“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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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,

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

“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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

“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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

“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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

(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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

In fact, she doesn’t mind at all.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“Wynonna Earp” Episode 311 & 312 Recap: The Battle’s Done and We Kinda Won

Hello and welcome to my last Wynonna Earp recap of Season Three! I’m not crying, you’re crying! This season has been quite the adventure and I’ve had a great time discussing it with you all. I will say, based on the way it ended, I’m VERY GLAD we already know we’re getting a season four. But we’ll get there! First:

Episode 311, “Daddy Lessons”

We open on Waverly and Nicole looking down at Charlie Fire Service’s dead body, marveling over how you can hardly tell Doc chomped at his jugular, worrying over how the hell they are going to tell Wynonna what happened.

Nicole gets a call from Nedley so she has to go help with evacuation, leaving Waverly to ponder this dilemma on her own for now. Waverly seems a little off so Nicole gives her a wee kiss on her forehead before she leaves. It’s really fucking sweet, y’all.

After Nicole leaves, Waverly places her ringed hand gently on Charlie’s bitten neck, gently, like she put her hand on Mercedes’ face the other day. And much to Waverly’s surprise… he wakes up.

Back at the Homestead, Wynonna yells at the Blood Moon for making it look like High Noon even though it’s the middle of the night. She looks sadly at the photo Dolls left her and apologizes to him because she feels like she’s letting him down. And as she does, a black horse trots by. Maybe it’s a coincidence, since all the animals, humanoid or not, are fleeing town. But maybe, just maybe, it was a little sign from Dolls that she’s on the right track.

Wynonna heads into town and runs into Sheriff Haught and emergency deputy Robin evacuating the town. Wynonna is looking for Waverly since she wasn’t at the BBD, and when she realizes she knows where she is, she mutters about Kevin and speeds off, leaving Nicole wondering who the hell this guy Kevin is.

Wynonna heads into the woods to the general area she knows the stairs to be, and while she still can’t see them, she knows what her sister is doing, and she’s pissed.

Waverly says she feels compelled to climb the stairs, to help people, so Wynonna helps her quell her craving by knocking her the fuck out, putting her in the box in the bed of her truck.

Wynonna goes back into town to talk to Nicole, obviously not telling the Sheriff where she shoved her little sister, otherwise there’s no way Haught would just be sitting criss-cross applesauce on the sidewalk all calm. Wynonna begs Nicole to take Waverly outside the Ghost River Triangle, but a) Sheriff can’t leave Purgatory in a time of crisis and b) as soon as Waverly said “take me back” Haught would have no choice but to oblige because she would do anything Waverly asked her to. (Including, Wynonna discovers, getting a flaming phoenix butt tattoo.)

Their conversation is interrupted when Charlie Fire Services comes meandering down the street, a little dazed and a lot barefoot. Nicole is stammering and Wynonna knows it’s not because of Charlie’s chiseled abs, but before she can get to the bottom of it, she realizes Charlie is the answer to her prayer. She tells Charlie to take Waverly far, far away and also to apologize to Waverly on her behalf because of the whole sisternapping thing.

On their way out of Purgatory, a local couple wander into Shorty’s half-heartedly looking for their dog, and full-heartedly stealing booze. Unfortunately it’s not their pup they hear growling from the shadows, but Doc, who lures them down to the basement and calls Kate to join them.

Doc shows off his new glamour skills and Kate isn’t all that impressed until the strangers bear their necks and then Kate decides to party with her husband for a bit.

At the office formerly known as the BBD, some Revenants find Bobo’s BoxBox and he begs for them to let him out but he’s not the leader of this gang anymore. They think he’s working for Team Earp, so he offers them intel, tells them that the heir doesn’t have Peacemaker anymore, trying to prove he’s on their side. But the Revenants take the keys and the intel and leave Bobo to rot.

Those Revenants take that intel right to Wynonna, suddenly cockier than ever, and poor Wynonna realizes she’s outgunned, outmanned, outnumbered, outplanned. And as a result, she’s going to be fealty.

Wynonna is taken to Bulshar’s arboretum and tied up while Jarvis the Revenant does her hair and reminisces about how his sister married the man he loved.

She tries to reason with him, saying they should work together, that he doesn’t want to be one of Bulshar’s buds, just look at the mindless minions around them. But she’s put in a fancy dress anyway.

Eventually Waverly is let out of her box and goes somewhat willingly with Charlie, and Charlie instinctively gets them to the Gibson Greenhouse. Waverly thinks maybe they were guided here by the fog, but Charlie is walking around like he’s just seen a ghost. Or realized he was a ghost. He is spooked by a stone angel and is generally just acting weird. Sweet Waverly is doing her best to act casual while her sister’s ex-fuck buddy she just raised from the dead weirdly walks around the Greenhouse where she recently almost killed herself at the demon who possessed her mother’s behest.

Charlie ties Waverly up in a way that makes me wonder if he’s ever even tied his shoelaces before. She tries to snap him out of his weird funk by asking him questions about himself but he wants to hear about Nicole instead, which lights Waverly’s face right up.

Waverly says that Nicole is brave, loyal, good. And that she likes Waverly even when she’s not (or feels like she’s not) any of those things. When Waverly turns the question back to Charlie again he admits he doesn’t know much before about a year ago. (Approximately as many days have passed in Purgatory since Baby Alice’s birthday.) While he’s recounting this, Waverly puts a supportive hand on his and they both get to watch a clip of his memory like this is an episode of Black Mirror. It’s tres weird, especially the part where he says he wants to help people almost exactly the same way as Waverly had said it moments before.

In Shorty’s basement, Doc is still coughy and grumpy and hungry and Kate is getting the impression that there’s more going on with him than just new vamp jitters. He’s craving something in particular and he’s craving it bad. So badly, in fact, that he attacks a fire chief to get Charlie’s location. Actually, scratch that, he gets Charlie’s location from the fire chief THEN shoots him. Confusing both Kate and myself. Also hitting Kate with the bullet.

Which is BEYOND RUDE. Sir, I would like to keep Kate around, and I know that a regular bullet can’t kill her, but she might up and leave if you don’t cut the bullshit and be nicer to her!! Hmph.

After they finish trussing her up, the Revenants present Wynonna to Bulshar as their fealty. And at Bulshar’s right hand, dressed in a color that practically glows in this dark and dingy basement, is none other than Mercedes Gardner.

While she’s making drinks, Wynonna asks what the fuck is going on, and Mercedes says that she’s just playing the part of Bulshar’s arm candy as a survival tactic.

But Wynonna is a fighter and calls Mercedes a coward. Mercedes will be a coward or chickenshit or whatever animal-based word Wynonna wants to call her if it means never ending up crawling around her basement bleeding out from the face ever again.

Bulshar announces to the room that he needs a new second in command since Dolls killed his first guy, and Wynonna volunteers as tribute.

She’ll do anything to keep her sister safe, even get on her knees and beg, but when she reaches out to Bulshar to shake on it, he recoils and panics and hisses that Wynonna should be put in a cage.

Charlie has been freaking out in the Greenhouse ever since Waverly touched him with that ring and luckily when he hears a car roll up he snaps out of it long enough to untie Waverly. The two of them get in the world’s worst hiding spot and Charlie is still twitching so Waverly touches him again and Charlie recovers a memory of himself with a young Michelle Gibson in this very Greenhouse. And the truth is revealed: Charlie is Julian, Julian is Charlie.

Waverly immediately thinks about how her mom and Wynonna now share more in common than ever and Charlie is mid-meltdown with the memory overload as his two existences try to take up the same space in his brain when Doc comes busting in. Seeing it’s her favorite vampire, Waverly scoots out to see if she can talk to him, but he craves that sweet, sweet angel dust and doesn’t even care when Waverly tells him that Charlie is Julian, and her father.

Waverly tries to tell Doc that Wynonna loves him but he doesn’t feel love, only hunger. He grabs her and throws her to the ground, and Waverly doesn’t look angry, just sad. Julian takes the ring from her finger and puts it on, and stands up tall, remembering who he really is. He easily tosses Doc across the room and into the angel statue and spreads his wings out wide.

Julian explains that he was just wandering, lost, until he sensed his daughter step out of the Ghost River Triangle, however many days ago Alice was born. Waverly is worried about Doc, but Julian doesn’t care about anyone but her. Because while Charlie was bland and annoying sometimes, Julian is a straight-up self-righteous dick. I don’t care if he’s an angel, I don’t like him. If he really cared about his daughter, he would care about the people she cared about, vampire or not.

Waverly ignores this strange winged man who happened to provide her some DNA and runs to Doc, crying over him, saying they loved the man he was. She kisses his cheek and leaves him there for now.

After Kate has made her way to the fire chief’s walkie talkie to call for help, Nicole takes her back to the Gardner house to patch her up, since she can’t heal as quickly as usual because of the Blood Eclipse.

Kate’s also doing some tarot readings and at first things look bleak, but finally one time she does it and she sees a card she hadn’t seen the first few times: Hope.

And that hope is because Mercedes and Jarvis let Wynonna out of her cage. When Bulshar appears no one moves to follow his orders and Wynonna tells him his time is up.

Bulshar bamfs out but Wynonna hops onto a table and rallies the troops. They’ve been pitted against each other when really they could work together to end this curse that affects all of them. She needs their help, because it’s time for a revolution. The Revenants cheer in support and for the first time in a long time, Wynonna smiles.

In the Greenhouse, Doc wakes up with Waverly’s name on his lips, because it seems while her sister was tasked with taking lives, Waverly was blessed with saving them. Doc sees a sword in the rubble and picks it up while growling Charlie’s name.

The episode ends with Bulshar going to Bobo and asking him if he wants a job. And honestly, Bobo would probably have fought on the side of the first person who let him out of that damn box, and since Jeremy wouldn’t let Robin do it earlier, looks like Bobo is Team Bulshar.

Episode 312, “War Paint”

The official finale episode opens with Wynonna saying the word, “Fucking.”

We’re officially at 10pm, bitches.

Wynonna tells the Revenants that even though she really liked killed them, and actually being the Earp Heir might have been the only thing she was ever good at, she’s willing to go back to being just Wynonna if it means ending this curse together. She has no idea what will happen to any of them once it’s over, but she knows they’ll be free. She buries some ammolite in the ground, the same talisman Bobo tricked baby Waverly into burying once, and pulls Jarvis over the threshold. The truce has officially begun.

Meanwhile Bulshar is back on his shady bullshit, hanging out by the stairs, turning Peacemaker into a sword, you know, the usual stuff. He sticks the sword into the stone steps and a door appears at the top. A Beekeeper goes in but is immediately beheaded, apparently because they weren’t mortal or righteous. So he sends his Beekeepers out to get what he needs to become those things: all of Wynonna’s friends to be out of the way, and Wynonna’s blood.

Waverly shows up at the Homestead just then and Wynonna is one part pissed that Waverly is not out of harm’s way but two parts happy to see her baby girl.

Wynonna tells her that she has an army of Revenants milling around the Homestead, she’s surprised to see Waverly barely bat an eyelash at the news. And it’s because Waverly’s news is weirder: Charlie is Julian and and angel and her father.

The girls head into the barn to talk this out out of earshot of one of the protectors of the Garden of Eden and Wynonna is having a hard time wrapping her head around this, so Waverly does her best to comfort her.

But also has to warn her that Doc is… not okay. She gives her the rundown and all Wynonna can do is laugh at how ridiculous her circumstance is. Her vampire baby daddy tried to kill her friend-with-benefits who also happens to be her mother’s lover and her sister’s father. Also she doesn’t have her magic gun.

They split up then, because Wynonna has to find Doc, and Waverly has to find Nicole.

Nicole is still with Kate, being lightly mocked for giving Kate shit about being so tied up in Doc while also incessantly checking her phone for Waverly updates. But Kate just smiles at her and tells her never to apologize for her heart.

Just then, Beekeepers bust in and the two women spring to action, fighting side by side like they’ve been doing it their whole lives. In the fight, Nicole gets cleaved in the side, but they take them all down anyway. Mercedes, in a classic Mercedes move, busts in just in time to… see the aftermath.

She sees Nicole is bleeding, which Kate says smells like vanilla-dipped donuts, but Nicole insists it’s just a flesh wound and she can walk the TEN MILES to town. Even though surely she drove Kate there in the first place?? Or maybe she just parked really far away? It’s truly unclear why she’s hoofing it, but it’s probably for the best because she passes out after not too long and shadowy figure appears by her side.

Jeremy and Robin have been sciencing, and after Beekeepers charge in but weirdly don’t attack and Vacation Nedley swoops in to save their butts, Jeremy realizes he knows how to keep themselves hidden from Bulshar’s minions.

Wynonna talks to Julian and tries to make sense of everything and she’s about to tell him that his job is to make sure Waverly doesn’t have to turn into a gargoyle when Julian’s spidey senses tingle and he knows Nicole is in danger.

Waverly might have an inkling too because she’s desperately trying to call her girlfriend.

But she’s interrupted by Bobo in her room, coughing up dirt and saying he couldn’t help her now if he wanted to. He does need her help though, and asks her to set him free when the time comes.

Doc has brought Nicole to Wynonna for help, because she is bleeding out on the barn floor and Julian offers to save her and Wynonna tells him he better, because she’s the love of his daughter’s life. He heals her, and it looks like it cost him something, but it seems worth it since Nicole sputters back to life, asking if they’ve won yet.

Doc gives Julian the sword he found in the Greenhouse, apparently cured of his desperate thirst. And while he still has a lot to atone for, I reckon managing to carry Nicole vanilla-dipped-donuts Haught all the way to the Homestead without taking so much as a nibble is a pretty okay start.

With Nedley in his corner, Jeremy seems to science even better than ever, and uses a blender and some ingenuity to create a liquid that will hide anyone wearing it from the Beekeepers.

Julian goes up to Waverly’s room to tell her that Nicole is hurt but okay and is surprised to find Bobo there, and notes he’s lacking free will. Bobo is annoyed with him, telling him that he can’t take credit for the woman Waverly has become all on her own. Julian credits Michelle, which proves he knows nothing. I think they’re both wrong. Waverly is Waverly because of a combination of yes, herself, but also because of Gus, because of Shorty, because of Wynonna.

Julian assures Waverly that Nicole is okay even though Waverly didn’t know Nicole was NOT okay and gives Waverly the ring; he’ll be too weak to fight now.

A war horn sounds and everyone on the Homestead comes outside to see that Bulshar’s army is here and extremely overprepared. They are highly organized and have grenades and machine guns and frankly it feels mean.

But Team Earp is scrappy so they hold their own. Doc goes to the barn to be with Nicole, who at first is wary but he promises not to hurt her so she focuses on the fight and shoots some baddies from her hidey haystack.

It’s a good old-fashioned Western shootout until Bobo grabs Wynonna and throws her down on a stump like he’s going to cut her head off. Bulshar cuts her hand with an axe and motions for his minions to kill her while Waverly does that sisterly scream that cuts me down to my bones.

Julian sees his daughter’s distress and heads out to save Wynonna, which succeeds for a minute until Bobo stabs him but good with his own sword. Waverly watches this happens, and screams, “Dad,” out the window.

Which is really heartbreaking. Ward Earp was barely a father to her; she only knew him until she was six and he was horrible to her if he paid attention to her at all. Shorty was the closest thing to a father figure she had after that, but he’s gone now too. Even her imaginary paternal figure turned out to be Bobo the Revenant. So this was her do-over. This was her chance to have a guaranteed good, theoretically immortal father in her life. But Bobo took that from her, and if you think about it, Bobo kind of had a hand in killing her father and Shorty, too.

