it.

But if this truly is goodbye, we’ll at least have these four perfect seasons of television to put in the queer representation hall of fame. We’ll always have Purgatory.

See you on March 5th at 10pm EST on Syfy, Earpers.

“Wynonna Earp” Episode 406: Frog Day Afternoon

Previously on Wynonna Earp, Nicole made a deal with the Clantons that made her start puking up frogs and trying to kill her friends, Rachel’s crush Billy got turned into a reaper, Wynonna and Doc found Rosita on a rock, and Nicole cuffed her girlfriend to a bed so she could go get some exorcise.

This episode begins just a little while before the last episode ended, giving us a sneak peek into what Nicole, Jeremy, and Nedley were up to before Waverly walked in. They set everything up and work out a plan; Nicole is just going to die a little, and her consciousness is going to hang out in a frog for a bit until the curse registers her as dead, then they’ll warm her up and all will be well. Nicole even very specifically asks Jeremy to hold her down if she tries to come up.

Always good to have an accountability buddy.

Nicole is trying to make frog jokes with Jeremy but her real feelings slip through when she is giving herself a pep talk about why she’s doing this. She wasn’t willing to risk this extreme measure when it was just her throwing up frogs. But now that she knows she was attacking people? Setting houses on fire? She’ll do anything to protect the people she loves. Anything.

And so she goes under, the heart monitor speeding up a little right before she takes the plunge, and Jeremy does have to hold her down when her survival instincts kick in. The monitor flatlines and Nicole goes still and of course that’s right when Waverly busts in, part of the bed frame hanging from the handcuffs on her wrist, demanding to know what the hell is going on.

“Okay but is this going to be like how Amy was a rat for like five seasons or?”

Jeremy does his best to explain the situation but frankly “your girlfriend is currently inhabiting a frog” isn’t the most comforting thing a girl can hear.

At Magpie Ranch, Mam Clanton sees that her trusty Curse Frog isn’t looking so hot and knows Nicole is trying to mess with their deal, so she uses her blood and an old newspaper clipping of Waverly winning Nicest Person in Purgatory to send Billy the Reaper after our sweet angel.

And Rachel sees the whole thing.

Me reading a tweet thread I’m not involved in but I’m INVESTED in.

Meanwhile, Wynonna and Doc are out at Steve Gulch reckoning with the fact that the scorned woman they were sent to fetch is Rosita. Rosita assumes that Wynonna being there means Wynonna killed all the other revenants and she’s there to kill her last, just like she said. But as gung-ho as Wynonna is to kill the woman who tried to steal her baby practically from her vagina, that’s not why they’re here; plus, they need her alive. They ask how she even got to this rock, and she tells them that she slept with Creepy Phil’s wife and he sent a mob after her so she ran to the gulch because she heard Revenants didn’t like standing on it, but she has a high tolerance for pain. But then there was an earthquake and all the Revenants started to poof away, except her and Phil on the rock, which didn’t hurt them anymore. One day Creepy Phil got… well, creepy, and Rosita shoved him off the rock, and he got disappeared, too. So as much as she’d love to, she can’t leave the rock.

I know how you feel, Rosita. I’m on day 173 of quarantine.

Back at Shorty’s it’s finally time to put Nicole’s consciousness back in her body and wake her up/bring her to life when suddenly the door swings open and a familiar-looking demon rock appears in Waverly’s hand. Billy the Reaper comes in.

Worst game of hot potato ever.

Waverly screams and starts running around but Jeremy and Nedley can’t see the reaper, so it takes a minute for them to understand what’s happening, and in the hubbub, all of the frog containers spilled and everything is a hoppin’ mess. Nicole uses her little frog legs to hop toward Waverly and when she realizes her girlfriend is in real danger, she disobeys Jeremy’s very strict instructions to stay in the frog at all costs and wooshes out to knock the reaper down the stairs. She’s no longer a frog, she’s a glitter ghost.

Haunt me, daddy.

Out at the gulch, Wynonna realizes that the rock has ammolite, and figures since the curse ended, its effect on revenants flip flopped. They find some stones to make a path for Rosita to hop all the way back to the sanctuary but before she goes too far, Rosita wants them to pink swear that if she goes with them, they won’t hurt her.

Me, an adult human lady, making my friends promise they’re not mad at me.

Once she’s convinced she’s safe in their hands, she hops off the rock and is delighted to find she doesn’t cease to exist. The Celtic knot symbol appears as a shortcut that they probably wish they knew about eight ammolite stepping stones ago but Wynonna and Rosita go through, leaving Doc behind.

At Shorty’s, Waverly is channeling her inner Disney Princess and kissing frogs to see if true love can break a curse.

“There’s been trials and tribulations, you know I’ve had my share. But I’ve climbed a mountain, I’ve crossed a river, and I’m almost there.”

But Nicole is still a Glitter Ghost and doesn’t know the rules (or why she’s wearing formalwear) so she can’t get her girlfriend to stop kissing amphibians.

When Wynonna and Rosita get to the nunnery, Rosita is pissed to learn Wynonna plans to trade her in for Peacemaker. What are they going to do with her? Wynonna didn’t ask and doesn’t care, and she’s handing her over to a bunch of nuns so how bad could it be?

Here’s hoping these are Sister Act nuns not Conjuring universe nuns!

Mother Superior starts to revel in their banter and at first I thought she yelled KISS KISS KISS but then I realized that was me and actually she said FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT. Wynonna tells her that they have their beef but she’s not going to kill her, but then Rosita attacks. They wrassle a bit, the nuns egging them on, and Rosita says she can’t not fight for her life. She’s pretty great at not dying, and she’ll do what it takes to survive. Wynonna gives in and figures this will at least be cathartic and stops holding back.

Meanwhile, Waverly is still kissing frogs and Nicole is starting to worry that she saved her from the Garden just for her to die from salmonella, so she shoves her ghost arm into the light switch and starts flashing the lights in Morse code.

I fully intend on sassing my friends via Ouija board when I’m a glitter ghost.

Luckily because they’re adorable nerds, Jeremy and Waverly both know Morse code, so they figure out that Nicole is no longer in a frog and also wants them to follow her down to the basement. Nicole possesses Billy the Reaper and tries to use his voice to get him to tell Waverly what happened and how to fix it. Waverly and her Harley Quinn baseball bat are also getting fighty, saying he better give her answers because she’s starting to get angry, and she doesn’t know what will happen if she gets angry.

Well now I need a WayHaught as Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy fanart.

Between Nicole and Billy, they learn that Nicole made a deal with Margo because she was desperate to get Waverly back. She didn’t know they were Clantons at the time, she only knew of Margo as the Swamp Witch. Also, the only way to break the covenant is when both parties are dead. Waverly figures now with Nicole’s body being dead there’s only one thing left to do and she storms off, ignoring Billy’s threat that “we are many.” Glittery Ghost Nicole hangs back and asks how many, but he just snarls at her.

And then Waverly takes charge in a way we haven’t really see her do very often. She is sure and determined, focused and FUMING. She goes to the tub and takes Nicole’s cold, cold hand, kisses it gently.

“You’ll be alright, no one can hurt you now. Come morning light, you and I’ll be safe and sound.”

Waverly’s voice gets dark and husky and she says, “You saved my life. Now it’s my turn.” She tells the boys to stay and watch Nicole, grabs a shotgun and storms out the door. No more miss nice(st) Waverly.

