“Wynonna Earp” Episode 201 Recap: The Babes are Back in Town

Hello and welcome back to Purgatory! For those of you who don’t know me, hello, I’m Valerie Anne, and Wynonna Earp is one of my favorite shows since Buffy. In fact, I’d even call it a sort of modern-day Buffy, with the badass ladies and quips for days. Summer shows are tough because it always feels like forever between seasons but the Earp girls and their crew have finally returned to us, so let’s not waste another minute not talking about them.

As just a quick refresher, when we last left Purgatory, here are a few things that happened that will be important: Wynonna had just killed Willa, Peacemaker glowing blue with the power of her sadness, because she plotted with Bobo to essentially open the hellmouth and let the Revenants out and some oogie boogies in. Dolls wolfed out into whatever brand of monster he is and after he calmed down and became our Dolls again, the Black Badge powers that be took him away. Willa shot Nicole Haught but she watched enough TV to know that queer women should always be wearing a bulletproof vest. Waverly touched some mysterious goo that made her eyes go black. And the finale ended with Waverly asking Wynonna if she was ready, then lifting her gun. The screen went black, and a gunshot rang out, and we were left to theorize for ALMOST A FULL YEAR.

We open mere minutes after the finale, with Waverly and Doc running through the forest, being chased by something rather awful-looking. Doc accuses her of pissing it off, and we discover the truth of what happened during that fade-to-black: Waverly saw this creature coming and shot it over Doc’s shoulder. And y’all this thing is gross. It’s all teeth and has no eyes like its head is one of those Piranha Plants from Super Mario and it eats Doc’s hat and it’s chasing our friends and just a whole lot of NOPE.

But then in comes big sister to save the day. She kills the demon dead (good to know Peacemaker isn’t only for Revenants) and tells it that she’s Wynonna. Wynonna Earp.

It’s really too bad the monster didn’t have eyes to see this cool shot.

She twirls her gun (successfully! Because our girl is all growed up!) and slow-mo walks out of there, her smart-as-a-whip sister and a legend by her side. And they’re gonna go save Agent Xavier Dolls.

#SquadGoals

Speak of the devil, Dolls is being sent off to a place called Black Rock Prison, but after being hissed at and tazed by one Agent Lucado, who just hates Dolls a whole bunch, and not in the cute fun way Wynonna pretends to hate him.

Back at the Purgatory Police Department, Nedley is helping the people of the town wrap their heads around what happened. Instead of explaining that an impossibly old undead demon opened a portal to a hell dimension, he tells everyone that Bobo poisoned the town as a jilted lover’s revenge on one Wynonna Earp. He figures they already hate her anyway, and she doesn’t mind all that much. But Nedley quietly thanks her; even though the town isn’t ready to accept it, he knows she’s their hero.

“Compliments make me uncomfortable surely there’s something else we can talk a–oh thank god, it smells like death.”

Wynonna smells something funny, literally, and follows her nose to the old Black Badge Division office to see a team getting rid of “a dead possum” but also all of Dolls (and Waverly’s) research and files. Everything has been cleared out (except Dolls’ mug, which Nedley is drinking from) but they both know Dolls wouldn’t keep the most important stuff just lying around.

Nedley asks where Dolls sleeps and Wynonna realizes she has no idea. She decides to check the local motel and does the Scooby Doo Scoot from room to room until she finds some of his stuff…along with someone else’s stuff. Lady stuff.

Wynonna hears someone in the bathroom and calls out in her Wynonna way and is launched upon by a half-naked woman with fighting skills to boot. They roll around and tussle and end up on the bed, gun to gun.

I DON’T HATE THIS

And it’s Tamsin! Back from Valhalla and renamed Eliza but just as sassy and beautiful; she matches Wynonna wit-for-wit, and remains frustratingly unimpressed when she drops her “I’m Wynonna Earp” line, and you just know this episode is going to be a trip.

Home, home on the homestead, Waverly is putting cream on Nicole’s bruised ribs, and Nicole is joking about an awful lot of patching up going on in their relationship.

SORRY NOT SORRY I wasn’t about to risk the wrath of Santana Lopez if I left the underboob undocumented.