Doc stops Bobo from cutting off Wynonna’s head himself, but it’s Waverly who is fed up with Bobo’s bullshit, his back and forth of helping them and hurting them, and decides to do him his favor. She grabs his face, tells him that she wishes he would have found his way back to Robert Svain, and sets him free.

But Bulshar doesn’t care because he already has what he needs, so he heads back to the stairs and burns his stolen tarot cards and stolen blood. Wynonna runs up but the Revenants who were following her disappear. She lunges after Bulshar but he bamfs out again, leaving her on the ground, and her pupils dilate like they did that midnight of her 27th birthday. When Waverly catches up her sister fills her in: the Earp Curse is broken.

Wynonna heads back to the barn to talk to Doc, and Doc says that Charlie Angel Services died to save his daughter, a notion he can relate to. But Wynonna tells him he might not have to because Bulshar broke the Earp Curse so he could be mortal and go into the Garden. Doc pledges to fight by Wynonna’s side, but she can’t trust him so she traps him with a holy water rope and bids him adieu.

Waverly finds Nicole on the porch and she seems so tired. Nicole is sorry about Charlie and holds her girlfriend as close as possible while teetering on a banister.

Waverly says she doesn’t want to lose anyone else she loves today, and then looks at Nicole and says something she’s never said directly to her before: “I really, really love you.”

And listen, I get it. I know 100% why Waverly Earp has never told Nicole she loves her to her face. Look how she grew up. Who do you think ever said “I love you” to her? I feel like it wasn’t a phrase thrown around very liberally, and while Nicole has said it over and over and over again, Waverly had to wait until it meant something. Until it meant everything.

Waverly slips her ring off her finger and onto Nicole’s and Nicole jokes about hating the ring, not having really been asked a question, but Waverly asks without asking, “Is that a yes?”

But Wynonnus Interruptus strikes again and before we even get so much as a kiss, let alone an answer, it’s time to get back to the war at hand. (Which is fair because APOCALYPSE.)

Team Earp makes the kitchen a war room of sorts and Jeremy tells them about the solution he made that will make them invisible to Beekeepers. Wynonna gives them shots and says that theoretically she would be telling them they could leave if they wanted to, and that she’s so afraid of losing this family she built.

But she doesn’t have to ask them if they’ll stay behind or come with because she knows they’ll all say they’re coming. So instead she drugs them all, refusing to risk their lives.

Waverly marches into the woods after her sister, pissed, boasting about how she didn’t drink her roofies, but Waverly’s shot was never drugged. Wynonna says there are two swords, two angel guardians, two sisters. They’re going to do this together.

They press their foreheads together, hoping it’s not for the last time.

Wynonna puts Jeremy’s bug juice all over them and they tip toe like cartoon cats past the Beekeepers, who do indeed to be oblivious to their presence.

They find Bulshar by the stairs, looking hella scaly. Wynonna fights him, and while she does, Waverly sneaks around to the stairs, climbs them, and pulls the sword from the stone. (One hilarious beat here was that Wynonna, still unable to see the stairs, thinks she’s levitating.)

Waverly uses the powers vested in her by the angels to name Wynonna a hero and toss her the sword. Wynonna immediately recognizes it as Peacemaker, and it lights up and glows blue in response.

As Wynonna and Bulshar fight more, Waverly realizes that she can’t climb down from the stairs. Some kind of barrier has appeared and she is trapped.

Wynonna bests Bulshar, though he gets one last bite out of her before he dies. She falls down, seemingly paralyzed, and Waverly can’t get down the stairs to help her, to heal her.

Doc appears just then and latches onto Wynonna’s throat, causing Waverly to scream even more, but then he spits; he was just using his super-sucker to get the venom out of her.

The doors at the top of the stairs open and vines creep out, grabbing Waverly and pulling her in. She begs her sister to give a message to Nicole, to come and get her, to not leave her alone, and despite Wynonna’s last surge of energy she uses to launch herself at the stairs she can finally see, there’s nothing Waverly or her sister can do as she’s pulled beyond the threshold.

As soon as she disappears, a horrible noise resounds, like Earth itself can’t bear to be without Waverly Earp.

Doc looks around and knows what he has to do. He takes off his ammo belt and climbs the stairs, somehow not stopped by the wobbly wall. Is it because he’s already dead? Is it because the stairs actually lead to hell and he’s been there already? Who knows. But Doc is going in for Waverly.

There’s a flash of light and Wynonna finds herself coming to again, with no stairs around her, no sign of her sister, just Doc’s discarded belt, his guns and knife still attached.

Wynonna makes her way back to the Homestead, looking for Nicole, Jeremy and Robin, but all she finds is “VALDEZ” scratched into the wood along the staircase. And I don’t know much about Valdez but I know she’s in the comics and I know I’m excited to see how she fits into things.

Wynonna’s second stop is Shorty’s, finding only Nedley left. He says that Chrissy and everyone else who was left in town is gone too, so Wynonna thinks maybe whatever took Waverly got everyone else, that maybe everyone who was still in Purgatory, except her and Nedley, maybe ended up in this Garden of “Eden” that is starting to sound not-very-paradisey.

They’re not sure entirely what to do, but they do know one thing: they have a family to save.

And the season ends with Nedley saying, and I quote, “Fuck yeah,” and Wynonna smiling that mischievous, ready-to-fuck-things-up smile.

Last week was hard. This year was hard. The past TWO years have been hard. And they’re only getting harder. But we can’t give up. We have to stay strong. And watching Wynonna fight and defeat an old, entitled, sexist white man was very, very satisfying. Watching Waverly Earp come into her powers and demolish the man who has been tormenting her since she was a child was very, very satisfying. Watching the women of this show come together in so many combinations and fight alongside each other and quip and heal and love each other… it was important. It was necessary. And I am sad to lose this particular happy place, but so relieved to know we have another year of mayhem. Rumor has it Rosita will be back (Somehow? Even though the Revenants all disappeared?), Valdez should provide some fun and excitement, and you never know what else this crew will get up to.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this season as much as I have, and that it has provided a much needed escape from the chaos and provided a light in darkness of the world. I know I’ll carry that light with me into the hiatus, and I hope you will, too.

See you in Season Four!

“Wynonna Earp” Episode 310 Recap: Lost and Found

Previously on Wynonna Earp, the heir herself was trapped by Bulshar in an alternate looping universe for what we learn in this episode felt like MONTHS to her, which resulted in Wynonna giving Bulshar her gun despite Peacemaker seeming like their best defense. Also, Waverly put on the ring they had assumed to be Bulshar’s and it got stuck on her finger, and while it was there she burned a demon’s face and healed Mercedes’.

We open this episode in Purgatory, 1887. Juan Carlo is dictating to a young woman when Robert Svane bursts in saying Wyatt Earp is coming. They talk of hope and blood moon eclipses and Juan Carlo asks Maeve to go hide his notebook. He tells Svane they need to get Peacemaker to the champion, but when he pulls back a cloth it’s not the rune-carved gun we know and love, but a shiny sword.

Modern day Bobo is trying to remember these important details but he’s flickering between memory and reality, unable to quite articulate much to Wynonna. All he can say is that hope is gone, and that he and Wynonna share a fate: heirs of cruelty and torture.

Waverly and Jeremy come in with coffee for Wynonna, but she needs a break from Bobo duty. Waverly is worried about her sister, and worried that she has lost sight of her importance even without Peacemaker. But also she’s still wearing that giant oven mitt so no matter how serious her words, there’s a hint of levity to them.

Wynonna leaves her to her research.

Somewhere nearby, at the entrance of the mine, a minion-shaped person takes off their minion-shaped mask and reveals none other than Anna Silk herself, declaring to no one in particular, “Come and get me, Chosen One.”

Waverly is feeling like they’ve hit a wall with their research. Jeremy says maybe all they need is a recap.

So what they boil it down to is that Bulshar can control the trees in the woods which he wants to use to his advantage to gain access to the Garden of Eden, in which are the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge, which is maybe an important detail. While they’re sorting it out, Bobo starts mumbling about a book and tells Waverly to ask Doc about a witch and Juan Carlo, and Waverly uses her murderboard research to deduce this witch’s name. When Nicole comes in to check on them, Waverly sends her girlfriend on a Maeve-finding mission.

Back at the Homestead, Wynonna hears something in her barn and goes in to find Charlie Fire Services fixing her lawnmower without her permission. He attempts some flirty banter, but she’s more concerned with a LITERAL APOCALYPSE so he can go suck a duck.

Wynonna hears another noise, and goes out to see a smartly dressed woman on her porch. Wynonna decides to go on the offensive and is rewarded by a swift punch to the throat. After asserting her dominance, the woman on the porch says, “I’m Kevin and I’m going to help you save the world.”

Over at Shorty’s, Doc is buying black market blood but is only able to get one bag. He sucks it down right there at the bar and doesn’t even bother to wipe it off his face when Nicole arrives to ask why he’s being such an animal. But the hunger is strong and Kate is gone and honestly things aren’t going great for him right now. Nicole asks him about Maeve and he tells her that Maeve was a Perley, like the Blacksmith and Iron Witch of seasons past. So they agree they should set out for the Perley homestead, but since he’s not entirely sure what’s going on with him, Doc wants Nicole to take his gun from him. She reassures him that she doesn’t need his gun; Haught came prepared with a clip of wooden bullets.

She’s ready to do what she knows no one else would be willing or able to.

Back at the Homestead, Kevin explains that she’s one of a group of Ambassadors who usually just watch and monitor goings-on. But things have gone to shit and Kevin’s dudebosses have been blaming it on the heir being a woman, so she wanted them to prove them and their “boy bullshit” (direct quote) wrong. Kevin warns them that defeating Bulshar will come at a cost, but Wynonna is no stranger to sacrifice, so she’s not afraid.

Kevin has more to tell Wynonna, but she’s not going to do it with a nondescript man in the corner, so Wynonna pulls Charlie Fire Services to tell him that he should go back to the fire station for now. CFS chooses now to want to DTR with Wynonna and she’s like, “Are you…kidding me right now?” The actual apocalypse is looming and he’s whining at her because she’s not paying enough attention to him. She says my favorite thing a woman can say to a man – “It’s not about you!” – and he screws off.

Meanwhile, Waverly comes in the back door to find a strange, beautiful woman eating pickles in her kitchen. Wynonna comes back and explains what’s happening the best she can.

Kevin says she’s a WorldSaver and that the Earp girls need to find a magical arm. What I noticed about my second viewing that should have been a clue of what was to come is that despite just having kicked Charlie Fire Services out for being a civilian, she welcomes Waverly to the fold.

Kevin says the arm they need is in the mine and only the Champion can retrieve it, and watch the Earp sisters with a smirk as they decide a dangerous mission is just the kind of Earp sister bonding they need.

For a moment, Wynonna hesitates about letting her baby sister come with, but she does a cute little pout and begs and reminds her that “we is the team” so Wynonna relents. Ride or die.

Kevin thinks probably they’ll die.

Across town, Doc leads Sheriff Haught to the Perley homestead and tells her that Maeve didn’t like men and was often helping women with childbirth and abortions. When the town got wind of this, they burned her at the stake, because misogyny. They go inside and see no sign of Greta, so they start to light a fire. But before Doc can even get the match to the wood, a fire roars to life and starts to talk to them.

Doc introduces himself to the fire as John Henry Holliday, and the fire responds back that he’s Wyatt Earp’s boyfriend. (I love the sentences this show has made me write.)

Doc doesn’t disagree with the fire witch, who is now bouncing around to lanterns and sassing them instead of telling them where they can find the book she was keeping for Juan Carlo. Nicole thinks she’ll be better with the teenage fire witch than John Henry “flailing around a fire poker and growling” Holliday, but as soon as she leans in to get chummy, Maeve jumps into her body and possesses her, putting a wild smile on her face we’ve never seen on Officer Haught, at least not while she’s sober.

Maeve can tell Doc is undead and asks him to kill her a body of her own so she doesn’t have to share this one with Nicole. In fact, Nicole’s body will do, she just needs the pesky soul to go away, so she cuts Nicole’s finger and taunts Doc with her blood. He growls at her to get out of that body, but Maeve, in true teenage form, just says, “Make me.”

Jeremy and Robin are eating french fries as a “fuck you” to Bulshar and his plant people when they get a desperate call from Doc; Jeremy is still so mad at Doc but he quickly drops his grudge to go help Nicole.

Waverly and Wynonna catch up on their walk from the truck to the mine, and Waverly tells her sister about how Mercedes is back even though her face is not-so-much. Wynonna vows to go hang out with her soon anyway. As they approach the mine entrance, an angry-looking, probably-radioactive Revenant stumbles out. Waverly recognizes the Revenant as One-Armed Clint, and Wynonna points out that he has two arms; so now they know. They’ve found the arm.

Jeremy isn’t in the Perley homestead five minutes when Maeve decides to try him on for size. But she’s not in him very long before she hops back into Nicole, saying Jeremy isn’t purely human (and implying Nicole is) and that he was itchy. Also that she could sense how mad he is at Doc.

Jeremy wonders if they’re wasting their time fighting with a fire witch when Maeve proves her worth by coughing up a page from the journal. So they know now that they really do have to appease her, or get the information about the journal some other way.

Down by the mine, Waverly’s shotgun is out of bullets so Wynonna goes street smart and jabs the Revenent in the neck with her keys. Unfortunately, Waverly was right about the radioactivity and Wynonna’s hand gets hella burned up and causes Wynonna to pass out.

Waverly gets her sister up and they shuffle down the road away from the very-slow-moving Revenant and Wynonna knows she won’t make it all the way back into town on foot (and they couldn’t use the truck anymore because of the whole keys-in-the-neck thing) so they decide to make a pit stop at the Gardner house.

And then, in a surprising turn of events that somehow still feels right, Robin and Bobo have a scene together. Robin is on Bobo duty and listening to some jazz, which happens to be something Bobo is into, too. Together, they listen to a piece called Like Wolves on the Fold and Bobo loves that devil’s horn. Robin watches this strange being, half-naked under a wild fur coat, half-feral and trapped in a glass box, and wonders aloud if Bobo is a good guy or a bad guy. And I mean…welcome to the team, kid.

At the Perley homestead, Maeve is still rolling around in Nicole’s body, refusing to give up where the journal is until someone promises her fresh new digs. But since she’s a teenager and she’s desperate, she ends up giving up that the journal is tucked up in the fireplace, so Doc retrieves it while Jeremy somehow wrestles Nicole to the grown while begging her not to arrest him when she comes to.

At her breaking point, Maeve puts a gun to Nicole’s head and says she can take the body herself. The boys distract her by telling her she can’t use a head with holes in it, and Nicole fights through and takes back over before Maeve can pull the trigger. Pissed, Maeve the fire witch burns it all down. And by all I mean the Perley homestead.

When Wynonna and Waverly show up at the Gardner house, a fresh-faced Mercedes greets them.

They all squeal about her perfect face, which is #relatable, and say that there’s sort of a radioactive demon man with a magic arm chasing them so maybe could they come in for a moment?

And she welcomes them in like they’re neighbors who need respite from the rain and is not at all concerned by the Revenant because of course she’s not.

As Wynonna and Waverly barricade the door, Mercedes fluffs her hair and says that Waverly stroking her face and calling her beautiful healed her. Which, frankly, tracks. She calls it a miracle and so when the Revenant busts in again, Wynonna asks Waverly to try to use her magic ring again. Waverly tries to do what her big sister asks of her but if burns her hand instead of his face. They fight some more and only seem to be mildly annoying him so Waverly tries to have a heart to heart with her ring.