“Wynonna Earp” Episode 405 Recap: A Leapfrog of Faith

Previously on Wynonna Earp, after a weird hazing ritual that involved kidnapping and guard duty, Wynonna and Jeremy got permission to re-open the Purgatory BBD office; Wynonna got hunted by a reaper that we learned were part of the Clanton family aka historic enemies of the Earps; Rachel’s sweet boy crush was turned into a reaper; and Nicole tried to go back on a deal she made with the matriarch of the Clantons but Mam told her it was time to pay up.

We open in a sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare. Nicole is in a black wedding dress and Wynonna walks her down the aisle; she’s ready to join Waverly.

I mean this seems like a cool vibe for a wedding but it doesn’t seem like WAYHAUGHT’S vibe, yaknow?

But something is weird… I mean, besides the fact that it’s an outdoor wedding in the Calgary winter and everyone is dressed like they’re going to a really elegant funeral. Wynonna is being sassy in a more biting way than usual, and Waverly is nowhere in sight. Wynonna turns to Nicole and says that Waverly isn’t coming, not after what Nicole did. Nicole doesn’t remember though, and when Wynonna asks her to say it, Nicole realizes she can’t. She looks over at Doc and his eyes are weeping blood and… I think this is a clue. But we’ll get back to that. Nicole realizes she has a lighter in her hand and she laughs, not of her own volition; she’s still scared and confused. She lights Wynonna’s cigar and suddenly everyone is coughing. And like I know this was filmed before the pandemic but that was stressful to watch.

And then Nicole wakes up, but she’s still coughing.

Once I had a dream that I got bitten by a vampire and when I woke up my neck hurt.

She realizes there’s a fire and goes into emergency response mode. She tries to wake up Waverly but she can’t, so she wets a cloth to put over her mouth, slings Waverly over her shoulder, and heads outside.

Out in the barn, Wynonna wakes up to see Doc watching over her, realizing that he doesn’t really have to sleep now that he’s a vampire.

Grr. Argh.

It’s something they don’t really talk much about, but then again there’s plenty they don’t talk about. Wynonna says talking is overrated and she gets out from her makeshift bed to reveal she is severely underdressed for sleeping in a barn but no one here’s complaining. She gets real close to Doc when she smells the smoke from the Homestead, hilariously thinking Doc ate another fireman before realizing what was going on.

When they go outside and see the flames, they run toward the house yelling the names of those left inside. Rachel emerges first, assuring them she got the fire out, but when Nicole appears with Waverly, Waverly isn’t breathing. After Wynonna yells helpful things like, “Breathe, asshole!” Waverly does wake up, and when Nicole tells her to never do that again, she says she doesn’t know what she did. And so my question is…i s she just a really heavy sleeper, or did she go into some kind of Angel Survival Trance and just not need to breathe for a while? I suppose it’s possible she just passed out from the smoke before Nicole woke up but I don’t know, she’s half-angel and has spent some time in the Garden often associated with the afterlife, it just felt worth mentioning.

The fam huddles together on the porch as the sun rises, recovering from the unexpectedly eventful evening. Waverly wonders if Rachel got distracted cooking, but the fire started in the living room. Wynonna wonders if it was from scissoring friction but there’s a whole whack of reasons why that wasn’t it, either.

“If scissoring could start a fire this place would have been cinders ages ago.”

So the most logical conclusion they can come to is that it was the Clantons, but Doc was keeping watch and he recognizes all the footprints, so whoever (or whatever) started the fire didn’t walk into the Homestead to do it.

Wynonna and Doc decide to go see Amon at the Glory Hole to see if he knows anything but he doesn’t even like the Clantons, let alone associate with them. He does, however, want to help the infamous Wynonna Earp get rid of them. You see, he knows where Peacemaker is, and he’s going to help her find it. He tells her that demons get chatty, which is how he knows where she can find her beloved SwordGun, though the people who have her will want something in return.

She’s gonna get her girl back, come hell or… well actually it’s probably going to be hell.

(Side note: if I’m not mistaken, I think this is the first episode Wynonna ever used gendered pronouns for Peacemaker? I could be wrong but I think she’s ever only called the gun just that or talked directly to it before? I thought that was interesting.)

Meanwhile, at the Purgatory Precinct, Jeremy is setting up the BBD office and doing his best Agent Dolls impression while robbing Cleo of some of her Magistrative space, much to her chagrin.

Girl gives good pout.

She’s getting more and more furious but Jeremy does his best to stand his ground, knowing he has the upper hand here. Holt comes in and tells her to stand down too, and she’s sick of being told what to do. By Jeremy, by Holt, by Mam, by the curse. She wants to make her own fate.

After she storms off, Waverly and Nicole show up with an office-warming gift for Jeremy. Well, Waverly does, and Nicole is with her.

Nicole looks like a teenager being dragged to a family function.

Nicole is a little salty about being abandoned, but Waverly does her best to diffuse the situation. They get to work setting up the office, and Nicole installs a lock to keep the Clantons out, but it’s not Wynonna-proof so she barges right through it with Doc in tow. While Wynonna updates everyone about the lead they got on finding Peacemaker, Nicole finds herself compelled to take her drill and point it up, the ginger soft butch we know lost behind cold, empty eyes.

Not exactly subtle there, killer.

And at first it seems like Nicole is pointing her drill at Wynonna, but know who is sitting between her and Wynonna? One Doc Holliday…

Wynonna snaps her out of it (with a hilarious quip about Extreme Makeover: Homo Edition) and Nicole says she searched the whole Ghost River Triangle for Peacemaker, so Amon’s story that someone has it checks out. They know they can’t entirely trust a demon they just met, but they also know they don’t have another option at the moment. So they decide as a team to trust him just enough to get Peacemaker back.

Look at them, making decisions as a team instead of going off half-cocked.

And speaking of teams… where the heck is Rachel? Rachel is going full Season One Waverly with binoculars (and I assume snacks) lurking on the Clanton ranch, looking for Billy. Wandering into barns and calling his phone to try to find him.

Back at BB2: Electric Boogaloo, Jeremy walks in on Nicole and Waverly breaking in the couch they saved from the renovation.

I guess they’ve been at this “anywhere but a bed” game since day one, eh?

They claim it’s just a place where they can hang out, and Jeremy teases them, asking if that’s what the queer lady kids are calling it these days. And it struck me in that moment that we don’t hear queer characters use the word queer on TV very much. But it’s exactly what Jeremy, a gay man, would say to tease his two friends, a bisexual and a lesbian, in a short quippy way. It’s exactly how we talk to and about each other, and it’s once again refreshing to hear. (And is absolutely a direct result of having queer people in the writers’ room and on set.)

Jeremy tells them that Wynonna and Doc are off to find Peacemaker, and Nicole once again kicks herself for not being able to find it in the 18 months everyone was gone. Jeremy says the Earp Heir might have better luck, and Nicole takes an opening to sass him about ghosting her. Waverly tries to change the subject and ask about Robin, and Jeremy assures them that he’s safe but won’t go into more detail. Nicole accuses him of being cagey, but Jeremy blames BBD. He looks at her, desperate for her understanding; they just did what they had to do to survive. They all did.

And this fighting is so genuine but it hurts my heart because I can’t help but think of the bond these two shared. That season two finale where they bonded over being the two newer additions to this Earp clan, the outsiders who were welcomed in and made their own space in the family, found their own roles. But when there was no one left but each other, they split apart and they’re both hurting because of it. Nicole starts to wince in pain and Jeremy feels bad, thinking their fighting is giving her tummy rumblings, but the truth is Nicole is having a violent memory that is causing her to vomit.