Waverly flirts and pounces, kissing Nicole like a succubus and letting her hands wander.

You know usually lady-kisses are juxtaposed with het sex so it’s nice this one was paired with Wynonna pinning a woman in her underwear.

But her hands wander too far and Nicole flinches back in pain. Nicole takes this break to mention to Waverly that she tastes different. (Yes, I said “tastes.”) And not in the “girl, brush your teeth,” way but in a way that makes Nicole look very concerned. I mean, adorable, but concerned.

Are we talking tastes like a new lip gloss or tastes like demon possession here, Nicole?

Doc walks in and does that awkward dad thing like “I’m not here, just ignore me!” and it’s very cute and sweet. Waverly rolls her eyes but Nicole thanks him for his respectfulness. She leaves to feed her cat and he tips his invisible hat at her, then tells Waverly he approves of her choice in girlfriends.

Waverly rather agrees and says she’s the luckiest little gal in the west. (Except she didn’t phrase it like that because she’s not as weird as I am.) Waverly then expresses her concern for Wynonna, because she hasn’t stood still long enough for anything – like, for example, killing her long-lost big sister – catch up to her. Doc also wants to know how Waverly feels but Waverly just feels strong. I saw that as a warning sign, but Doc sure did not.

“No, exposing my midriff in the dead of winter isn’t a cry for help, everyone’s doing it.”

Back at the motel, Wynonna and Eliza are putting themselves together after their fight and I’m just saying that if you hadn’t seen the scene before, it might have seemed like totally different aftermath. But anyway, Eliza has the important files Dolls didn’t keep in the police department, clearance to get into Black Badge HQ, and a go-get-’em attitude, so she’s joining the team. They shake on it, and are off into unknown dangers.

Here I thought everyone’s midriff being exposed was worrisome.

Wynonna takes Eliza back to meet the crew and I want to take a moment to talk about this scene. It’s not too often you have so many core characters all in one small room and having a conversation with only each other. But here we have Wynonna, Waverly, Nicole, and Doc, plus an added Eliza for some extra seasoning. And I thought this scene was a moment of subtle genius; this many people having a full-scene conversation usually leans one of two ways: long and boring, or too chaotic. But this scene was the right balance of planning, flirting, and snarking, and the timing of all the lines felt just right. It was a Buffy-and-the-Scoobies-in-the-Sunnydale-library kind of moment, and I just thought it was one of those low-key, quietly genius that really highlights the brilliance of the writers and the actors.

ANYWAY Doc waggles his eyebrows at Eliza and introduces himself while Wynonna introduces her to her sister, her sister’s…she lets Waverly finish that sentence, and she finishes it with “Girlfriend,” much to Nicole’s delight.

“You do mean girlfriend girlfriend not gal pal girlfriend right?”

The scene lasts for like 60 more seconds but like 100 things happen. Eliza explains why they can’t just stroll onto the Black Badge site, Waverly teases Wynonna for doing math when she says there are 62 Revenants left, Wynonna mentions Bobo to point out that the baddies don’t have a leader anymore, Waverly repeats Bobo’s name wistfully and remembers her conversation with him where he said she’s not a real Earp, Nicole reminds everyone that Dolls deputized her as an Agent before he left, and Wynonna gets overwhelmed and twitchy to the point where Waverly has to pull her aside to make sure she’s okay.

Phew. That was a lot. Waverly tries to get Wynonna to talk about Willa but she just says she needs Waverly to stay safe and be okay. But Waverly isn’t not helping, so too bad. She pulls her into a sister hug to remind Wynonna she doesn’t have to carry all of this alone.

“Fine but I’m still carrying most of it.”

Wynonna, Eliza, and Doc go to Purgatory PD to look in Dolls’ safe to get his meds (of which there are none left, though Doc still has some) which leads to them having to explain to Wynonna that Dolls isn’t exactly human. Wynonna doesn’t care though, she still has a plan to rescue him, and it involves possums. Well one possum, to be precise. A dead one.

They dress up in some hazmat suits and drive right into Black Badge, using the smell of the dead possum to get in quickly and without too many questions.