In a last ditch effort to get the ring to work, she throws her arm up in the air, and the Revenant’s stolen arm does the same. She waggles around a little and realizes that the ring controls the arm, so she plays the Revenant like Wii tennis for a minute then has the arm choke the Revenant to death. (Well, temporary death.)
They grossly pull the arm off the gross Revenant and it’s very gross.

Kevin shows up then and is rather impressed with them. The Earp girls are pretty impressed with their own selves too.

Kevin talks about gifts and trials and Wynonna is like HAVEN’T I DONE ENOUGH but Kevin isn’t talking about Wynonna. She turns to Waverly and holds her ringed-and-mitted hand and says that Waverly is the one. Waverly is the Champion.

Which is all Waverly has ever wanted, right? To be important? To not just be the heir’s sister, the research monkey. She knew she was more, and now she has proof. Half-angel, a champion, a light in the darkness. She is hope.

Across town, Fire Services shows up to put out the fire witch’s handiwork but as soon as Charlie FS has Doc a safe distance away…he eats his face. Doc the vampire bites Charlie Fire Services. Kills him dead. I’m sad that this will make Wynonna sad, and I’m stressed about what this means for Doc, and it broke my whole heart to watch Nicole realize that Doc just flat-out murdered a human man…I can’t say I’m going to miss Charlie Fire Services.

But as I said, Nicole freaking out was hard to watch, and Doc tried to say she can’t understand the hunger, that the fire got to him and he was too weak to fight it, but all she can do it point her gun at him. But the thing is, he’s not an active threat right now, and she’s still looking up into the face of the man who has fought by her side, who has mourned by her side…this ended up being harder than she thought. So instead she just sends him away, saying she’ll kill him for real if she sees him again.

She even calls him John Henry. Jeremy watches him leave and doesn’t move to go after him, just goes to Nicole’s side.

But as soon as Doc is out of their line of vision, he smiles and cackles evilly. And the question on the table is, was it the monster within, the vampire taking over? Or did Maeve somehow finagle her way into him as they left the burning building? My guess is the first thing, that Doc is losing control of his killer instincts. Only because of how uncomfortable Maeve seemed in Jeremy’s not-totally-human body, and because she didn’t seem to jump directly into Charlie Fire Services, which would have been a fresher, humaner corpse (presumably). But truly who knows, right?

At the Gardner’s, Kevin explains that the ring isn’t Bulshar’s at all, but Julian’s. Julian and Juan Carlo were both tasked with guarding the Garden of Even, and obviously both mediocre at their jobs. Waverly is a little overwhelmed by all of this and steals a shot from Wynonna.

Back at BBD, Jeremy is reading Juan Carlo’s journal to Nicole and Robin at the same time, so we all learn who Bulshar really is at the same time:

He’s the snake. The harbinger of sin, the first asshole, the Original Worst.

Kevin had to make sure Waverly could even wield the ring, since she’s only half-angel, but now that she knows she can, Waverly can be the one to save us all. And they have to do it during the blood moon eclipse, which is happening tomorrow. No pressure.

As they walk Kevin out, they ask what exactly they have to do, and Kevin says that Waverly will take her father’s place guarding the Garden. Realizing this doesn’t sound like this is something they can take care in an afternoon, Wynonna asks Kevin to level with her: what will it cost?

And Kevin says it will cost Waverly. Waverly will turn to stone.

Wynonna nopes so hard at this plan. Kevin thinks one life is worth saving everyone’s but the Earp girls are both not thrilled about it. Waverly doesn’t want to die, and Wynonna doesn’t want to lose her baby girl.

Kevin calls her selfish then drives away in her little smart car.

Back at BBD, Nicole is yelling at Charlie’s body, hoping Maeve will wake up, or maybe hoping he’ll pop up a vampire, but he’s not moving, and there’s no sign of the fire witch. Nicole doesn’t understand how this day got so out of hand. How DOC got so out of hand. She is, as they say, shook.

The Earp sisters take their spot by the fireplace and Waverly says that if it comes down to it, if there’s really no other way, she’ll make the sacrifice. She knows Wynonna would. But Wynonna’s eyes fill with tears and she puts her foot down; this is not a sacrifice she’s willing to make. She’s been through enough, lost enough, sacrificed enough. Waverly is the only thing that keeps her going. She says, “Even my destiny can’t be this cruel.” They’ll find another way or they’ll die trying.

Tears fall from Wynonna’s eyes and Waverly says being an Earp sucks. But they have each other, and for now, that’s all that matters.

As they hold each other though, they realize that it’s still bright outside despite being 9pm and definitely normally darkness time. And if I know anything, it’s that weather doing things the weather isn’t meant to do is never a good sign.

Back at the Gardner house, Mercedes answers the door for her date but her date is a little too handsy and GRABS HER FACE and pulls her out of the house. Her shiny, new face! Her precious, perfect face! Poor gal can’t catch a break.

Next week is the finale double-header, the last two episodes will air on the same night and I will be cramming what I imagine is a double scoop of FEELINGS into one recap! Wee!

“Wynonna Earp” Episode 309 Recap: Comin’ Around Again

Previously on Wynonna Earp, Mama let Bobo out of the well (my favorite country song), Jeremy and Robin found mysterious stairs in the woods, the ring formerly known as Bulshar’s keeps reappearing despite anyone’s best attempts to toss or hide it, and Wynonna found out Bulshar is looking for the Garden of Eden. Also the last episode ended with Bulshar blowing a pile of dandelion puffs in Wynonna and Doc’s faces, which, as I predicted, didn’t send them to a magical dreamland where all their wishes come true.

This week’s episode opens on Waverly and Nicole groaning and saying things like “we need lube” and pressing their foreheads together…

…but don’t worry, they’re not just having sex in the middle of the kitchen, they’re still going to try to get that blasted ring off. Waverly is fine with keeping it on, but Nicole pointed out that she punched a zombie clear across the room without even trying, so who knows how dangerous it really is. Waverly relents and sends Nicole to the barn for some bolt cutters. Nicole leaves Waverly with a kiss and makes her promise not to touch anything while she’s gone.

When Waverly pouts at the idea of not being able to touch her girlfriend, Nicole smirks and reassures her that as soon as they get the ring off, “we get off.”

I loved the bookends of that scene for a few reason. One, the innuendo-bait-and-switch is a classic comedy move that I haven’t done the math on but I would venture to guess ends up being a male/female pairing 99.69% of the time. Two women having sex was part of the joke without being the BUTT of the joke. And to really drive home that fact, the scene ended with Nicole making it VERY clear that it wasn’t the idea of them having sex that was the joke. Because they’re gonna. It’s just one of those subtle but appreciated ways I love that the writers of this show put WayHaught on an equal playing field as the rest of the characters, while still treating them like the unique unicorns they are.

It’s also foreshadowing the things-aren’t-quite-what-they-seem theme in this episode, because when Nicole gets to the barn for the boltcutters, she thinks Wynonna and Doc are having a literal roll in the hay, but after a few minutes of hazy happiness, we learn that they’re not at all. Instead, they’re surrounded by Buslhar and his beekeepers, while Wynonna and Doc sit there, their eyes glazed over white-blue, hypnotized.

Forgoing the bolt cutters, Waverly and Nicole decide instead to meet a jeweler at the police station to see if he can help. Nicole has to use her Patriarchal Bullshit Land voice on this guy, who comments on the fact that a woman is wearing a “masculine” ring.

He is an all-around creep and when he tries to cut off the ring and it doesn’t budge, he starts to get even weirder, suddenly looking at the ring like it’s his favorite type of candy. Then someone named Tina, the true hero of this episode, calls Nicole on her walkie to tell her there’s a disturbance at the Gardner house, so the future Sheriff and her girlfriend get the hell out of dodge.

Wynonna and Doc are walking through the forest, happy as can be, when Wynonna starts to snap out of it. Her drive to defeat Bulshar starting to fight through the forced contentment. Peacemaker even gives her a little “hey what the hell are we doing” zap to help her out. When she finally fights through it fully, she sees the beekeepers and Doc’s glazed eyes, but she can’t get him to snap out of it with her. The beekeepers try to feed her the demon seed, but she is having NONE of it.

She seems to get the upper hand, but unfortunately Bulshar shows up. She’s ready to throw down, but he takes the easy way out and blows more puffs in her face instead, knowing he has to take a different tactic, since she’s made of tougher stuff than he was expecting.

She passes out again, and this time she wakes up on the floor in Shorty’s basement.

She runs up Shorty’s stairs, only to have to run down them to get into the bar, the first sign that reality has bent. I don’t know how universal this is, but in almost every dream or nightmare I’ve ever remembered, the doorways never go where they’re supposed to. It’s eerie. Wynonna knows something’s up but decides to go for what she knows first: whiskey. Unfortunately, before she gets there, she gets an arrow shot through the heart.

But then she wakes up right back where she started. Because that’s right my friends, it’s time for a LOOP EPISODE.

This time when she wakes up, she sees Doc’s eyes projected onto some crates. He can’t see her and doesn’t know where he is; he’s pretty much paralyzed. But he can hear her and she can sort of see him in an eerie way that I won’t lie, has since creeped into my own dreams.

Wynonna runs upstairs/downstairs again and this time avoids the arrow…only to get a dart to the throat. But once again, she resets, and she’s starting to catch on.

Nicole and Waverly head to the Gardner house and are expecting to find Kate and maybe Doc causing the reported ruckus, but instead they find a (sort of) familiar face: MERCEDES!

Mercedes has been traveling the world trying to find the perfect facial reconstruction surgery with…varying results. So she mostly looks like her, but she has sores and burns and scars all over her face, and her head is wrapped like she’s a cartoon with a toothache.

She’s in constant pain and my heart breaks for Wynonna’s old friend. But she hasn’t lost her spark, calling our girls a “couple of dildos” and asking them to help her break into her old safe that Tucker the Fucker changed the combination of. So Nicole (after swearing them to secrecy) shoots the box open, and seems to still relish a little in showing off for her girl.

While this is going on in the real world, in whatever looped hellscape Wynonna is in, she keeps resetting over and over again. She starts to mark off her attempts with tick marks on the wall, and what we see that she doesn’t, is that with every step she takes, a little dirt falls onto Doc, who is stuck, unmoving, under some floorboards. The poor, claustrophobic cowboy is being buried alive, little by little.

As Nicole and Waverly are getting ready to say their goodbyes to Mercedes, Derek the Jeweler shows up, a new hunger in his eyes. Mercedes knew him because she’s pawned some things with him before, but Waverly knows now that Derek is a demon. He’s desperate for the ring, suddenly overcome with the urge to pay fealty to Bulshar.

Nicole shoots him but he is just as agitated as if she had thrown a potato at him, so he starts to zap her with his laser fingers and tells Waverly she has to cut the ring off or he’s taking out the red-heads.

Waverly once again flies into protective mode, and instinctively throws up her hand at Derek.

He creeps towards her and almost as if by magnetic pull, her hand latches to his face and burns it to bits, which is pretty traumatizing for poor Mercedes.

Somewhere in the middle of the worst Groundhog Day ever, Wynonna off-hand mentions that she sees something falling on Doc’s face, but isn’t too fussed about it, what with all the die-respawn-repeat shit happening. She realizes the irony of being punished the way the Revenants are, and suddenly realizes this is kind of like a video game. And if it’s like a video game, that means she can win it. She had been sitting on the floor to rest while she pondered this, but just then she’s forced to play a high-stakes version the classic childhood game The Floor is Lava.

But this time when she opens the door, she’s not upstairs in Shorty’s, she’s back in the Homestead. She knows it’s not real though, because there’s a chair where it doesn’t belong. Oh and because Doc is still projected on the walls.

We, the audience, know it’s not real, because we see Wynonna bundled up in a bramble blanket with Bulshar and his beekeepers.

Bulshar does another one of his villain monologues about Wynonna watching the world burn and it’s clear this guy is just a giant piece of wrinkly shit who could probably use a hug.

In the imaginary Homestead, Wynonna drinks some whiskey but possibly as just one more element of torment, it tastes horrible. The good news is, when Wynonna stomps it out, Doc realizes that he’s below the floorboards. And Wynonna realizes that he’s being buried alive.

Doc tells Wynonna then about the deal he was offered, the deal he didn’t make, and knows that’s why he’s being punished now. More determined than ever, Wynonna storms out for a crowbar to free her favorite vampire from a horrible fate.

Back at the Gardner house, Waverly is telling Nicole and Mercedes what it felt like to use Bulshar’s ring, and also tells Mercedes that she thinks she’s still beautiful, gently caressing the side of her face.

Mercedes is moved for a moment, but then brushes her aside. Waverly thinks the only option is to cut her own finger off, but Nicole doesn’t think they’re quite at amputation stage just yet. Mercedes makes a joke about the ring interfering with Waverly and Nicole’s sex life and gives Waverly a hilariously gaudy oven mitt to wear until they figure out how to control the whole face-melty business.

Waverly says Jeremy will help them figure it out, and as if on cue, she gets a call from him.

Jeremy’s noticed something in the woods that gave him the wiggens and wants their help investigating.

Meanwhile, in the not-so-merry-go-round, Wynonna goes out to the barn to look for a crowbar, but instead finds a feral-looking Bobo. She Peacemakers him, but that sends her right back to the Homestead. When she looks at Doc to tell him about Bobo, she realizes he’s covered in so much more dirt than when she left…and she sees tick marks on the floor to imply this wasn’t her first Bobo rodeo.

It reminded me of that Doctor Who episode with The Silence and it sent a chill right down my spine. Realizing that killing Bobo had the same results as dying herself, she decides to leave Peacemaker behind.

In the real world, the Unkillable Gay Squad find what looks like a corpse in the brush.

This time, when Wynonna enters the barn, she tries to talk to Bobo instead of fighting him. She wants his help to quell Bulshar, the way Bobo and his crew did the first time around. But he says everyone who put Bulshar down the first time is gone, including the Robert Svain he once was. They do end up fighting, and both stab each other at the same time; they end up lying on the barn floor, intertwined, bleeding out slowly, together. Bobo thinks Bulshar has already won. Wynonna isn’t ready to give up so easily.

Out in the brush, Nicole pulls out the hatchets she just happens to have on her like a good little butch, and as they start to clear away the branches, they realize it’s Bobo inside.

When Wynonna wakes up in the Homestead again she’s so, so tired. She leans on the wall between Doc’s eyes and wonders aloud if this is hell. He assures her it’s not though, because he was in hell once, and he was alone there. At least they have each other. Kind of.

Wynonna says she never gave up on Doc, and wishes he hadn’t given up on her, but he assures her that he has never, ever given up on her. He asks her to try one more time, for him, and she steels herself as a dreamy version of her theme plays, soft at first, but getting stronger.

Once they get him out of his tangled bed, Bobo wakes up and tells Waverly that Bulshar has Wynonna and Doc and all about the mind control.

When Wynonna storms into the dream barn, Bobo isn’t there, but when she grabs the crowbar and leaves, Bulshar is. He has a free-floating door with him that reminds me of Monsters, Inc and then all of a sudden, couldn’t unsee Bulshar as Randall with a hat on.

Bulshar reveals a little more of his hand here, literally and figuratively, saying that the Tower card represents Peacemaker, which protects the garden, and he’s convinced he’ll get Wynonna to give him the gun willingly. Which Wynonna can’t fathom doing.

She storms back inside to save Doc.

Not knowing they’re running out of time, Jeremy uses his my-friends-are-scared mojo to point in the direction of Wynonna and Doc, and the team takes off running. But before she can get too far, Bobo senses that Waverly is wearing the boomaring, and he calls it, “Your father’s ring” which I find very, very interesting. I’m starting to feel like the ring is the key.