More like Sickole amiright?

In the memory, Nicole goes to Mam, desperate after a year and a half to get Waverly back, willing to do just about anything. Mam whispers her price into Nicole’s ear, it clearly being too terrible to say out loud, and Nicole’s face falls slightly but she’s resolute. It’s a price she’s willing to pay to get Waverly back.

“There’s a kind of a sort of, cost. There’s a couple of things get, lost. There are bridges you cross you didn’t know you crossed until you’ve crossed.”

Which is another point in the “Doc is the target” column. I could see sacrificing Doc as being something Nicole wouldn’t feel great about doing but could rationalize Waverly eventually forgiving her for; unlike if her target was actually Wynonna. She knows that sisterly bond is the only thing that matters to Waverly more than Nicole herself. It wouldn’t have been worth it. But Doc? Who is a vampire now? Who she watched kill Charlie before she knew he’d come back from the dead? I could see her talking herself into that. So maybe THAT’S why she instinctively resisted Doc’s comforting touches in the earlier episodes, maybe THAT’S why she froze when Doc was in danger. Even though it wasn’t activated yet, something in her knew she had betrayed him. Something deep inside was telling her that saving him wasn’t her main directive.

Anyway, whatever it is, present-day Nicole doesn’t want this to be true, says she couldn’t have promised that. When Waverly comes into to check on her, Nicole tries to tell her what she remembered, but when she opens her mouth, instead of a story, frogs come out. Which is poetic in a way I can appreciate.

At the museum, Wynonna finds Doc watching an old video interview with Wyatt Earp himself. At first he’s talking about a time Doc saved Wyatt’s life, and it’s all well and good. Then Wynonna sees a picture of Rosita on the wall and gets huffy about it. Wyatt’s interview turns to the O.K. Corral and the Clantons, but he starts talking about it in a way that Doc doesn’t remember. Then starts talking about Doc like he was a sex robot killing machine, and Doc realizes that all the love and respect that he held tight to for Wyatt in those decades in the well wasn’t quite returned. Wynonna asks if Doc thinks Wyatt would be proud of her, but now he’s wondering if Wyatt himself is worth being proud of.

Woof does is suck when someone knocks over the pedestal you put them on.

Over at Magpie Ranch, Cleo is cutting onions which is funny only to me who called her layered like an onion in my recap last week when Mam comes into tell her children she’s found a way to end the curse so she doesn’t have to pass on her legacy to her children she hates oh so much. She has set into motion the end of the Earps, and the beauty of it is, they’ll be destroyed by one another.

I have a feeling that all Cleo needs is one heartfelt speech and we could get her on our side.

Back in Purgatory proper, Nicole runs into Shorty’s, Waverly and Jeremy hot on her heels, and asks Nedley for booze to help wash the tastes of frogs out of her mouth. He quickly realizes that this isn’t something that can be solved with “chicken soup and a One Day at a Time marathon” — a shoutout I very much appreciated, especially since ODAAT shouted out Wynonna before, too. I love when shows I love also love each other.

Between the time we left them at the office and now, Waverly and Jeremy have deduced that Nicole did something but every time she tries to tell them about it… frogs happen.

There’s a song called Lowkey Fuck 2020 and I get it stuck in my head every time I see stills/clips from this scene.

In fact, even if they try to guess what it is, it’s Frog City, USA. It’s toad-ally gross. She even tries to write something down but ends up just drawing tadpoles, much to her frustration (and my delight.)

Instead of trying to figure out what caused it, since that’s going to wind up with them having to open an aquarium, they decide to focus on a cure instead.

“Wynonna Earp” Episode 404 Recap: The Grudge

Previously on Wynonna Earp, Wynonna, Doc and Waverly returned from The Garden to find a whole new Purgatory complete with a new Sheriff and Magistrate, Jeremy is Black Badge now, and Nicole is happy to have her girlfriend back but definitely distracted and traumatized because it turns out they’d been gone for 18 months, 3 weeks and 4 days.

At the end of the last episode, Wynonna got nabbed from the Earp barn, pjs and all, and we pick up this week right where we left off, Wynonna being dragged through a compound until she’s in an interrogation room of sorts with a school marm of a woman called Naomi. Wynonna realizes she’s in a definitely-active Black Badge facility and as she helps the woman remove her own handcuffs, she realizes she’s not exactly being held hostage, despite how she was brought in. Still… she’s displeased.

“If this isn’t initiation into Delta Chi Sigma, I want out!”

This woman clearly doesn’t actually know who she is, and pronounces her name like strangers at the airport trying to read my t-shirts when I’m on the way to cons. Just then, Jeremy walks in and Wynonna is so happy to see him that she leaps up and hugs him. Jeremy brushes her off and pretends like they were just old colleagues, also mispronounces “Earp” and plays down her demon-slaying skills. Wynonna plays along and reluctantly smiles at a very nervous Naomi, claiming she’s never killed a demon, nope, not even one.

Meanwhile, setting the tone for what will be an increasingly creepy episode, someone bleeds upon what looks like an old, candid picture of Wynonna and an eerie pile of rocks elsewhere in Purgatory. The sound of chains and screams follow, a demonic creature pulling on its shackles until finally… it’s free.

Back at the Homestead, unaware of the dangers that lurk, Waverly has set up the kitchen for their first Team Earp planning session in a while, complete with new notebooks and a powerpoint; she can’t wait.

Okay but I want to see the powerpoint?

No one is here yet, but Nicole is here early and jazzed for the presentation… or at least, pretending to be. They still have a lot of things they don’t know: About Cleo and Holt, about the BBD border, about the influx of demons, about where Peacemaker is… all they know for sure is that they’re having tacos for dinner, and tacos are tasty.

“Come on, leave me breathless.”

Rachel walks in on them making out, and I have some stupid commentary to make about the beat that follows. (But that’s what you’re here for, right? My randomness?) When they get interrupted, Rachel is a little like “these two again” but Waverly and Nicole just smile at her. They don’t pull away from each other, they just turn toward Rachel, Nicole draping her arm around her smol girlfriend’s shoulder. They weren’t “caught,” they were just interrupted. (Something they’re very used to by now.) It was such a small seemingly insignificant moment, and I shouldn’t have been surprised by it on this of all shows, but it stuck out to me so I felt I had to mention it. It was pure and sweet and GAY and I love it.

Nicole and Waverly notice Rachel is wearing Wynonna’s jacket, which Rachel says looks better on her, horrifying the duo with a lack of the healthy fear of Wynonna they have both developed.

Nicole instinctively starts to fill Rachel in on the plans for the day, including plotting how to find Peacemaker, and Waverly looks at her, shocked.

“What’s next, are you going to tell her Kara Danvers is Supergi—dammit!”

Waverly spent her whole life being taught that the Earp curse and the supernatural were taboo topics. It wasn’t until Wynonna’s 27th birthday she was able to speak it aloud. And now Nicole is just blurting it to this teenager Waverly just met? Because it’s still taking Waverly a little bit of time to adjust to what it all means. To really wrap her head around the fact that Nicole lived a year and a half without her. Because she only lived 18 hours without Nicole. But Nicole has been telling demons to get off her lawn with Rachel all this time. And hell, she MET Rachel in a zombie factory. So of course she didn’t think twice before looping Valdez in.