Eliza drops in (literally, from the vent, like a beautiful badass angel) and Doc tries to flirt with her again but Wynonna knocks him down a peg by reminding him he doesn’t have his trademark hat.

Back at the homestead, Nicole and Waverly are looking at the weapons Doll stashed there and Nicole asks if Waverly is going to be okay working side by side. Waverly makes a joke about her pretty french braid and somehow managing to work with her beautiful smart amazing girlfriend, but what she misses is Nicole saying she was thinking of cutting her hair.

Nicole asks which guns they should bring but Waverly is busy cheating on her with an axe to pay much attention.

Maybe she’s possessed by the spirit of Lizzie Borden? That would explain why she’s still queer af.

Her eyes go black and she raises the axe up and swings it down but DON’T WORRY she didn’t hurt a hair on our favorite officer’s head, she just lopped off the Piranha Plant Demon’s head.

Nicole would prefer to know about plans, including axe-swinging plans, please and thank you, but Waverly just asks her to trust her; she can’t tell her more than Wynonna will let her. Waverly is just protecting Wynonna, but Nicole just wants to make sure Waverly is okay, too.

One moment that I think is really interesting is that Nicole asks if she’s still “my Waverly.” She can sense something’s off and she can tell Waverly isn’t really being herself, but she hasn’t seen her eyes go Dark Willow yet so she can’t quite put her finger on it. Anyway, Waverly assures her girlfriend that she’s still the same old Waverly…but that she has to be someone else for a hot second.

I hope she saves these glasses for some Hot Librarian role playing later…

Eliza leads Wynonna and Doc into the Black Badge but the clearance card she’s been waving around doesn’t work, and in fact locks them in the stairwell. Wynonna goes to punch Eliza because she thinks it’s a setup but Eliza catches her fist with whip-quick reflexes and says she’s just as surprised by this as the rest of them. Luckily, Wynonna has a Plan B.

Calling it a backup plan is for chumps.

Plan B is Waverly pretending to be Scotland Yard aka it’s Dominique Provost-Chalkley playing Waverly speaking in Dominique’s accent. It’s a wonder to behold. She charms her way past a security guard with a flash of a smile, a kick of a heel, and a Piranha Plant monster’s head in her bag.

LOOK. AT. THIS. ADORABLE. DORK. (Who is obviously a dancer. Look at that FORM.)

He points her in the direction of the lab, and while she heads there, Haught speaks into her earpiece from her lookout point in the car, teasing her about her accent and that she’ll be ready with the getaway car.

Over at the Black Badge holding cell, we find out just why Lucado hates Dolls so much: He saved Eliza over her husband once. Dolls says her husband insisted on that exact situation, but Lucado doesn’t have time to change her revenge plans right now.

Waverly gets to the lab and sees cells of all kinds of creepy-ass things, including but not limited to another Piranha Plant demon. Wynonna calls her and says it’s time for Plan C and explains their current predicament.

The predicament of course being trapped in the stairwell with a man she was sort of seeing and a girl who might have been dating a man she kind of kissed. But Eliza finally lets her off that second hook and admits she was just teasing Wynonna and isn’t WITH Dolls like that after all.

She does share something with Dolls though, and it’s that she’s whatever glowy-eyed thing he is.

Me-ow.

Black Badge made them like this, and even she isn’t sure exactly what that means. And she’s afraid by now Dolls might have lost all control of his inner beast. Wynonna is ready for that possibility, and tries to joke about wanting to go 24 hours without shooting someone she…you know. But her heart’s not in it; the wounds are too fresh.

In the lab, Waverly is charming a lab technician, putting on the full British Charm, and manages to sweet-talk him into telling her how to open all of the security doors at once. Once she has this information, she tries to knock the lab tech out, but it doesn’t work. (Which I love by the way; who knows how hard to hit someone to knock them out?? Not me! Not Waverly.) Instead she just made him bleed, which makes the Piranha Plant monster lose its mind and crash through the glass of his pen.

The lab tech, who we find out later is named Jeremy and so I’m just going to call him that now, explains that the monster is a soul eater and that they should definitely run. Hiding behind a door, Waverly breaks her ruse and asks Jeremy if she’ll help them.