After Wynonna gets Doc out of the floorboards, they stumble outside and approach the door, but of course Bulshar cuts them off. He tries to play like they’ve won, letting Wynonna shoot him then turning into a bunch of shapes like his buddy did after Dolls killed him.

Wynonna goes through the door and is ecstatic at first, because they’re back in the barn, where it all began. She’s sure they did it, they won, they broke the curse.

She hears Nicole’s voice and whips open the barn door in excitement, but instead of being greeted by the mildly impatient look on her sister’s girlfriend’s face, she finds herself back in Shorty’s basement, and Doc is back to being projected on the walls, and he’s forgotten the whole ordeal.

A total reset. Total devastation. And as salt in the wound, Bulshar’s laugh echoes in the background as she realizes.

And this is almost too much for Wynonna to handle. She had been given the ultimate hope, the broken curse, the one thing she’s wanted all this time, only to have it ripped away from her and shattered. There’s no obvious way out of this situation, no clear direction to march or even task to try. She knows nothing is real and she doesn’t even know where to begin anymore. But she does know one thing: she can’t give up. So she literally drags herself up the stairs, and this time instead of ending up in Shorty’s, she ends up outside with Bulshar again.

He tells her to surrender, but she laughs at the idea. Until he takes a step back and reveals that she’s standing amongst the graves of the people she loves most.

Her hands are dirty and she realizes that Bulshar made her dig these graves herself. Wynonna tries to shake it off; this isn’t real, Waverly won’t give up. But Bulshar lies to her the way Jolene lied to Waverly and says that no one is looking for her. When in fact, Waverly, Nicole, and Jeremy are running through the woods right this very moment to do just that.

The trio finds the stairs that they now think might be the stairway to heaven the Garden of Eden, and they also find Wynonna and Doc in their weird deadly branch cocoons.

In her mind, Bulshar makes Wynonna hear Doc pleading at her, and says that he can play mockingjay for all eternity until she gives in. Waverly starts to call to her then, in the real world, crying out her name, but Wynonna can’t distinguish it from the torment Bulshar is imparting.

INSRET (either Waverly clawing at the branches or Wynonna looking devastated): “So close yet so far” is the most perfectly frustrating part of any good story.

Bulshar promises that the people she loves will be safe if she just gives him Peacemaker, and she’s so tired, so broken, that all she can do is look down at her heart in the ground and say, “I’m sorry.”

The team gets their friends free and Waverly holds Wynonna tight, coaxing her awake. But when she wakes up, Wynonna doesn’t look as ecstatic as one might think someone who just got saved from endless torment might. Instead, she still looks rather broken.

Doc looks at her and begs her to tell him she didn’t give up Peacemaker, but the hollow look on Wynonna’s face tells the truth for her.

Later that night, the Earp sisters sit by the fire and talk, aka my favorite post-chaos tradition.

Wynonna looks happy to be back with her very-much-alive sister but she still looks defeated. She says Bulshar won, that there’s nothing left to fight him with. But Waverly won’t give up that easily; she says they still have US. We is the team.

Waverly mentions the stairs in the woods, but Wynonna doesn’t remember seeing them (though in her defense, she was a little preoccupied) so she thinks maybe she’s just not Good enough. (This is when I realized that the only people we know have seen the stairs so far are the four queer characters, so even the fact that Wynonna suggests/it was written in the script that maybe only the righteous can see them fills my big lesbian heart with amusement and former-Catholic-school-girl smugness.)

Wynonna thinks Waverly is the only perfect one among them so Waverly tells her about the face-melting ring that won’t come off her finger. She can’t quite control it though, so she won’t let Wynonna touch it, and plans on keeping it in the hilarious mitt for the time being, because “all it does is hurt people.”

But then we cut to the Gardner house and learn that this simply is not true. Because Mercedes’ battered face that Waverly caressed and called beautiful is now restored to its former glory, no bandages necessary.

She’s so happy, and I’m so happy, because Dani Fucking Kind is BACK, BITCHES.

And as if that’s not enough, next week? ANNA SILK IS HERE. This show truly is the gift that keeps on giving.

“Wynonna Earp” Episode 308 Recap: Big Gay Dinner

Previously on Wynonna Earp, Team Earp played hot potato with Bulshar’s ring and it’s Wynonna’s turn to hold it, Kate turned Doc into a vampire as easily as turning a potato into a french fry, and Wynonna started doing the mashing Charlie Fire Services like a potato.

Hello and welcome to my recap of what shall henceforth be known as The Potato Licking Episode.

We open this lovely episode with Wynonna teaching Jeremy how to play pool while also recounting what all the various stains are from, leaving him quite distracted. So instead they talk about Doc and Wynonna says he’s all Jeremy’s now, but Jeremy says he has a Robin now. Jeremy is afraid of getting Robin even more tangled in their supernatural saga but Wynonna tells him he’s gotta get in as much face time as possible before that face grows fangs. Then, going directly against her own advice, she dives behind the pool table when Charlie Fire Services comes into the bar.

Before she deals with that though she passes Bulshar’s ring off to Jeremy to deal with, telling him to lock it up tight. He leaves and Charlie Fire Services comes over, so Wynonna awkwardly asks him on a date, despite originally wanting no strings, and despite this guy being as bland as a raw potato and her being as dynamic as cheesy tater tots. But of course he agrees because he might be boring but he’s not stupid.

While Wynonna is stroking CFS’s ego, Bulshar is stroking an evil-looking book. Doing this sucks Constance Clootie’s body out of the salt flats, and Bulshar plots Clootie’s burnt-to-a-crisp head back on it. I thought she was going to magically restore back to new like when Cinderella puts on her glass slipper but alas, she stays mostly just cinder. He hands her a fierce looking toothy sword and marches forth like a zombie on a mission.

Back in town, Doc gets home to the Gardner house to find Kate has dinner waiting for him. And by dinner I mean a dude tied to a chair. Doc is too proud to accept this gift so he decides to go out and hunt his own self.

After he leaves, Kate’s hands brush her cards and she knows, in that intuitive way she knows things, that Bulshar knows she’s in town.

Also the dude Kate chose to kill is a total monster so I’m here for her vigilante vampirism.

After learning the favorite sport of fictional lesbians from Wynonna, Jeremy heads back to BBD to lock Bulshar’s ring inside a box inside a safe and calls Robin to invite him to what has to be the best thing to happen in the Ghost River Triangle since Purgatory Pride – Big Gay Dinner.

Can we talk about that for just one second? Not only does this ensemble show have enough queer characters to make a Big Gay Dinner, but all four of these characters are also chill and happy enough to have a double-date and make a joke about the gayness of it all. It makes my heart so happy, because in a sci-fi Western a lot of shows could have taken the “oh it’s a small town everyone is closeted and scared and ashamed of their sexuality at all times” but this show is like “every day is Purgatory Pride if you want it” — and it’s not just side characters either. It’s the most-loved girl in town, the sheriff, the super smart president of the Doc Holliday fan club, and a murder-tree-and-potato-licking reluctant park ranger. Four fully formed humans with four distinct roles and personalities, none of them just the +1, none of them disposable.

Doc didn’t get the “not disposable” memo though because Jeremy’s phone call is interrupted by Doc pouncing on Robin like Simba when he was first learning to hunt. But apparently Robin tastes like rancid earth (from licking the murder tree? from having a demon seed planted in him?) so Doc snapped out of it to realize it was a friend of Team Earp, so he brings him to Jeremy to patch him up. The realization in Jeremy’s eyes when he sees that Doc is a vampire who tried to take a bite out of an ally, you can see his internal Doc shrine come crashing down. It’s heartbreaking.

Luckily Robin is a little out of it and doesn’t really know what’s going on and has no idea what or who took a bite of him.

Speaking of eating, Wynonna is out on her date with Charlie Fire Services and honestly I ship her with this breadstick more.

And I get that Wynonna is trying to be normal and go on a normal date with a normal guy but girl! You’re not normal! And you deserve better. But I’ll have more to say about good ol’ CFS later so I’ll leave them to their date for now.

The date is graciously interrupted by a panicked Jeremy, rambling about how Doc bit Robin and how very not okay he is with this turn of events. Wynonna isn’t either and seems more than eager to switch gears and go patrolling for a vampire or two.

Doc gets to Shorty’s, presumably to meet Wynonna, but she planned a bait-and-switch so instead Doc finds himself trapped in a holy water lasso and stuck alone in a bar with Charlie Fire Services.

Wynonna, however, wasn’t out for Doc’s dust, and kicks her way into the Gardner house to face a very prepared Kate.

Much to Wynonna’s chagrin.

Vampire nonsense or not, Big Gay Dinner must go on. So Jeremy takes the still-kind-of-out-of-it Robin and are met by the WayHaught Welcoming Committee.

Waverly takes Robin into the kitchen to help with food prep, and Jeremy is being awkward with Nicole. At first she thinks that he’s just nervous about Robin hanging out with all of them, even though he’s known Waverly a long time, but Jeremy soon asks after Wynonna and it’s clear he’s more nervous about that mission than this one.

Wynonna thinks Kate glamoured Doc, and that’s why he let her turn him, but Kate laughs at the idea of trying to force John Henry Holliday to do anything he didn’t want to. Kate thinks at this point Wynonna has earned a bit of her backstory, and Wynonna for once takes a hint and just listens. You see, Kate was from a noble family in Europe, but her and her parents moved to the states and found a hard time of it. Her parents died soon after the move, and she didn’t feel like going to live with Creepy Uncle Otto back in Hungary, so she stayed and used her natural mystic skills to be a fortune teller.

She met Doc in the bar one night when she refused to read someone’s fortune and he got testy so Doc stepped in even though it seemed Kate and her gun had it handled. Still, she appreciated the gesture, didn’t see him pocket the cards she refused to read, and the rest was history.

Doc and Charlie Fire Services are having a pissing contest in which CFS grossly talks about his stamina and overall just acts like a major douchebro when Zombie Clootie (Zootie?) stumbles in and starts rooting around. CFS attacks her with her own hand and Doc vamps out and realizes he’s super strong. He also realizes that the animated corpse they just beat up is none other than the Salty Stone Witch herself.

Side note, I am still assuming Charlie Fire Services will reveal himself to be more interesting than he is. He has to be evil or something, right? A murder tree in disguise? One of the hot fireman cultists? The serpent from Adam and Eve’s story? I just don’t trust him at all, and I trust this show too much to believe he’s just an average, entitled, low-key misogynistic, boring cis straight white man.

Wynonna tells Kate that she wants to turn Doc back into a human and is willing to kill Kate to do it, but Kate isn’t done with her story, so she goes on. She tells him that toward the end of their ride together, when Doc was tired and mopey looking, Kate throws out the idea of going back to Hungary. But Doc is dismissive and just coughs up some blood and walks away from her.

Wynonna accuses her of abandoning him, but she figured he’d be fine with just Wyatt. She wanted him to want her, to beg her to stay, but he didn’t, so she left.

While they’re talking, Kate manages to palm Peacemaker away from Wynonna, a trick she learned from the gunslinger in question.

They face off with knives instead, and Kate looks almost bored by the idea of fighting Wynonna, like she wishes she could see they’re on the same side.

At the Homestead, Waverly and Robin are bonding over some meal prep and how fun it is that they’re having this Big Gay Dinner.

But partway through the peeling process, Robin ponders about potatoes and what they might feel while they’re in the ground. His eyes glaze over and he says Bulshar can talk to the seeds in the ground, and Waverly, quick on her feet, leans into the trance her friend is in and starts to ask questions. Robin says that Bulshar can talk to seeds and then licks a potato and it’s just as wonderful as I had hoped it would be.

Just outside the kitchen, Jeremy and Nicole notice that Bulshar’s ring has popped out of the safe and into the muffins, and Nicole drops it in surprise. Waverly comes in just as Nicole bends over to pick it up, and for a brief moment she thinks Nicole is proposing.

The good news is, she seemed super down to get engaged. The bad news is, that is not what was happening at all. She has too much else to worry about to be embarrassed though; the boomaring was locked away and now it’s here, Robin is licking potatoes, Doc is a vampire, and also Robin just left the Homestead.

So the Unkillable Gay Squad sets off to find Robin. Luckiliy he didn’t get very far, but strangely he is shirtless in the corner, holding a potato, scratching his arm wound, and mumbling about fertilizing the soil.

Doc and Charlie Fire Services fail to dump Zootie down the well, so she takes off (waving her detached arm with middle finger up at them) and ends up at the Gardner house, breaking Kate and Wynonna’s standoff and causing them to stand side by side instead.

Peacemaker flickers as Wynonna points it at Zootie, and Kate says that her power is fading. She also says she recognized it as Clootie right away because “power recognizes power” which will come up later, so put a pin in that.

What continues to be interesting about Zootie though, is that she’s not attacking anyone. She’s still just searching. And when she doesn’t find what she’s looking for, she leaves. Kate sense that she’s looking for something Doc-related, but that’s all she knows.

In the barn, Waverly suggests they try talking to Robin again and he says that the trees don’t want to but they’re doing Bulshar’s bidding; it has something to do with him being entombed underground for so long. Robin snaps out of it and feels a bit embarrassed, but his friends shrug it off. Nicole survived a massacre and Waverly touched the goo, for example.

And Jeremy! Sweet Jeremy. He was in a car accident when he was young and was trapped with his mother’s body for THREE DAYS. And now he can sense when his friends are “super scared” and I have never felt more like I want to wrap him in bubble wrap to protect him always.

But they’re all so kind and welcoming and they’re about to go back to BGD but then Zootie comes in and seems to have found what she’s looking for. Immediately, Waverly is pissed. Which is funny because it’s true that Clootie also interrupted the bachelorette party she was throwing at her house, but interesting because Wynonna didn’t even recognize her on sight. But Waverly knew instantly, like Kate did. Power recognizes power.

Just saying.

Speaking of power, Bulshar’s ring quite literally starts burning a hole in Nicole’s pocket, so she does what she does best and just randomly chucks it. But Waverly acts on instinct and puts it on, allowing her to fling Zootie across the room seemingly without much effort.

When Wynonna and Kate get there, Waverly gives them the low-down, and Kate fills in a little more detail from the story she told earlier. The person whose fortune she wouldn’t tell? Was Sheriff Clootie. AKA Bulshar. It was his future she wouldn’t tell, and if they don’t stop Zootie, he’s going to know what’s what.

Before they leave to stop her though, Kate looks at the ring nesting neatly on Waverly’s finger and tells her not to underestimate its power.

Looking a little nervous, Waverly tries to remove it, but can’t seem to pull the ring off.

Zootie brings Bulshar his cards, and we don’t see the future card, but it makes him laugh maniacally so I imagine it can’t be good.

By the time Wynonna and Kate catch up, Zootie is standing there alone like a puppet whose strings have been cut. Or like a Sim without a task. Kate says she’s just a burnt-out shell at this point, so Wynonna starts to pull out Peacemaker. Clootie puts it to her own forehead, and the gun glows that mercy blue as it kills her.

Wynonna and Kate stand in the snowy landscape of Purgatory, and talk about what’s next.

Kate tries to be encouraging, saying that when it come down to it, Bulshar is just a demon, and Wynonna is the best demon hunter there is. Wynonna thinks Kate is buttering her up like a breadstick so she won’t kill her, but Kate says killing her won’t turn Doc back; she’s been reading the wrong vampire lore.

But as they talk about linked fates, Wynonna gets the brilliant idea that maybe reading Wynonna’s cards will help them figure out what Bulshar’s future is.