But Waverly sees that Nicole trusts Rachel, so she quickly adjusts. When Nicole offers her a notebook, Waverly corrects her and says Rachel’s is the blue one, and Nicole doesn’t flinch or tell Waverly that the notebooks are all empty so it’s a little silly to care who gets which; they’re still in sync in the ways that matter.

It doesn’t matter though because Rachel has important teen things to do somewhere that is not here. When their only potential meeting member is gone, Nicole apologizes that no one but her showed up. But Waverly isn’t really all that upset about her girlfriend being the only one around.

Am I getting gayer or are they getting cuter?

In fact, she doesn’t mind at all.

“‘Cause I’m gonna love you like I’m gonna lose you. And I’m gonna hold you like we’re saying goodbye.”

Wynonna is still getting the lowdown at BBD, and Noami is telling Wynonna that the Ghost River Triangle is now a sort of demon/human fishbowl experiment. Their mandate is to observe, not interfere. The Juan Carlo Treatment, if you will. Naomi wasn’t really trained for this life—she used to be in the fishery department—but BBD was desperate when they were trying to phoenix out of their own wreckage. She’s a little shaken by the 12 deaths she’s seen since working here, and Wynonna has sympathy; she’s dealt with more than her fair share of death, and all of them much closer than just coworkers.

Naomi takes one more stab at recruiting Wynonna, pitching Fleabag-esque jumpsuits, but it seems Wynonna hasn’t been inducted to the church of Phoebe Waller-Bridge yet.

:I look pointedly to camera:

Before Wynonna can tell this nervous nelly to get stuffed like a sardine can, Jeremy asks to give Wynonna a tour of the facility, and Naomi reluctantly agrees. Wynonna finds a rock in her pocket and assumes it’s a weird tracking device and shoves it in a security guard’s hand.

Across the border, Doc goes to The Glory Hole to do some business with Amon. Amon calls over the hot bartender and the three hot people flirt hotly and if Doc is joining a monster sex cult I am here! for! it! Amon mentions Wynonna and Doc gets defensive about Wynonna being her own woman, but Amon stays cool, simply wondering why Doc isn’t using his vampire skills to their fullest potential. Amon has the bartender give Doc a shot of blood and says there can be more where that came from if Doc can get more booze for the bar. Amon flirt-threatens Doc all while saying he’s welcome here, where he can be himself.

Meanwhile outside BBD, things take a turn for the deadly when the security guard tosses down the rock Wynonna gave him and immediately gets his head lopped off. I’m sure that’s fine.

You know what teens do for fun in the post-apocalyptic Ghost River Triangle these days? They forage for junk to trade. Rachel is meeting her buddy Billy, who has a Bunny Loblaw for PTA mug, which I obviously want immediately. Billy gives her a vest, and goes in for a kiss, and she awkwardly deflects with a hubcap. If I had a nickel.

This week I learned that I have the same level of flirting ability as a post-apocalyptic teenager.

Back at the BBD facility, Jeremy “Still Gay” Chetri is giving Wynonna the tour when he pulls her into a blind spot he’s found. He says this new hodgepodge version of Black Badge is in over their heads, they really need someone with a demon-killing gun. She starts to tell him about Peacemaker’s absence but Naomi interrupts them.

Rachel and Billy are walking down a majestic Canadian road, and Rachel tries to invite herself over for chipmunk dinner since they eat vegan for most meals at the Homestead. Which makes me wonder… was Nicole still having them eat vegan a lot while Waverly was gone? Was she still stocking mostly vegan food, in case she was hungry when she finally got back?

Anyway, Rachel likes to act tough, but she loves having a full house of Earps, because she spent a long time alone. She tries again to invite herself over to Billy’s, but Billy says his mom is a hoarder and that maybe someday he can have her over but he looks squirrely. No rodent puns intended.

Also there’s a strange pile of rocks that we’ve never seen before that is probably just for funsies and not at all ominous.

Back at the Homestead, Waverly and Nicole have moved from the table to the floor.

Never underestimate the power of queer joy.

Notebooks below, tablecloths above, they’re tangled in household objects and smiles. Waverly is ready to talk business/finding Peacemaker, and Nicole makes an off-hand comment about this being another thing she failed at finding for 18 months. Waverly is fully prepared to make her girlfriend a Haught Topics powerpoint about all the awesome things about her.

Okay but I want to see THIS powerpoint, too!

But Nicole just looks blankly at her, not understanding why she would need that. Which… makes me nervous? Because this means either Nicole’s trauma is so deep that she barely even hears herself making these comments about her self-described failures… or there’s something supernatural going on here, which doesn’t usually lead to hugs and puppies.

While on the subject of why she loves Nicole Rayleigh Haught, Waverly tries to also bring up the proposal. Because sure the looming apocalypse may have inspired her timing, but Waverly meant every word of what she said. But in lieu of an answer, Nicole hastily kisses her, a real change in tune from what she told Waverly 18 months ago, though clearly her feelings haven’t changed.

Nicole honey I know you’re looking at her like she’s a snack you’re about to devour but y’all are going to run out of non-bed surfaces eventually so you might as well talk now!

Rachel comes in and honestly at this point is almost annoyed that she keeps having to cover her eyes before entering ANY space in the house. She tells them she has an idea of where they call look for their missing magic GunSword and that they have to go to the junkyard… preferably, clothed. Waverly and Nicole laugh, embarrassed but happy.

At BBD, Wynonna once again dodges having to tell Jeremy about Peacemaker being currently unavailable because Jeremy wants to show off a new weapon he helped invent called Antoni, a Queer Eye reference that sailed right over my head, and it accessorizes perfectly with Wynonna’s new jumpsuit.

Who ya gonna call?

Wynonna is ready for her first mission, and if it’s saving Robin, she’s ALL in. Jeremy says that her first task is much simpler than that…it’s accompanying a supply run to Purgatory. They keep getting hijacked and they need to keep the people fed or they keep having these awful events FOR FREEDOM that make the townspeople run amuk.

Wynonna is FURIOUS. She equates this to casting Cate Blanchette as a background character instead of CAROL. She’s Carol!! But Jeremy says that BBD is wary of all things supernatural, and they both qualify, so they have to keep their heads down for now.

Not getting the ‘keep your heads down’ memo, Rachel, Nicole, and Waverly pile into the Jeep and head to the junkyard, Magpie Ranch.

Oh what I wouldn’t give to be dangerously perched in the back of this Jeep with these three!

This reminded me of the time I thought that Mictian was a magpie demon because he was having Gooverly steal shiny things. I spent a whole paragraph in a recap about it. This is why theorizing about Wynonna Earp is pointless; they ALWAYS zig when you think they’re going to zag. And just when you think you’ve outsmarted them by preparing for a zag when you think they’re going to zig… they zoink instead.

Anyway, Waverly thinks this is a good place to look if Nicole hadn’t already, and Nicole nervously says she mostly just stuck to the forest. Waverly thinks that’s smart, and Nicole looks over at her girlfriend with a surprised smile. Not once since Waverly came back has she judged a single decision Nicole has made in the past 18 months. She’s always supportive and forgiving of the things Nicole has been kicking herself for.

“Wynonna Earp” Episode 403 Recap: Fight or Flight

Previously on Wynonna Earp, Waverly almost succumbed to her duty as an angel guardian meant to keep the demon Eve in her supernatural prison but Wynonna showed up just in time to get her baby girl and her gunslinger out of the Garden and back to Purgatory but when they got back after Waverly and Nicole reunited on the stairs, they all realized they’d been gone much longer than they thought. 18 months, 3 weeks, and 4 days to be exact.