Back at the Homestead, the Unkillable Gay Squad is trying to get Waverly’s ring off but it’s super stuck. And as they pull on it, they realize new markings appeared on it, so Jeremy excitedly gets an Arabic dictionary Waverly just had lying around.

Just then, Wynonna storms in and reveals her cards as Kate did, saying they match Bulshar’s. The past is the devil, the present is the Tower (which means darkness/destruction) and the future involves Adam and Eve. To confirm her point, Jeremy says that the words that appeared on Waverly’s ring translate to “Garden of Paradise.” So that’s what Bulshar is looking for.

Robin comes in just then though and says that it’s not so much that he’s looking for it…he’s found it.

Out on the front porch, Kate tells Wynonna the final chapter of her story. Kate confronted the young Constance Clootie when Doc went missing, but she was no help, so Kate went to her uncle to get vamped so she could look for Doc for as long as it took.

PS. I wish we could pluck Young Clootie out of time and take her to present-day Purgatory. I kind of love that evil bitch.

I think Wynonna realizes now, that Kate isn’t the bad guy here. She didn’t come in to steal Doc away from Wynonna specifically, she didn’t set out to vamp Doc up. She’s just trying to live her life and survive, same as Wynonna. And Team Earp can use all the help it can get in the upcoming battle.

Doc goes to talk to Wynonna in the barn, a place he doesn’t need to be invited into, and Wynonna says she doesn’t like him like this. He says he did it for her, for Alice, to protect them as long as it takes. Wynonna just looks so, so sad.

But then a determined look crosses her face and she says it’s time to end this curse once and for all. She tells Doc that Bulshar is here for the Garden of Eden, that it’s what Purgatory and the Ghost River Triangle are protecting. And from out of the shadows, a wild Bulshar appears, blowing what look like dandelion puffs in their faces. And I’m no mystic, but I have a feeling it’s not just going to grant them each three wishes.

“Wynonna Earp” Episode 307 Recap: Haught for Sheriff

You know how sometimes you go on a roller coaster, and it’s fun and wild and you’re scream-laughing the whole time and feeling great but then that last sharp turn and abrupt stop jerks you so hard it hurts? That’s what this episode of Wynonna Earp felt like to me. For 80% of it, it was one of the funniest episodes of the entire series to date. The other 20% was Feelsfest 2018. But that’s what this show does best, isn’t it? That balance between the hilarious and the heartbreaking, the inhuman and the all-too-human. And I’m warning you now, I’m going to recap the episode as usual, but there’s no way to capture the flurry of blows this episode delivered in the form of jokes, one-liners, pop-culture references and facial expressions. The whole thing was a damn riot. Well, until it wasn’t.

Let the shenanigans begin!

And they do, indeed, begin right off the bat, with Wynonna fooling around with Charlie Fire Services in his fire truck. Nicole and Waverly show up for their Haught for Sheriff campaign and CFS thinks it’s weird that they’re dating each other but assures Wynonna it’s not because they’re both women. In fact, Purgatory Pride is his favorite event of the year. And suddenly mine as well.

Charlie Fire Services says that Nicole told him she was a hot mess, even though I still don’t really understand where he came from or why everyone is just okay with this, but he sees to be making Wynonna happyish so I’ll allow it for now I guess. Wynonna leans on the siren while they make out, thus ending their romp, so Wynonna hitches a ride back with the girls.

When Waverly asks if this means her and Doc aren’t together, Wynonna responds that she hasn’t seen Doc for a week.

During that week, it seems Doc has been slowly but surely making his transition into a vampire. Bulshar’s ring is only now starting to burn on his finger, and his reflection is only partially faded away so far. He seems a little stressed about it, but Kate assures him it’s fine, because now they’re together. Forever.

Which… doesn’t look like something Doc is particularly thrilled about at the moment.

Back at Purgatory PD, there’s a bunch of frat boys singing off their disorderliness in the drunk tank. The frat is Omicron Tau Psi, meaning they’re literally bros of the OTP fraternity, which is perfect for this BroTP-themed episode.

In the sheriff’s office, Nedley assigns Wynonna and Nicole to go through a secret closet he has where he’s been tucking away evidence that seemed… oogly boogly.

Also on Officer Haught’s to-do list today is to get the City Council’s approval to be sheriff, and the only wall she’s butting up against is named Bunny Loblaw. If you had given e a list of Council members and asked me to pick out which one was going to be A Problem, I easily would have picked Bunny Loblaw. But Nedley says Bunny is just a bully and that she needs to stand up to her, so Nicole plans to meet Bunny in her house later that day.

While the girls start cleaning out the closet, Doc is rifling through the Homestead barn, and I think he’s looking for something to put Bulshar’s ring in, but what he finds is the business end of Mama Earp’s shotgun. She needs his help, and is still mad at him for walking out on Christmas, so he agrees to help her, even though it’s kind of a low-key hostage situation.

Back in Nedley’s office, Haught is trying so hard to stay on task, but Wynonna cleans like I do and is sitting and reading an old notebook, laughing about raccoon antics and being entirely unproductive.

Wynonna finds a picture of Young Nedley with a little girl, and is laughing hysterically at his little baby mustache, but Haught wants none of it. I won’t lie to you, when I first saw that picture, my brain went, “OMG IS THAT LITTLE HAUGHT?! Oh, no, he has a daughter, it’s probably Chrissy, GET IT TOGETHER.”

Nicole is frustrated but Wynonna says this task is bullshit anyway; it’s meant entirely as a teamwork building exercise and she saw right through it.

Haught insists she help anyway, so Wynonna, frustrated, starts throwing things around, which pisses Nicole off. So they fight and wrestle over a mirror, which Wynonna sassily lets go of and sends the mirror smashing to the ground, breaking a few other things on the way down.

And then, in a shed somewhere far away, lightning strikes and a man in a silly red hat marches out, clearly on a mission.

Wynonna finds Nedley at Shorty’s and shows him the photo she found, and scoffs at the task he gave her and Haught. He says she ought to give her sister’s girlfriend some slack but Wynonna thinks she’s too much of a stick in the mud for her to ever get along with. But Nedley slides the photo back toward Wynonna and says, “You two have more in common than you think.”

Which is so very true.

At Haught’s House, Nicole is in her dress blues and rushing around making sure everything is neat and clean for Bunny Loblaw. Bunny lets herself in and is immediately cold and haughty, quite the opposite of our Haughty, who is just nervous.

Bunny freaks out when she sees Calamity Jane as if there was a wild tiger wandering around the house, and when Nicole goes to put her in a different room, Bunny finds a picture of Nicole and Waverly and puts it face down, declaring it disgusting. Which is an impressive level of homophobia; most straight people would have seen that picture and been like, “How sweet, she has a picture of her and her gal pal in her living room.” (Though I’m sure the whole town knows about WayHaught at this point.)

Mama Earp’s first stop on her adventure with Doc is Willa and Ward’s grave. She talks about her daughter, using the phrase, “Willa was Ward’s,” which is interesting because Wynonna’s hallucination of her said the same thing. She talks about how Willa was kind of a monster and would have been a shitty heir but that she was still her baby, and she still grieves her. Doc says, “She was just a child,” and it makes me wonder… obviously Mama knew about the night with Ward and Willa and the Revenants… but did no one tell her about how she was just kidnapped that night and ended up coming back twisted up the wrong way and that Wynonna had to shoot her? I mean, I think I support that decision if they didn’t tell her, it’s just something I wondered during this scene.

During the Bunny interrogation, Nicole is trying to tell her about her ideas and plans for if she were sheriff, but Bunny instead demands to know what she thinks Nedley is keeping from her, hinting at the supernatural goings-on. Nicole looks like she wants to disappear.

Wynonna storms in then, and Haught has probably never been so grateful for a Wynonnus Interruptus. Bunny takes this opportunity to say she would rather back Wynonna for sheriff, which makes Haught laugh pretty hard.

Bunny mentions that Wynonna is from of one of Purgatory’s “original families” which makes me wonder if she’s more than just the regular everyday type of evil. She calls Haught an outsider and too different, so Haught pulls Wynonna into the kitchen to tell her she cannot be here and she sure cannot be sheriff.

While they’re squabbling, Bunny sees the dirty, behatted man in the window and fancy-faints. They manage to wake her up but insist on taking her to the hospital, so they stick her in the back of the patrol car and fight about what to do next.

While they are bickering, two wild frat boys appear and steal the cruiser with Bunny in the back. Which feels like karma to me, but Haught really wants to be sheriff, so she’s dead-set on saving her. They call Waverly and Jeremy, who find their bad luck amusing, and track the cruiser to the Revenant biker bar.

Continuing this series of unfortunate events, when they find Bunny, Nicole’s spare key breaks off in the lock and they can’t open the door. They can’t shoot the window for fear of ricochet, and they can’t call the fire department mostly because Wynonna doesn’t want Charlie Fire Services to have to save her again but also because they wouldn’t let “us sheriffs” live it down. Nicole has gotten very good at ignoring Wynonna’s one-offs but that one got me good.

So instead they decide to go in and get the keys from the stray frat bros.

Meanwhile, Doc and Mama are reminiscing. Mama says she was about to leave to be on the rodeo circuit when she got pregnant with Willa and next thing she knew she was married to Ward Earp. She talks about how great Julian was, and how Bobo told her that the night Waverly was born, Ward shoved Julian outside the Ghost River Triangle, and he’s been unable to return. She also mentions that she let Bobo out of the well, which pisses Doc off. She says beggars can’t be choosers in the fight against Bulshar, calls Doc “Johnny Hank” and explains to him that she does what she wants, so get over it.

At the biker bar, Haught and Wynonna try to sneak in…

…but are quickly busted. The would-be sheriff in the heir, a Revenant who clearly keeps up on his Twitter feed calls them. In a bit of a panic, Wynonna challenges them to a drinking game to the death, much to Nicole’s chagrin.

Back at the station, Waverly (still blessedly in her campaign manager blazer) and Jeremy start to wonder if this extreme amount of bad luck is supernatural, and seeing the broken mirror, start to put it back together.

In the Revenant bar, WynHaught (one of my favorite portmanteaus on the show, second only to WayHaught, because “why not?” is just so perfect for these two) get handcuffed together and even though I’m pretty sure it’s not a team sport, both Nicole and Wynonna are pounding back shots.

Nicole is white girl wasted, and Wynonna is sitting pretty, swigging beer between shots like a champ. The Revenant spits up his booze first, meaning he loses, but then he realizes that every time Wynonna took a shot, she was spitting it into aforementioned beer bottle. A trick she learned from Coyote Ugly, a reference that made me whoop like I just won a sports game.

Realizing they’re in trouble, Nicole and Wynonna run for the hills. Literally. Hills of snow. Handcuffed together. Nicole drunk as a skunk. It’s so perfect.

In the Gardner mansion, Kate finds Doc going through the things she took off the people she’s killed. Kate thinks he’s helping Wynonna and goes from lashing out and hissing at him and being sweet to try to convince him she’s the gal for him. And listen I know I’m supposed to be intimidated when she bares her metal-lined fangs but she’s so cute???

Wynonna and Haught pause their running in the wood and start to bicker some more about who has it worse, the only survivor of the Cult of Bulshar who has sworn to protect Purgatory or the only heir to the Earp Curse who has sworn to protect Purgatory. Their fight is interrupted by some Revenants, but because they’re not having the best day, or because it thought it would be funny, Peacemaker jams. And it’s funny, when it comes to cleaning or chatting, they’re not on the same page, they bicker and butt heads at every turn. But the second it becomes important, the second there are Revenants to fight, they work together quite literally like ice dancers. They use their handcuff chains to their advantage, until it becomes their disadvantage, and the fight takes a turn. But then the grumpy, dirty man from the shed shows up and uses his pruning shears to solve their problem… and become one himself.

The ladies run back to the sheriff’s office, shouting about the man chasing them. The mountain man knocks our precious nerds out of the way easily, and he looks at Nicole and Wynonna and tells them why he’s chasing them: One of them has to be his new wife.

Upon hearing this, Waverly gets an idea and looks at the pile of broken artifacts once more. She finds a broken garden gnome and realizes that this isn’t a mountain man after all and starts putting the puzzle back together with Jeremy.

Wynonna and Haught then do the most perfect thing where they try to convince the gnome that the other is better wifey material by complimenting each other. It’s the kind of things they never would have said to each other’s faces, because that’s not the kind of relationship they have, but it’s proof the dynamic they do have, as contentious as it can be, is rooted in respect, love, and maybe a dash of jealousy.

Nicole does have an Ace in the hole though as she declares that she’s a lesbian.

In a hilarious flip of the script, Wynonna says she must have gone through an experimental phase, and Nicole declares “not with gnomes.” You so rarely, if ever, hear heterosexuality as the thing being called an experimental phase, despite that being the case for so many of us. It’s little but it’s big, you know?

Meanwhile, Jeremy and Waverly, upon putting most of the gnome back together, realize that the broken gnome is a lady gnome.

So Waverly, being the boob expert between them, finishes the puzzle and slides the lady gnome toward the giant angry man gnome threatening her two favorite ladies.

A flash of lightning hits the lady gnome and all her cracks disappear, she’s good as new. Man Gnome calls the lady gnome, “Monique!” and picks her up and leaves. She never turns humanoid, he never looks at any of Team Earp again. He just leaves. It’s fucking hilarious.

Doc brings his findings from the mansion to Mama, and she takes the new identity he brought her and some of the other getaway gear, but she won’t take his pistol. She has to go find Julian, and she says she’s leaving to save her family, as always. But Doc says Wynonna won’t see it like that. He accuses her of abandoning her daughters for love, but she scoffs at him. He’s one to talk.

At the sheriff’s office, Wynonna is carrying trash bags out of Nedley’s office—meaning she was actually, genuinely cleaning — when Bunny appears, saying that despite the events of today, she still won’t be supporting Nicole for sheriff, because she’s a xenophobic, homophobic, and a real Tucker of a woman.

But Wynonna isn’t having it. She leans in close and goes to bat for Deputy Haught.

She even goes so far as to blackmail her, telling her that Bunny thinks she wants to know about the monsters under her bed, but she really doesn’t. By the time Bunny hops away, she has reluctantly agreed to back Haught for Sheriff.

And guess what, Nicole heard the whole thing.

The two start off with jokes — Nicole giving Wynonna a hair-of-the-dog beer, Wynonna joking that she’s wife material, Nicole retorting, “You’re not my type, you cheat at drinking games.” But then they have a rare genuine feelings-share moment. Wynonna admits that she was afraid Nicole was going to leave her sister brokenhearted when things took a turn for the demony, but Nicole says, “I love her.” And you know what? She loves Wynonna, too.

And Wynonna understands now, that even beyond Waverly, beyond the Earps and their curse, Nicole is tangled up in Purgatory, same as her. She shows Nicole the photo of her six-year-old self with Nedley, so she goes to talk to the retiring sheriff herself.

Nedley confesses that it’s true, he’s the one who found her. She had gotten to the canoe herself though, escaped the fire all on her own. He kept an eye on her after that, because he didn’t trust parents who let their young child go to a music festival in the woods to do a good enough job. She says she doesn’t talk to her parents anymore, that they were selfish, and he asks if it’s because she’s gay. But it’s not, or at least not entirely; it’s also because she’s a cop.

Anyway, that’s why Nedley wanted her for the job as soon as he knew she was on the force, too. She says that everything good in her life she has because she came back to the Ghost River Triangle, and he says she’s like a daughter to him, and it’s VERY SWEET. Nicole fights tears and Nedley fights tears and they hug and it’s beautiful.

Nicole calls him a tough act to follow, but he promises that he’ll always be there for her if she needs him, even when he’s not her boss anymore. He calls her Sheriff Haught and tells her she earned that title well.

And even though those were warm and fuzzy feels, it’s a sign that the romp is over and it’s time for more serious business. Wynonna comes back to find her Waverly crying while reading a note because Mama is gone… again.

Wynonna holds her baby girl while she cries, and Wynonna looks sad but not at all surprised.

Waverly says that at least this time she’s really free, and I say at least this time she left notes.

Wynonna, having read her note, goes out onto the porch for some fresh air, and finds Doc lurking there. He gives her Bulshar’s ring and she lays into him for helping their mother run away from them again. She tells him that in her note, Mama warned her that Doc isn’t what he says he is, so she demands to know what that means.

It’s hanging in there air between them, but she wants him to say it, out loud. She slaps him around a bit and then sure enough, he vamps out. Then SHE looks like the one who has been slapped. She knows this is Kate’s doing and can’t believe how selfish he’s being. She accuses him of holding his immortality more dear to him than even their child.

She looks at him like suddenly there’s a stranger on her porch and backs into the house. She specifically tells him that he’s not invited in, that he’s not welcome in the Homestead, and closes the door behind her.

And even the Wynonna theme music that usually plays over dramatic moments, instead of doing its intense getting-louder buildy thing it does, it’s just… so… SAD. SO SAD. RIP MY HEART OUT WHY DON’T YA, SHOW. Eh hem. Anyway. That’s the end of that.

I know recapping it in words like this can’t possibly capture the fun energy of this episode, but I hope you liked it as much as I did. And I hope you’re now a superfan of the head writer behind this episode and lesbian icon in her own right, Noelle Carbone. I’ve been low-key obsessed with her since she started gifting us Gail Peck gems back in the Rookie Blue days, and I for one am thrilled she’s joined this season of Wynonna Earp. I also had the pleasure of (finally) meeting her in real life when I was in Toronto for EH Con and she’s just as wonderful as I imagined she’d be. She is hilarious and and smart and just one more reason to trust that our ever-growing band of queers in Purgatory is in good hands.

“Wynonna Earp” Episode 306 Recap: Make the Yuletide Gay

Previously on Wynonna Earp, Doc put on Bulshar’s ring, Jeremy met a boy named Robin who got yanked up by a vine, Bobo said Waverly’s biodad was an angel, and the demon driving Mama mad got loose and took the form of Zoie Palmer, who tried to get Waverly to kill herself but they defeated her.

And this week? This week is Christmas in Purgatory.

Wynonna puts on her Christmas onesie and slides around the Homestead halls, which Mama Earp has thoroughly decked. And considering last year probably went largely uncelebrated, since they were pretty neck-deep in her newly becoming the heir, and she was gone for a few years before that, this is probably a welcomed change.

Upstairs, Waverly is appreciating Nicole’s uniform for the day… a very frumpy but very adorable elf suit. Waverly giggles and puts Nicole’s hat on for her and Nicole is pouting but she’s very cute. Nicole plops down on the bed, defeated, but Waverly is quick to comfort her.

Doc busts into the Homestead just then, dragging a freshly cut tree behind him, looking rather proud of himself. Mama scares him away though, determined to take her place as matriarch in this family, desperate to make up for lost time.

Wynonna notices some fancy angel on the tree and tries to replace it with a homemade angel made of tampons but Mama insists on keeping the one SHE remembers. She wants to do this, for her girls.

Mama tells Wynonna to chase down Doc because she needs to get laid, which is funny for a few reasons. It’s like Mama Earp is stuck in two ways, because she spent so long with Jolene tormenting her, she was unable to really move on or grow; in one way, she’s still the mom of two young girls in her mind. In another, she’s still the whiskey-slinging, beloved Rodeo Queen. Maybe this is how she would have been with her 28-year-old daughter even if she had been there all along… but maybe not.

When she’s gone, Wynonna scoffs at the idea she needs to get laid. Needing no help getting laid, on the other hand, are Waverly and Nicole, who seem to have gotten so caught up in the elf costume situation that they forgot how very not soundproof the Homestead is, and are going at it upstairs.

Meanwhile, Nedley is begrudgingly playing an elfless Santa to some local kids. The kids are a little old and a lot sassy, but then one of them looks off into the wooded distance and calls out, “Santa?” and runs off. As the kid vanishes and all we hear are his distant screams, Nedley just stands there, staring, frozen.

Back at the homestead, Waverly says goodbye to her elf.

Then Wynonna and Waverly tuck away for a little sister bonding. They agree that they’re glad Mama’s back but that it’s a little weird! Speaking of weird, Wynonna has news for Waverly… her dad was an angel.

Waverly storms into the kitchen and demands answers from her mom but Michelle busies herself with mutilating a turkey and keeps dodging the questions. The girls beg and so finally Mama tells them story of Julian, a kind, honest man who she had a lovely affair with until he disappeared before she gave birth.

Mama insists Waverly was born out of love, but Wynonna doesn’t get how, if this guy was soooo good, he could just ditch a pregnant woman. Waverly asks if Mama ever tried to find him, but Jolene kept her from doing so. But Jolene is gone now.

Waverly doesn’t feel like an angel, and since Mama never technically confirmed it, Wynonna posits that Bobo could have been lying. At the mention of Bobo, Mama tells the girls that Bobo was there in the greenhouse the night Waverly was born.

Wynonna gets a call just then, so she has to head out to help find the kid that went missing. After she leaves, Mama turns back to the turkey and Waverly tells her that she’s a vegetarian. Mama looks disapproving, saying, “You’re already a lesbian,” in that way that parents sometimes do when they don’t understand the nuance of sexuality or that we don’t make our dietary decisions as a way to directly and specifically spite them. Waverly chooses not to fight her in this moment and Mama takes the hint and changes the subject, asking if Nicole will join them for dinner, which she will.

Also Mama asks about Bobo in a way that seems a little like she was hoping Waverly wouldn’t ask follow-up questions about even though I myself had many follow-up questions.

Doc drags his tree to Jeremy, though by the time he gets to the old BBD office, it looks more like Charlie Brown’s tree. Jeremy doesn’t look like he has much holiday cheer though, or even his usual Holliday cheer — in fact, he’s even shaved his Doc-inspired ‘stache. You see, he thinks Robin has ghosted him, and his mustache was the easiest thing to immediately change about himself. It broke my whole heart for that sweet, sweet boy. Doc tells him to buck up and just contact Robin first and Jeremy gets a little bit of that spark back in his eyes as he does just that.

But his call doesn’t go through to Robin, since Robin’s phone is in a barrel of confiscated phones in a creepy basement torture chamber nightmare of a place. The little boy who had gone missing, Tim, is dragged before Bulshar, who asks his last name and says he’s on the naughty list. Tim is thrown in a cage with the newest member of the Unkillable Gay Squad, Robin.

Above ground, Wynonna shows up to the crime scene to find Nicole trying to calm down the crowd and Nedley in a trance. Nicole drags her away and sends her into the forest to meet up with someone named Charlie. Charlie Fire Services is a serious fella who watches Wynonna in fascination as she snarks and quips and insists that it’s fine she’s doing so because it’s obvious the blood they found was staged.

A tree throws a branch at her and he saves her and she is not used to having to be saved but he doesn’t make a big deal of it so she allows it. He notices that the tree is out of place but she shrugs it off and takes some of the blood samples to Jeremy to test.

Wynonna calls Waverly to update her and she gives Wynonna the Purgatory scoop about Tim being from an original Purgatory family. Also she lies and says she’s still with Mama when really she’s oot and aboot (aka at the well to see Bobo).

After Waverly confirms Tim is from an old family, Wynonna decides Bulshar is probably behind this, and Jeremy realizes that since Robin is from an old family too, probably he wasn’t ghosted!

Since this is a Bulshar problem and they know someone who was party of a kidnap-the-old-families plot before, Wynonna suggests she and Doc go talk to Big Nose Kate.

Kate says that all she knows is that they were told the separate the old families but not kill them, because Bulshar “needed” them for something. That’s all she knew. They change the subject to Kate’s vampiricness and she says she’s been a vamp for as long as Doc has known her. She even said it right to his face before but he thought she was playing around.

It’s why she was never in photos, and it’s why her friend Sally is in the picture everyone thinks is of Big Nose Kate. And she says she got the nickname from her “specialty in the boudoir” and maybe I’m just a sheltered lesbian but the only thing I can think of that would get you that nickname involves another woman so I’m just going to go ahead and headcanon Kate as bi now, please and thank you.

When Doc got sick, she couldn’t bear to watch him die the way immortal folks have to do so often, so she left and reunited with her vamp fam. She tries to get in with Wynonna by telling her she was friends with Wyatt too, but Wynonna isn’t having it. She digs Kate for squatting at Mercedes’ house so Kate retaliates by giving Doc his knife back that he left the night he spent with her.

Doc assures Kate that Wynonna will come around eventually but Kate wants him to pick her so she says exactly what he needs to hear, “She might not need you, Doc, but I do.”

Over by the well, Waverly asks Bobo about the whole angel-business, so Bobo picks up where Michelle’s story left off. After Michelle had the baby, Bobo appeared and found out the baby’s name was Waverly, and because of Wynonna’s time traveling, he knew he had to protect this child. Michelle passed out from blood loss so he took the baby to Ward, who was an asshat and didn’t want anything to do with a child that wasn’t his. But Bobo threatened his life if he didn’t protect the little angel Waverly.

Waverly doesn’t totally buy the Revenant ramblings and he implies that he knows where Julian is now, but she’s not playing his games.

When Wynonna and Doc get back to the station, they find themselves under the mistletoe. Wynonna doesn’t want to be the other woman, but Doc tries to assure her that’s not what’s going on here. Though he does lie straight to her face and says he hasn’t been with her in a century. She kisses him under the mistletoe but the fun and fire from earlier in the season is gone, and she is so, so sad about it.

Meanwhile, Nedley is talking to Nicole about how when the kid started screaming he just froze. Nicole tries to support him, saying she needs him, but he’s shook. And I’m shook because this is an extremely serious conversation and Nicole is still wearing her elf costume.

Nicole says everyone has bad days, but Nedley says this is different. He binged Pretty Little Liars after the vampires came, but this one he can’t get out of his head about. So Nicole leaves him and heads up the search party on her own, finding a clue in the form of a strange dragon-lily looking thing. (I’m a city mouse, don’t @ me.)

Down in Bulshar’s torture trove, Robin and Tiny Tim watch Bulshar shove a death seed into a dude’s mouth and then he pours green goop down their throats while soliloquizing about how he’s seeking revenge on the descendants of the people who were responsible for his downfall. I kind of liked him better when he was a looming presence in the distance and not a Grinch-like cartoon villain but I think I’m projecting my hatred of the Man in Black from Westworld onto him.

Jeremy’s blood test comes back positive for pig’s blood and Wynonna references Carrie and as someone who has recently become obsessed with Carrie the Musical I really wanted to return the high five she went for so it felt like I personally was let down by Nicole Haught when she left Wynonna hanging.

Bulshar decides it’s Tim’s turn for torture but Robin bravely steps up and takes his place. It’s very sweet and bold and I love him??? I hope he doesn’t turn into a tree person. He’s dragged to a chair and tied down, but he’s brave and reassuring to Tim through the whole thing.

Above ground, Charlie Fire Services rolls up to Wynonna and Wynonna pulls out Peacemaker to test him for demon energies when he mentions the supernatural like it’s a TV show on the CW.

Peacemaker doesn’t send up any warning signs so Wynonna allows him to flirt with her with the energy of a raw potato. I am feeling generally unsure about Charlie Fire Services thus far, in case you couldn’t tell.

One of my favorite music tropes is soundtrack dissonance so when a happy Christmas song is playing while Wynonna and Charlie Fire Services fight Bulshar’s elves in his workshop, it made me very happy. And one thing that did start to endear me to CFS is when Wynonna is quipping left and right, as she does, and he asks who she’s talking to. I did giggle a bit, I’ll give him that.

They rescue everyone and are bummed to learn that Bulshar wasn’t around. Also Robin has some goo on his face so it’s possible he’s already been feed the demon seed…

Team Earp reunites all the captured folks, including Robin who immediately hugs Jeremy, who rambles about being afraid he was ghosted until Jeremy kisses him sweetly. Spoiler alert: I would die for Robin and/or Jeremy at this point.

Robin invites Jeremy over for Christmas dinner (which seems a little soon but maybe holidays are more casual in Purgatory) but Jeremy says he has to celebrate with his family. And I’m going to take a moment here to shout about it because when he first said it I was like, “whoa weird, Jeremy never talks about his family,” but then later he’s having dinner at the Earps because THIS TEAM IS HIS FAMILY. My heart nearly exploded with found family love.

Nicole tries to comfort Nedley by showing him that everything turned out okay but he’s still in a funk about the whole thing. He hands her his Santa hat and she asks if she’s going to be Santa next year…

…but it was actually a symbolic passing of the torch. He’s retiring, and Haught will be sheriff now. Sooner than any of us would like, to be honest.

Cut to the found family dinner, where it’s a little tense overall, mostly because I don’t think anyone knows how to act around Mama Earp, but Waverly is so happy everyone is together.

They do feel Dolls’ absence though, so they toast to him. And they also toast to Sheriff Nicole Haught.

Doc feels weird so he excuses himself but Mama won’t let Wynonna go after him. Waverly picks at her vegetables which is such a relatable mood because I can’t tell you how many Christmases I’ve had to have a smorgasbord of sides because no one cared that I didn’t eat ham or roast beef.

Mama looks around at this table and tells Waverly that see? Her birth father doesn’t matter. Look at this family she’s made. They built this family their own selves and Mama couldn’t be prouder of what they’ve created in her absence.

Inspired by this island of misfit toys, Mama switches the angels and puts Waverly’s homemade tampangel on the tree.

I still don’t 100% trust Mama’s state of mind/endgame, probably because I have mommy issues of my own, but I do believe she loves her girls, and watching her be proud of this found family instead of openly jealous that they thrived despite her being gone made my heart feel full.

After dinner, while they’re doing the dishes, Wynonna tells Mama that her baby daddy is married to a vampire and she still thinks she doesn’t deserve him. Cue my full heart breaking. Mama tells her not to settle, and Wynonna tells her they can find Julian if she wants. Together. But also reminds her that Julian ditched her when she had the baby and that she and Waverly will never leave her.

Wynonna heads out, stopping for a sweet, almost tentative, “Love you, Mama.” And Mama’s face turns serious when her daughter is out of sight and I DON’T KNOW YOU GUYS, I’M NERVOUS OUR SESTRAS ARE GOING TO GET THEIR HEARTS BROKEN.

Wynonna goes to see Charlie Fire Services to get her yams mashed because he’s unshaken by her inappropriate humor and she digs that about him. He seems like a no-nonsense, no-strings guy, so he’ll do for now.

Meanwhile, Mama goes to Bobo and offers him freedom from his well-shaped prison in exchange for Julian’s location. Which all in all feels like a bad plan, Mama.

Back at the Homestead, Waverly wants to celebrate Nicole’s big news by dressing like a little Santa Baby and singing and dancing for her.

I usually get second-hand embarrassment watching any kind of lap dance situation happen to anyone, or really any kind of one-on-one, one-way performance type thing, but Waverly breaks up the potential awkwardness by giggling and making sure Nicole doesn’t feel weird about it. It’s all very sweet and I guess three times confirms that WayHaught is into role play.