Though Wynonna and Doc don’t know that yet, they just know that things look drastically different in Purgatory than when they left, what with the hanging bodies and all. They decide to go to Shorty’s to regroup but when they walk in, it’s not the rowdy dive bar they remember. Instead it’s a chill juice bar with a hilarious menu. It has drinks like “I Walk the Lime” and “Go Ahead, Make My Smoothie” and ingredients like “unfrozen frozen yogurt” and I just highly recommend pausing to read through it. Amazing.

The new proprietor turns around and while Wynonna is thrilled to see a familiar face in Chrissy Nedley, Chrissy isn’t nearly as happy to see Wynonna.

She throws an eggplant at her and puts her under citizen’s arrest for the murder of her father, Randall Nedley.

My face whenever I remember we probably won’t have new Legends of Tomorrow episodes until Fall 2021.

They start to drag Wynonna out to the square to apparently hang her on the spot, talking about how Nedley disappeared a year and a half ago, the same time they did, and Wynonna is yelling and Chrissy is yelling and Doc has his guns out and at first it seems our heroes are outnumbered and SOL but then the new sheriff in town saunters in and says that Chrissy should know better and that they’ll give Wynonna a fair trial before punishing her. Wynonna is confused as to who this non-redheaded “sheriff” is and tells Doc to get Waverly and Nicole as she’s dragged away. Doc says he’ll get everyone and runs off.

Meanwhile at the Homestead, Waverly is dancing in the afterglow of her reunion with Nicole. She dances into the kitchen in her little pajama set and is surprised to find a teenager she doesn’t recognize in the kitchen.

“Have you been in the kitchen…THIS WHOLE TIME?!”

Rachel introduces herself and offers Waverly some homemade kombucha and Waverly is trying to wrap her head around who this person is when an alarm goes off outside and Valdez and Haught spring into action like they’ve done it hundreds of times. (Which they probably have.)

Waverly watches Nicole and Rachel grab weapons and run off so she grabs a giant spoon off the wall (despite there being a giant fork right there) and follows them.

The spoon says, “Bless this hot mess” and I want one. Did Nicole buy this? To try to make the Homestead homier for when the Earp girls came back to her??

While they run, Nicole tries to explain that they have traps set up and have to check them every two hours because there are all kinds of monsters in the woods, and one big bad that wants in most of all.

But they didn’t catch a cryptid this time, just a gunslinger who is happy to see two of his favorite ladies. He instinctively calls Nicole “Sheriff” but she tells him that she’s just Nicole, or occasionally, “That crazy ginger bitch” as she carefully gets him out of their trap. He tells them that they have to go get Wynonna because she’s being framed for Nedley’s murder and frankly that’s a lot of information packed into one very stressful sentence.

How dare Waverly’s hair look this good after being in a hell dimension.

In town it seems the new Sheriff has repurposed the Widow Mercedes/Bobo Box and throws Wynonna into it with Casey, a man who seems very friendly until he learns she’s an Earp at which point he panics. Wynonna points out she doesn’t have her gun, though she wisely covers and pretends like she just doesn’t have it on her, so Casey starts filling her in on what’s been going on for the past year and a half she was missing. It seems demons started flocking to the woods near the stairs and Casey said that things started getting dodgy, even for him, and he’s half demon himself.

And to prove to us just how dodgy, we then cut to a delivery man getting absolutely obliterated by a monster in the woods.

Back at the Homestead, Waverly is trying to reckon with the fact that Randy Nedley is gone, and Nicole tries to tell her how different things have been. How everyone is kind of gone. She hasn’t seen Kate since the train, Jeremy hasn’t reached out in months, she just trails off when thinking about Robin, so whether he’s a walking murder tree or just MIA is anyone’s guess. Waverly starts to joke about not knowing how old she is but Nicole doesn’t laugh. There’s nothing funny about those 18 months, not to her.

Me when I see people posting their social gatherings on Instagram like we’re not still in a fucking pandemic.

Nicole solemnly gives Waverly her coffee and apologizes for there not being any almond milk and Waverly looks up at her girlfriend, concerned, and tells her to stop apologizing. Doc tries to reassure her too, saying she was heroic, surviving and protecting the homestead alone all this time, but the words don’t sink in. She brushes them off and says she had Rachel, at least. Doc asks after Mercedes and Nicole says the last place she was seen was a demon bar so Doc volunteers to go find her and see if she knows what happened to Nedley.

When Doc gets to the bar, he’s ready to fight, knocking out a bouncer and whipping out his guns, but he’s more fazed by the name of the bar being The Glory Hole than anyone is about him trying to start a ruckus. The owner of this fine establishment approaches, introducing himself as Amon, turns on the flirt and says that Doc is more than welcome in this demon bar.

Doc starts to demand to see Mercedes, assuming she’s being held hostage, when she very voluntarily takes the stage, clad in rubber, wearing a collar, wielding a whip, and calling herself Portia Control.

“There will always be women in rubber flirting with me!”

Meanwhile Waverly is in her room at the Homestead, ready to kick so much ass, especially and specifically whoever took her girlfriend’s job and arrested her sister.

Shout out to what my friend Marcie thought was a giant moccasin hanging on Waverly’s closet door.

This makes Nicole smile a genuine smile that has been rare so far this episode.

Our girl’s still in there somewhere.

But Nicole’s smile fades as she tells Waverly about how carefully she protected and sorted her clothing, and gets distracted by the sound of her teenager yelling about skunks outside.

She says she has to go deal with that and kisses Waverly on the forehead and wishes her luck getting Wynonna back safely.

I know something’s wrong because there’s no way anyone should be able to focus on anything but Waverly Earp in that outfit when in a room with Waverly Earp in that outfit.

Wynonna is still getting to know her boxmate and asks Casey why he stays in town if it’s so dangerous here, and he realizes he forgot to mention that the Ghost River Triangle is in a bit of a quarantine and has government agents closely monitoring the border. Demons and criminals aren’t allowed in or out.

Wynonna is still reeling from the 7-layer dip of fuckery when the new sheriff stops by to tell her she has a visitor. Waverly has on her British Adult disguise glasses and speaks firmly to the new Sheriff, demanding that her “client” receive a fair trial.

“I put my hands on my hips so you will take me seriously!”

The sheriff knows exactly who she is, even with the glasses on, and also they were already going to give her a trial, though Waverly also wants a body, because she knows the basic rules of television: No body, no death. #MayaLives

But before anyone can add anything else, in struts the Magistrate. She is hot and she knows it, she hates the Earps and she shows it.

Is this the “girl in red” I keep hearing about?

She also tells Waverly she has a cute outfit in a way that implies she can tell it’s not Waverly’s go-to look. Wynonna suddenly seems even less certain of her fate.

Waverly tries to reassure Wynonna by telling her that Doc is on the case, but when we check in on Doc, he’s just watching Mercedes perform at the Glory Hole with his jaw on the ground. And when she licks her lips and her fangs, my jaw joins it there.

Bite me!

After her dance, Doc sits down with Mercedes, who is grateful to see a friendly face. She tells them that this town is soo bass ackwards these days that she has to pretend to be a vampire and hide in plain sight at this demon bar for safety. He asks her what happened to Nedley and she says that he started oozing and took off into the woods, and since that’s where the monsters are, she assumes he got eaten.