When Doc gets to Kate’s house (well, to Kate in Mercedes’ house), she says she had to fight off some of Bulshar’s elves, who came to collect fealty, but she fought them off for now. Doc promises to protect her, and Kate tells him she needs him, and I’m like 69% sure she doesn’t NEED him but wants him and knows that he needs to be needed. Either way, it’s exactly what Doc needed to hear, so Doc lets Kate bite him.

And now??? I guess??? Doc Holliday is a vampire???!! Which is very cool. I watched this episode with my dad, and he’s not convinced it will stick, but Doc was wearing some uncharacteristic sunglasses in the preview for the next episode so who knows. Also the next episode looks like a ROMP so I’m pretty excited.

I can’t believe we’re already halfway through the season! I never want it to end! How are you feeling about the season overall so far? Hopes and dreams for the back half? Let’s process our feelings together!

“Wynonna Earp” Episode 305 Recap: Personal Demons

I’m just going to go ahead and let you know that this was one of my all-time favorite episodes of television, because it was wild fun and seriously emotional and it was perfectly written and acted and shot and I loved every single part of it. And not just because one of my longest-running theories was proven to be correct.

Things to remember before we get into the episode: Doc ran into Bulshar in the woods, Nicole threw Bulshar’s ring randomly INTO THOSE VERY SAME WOODS, we learned Mama Earp once burned down the Homestead barn with Waverly in it and Waverly is pretty convinced it’s because she thinks Waverly is a demon, and last week’s episode ended with Zoie Palmer’s character Jolene glamouring our friends with baked goods that made them trust her implicitly.

We open with Wynonna tying Mama to a post in the barn. Wynonna tells Waverly to go back inside, and Mama is flipping out, begging Waverly not to be alone, but Waverly listens to her sister. Mama tries to explain to Wynonna about a demon who stalked Waverly since she was a baby, and when she burned down the barn it was really an exorcism gone wrong and the demon became bound to her. When Waverly came to her and touched her, the binding was broken and the demon got loose. Mama came back to save Waverly, and she saw the demon, but where the hell is it now?

Cut to Jolene, who is still baking up a storm, giving Waverly a comfort cupcake.

Waverly smiles warmly at Jolene, calling her family, giving her a hug. Jolene gives her a squeeze and Waverly doesn’t see the giant knife Jolene is squeezing just as tight.

Wynonna comes back inside and muses with Doc about what she should do with Mama. For a minute it seems Doc might be coming down from his sugar high, but before he can express any of his confusion over Jolene’s presence, she pops a snickerdoodle in his mouth and he melts back into trusting her.

After Jolene heads out to be on demon watch (I’m so sure) Doc tells Wynonna about being able to hear the third voice on her mother’s therapy tapes and how he had been to hell. He believes Waverly is in danger, so Wynonna is on high alert.

Waverly goes to talk to Mama, who tells her about the demon, about how she saw it over Waverly’s crib, saw it in every photo she took of her youngest girl.

And I couldn’t find proof of this, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t imagine it…didn’t Waverly at one point, when she was talking about forgotten birthdays, mention that there were no baby photos of her? It makes sense why Ward Earp ignored her after Mama went away — he was an asshole and also he knew she wasn’t his — but Mama explains now why Waverly doesn’t have any photos of her from before Mama went away. Mama thought tearing up these pictures, in which the blurry demon face in the background got closer and closer, would help keep the demon at bay.

Waverly starts to leave, unsure if she can believe the mother she barely knows, when she remembers something. In kindergarten, she wouldn’t sit near the mirror because there was always something lurking behind her, something with too many teeth.

Mama tells Waverly she’s tired of fighting off this demon who has been whispering in her ear all these years, and that Waverly is in danger. And then our Brave Little Toaster, of course, as always, reassures her mother. Mama is literally telling Waverly she’s being stalked by a murder demon who specifically wants to kill Waverly and Waverly is still the one doing the comforting. Always. And when she mentions Jolene amongst the list of people who have Mama’s back, Mama is confused as hell.

Also confused is the Revenant who encounters Jolene, who appears harmless at first, wielding only a pie…until she cuts his tongue clean out.

Wynonna unties Mama and Mama learns a lot in a short period of time: Doc Holliday is alive and sort of dating Wynonna, Waverly is “shtupping” a lady cop named Nicole, and there’s a person named Jolene that everyone is treating like family.

Mama is confused but Jolene shoves a treat in her mouth (so many people just let food be shoved into their mouths in this episode) and Mama says they have to get to the Gibson Greenhouse where Waverly was born to bind the demon to Mama again.

Then Jolene starts her mayhem. She picks off the team one by one and pits them against each other, and against themselves, starting by making Doc doubt his usefulness to the team, to Wynonna.

Meanwhile, the Earp ladies go to the Gibson Greenhouse and Waverly asks the question we’ve all been shouting into the ether for what feels like centuries: Who is her real dad? Michelle says his name was Julian and that he was…better. She does this while putting her hand on the statue of an angel.

Meanwhile, out on that one main road that leads from the Homestead into town, Nicole pulls over Jolene, who is driving the jailhouse Revenant’s unmarked car with the little light on top. Jolene gives Nicole a lemon scone and gives everyone awful nicknames and preys on Nicole’s insecurities about being left out of the Earp sisters’ misadventures.

Jolene, knowing her power over Officer Haught is secure once again, casually drops that she needs Waverly because she “can’t physically harm her” and says toodles.

At the Greenhouse, the tongueless Revenant storms in and Wynonna Peacemakers him, and for a brief moment they think maybe they defeated the demon. But then Waverly follows a voice outside and finds Jolene trapped in an occult symbol like the one Mama had been making back in the barn. Jolene pulls Wynonna into it and Jolene grabs her by the throat, revealing her true demon self and growling things at her. Waverly thwacks her with the butt of her gun, but then Jolene turns back into the sweet baker and calls out to Mama and Wynonna, who instantly take Jolene’s side over Waverly’s, the first crack in Waverly’s grip on reality.

When they get back to the Homestead, Wynonna and Mama are drinking whiskey and having a grand old time when Waverly sheepishly creeps in to see if they’re still mad at her for, the way they see it, cold-clocking their buddy for no reason.

They sass her, and Waverly is starting to feel isolated and alone. She tries to apologize to Jolene, who mentions that she called Nicole, and that Nicole is Jolene’s best friend. Another crack.

The ladies all head to Shorty’s, where it’s karaoke night, because as I may have mentioned, this episode is the fucking best. The Jolene haze starting to fade, Mama wonders how the demon in her head could have been a Revenant and also physically in the prison…Jolene tries to shove more treats her way, but Mama and Wynonna are too focused on drinking to want more dessert. Desperate, Jolene diverts their attention to Kate, who is sitting in the corner giving tarot readings, and she outs her as Doc’s wife.

Speaking of Doc, he’s visiting Bobo’s well to tell him Dolls is dead, give him banana liqueur, and asks for leverage on Bulshar. Bobo tells him about Bulshar’s ring and in exchange wants Waverly to visit him.

Back at Shorty’s, Wynonna is wallowing in the bathroom about how Big Nose Kate’s nose is actually perfect and she’s drunk and mad and it’s kind of cute. Jolene starts to put makeup on her and shoves another brownie in her mouth as Waverly comes in to check on her sister. Jolene swiftly pits them against each other, telling Wynonna that Waverly knew all along, and Wynonna jabs the jabbiest jab at her baby girl, calling her “half-sister.”

Waverly leaves, distraught, and even through her special brownie haze, she knows that wasn’t quite right.

All of Jolene’s pitting starts to come to a head as Doc and Nicole show up and the team is all gathered in the same place. Mama fights with Doc, Wynonna fights with Kate, Waverly sees Jolene trying to pull the broken taps move on Nicole.

This is Waverly’s last straw and she launches herself at Jolene, setting off a full-bar brawl.

While the chaos breaks out, Jolene strips off her matronly outer layer, grabs the microphone, and starts singing an upbeat country song, smirking all the while.

Also not for nothing but that entire brawl should win an award for best choreography. It was so much fun to watch.

When the fight gets broken up, Officer Haught throws Wynonna and Mama in the drunk tank. Waverly comes to bail them out, but Nicole tells her they have to stay til they dry out. She also says she’s going to turn Michelle over to the feds, and snaps at Waverly for not mentioning that she had been hanging out with her MOTHER for the past 12 hours. She’s shoving Jolene’s scones in her mouth and being mean to sweet Waverly, and when Waverly meekly asks if she can call her girlfriend later, Nicole snaps at says, “Yeah or don’t.”

It’s very hard to watch poor Waverly’s heart break and her foundation crumble little by little.

Back in what’s left of Shorty’s, Jolene drinks wine and drinks in the havoc she wreaked.

Kate forces her to tap her tarot deck and pulls a card for her, saying that Jolene owes fealty and if she doesn’t pay up soon, she’s going to regret it. Jolene, having no ground to stand on, starts insulting vampires and Kate’s makeup, which is all just her own insecurities because Kate’s makeup is flawless always.

Doc finds Waverly crying and instead of folding her into his arms like he normally would, he is cold and distant, caring only about the location of Bulshar’s ring. Waverly wonders again if SHE’S the demon, if she’s the reason everything is going wrong, if she’s the curse in their lives. And Doc takes another bite of snickerdoodle, shrugs, and says that maybe she is.

Jolene goes back to the Homestead and finds Nicole in Waverly’s room; the scones have worn off and her love for Waverly has fought through and she wants to apologize to her girlfriend. Jolene tries coming onto her again, but Nicole isn’t having it this time. Things are hazing and confusing right now but there’s one truth she knows to her very core: She loves Waverly.

Upset that her charms aren’t working anymore, Jolene shoves Nicole into the dresser, and Bulshar’s ring is there. It burns Jolene’s skin when she touches it, and even more furious than ever, and now a little shook to learn Bulshar has risen, she locks Nicole in a closet. And I would normally make a lesbian-in-the-closet joke here, but Nicole MAKES ONE HERSELF later in the episode which is such a small thing but SUCH A BIG GIFT. I appreciated it so much, as I myself is a lesbian who makes closet/coming out jokes as often as possible.

When Mama and Wynonna wake up in the drunk tank, Wynonna tells Mama about Alice Michelle, and about how maybe she understands now why Mama left them. Because sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same. But now that the whiskey AND the spiked goodies have worn off, Mama and Wynonna realize that it’s very unlikely that the very run-of-the-mill-seeming Revenant was the demon tormenting Mama all these years. The demon is still out there, and so is Waverly.

Mama and Wynonna yell for Nedley, and as soon as they mention Jolene, he pulls his “it’s my business to know everyone’s business” card and tells them he doesn’t know this “Jolene” they speak of. They realize Jolene is the demon and yell in unison for Nedley to drop the tart he was about to eat.

Waverly, feeling alone and stuck, goes back to the Gibson Greenhouse, and Jolene is there too, with her giant knife and pointy words. She calls Waverly a demon, tells her she can’t do anything right, calls her an evil changeling, all the things Waverly has worried about since the moment she found out she might not be an Earp. She’s thought all these things before, feared them for months, so it’s easy to believe them when Jolene says it.

Jolene presses the knife into Waverly’s hands and tells her how they were born at the same time, in a way, and Waverly came from the light, while Jolene came from the darkness. Jolene watched as Waverly got everything and Jolene was shunned, but Jolene believes she’s turned the tables and nobody loves Waverly anymore. So she implores her to just do it. Just end all the darkness, all the pain.

And Waverly is feeling lost, alone, broken. She’s thinking about doing it, quickly considering all the consequences, trying to imagine if it’s true, if everyone would be better off without her. But then she remembers Wynonna. Wynonna loves her baby girl, always, no matter what.

And it’s the step backwards from the cliff she needs to start to feel like she’s on solid ground again. She remembers Nicole, and Doc, and Jeremy…even Mama. They love her. Jolene’s last ditch effort to shove Waverly into that darkness is to tell her that she doesn’t bring them anything, but Waverly disagrees. She loves them, that’s what she brings. And she never gives up on them.

Waverly throws down the knife, and Jolene screeches, knowing she’s lost this battle.

I’ve always identified with Waverly the most on this show. A late bloomer, a people-pleaser, genuinely wanting to do the right thing, empathetic to the core, mommy issues, loyal almost to a fault, and sometimes acting out people make assumptions about who we are. Being the optimistic one, being the hopeful one, the one people go to when they want a positive outlook…it can be hard. It might not seem hard, especially because we tend to offer it up so easily, but people like Waverly and me, in order to give you some of our light, we have absorb some of your darkness. We do it willingly, and wouldn’t be who we are if we didn’t, but there are days — or weeks, or months — where the balance is off and the darkness weighs us down, but we’re afraid to show it, because we’re supposed to be the ones with the light. So this episode, when Waverly went through one of the most relatable arcs I’ve ever seen on television, and almost succumbed to the darkness, it cut real deep.

I spent the majority of my teenage years with a Jolene whispering in my ear. Pressing blades into my hands, sliding pill bottles across the counter, twitching the wheel of my car, all while telling me I was worthless. That voice told me that I caused more pain than joy to the people in my life, that nobody truly loved me, that if I succeeded at this one thing I would “do something right for once.” I was on that brink more than once. I stood on that precipice for what felt like years. Sometimes she’d win small battles, leaving me with white-hot tears on my face and angry red marks on my arms. And even the night she came the closest to winning the war we were waging, it was my own voice, almost unfamiliar to me at that point, that fought through the noise, that got through to me, helped me fight her off. It wasn’t just the list of people who loved me — I never doubted my father loved me, but he lost a brother when he was young, I knew he was strong, I believed he would be okay if I left him. I had convinced myself that even the people who loved me would be better off without me, but the thing I remember so clearly, despite how irrational it seemed, was that the thought that stilled my hand was how much I’d miss them.

So when Waverly said, “I love them back,” that hit me really hard. Because that was the key for me, personally. Even now, when I remember my Jolene’s words, I tell myself that I have to trust the people I love; if they say they love me, I have to trust THEIR voices, not the one in my head contradicting them. It’s a thing I’ve never talked about before, and honestly don’t know if I would have been able to explain it as clearly without this context. Or maybe I’m not explaining it well at all. All I know for sure is that this show is slowly but surely cutting open all my scars and healing them again, this time a little better than before. And even though echoes of her voice still rattle around my brain now and then, still weigh me down some mornings, I’ve surrounded myself with enough people who love me, and enough people I love, that my Jolene is gone more often than she’s here. Because the thing is, once you recognize Jolene for the demon she is, once you realize she’s not a truth-telling friend, but a manipulative beast, she’s a bit easier to keep at bay. Or at the very least, for me, it becomes easier to get help slaying her.

When Waverly gets to her feet, she jabs Jolene with a shovel for making her feel worthless, for making her doubt herself, for pitting her against the people she loves. Wynonna shows up just in time, and Jolene tries one last time to convince Wynonna she loves her, but Wynonna isn’t listening, not anymore. She loves Waverly the most. That’s all that matters now.

And the thing is, when I say Wynonna came just in time, I mean it. Wynonna couldn’t come any sooner, it wouldn’t have worked. Wynonna just came to help pick up the pieces, be the support system, not the solution. Waverly had to save herself.

Wynonna runs after Jolene to find her caught in the trap Mama set. Before they can shoot her again, one of Bulshar’s trees wraps its vines around her. She calls out, swearing Waverly was going to be a tribute for him, but the tree consumes her anyway.

Mama hugs her girls, finally free of the demon that plagued her, the demon that almost got her youngest daughter, too.

The next day, Nicole and Waverly have a very cute apology party, complete with balloons.

They talk about how love saved the day, and a little about Bulshar’s Boomaring, but mostly they just kiss and snuggle and make up.

Oops I dropped this.

Doc walks into the woods with Bulshar’s ring on his finger, taunting the demon entity like he still has eternal longevity, and Wynonna goes to see Bobo in the well to tell him that Waverly will never come visit him. To tempt her to change her mind, Bobo offers information she might find interesting: Waverly’s father? Julian? He was a literal angel.

AN ANGEL.

WAVERLY.

IS.

AN.

ANGEL.

A baby bisexual angel from heaven. We have been truly blessed.

See you next week for a very special summertime Christmas episode!

“Wynonna Earp” Recap 304: Devil’s in the Details

As you might have guessed by now, Wynonna Earp is one of my favorite shows of all time. That’s why, this weekend, I went to Earper Homestead Con in Toronto (EH Con… GET IT?) and had an amazing time with fellow Earpers, incredible experiences with some actors, behind-the-scenes folks, and showrunner Emily Andras, and got to watch this episode in a room full of some of my favorite people. But I’ll talk more about the con at the end of this recap. First let’s dive into this episode.

Previously on Wynonna Earp, we mourned Agent Xavier Dolls, but evil doesn’t take bereavement and Bulshar is still up to no good. Speak of the devil (perhaps literally?), Bulshar has a cult following that involves mass sacrifice and no survivors, except for one tiny redhead who is a deputy now and is slowly uncovering those memories. Also, Wynonna started visiting her mother in her mental hospital/prison recently, because all her life she’s heard Mama talk about this Bulshar fellow and Wynonna is finally ready to listen.

We open on Wynonna and Doc chasing down a Revenant and we are reminded that Peacemaker uses literal bullets. I had noticed Wynonna’s ammo belt wasn’t totally full last week, but I thought it was just a post-battle thing, but now she seems to be plum out.

We also learn that the trees, on top of being generally creepy, aren’t just popping up out of nowhere, or messing with your mindgrapes. They can literally move. One jumped into the Revenant’s path like something out of a Disney movie, and it’s interesting — why did it move at that moment? Did the Revenant just happen to get in the way of the poplar crossing the street? Or did it purposefully take down the person Wynonna (or Doc) was chasing?

Also I know Wynonna isn’t the most perceptive, and Doc is new to the concept of paved roads, but neither one of them thought it was weird that there was a tree just… ON TOP of the street? Smack in the middle of the lane and unrooted.

Anyway, one person did think it was weird, but he’s weird too, so when he inspects it and finds it leaking something awful, he LICKS IT and discovers the tree is bleeding. He rightfully runs from the murder tree, but what he doesn’t notice is that there is a FUCKING FACE IN THE MURDER TREE. No thank you.

Elsewhere in the woods, Nicole and Waverly are inspecting the old site of the supposed music festival fire that was the story Nicole was always told about what happened the night her aunt and uncle died.

Nicole notices that the trees have grown back awfully well for having been burnt to the ground not all that long ago, and Nicole thinks back on what she remembers and doesn’t remember a fire at all. That’s when it hits her that the fire was a Black Badge cover-up so that the news of a demonic cult didn’t get to the people of Purgatory.

Waverly asks Nicole if she would consider talking to her parents about it, but they were also told the cover story, and Nicole snaps at Waverly about her own mommy issues, but one adorably incorrect sports reference from Waverly, and they’re back on track.

Just then, the tree-licker appears, and Waverly knows him, because of course she does. His name is Robin and she introduces him to Nicole as “Officer Haught” and at first I was nervous that this meant Waverly was embarrassed to come out to this stranger (despite later finding out she’s known he was gay since high school) but after panic-pondering for a while I’ve decided it’s because Nicole has asked her to be on the DL about their relationship while she’s in uniform.

As they start to head back to get Robin warm and find out what he needs their help for, Nicole hangs back for a second and just… CHUCKS the ring of Bulshar all WILLY NILLY in the DEMON WOODS. It’s like she doesn’t even care about my anxiety levels.

Back at the station, Wynonna tries to give Haught shit about not telling her about the cult thing, but considering the secret-Mama situation, she doesn’t really have a leg to stand on. So Waverly tells them that they should kiss and make up and Nicole and Wynonna reluctantly agree to work together in relative peace and Waverly brings them in for a group hug.

Speaking of Mama, Wynonna gives Waverly all the redacted documents Dolls got, and tells her baby sister that as soon as she’s ready, they’ll go see Mama Earp together.

And while Wynonna is assuring Waverly that Mama is getting better, Mama is proving her wrong by writing “Never ever get out” in her therapist’s blood on the padded walls of her cell. Yikes.

Wynonna and Doc start searching for some ammo while they wait for more funds now that BBD cut them off, and instead Wynonna finds something that might as well be a bullet for how it hurts: a cradle Doc had hidden away for Alice Michelle. They talk a little, finally, about their pain and guilt, but Doc doesn’t blame her for sending her away. Wynonna, though, says it feels like giving up, the same way she gave up on her Mama when she left Purgatory seven years ago.

Her mom had tried to warn her about Bulshar, tried to get her to take Waverly with her, but Wynonna doesn’t think she can protect Waverly, so she’s heading off alone. Mama reiterates that Waverly can never know about this prison, can never come to visit her, and Wynonna thinks she’s just being an asshole so she peaces out to Greece.

In the present day, Doc reassures her that she wasn’t anything like her mother, and kisses her. Nicole walks in on them, a little Haughtus Interruptus to make up for all the times the tables were turned, and tells her that Nedley is requesting Wynonna’s presence. Wynonna calls Haught’s pitch a Supergirl speech, and my friend Nic is convinced this was a shoutout to me. I am less convinced, as I know at least one writer in that room watches (watched?) the show, but it’s an honor to be nominated.

Jeremy and Waverly are in the ex-BBD office, worrying about what comes next without Dolls, and Waverly suggests Jeremy try going on a date, so his whole life isn’t just demon hunting. Jeremy teases her, saying not everyone can have a perfect meet-cute over broken taps.

He talks about how unicorns are rare (he says they’re called unicorns because there’s only one, but I always thought it was because they had one horn??) and Waverly mentions Robin. While Jeremy is protesting set-ups as a concept, Robin appears; like a unicorn in the wild.

Jeremy and Robin have a cute, awkward chemistry and Waverly not-so-subtly sees herself out. The boys talk about the murder tree, and exchange cute tree puns. They have a good repertoire, and bond over how much they love Waverly. You see, Waverly is the only one who was nice to Robin when he was an out teenager in Purgatory. They make a date with the murder tree, and it’s all very pure and lovely.

On her way out, Waverly gets a call from the institution telling her that Michelle Gibson is being transferred, and realizes that if she wants to see her mother, it’s now or never. So she heads there, alone, and sees her mother for the first time since she was six years old.

And at first it starts to play out the way I’m sure she’s imagined time and time again, “My little one,” Mama says, her eyes alight with love. But then things quickly take a turn for the nightmareish when Mama’s expression changes and she starts to freak out. She starts yelling, “Get out,” and “I’ll kill you,” but there was more fear in her voice than hatred.

But Waverly misinterprets this fear, and says, “I won’t hurt you.” But then the guard goes to tase her mother, and she instinctively reaches out. As soon as their hands touch, though, Mama’s mood shifts again, and now she looks absolutely terrified.

“She’s unbound, she’s loose, kill the demon.” She repeats that last part, “kill the demon” as a traumatized Waverly watches her mother get dragged away.

In less sob-worthy news, Jeremy and Robin are looking for the murder tree in the woods, but can’t seem to find the pesky thing. They do, however, find some not-so-sexy fog and a staircase that doesn’t seem to lead to anywhere. Jeremy’s mysterious instincts tell him those stairs are not safe, so he stops Robin from climbing them and calls Doc for help.

Back at the Purgatory Sheriff’s Department, Wynonna is mid-way through sassing Nedley about maybe being too old for this gig and maybe promoting his best deputy when she sees her sister storm in sadly. One subtle thing I liked as Wynonna ran off to check on her baby girl is watching Nicole’s eyeline. She spots Waverly and probably would have gone after her herself, but as soon as she sees Wynonna’s on the case, she stays put.

Waverly tells Wynonna about the visit she just had while desperately searching for answers in the redacted files; maybe it’s her medication, maybe that’s why she said the things she said.

Wynonna tries to reassure Waverly, but as soon as Waverly says that Mama tried to kill her, Wynonna’s eyes darken and she storms off. She gets to the prison just as Mama is being taken outside to be transferred, she yells at Mama for threatening Waverly, but Mama drops to her knees, catching Wynonna off-guard just long enough to overtake her and the guards and she ends up running away with Peacemaker and a real gun.

The guards decide they can’t call this whole day a fail so they throw Wynonna in a cell as Wynonna screams for her sister.

Back at the station, Waverly cries to Nicole, saying Nicole was right about not reconnecting with estranged parents. She tells Nicole she thinks her mom called her a demon, and now is wondering if she was the reason she left in the first place.

Nicole tries to reassure her that her mother has as psychological disorder and that none of this is her fault. She shows Waverly the arrest report; Michelle Gibson was put in jail for burning down the homestead barn. Waverly says that doesn’t make sense, and also why has most of the report been pulled? Hearing is cue, Nedley comes into the room and says that he’s the one who pulled the rest of the report. Because the truth is, Michelle Gibson did burn down her barn, but also her youngest daughter was in it.

When Doc gets to the woods to find Jeremy and Robin, he hears the sounds of a baby crying. He follows it until the crying turns into the infernal sounds of his past torment. He falls to his knees and sees Bulshar himself approach. Bulshar offers to remove his memory of his time spent in hell, the looming dread of his future torment, all for one simple exchange. My biggest fear is that the exchange he wants to make involves Waverly.

Jeremy finds Doc and snaps him out of it, but he hadn’t seen Bulshar, just like when they go back to look at the pictures of the staircase, they realize it wasn’t really there. Also side note Robin coughed up what looked like dirt? Probably because he LICKED THE MURDER TREE. To be determined.

The warden have Wynonna kept in her old cell, and she’s frantic because she wants to stop her mother from hurting anyone, namely Waverly.

But the guards are more ego than brains so they decide that instead of sending out a search party, they’re going to quietly bring Michelle Gibson back and take care of the one witness in the meantime.

In his office, Nedley tells Waverly the story of what happened the night her mother was taken away. When Nedley got to the scene, the barn was on fire, Waverly was covered in soot and crying but unharmed, and Michelle was locked in the back of Ward Earp’s cop car. Ward said he saw occult symbols in the barn and accused his wife of trying to murder Waverly, but Nedley doesn’t buy it. Everyone loved Michelle Gibson.

But Nedley says Michelle wasn’t herself that night, talking about vanquishing a demon. Ward thought Michelle believed Waverly was the demon, just like Waverly does now, and Nedley went along with it because Ward was his boss. He chokes up as he says he regrets it, and you can just see Waverly’s heart breaking six ways to Wednesday.

When Nedley became sheriff, he pulled the report to do his part in protecting the Earp girls, but Waverly wonders if maybe sending her away was the right thing to do. After all, evil wears many faces.

Wynonna doesn’t spend too much more time in the prison, because as soon as she realizes the guard on murder duty is a revenent, she kills him dead and brings his head to the warden in exchange for her handcuffs being removed. He updates her on what we just learned about when Michelle was taken into custody, and she sasses him about being bad at treating mental illness before booking it for the Homestead.

At the homestead, Waverly is in her bathrobe listening to her mother’s old therapist tapes.

Michelle is saying she likes being in the prison and away from her girls, and asks again nervously that the prison promises to keep her girls away from her. It’s clear to me she means for their own safety, but Waverly is way too upset to realize this. Michelle tells the voices in her head to shut up before going back to talking about birds. And listen, I can’t consider it a coincidence that she specifically mentions robins in the same episode we meet Robin. She also mentions magpies which reminds me of my old proven-very-wrong theory about the goo being a magpie demon and made me laugh.

Nicole brings Waverly tea while wearing a unicorn t-shirt and I’m sure the dialogue was lovely but I was overwhelmed by the perfection of how so casual and normal their relationship is even when they’re talking about literal demons.

Anyway, whatever they’re saying is interrupted by Doc storming in and demanding good whiskey. Waverly heads out to the barn to get some and Nicole tells him to chill out. Doc hears the tapes playing and asks what the hell they’re listening to and Nicole explains that it’s Michelle and her therapist talking, and Doc says no, but who’s the third voice? And listen, I was watching this for the first time in a room full of Earpers so hyped up that it was 200 degrees Celsius in the room and I was sweating from every single one of my pores, but when Doc asked about the third voice I got LITERAL CHILLS. Doc starts to panic when he realizes she can’t hear the horrible noises he hears, and he tells her, “We will not be enough.”

Waverly goes out to the barn and finds her mother putting candles around an occult symbol. When she sees Waverly she yells at her to go away, and Waverly asks her if she thinks she’s a demon. Mama, more lucid than we’ve seen her, raises Peacemaker up toward Waverly…

…and says, “No. But she came for you.”

Waverly turns and sees a demon that looks like a life-size doll of the girl of the ring come to life and dipped in The Goo, and screams. And the room I was in screamed, too. It was pretty amazing.

Robin goes home to see his dad and notices plants growing in the snow, but as he leans down to take a photo of them, a Jumanji-sized vine grabs his ankle and drags him away.

Wynonna runs into the Homestead, ready to take down her own mother to save her sister, but instead of the mayhem she was expecting, she finds Waverly, Nicole, and Doc, sitting peacefully at the table, surrounded by heaps of dessert.

She asks about Mama and a face you might recognize appears saying Mama is locked in the barn. Waverly and Nicole call her Jolene and say she showed up, “Just in time.”

Jolene shoves a brownie into Wynonna’s mouth and within seconds Wynonna has the same glassy-eyed look on her face, says she’s grateful for Jolene, and joins her family at the table.

I’m so excited for the next episode, because the writers did a panel at EH Con and said 305 is absolutely bonkers. There was talk of “the full Palmer,” for example. And we all know what kind of amazinginess Zoie brings to the table.

I do want to talk about the convention for a moment, because it was unlike anything I’ve ever been to. I’ve never been to a singularly focused con, and there’s something to be said for sharing a space for a weekend with 500 people who you know you have at least one thing in common with. And a big thing, a thing that means a lot to you, considering you all traveled to a con based only on this one thing. And there’s something about Wynonna Earp, specifically, that seems to connect people in a deeper way faster than if they had something more general in common; like I don’t think the same kind of bonding happens at Dog Con amongst dog lovers as it did amongst Earpers. And one way you can tell from events like this that Wynonna Earp is special is that it’s not all about the actors. The actors are surely celebrated for their part in it, and rightly so, but it goes further than that. And of course, Emily Andras is celebrated for creating this thing we all love. But what really warmed my heart was that similarly loud cheers were heard for the writers on their panel, for the script coordinator and digital content providers, for the music supervisor and composers. Hell, even for the moderators, who are dedicated Earpers themselves. It’s like Wynonna Earp has its own set of core values and it attracts people who live by those values and therefore it’s one of the best groups of people I’ve ever had the pleasure of spending time with.

I could write three thousand extra words on my own personal experience there — one thousand about meeting the writers aka my heroes aka who I want to BE someday and also at least 50 words about how proud of myself I was for not telling them to their face that I want to be them because yikes — but I’ll spare you all that. I just couldn’t not mention it, because I’m still reeling from being back in the real world after being so comfortable in my own weirdness for a long weekend.

See you next week! On time next time, promise!