Mercedes being serious is unsettling. Shit got REAL in the Ghost River Triangle.

She tells Doc the general direction of the monster she thinks took Nedley, called the People Eater, but that’s all she can do. She sends him off with sad eyes and a warning that this isn’t the Ghost River Triangle he left behind.

“Wynonna Earp” Episode 402 Recap: Her Secret Garden

Previously on Wynonna Earp, Wynonna and Haught road tripped to an abandoned Black Badge outpost where they found a teenager who could match Wynonna quip for quip… and also zombies. Waverly and Doc were stuck in the Garden with a bloodthirsty machine and a lot of mysteries, and were eventually joined by the naked form of Nicole Haught.

We open with Wynonna yelling down the grate hole Nicole fell through, demanding she stay alive OR ELSE. Rachel Valdez saves her from zombies who are drawn to her shouting and tells her to shut up and that they have to keep moving.

Now, for the Garden storyline, I’m going to do something a little out of the ordinary for these recaps; normally I would treat each scene with the amount of knowledge we had while watching the scene from the first time. But I think there were some brilliant writing/acting/directing choices made here that I want to talk about so I’m going to shake things up. We later learn that the Nicole in the Garden is actually Eve (Kevin wasn’t kidding when she said, “Don’t get me started on that girl.”) using other people’s faces as pointed manipulation. And the clues were there from the start. For one thing, Nicole is dressed in her classic Season One french braid. Second of all, Doc had to point out to her that she’s naked.

The real Haught is in a starchy uniform 90% of the time, surely she would have noticed the breeze.

When she realizes she’s naked she does her best to cover up, but Doc can’t give her his coat since it turns out Not!Haught is in some kind of barrier circle.

So Doc decides to go find Waverly, and Not!Haught likes this plan, a little mischief in her eyes.

When Doc finds Waverly, she’s reading the book she chose, but quickly shuts it and tries to deflect when he approaches. When he sees the cut on her arm, he scolds her for feeding the machine, but she says she has to protect the Garden. Doc tells her to cut it out with the scary cult-like talk and that Nicole is there, she scolds HIM for burying the lede.

“We could have had the rest of this conversation on the WAY to see my girlfriend.”

They rush back to Not!Haught together.

Back in Monument, Wynonna convinces Rachel to lead her to where she thinks Nicole fell to, and also to the Gateway the BBD scientists had been working on. Rachel just wants to know if her mom is alive or not, and promises that she can kill her mom herself if she’s a zombie.

I love these two together so much I don’t even have a good joke for this caption.

Wynonna really wants to tell her that she already knows that Gloria Valdez is likely dead, from the file she found, especially because she knows all too well what it’s like to have to kill a family member for the greater good and wouldn’t wish that upon anyone, especially not her new favorite teen, but she chickens out before she can confess.

But they do decide to work together, feeling a kinship, and keep moving.

Millenials trying to relate to Gen Z.

When Waverly finds what appears to be her naked girlfriend, Not!Haught motions for Waverly to come closer and when Waverly can’t get through the barrier either, her face darkens. It’s a quick moment, a flickering shot, but it’s brilliant.

Honestly Kat Barrell is really stepping up her game this season already.

Waverly in her happiness of seeing another familiar face in the Garden says, “It’s really you,” with disbelief in her voice.

Not unlike Wynonna, I would also kill anyone and everyone to keep a smile on this woman’s face.

Not!Haught says, “Who else would I be?” in a voice that was very reminiscent of Jolene pretending to be just a regular gal pal to the Earps back in Season Three.

I don’t like how much info Eve seems to be able to glean from someone when she steals their face.

Our first piece of evidence that Not!Haught is not who she seems is that because at this point we go back to BBD and see that the real Nicole Haught is on the floor where she fell, alive but with a broken leg and a zombie slowly crawling toward her.

In the Garden, Not!Haught fashions herself a cherry blossom bikini, (which Waverly jokes is from the Isle of Lesbos Reserve Collection) and subtly suggests that maybe Waverly and Doc try not feeding the hungry blood machine, just to see what happens. Doc doesn’t want to risk it though, so he runs off to feed it.

Meanwhile, as the churning of stones gets louder, Waverly can also hear something else. Her throne, it’s calling to her. Not!Haught says that she’s already sacrificed too much, encouraging her not to go on the throne, and you can see her starting to lose her patience.

These first two episodes were full of such stunning imagery I can barely stand it.

The facade is fading as she spits cruel insults about Doc, and calls Waverly “baby” more than a cheating boyfriend in a Destiny’s Child song. Waverly can’t quite put her finger on it just yet, but something isn’t quite sitting right with her.

Clever girl.

Meanwhile Doc is about to feed the machine when a door opens and he strolls right through it, because this Garden can apparently gently guide people to do things.

The real Nicole is still lying on the ground telling the approaching zombie that she wanted to die with Waverly in Sara Lance cosplay holding her in her arms, which almost made me spit-take because I love little more than when my favorite shows reference my other favorite shows. Also this reference has been blessed by Sara Lance herself.

Love this 🥰 https://t.co/1EEjar5HRd

— Caity Lotz (@caitylotz) August 3, 2020

After a series of sex jokes and a wee lack of oxygen debacle, though, Wynonna and Rachel get there just in time to save her from getting bitten.

Waverly, still unable to put words to it but her natural intuition kicking in, asks Not!Haught
Waverly asks her where her ring is.

Could she BE any cuter?!

But Eve can’t resist digging on Bulshar and complaining about how there hasn’t been a god around these parts in 84 years. (Give or take some millenia.) Waverly tells her about the man they found who called the Garden a prison, and asks Not!Haught about if she’s mad Wynonna drugged her… it seems a little weird that wouldn’t have been one of the first things she mentioned. (Which is such a good instinct Waverly has; it was indeed one of the first things Nicole thought when she woke up, and also she immediately punched Wynonna about it upon finding her.) But when Not!Haught instead changes the subject to how desperate she is to get out, Waverly side-eyes her some more.

Like she told Champ in Season One, beauty and brains aren’t mutually exclusive.

When Doc gets through the room to the Garden, he sees Nicole’s face on some stones but like a creepy art installation, when he walks around the pedestal, he sees Not!Haught’s true face… and it ain’t pretty. (I mean, the facts ain’t pretty. Eve’s demon face is still kinda hot. I think. I’ve also been social distancing for 145 days.)

So despite the machine going haywire for not having been fed, Doc runs back to Waverly and the demon he left her alone with.

Rachel checks Nicole’s leg and determines that, in her professional opinion, it is hella broken.

“I’ve watched enough Grey’s Anatomy to know you are, technically speaking, shit outta luck.”

Wynonna gives Nicole back Waverly’s ring, and just in case she doesn’t make it out of this sticky situation, Nicole makes sure Wynonna knows that she absolutely is going to say yes to Waverly’s proposal the second she has a chance. And that’s when they realize that there’s a dead body in the room with them bearing Gloria Valdez’s Black Badge ID. Rachel interprets this situation to mean that her mom died keeping the door shut, so she whips out a gun and says she’ll do the same.

In the Garden, the machine goes unfed, and the barrier keeping Not!Haught contained disappears.

I’m sure letting someone who can steal faces loose is totally fine.

So she grabs Waverly’s hand and drags her outside. As soon as they’re out there, Waverly pulls her in for a kiss, but Not!Haught isn’t having it.

“Should have known you was trouble from the first kiss. Had your eyes wide open… Why were they open?”

And Doc is running up to tell her as much, but Waverly realizes it on her own just in time: This isn’t her girlfriend. Also she tastes like sulfur. Waverly immediately worries about the real Nicole but the imposter in front of her says her name is Eve and she’s ready to watch the world burn.

“No thank youuuu.”

Eve, still presenting as Nicole, is dragging Waverly around by her hair when Doc shows up to be the weapon he promised to be. But as soon as he punches Eve, she changes form to be Jeremy instead, appealing to Doc’s soft spot for the nerd.

“Wynonna Earp” Episode 401 Recap: Angel In Chains

:kicks down the door with a flourish: WE’RE BACK, BAYBEEEEEE!!!!

Hello! Hi! Hey there! And welcome back to Wynonna Earp recaps! It has been a MINUTE. And what better time for this chaos crew to return to us than in the middle of…well, 2020. The first half of this year has been an eternal night and Wynonna Earp just rode into town with a truckload of sun lamps to help us make it through the back half. I don’t even know if I remember how to write a Wynonna Earp recap, as evidenced by that ridiculous metaphor I just made, but I’m so excited to try.

Hopefully you spent the extra-long hiatus doing a full rewatch but in case you didn’t, here are some important things to remember that happened at the end of Season Three: Waverly kind of proposed to Nicole, Wynonna drugged Jeremy, Robin, and Nicole to keep them away from the Bulshar fight, Wynonna killed Bulshar, the door at the top of the sometimes invisible stairs opened up and vines stole Waverly, and Doc went in after her. When Wynonna got back to the homestead, her friends were gone and VALDEZ was scratched into the wall. All she had left was Randy Nedley.

The first shot of Season Four is of a barren snowy expanse with just a few stone structures looming. Surely that’s fine.

We quickly pivot to Wynonna in Shorty’s, going through some makeshift weapons and arming up. When she’s done, she flips her hair; Wynonna Earp is BACK.

I guess the only turtleneck she had to cover up the Bulshar/Doc bites was from…a Barbarella cosplay? So shiny.

And then Nedley speaks for all of us when he says, “I feel like I’ve been standing here for two years.” And that’s just the first of many, many winks at the audience in this episode, which is basically just a 42 minute love letter to the Earpers who fought and campaigned and wrote and begged and FOUGHT for this show’s renewal.

Wynonna and Nedley head to the woods to find the stairs and are delighted to actually find them. Nedley gives her some words of encouragement and Wynonna climbs them and takes a leap for her baby girl…but lands on her back. She lets out a weak cry for her sister, which is echoed by a much louder scream from Waverly.

STOP MAKING WAVERLY SCREAM IN THE BAD WAY 2020

When Wynonna gets up, she realizes the stairs have disappeared and is furious. (Funniest line read of the word “architecture” for 800, Alex.) And to make things worse, she’s got crabs. Demon crabs attack her and Nedley and they make it back to the Homestead, not unscathed. While Wynonna looks fruitlessly for a first aid kit, Nedley notices the VALDEZ scratched on the wall, and we get a little flashback showing us how it got there.

With Robin and Nicole still unconscious and some kind of agents closing in on the house, Jeremy is scratching VALDEZ into the wall with a knife because he couldn’t find a pen. The agents approach the door and Jeremy tries to hold them off by saying, “Gays only?” but they burst in and taser him.

When Nedley asks Wynonna what happened to her team, she confesses to drugging them, thinking she was keeping them safe, but now she’s worried it put them in more danger. Wynonna finds Bulshar’s/Julian’s ring on the ground and remembers Nicole wearing it and she realizes Waverly gave it to her. Nedley suggests maybe it was something even more serious than that.

Even the boomerang ring can’t find Waverly. :(

Wynonna makes a quiet plea for her favorite red hot chili pepper to be okay.

And then we find out that Nicole is…well, she’s not NOT okay, all things considered. She’s on a moving train to Bobo knows where, but hey she’s alive. Before even doing a sweep of the train car she wants OUT so she goes to open the door but it quickly pulled back.

Back at the Homestead, Wynonna finds these little explosives called “beaver blasters” (the most Canadian weapon ever) and flips them around and fumbles them like she did with Peacemaker oh so long ago. Her and Nedley are planning their next steps when they hear something in the kitchen. After a near miss with a thrown knife, they find Mercedes Gardner smiling back at them. She looks like she has made herself quite comfortable in the past few hours, and Wynonna can’t help but grab her by the fresh face to make sure it’s really her.

“Do you wanna build a snowman? Doesn’t have to be a snowman.”

Back on the train, we find out that it’s Kate who pulled Nicole back from the train car door, and it’s because the last guy who tried that got crispier than crispy bacon. Kate tells Nicole about how Mercedes bailed as soon as she saw danger creeping in, and Nicole asks if Kate can help her by giving her a reading and telling her what to do next, how to find Waverly. Kate asks if she has anything of Waverly’s and when she realizes she doesn’t have the ring anymore, she says she does have something of Waverly’s: Her.

“I am, you know. Yours.”

Meanwhile Wynonna is literally Googling “Valdez” and only finding images of tankers that caused oil spills (which could be a clue TRULY WHO KNOWS) and Mercedes is giving her own version of the story Kate told, claiming Kate told her to save her own beautiful skin and leave her behind. Also, Wynonna jokes that they “totally boinked” and Mercedes doesn’t deny it so it’s canon no take backs. Mercedes thought she’d be safe at the Homestead with the heir, but Wynonna tells her that the curse was broken. She’s not the heir of anything anymore.

Mercedes makes a joke about Wynonna’s “hot mess files” and that sparks Nedley to tell Wynonna that he actually does have Dolls’ BBD files back at his office. He pulls out the box from inside the couch (claiming nobody ever uses it, another wink) and Wynonna goes through the files, information about Dolls’ fellow agents, mostly those who have died.

Waverly is usually the one who does all the research. :( :(

She sees files for Lucado, Moreno…and Gloria Valdez.

On the train, Kate draws the first two cards for Nicole. The Empress, representing feminine power, and Death, which makes Nicole freak the freak out.

Also me whenever I get my tarot read.

But Kate reassures her that it doesn’t necessarily mean literal death. It represents transition, a doorway. Nicole tries to convince Kate to come with her to save Waverly saying she can save Doc too, but Kate is realizing that her relationship with Doc was toxic and that she has to be on her own for a while. The last card is The Fool, which represents a journey, and Kate knows she needs to help Nicole on hers. So she uses her vampiric fortitude and opens the door for her Haught pal.

Not the hero we deserve, but the hero we need.

She gets zapped and Nicole jumps, but Kate is strong and as soon as two men come in to check on the prisoners, Kate’s eyes glow and her teeth gold up and you know she’s going to be just fine.

Hope we haven’t seen the last of this badass.

Wynonna learns from the files that Gloria Valdez was a scientist who may have information on the Garden, and they find a photo of a city Mercedes recognizes as Monument, so that’s where Wynonna will go next. The thing is, Nedley is too injured to join her and Mercedes is too…Mercedes.

Also for the record, she’s wearing Waverly’s jacket from 309, and honestly that shirt looks familiar, too.

So she has to go it alone. Nedley sends her off with a bunch of beaver blasters and a, “Nobody fucks with our family.”

We cut to the Garden, where a door opens and Doc enters in all his cowboy glory. The door locks closed behind him so he sets off to find the littlest Earp girl.

Waverly, still chained to a rock, hears him enter and starts calling for him, her chains tightening.

A 2020 mood if I’ve ever seen one.

Doc starts pulling at the chains and even though they go down into a well, he pushes through his fear to save our angel. He pulls out a mass of flesh and branches that my friend Monica wisely pointed out could be what’s left of Jolene, which would explain why Waverly looked so defeated when she was being pulled into the Garden, saying she couldn’t fight anymore. And it DOES look like a very, very big version of the gross seeds Bulshar was shoving down people’s throats, and Bulshar is the one who turned Jolene into a tree. But anyway Doc saves Waverly and holds her and she’s not alone anymore.

Exactly 169 miles from Monument, Wynonna’s trusty truck quits on her and she slumps against it, feeling like she can’t do this alone. She tries to imagine what Doc and Waverly would say to her, with adorable impressions of two of her favorite people.

LOOK AT THIS SHOT. :squeezes your face and points it at the screen: LOOK AT IT! SO PERFECT.

She thinks of Haught next and is surprised to hear how accurate her impression is before realizing it’s the real Nicole. Wynonna flings her arms open, wanting a hug from her sister’s maybe fiancée.

I miss hugs.

But she gets a fist to the face instead. Nicole is SO mad at her for counting her out before she could prove herself in the boss battle and Wynonna tries to brush it off as ancient history but it was literally yesterday. Wynonna says that you had to be special to get into the garden, and that Nicole isn’t a bisexual angel or an undead gunslinger.

Boobs on Your Tube: “The Chi” Celebrates Queer Black Joy in The Season 3 Premiere

The TV drought continues, but we’re not giving up! This week, Valerie Anne recapped the last episode of Legends of Tomorrow‘s fifth season. Carly and Riese dropped another episode of To L and Back. Natalie shared her list of top ten favorite lesbian movies. Drew shared some of her favorite trans web series to watch after Disclosure. And Sue Bird and Megan Rapinoe joined the call of Black athletes for racial justice at the ESPYs.

Notes from the TV Team:

+ The season two finale of DC Universe’s animated Harley Quinn series dropped today, and it was SO GOOD. I’m going to write a full post about the whole season on Monday, since I’ve missed so many blurbs because I was out of the office. You can join DC Universe for a free 7 day trial and watch all of season two. You should! — Heather

+ I’ll have a full recap of The Chi‘s new season after I’ve seen a few more episodes… but this week’s premiere (which you can watch in its entirety on Youtube) is a jarring showcase of the juxtaposition of black pain and black joy. This, of course, is the black joy:

The black queer joy. — Natalie

+ The queer fan convention QFX is having their virtual Cloud Con this weekend. Panels for Marvel’s Runaways, One Day at a Time and Utopia Falls already happened, and this weekend will have panels for Wynonna Earp and more. All past and future panels will be on the QFX Cloud Con Twitch! — Valerie Anne

+ Apparently there’s “no such thing” as a recap of a trailer so here I am in the notes section of Boob Tube to because I couldn’t NOT tell you that WYNONNA EARP IS COMING BACK. They finally, finally, finally, after two years of fighting and hoping and wishing and dreaming, finally released a Season Four trailer. And it. is. glorious.

The trailer is everything I dreamed in more, showing old faces and new, hitting all the right beats, and making my Earper heart soar all over again. In it, Nicole Haught says, “God I’ve missed you, Waverly Earp,” and so much same but about all of them. Season Four officially starts again for six whole brand new episodes on Sunday, July 26th. ONE MONTH FROM TODAY! My recaps and I will see you there. — Valerie Anne

The Bold Type 413: “Lost”

Written by Natalie

It’s a wrap — literally — on Kat’s time in the loft; she’s packing up her stuff and moving in with Jane. As they are wont to do, the move brings up a lot of memories: the couch that she bought after her first promotion and binged The L Word on when she was questioning her sexuality (#relatable) or the table from which she launched her campaign. The girls wrap her up in bubble wrap and dissolve into laughter as they embrace.

At work, Kat’s finding ways to utilize the skills she honed at Scarlet into promoting The Bell: after hearing about one member’s work with a domestic violence shelter — which she left a lucrative gig in finance to take — Kat wants to share the story with a wider audience. She pitches the idea for a podcast to her boss who seems skeptical, but greenlights a pilot episode. Excited about the development, Kat rushes to share the news with her best friends. After tossing out puns that might work as podcast titles, Sutton recommends that Kat reach out to Alex for his advice on how to make it into the podcast game.

Can I say: it makes sense for the activist within Kat to come to the fore, irrespective of where she’s working, but I wish they’d taken another tact with it. The Bold Type has always struggled to give Alex something to do other than being of service to our three main characters… and, with one notable exception, his venture into podcasting has been the only storyline that’s just about him. But here we are, ten episodes later, and Alex’s is back, using his knowledge to provide help for Kat. Ugh. Do better The Bold Type, do better. But I digress…

Alex schools Kat on all things podcasting, even recommending the proper microphones to buy, but Kat’s short on cash. He offers to buy them for her or even let her borrow some of Scarlet‘s extra equipment, but Kat declines his offers. He pushes to find out what’s causing Kat’s cash flow issues and discovers that she’s paying $300/month to store her furniture. Alex recommends that she recoup her storage fees and sell her stuff instead.

“I can’t do that, I already lost Scarlet and my apartment and my 401(k) and…,” Kat admits, pausing to collect herself before adding, “The only thing I do know is that I can’t lose anything else, so selling my stuff is just not an option.”

But when she donates some old clothes to the domestic violence shelter, Kat comes to appreciate the need for reinvention and reconsiders her decision to sell her things. She calls Alex for help and, with his assistance, she’s able to sell all her furniture and earn enough money to get her podcast off the ground… and, thanks to Jane, Kat’s beloved couch has a new home in their shared apartment!

In the Dark 211: “Bad People”

Written by Valerie Anne

Bye, Sterling. I know you were engaged to Jess but we hardly knew ye.

I feel a little bad about complaining in the last Boob Tube that Jess was gone because they made up for it this week, and we spend the first bit going over where Jess and Sterling were during the events of the last episode. Mostly, to be honest, Jess and Sterling were just lazing around in bed.

But then when Jess is out buying tampons, Sam bursts into Sterling and Jess’s apartment and threatens her ex, forcing Sterling to leave with her. But Sterling maces Sam and gets away, stealing Sam’s car and hearing a voicemail from Nia on Sam’s phone about Murphy and Felix being in danger. So she goes to pick up Jess, who is horrified to learn that Sterling worked for Nia and that the one person left in her life who hadn’t betrayed her did just that. Jess says SHE’LL go help Murphy, and tells Sterling not to follow her in a clear, firm voice we’ve never heard her use before.

After we get to the part we already saw, Jess saving Murphy, Murphy lets out this sad, apologetic, “Jess,” and Jess finally lets down her steely walls and wraps Murphy in a big hug.

The team ends up burying the bodies in the woods, which just never goes well, but these kids haven’t always been the best decision-makers. The whole time, Sterling leads the charge, clearly no stranger to the hiding-a-body game, but everyone is so cold because they hurt their Jess. Murphy is mad, Jess is mad, Sterling is annoyed. But in the end, Jess thanks her for helping them and says a somewhat amicable if not permanent sounding goodbye.