“I KNOW I SOUND UNHINGED BUT TRUST ME OKAY”

So Jeremy does help them and opens all the doors, but Doc closes it again before the girls can get out of the stairwell. He’s going to be the one to shoot Wynonna’s Spunky this time. (Gods, I hope you guys remember that speech from Season 1 otherwise that’s a real weird sentence.) Instead, he tells her to save the sister she has left.

So Wynonna and Eliza fight their way to the lab, quite the beautiful badass duo.

If I didn’t know any better I’d say Eliza was flirting with Wynonna.

Doc finds Dolls and Lucado immediately insults his mustache because apparently it’s Pick on Doc Day. But he gets the last laugh, since he’s strapped with dynamite. She hesitates long enough for Dolls to reach out and strangle her until she passes out, and Doc lets him out.

Meanwhile in the lab, our Brave Little Toaster decides she can’t just hide behind the door anymore and makes a run for it, Jeremy hot on her heels. When they realize they can’t get past the demon, Jeremy tries to sacrifice himself, but Waverly isn’t a damsel in distress. Her eyes go black and she steps forward, and the demon miraculously backs off.

“I’ve come to collect your overdue library fines. MUAHAHAHA.”

WHICH MAKES ME VERY NERVOUS. IS OUR BABY GIRL LOSING HER SOUL??? SEND HELP!

Anyway, Wynonna runs in just in time, shouts one of my all-time favorite phrases (“Not today, Satan!”) and shoots the demon dead.

Doc and Dolls are escaping but they have to split up so Dolls asks Doc to pass on a message because apparently he missed that one part in Season 1 where the Blacksmith showed us that Doc is really, really bad at passing on important messages.

So Dolls runs while Doc staves off some Black Badge baddies. (After yet again hilariously trying to tip his lack of hat at them.)

Things come to a head when the team finds themselves together again facing off with Lucado and her goons. She tries to end things by holding up a gun, causing Wynonna to immediately jump in front of Waverly; she can’t lose her. She just can’t.

I always tell myself not to get attached to new characters. I always get attached to new characters.

But then Art Bell from Orphan Black strolls in and tells them how this is going to go. Wynonna and her team are going to sign a contract with Black Badge and they’re going to help them fight Revenants and anything else that goes bump in the night; the words he’s saying make it sound like they’re on the same side of this – saying they’ll help her track down the Revenants to help the Earps break their family curse, etc – but something about his tone is shady to say the least.

And then he makes it clear that this arrangement isn’t exactly optional (and sort of appeases Lucado’s demand for justice for Dolls escaping) by shooting Eliza dead right on the spot after she tries to tell the gang not to sign anything Black Badge has to offer.

This day has been a doozy of a dumpster fire.

RIP Eliza, we hardly knew ye.

He reminds them that Wynonna is the only one here who isn’t expendable, and makes Wynonna, Waverly, Doc, and Jeremy put bloody fingerprints on an old piece of papyrus to seal the deal.

Before he sends them off, Definitely Not Art Bell asks if anyone else knows about this curse/Black Badge stuff, and Waverly jumps in to say no (and swears on her not-dead-mother’s non-existent grave) and Wynonna quickly supports this story.

But Agent Nicole Haught overhears this from the car. Sure her friends and girlfriend are safe, and a little bummed to be left out, she drives the getaway car outta there.

When they get home, Wynonna invites Doc in for a shower, but he knows the offer comes from a broken place and that it’s better for both of them if they spend the night apart.

Nicole apologizes to Waverly for leaving, but Waverly was glad she did; that was what she was hoping would happen.

“I wanted you to leave” is not the most romantic thing to hear.

Nicole explains that she’s a little bummed she’s not part of this new Black Badge crew, but Waverly is genuinely surprised to hear this; she thought she was saving her from being tangled up in this. Nicole says a sad goodbye, and Waverly goes to kiss her girlfriend, but Nicole gives Waverly The Cheek™.

Frankly shocked all the snow on the homestead didn’t melt after that burn.

It’s so awkward and heartbreaking and they just need to PROCESS ALL THEIR FEELINGS.

Speaking of heartbreaking, finally having a second to stop and think and breathe, Wynonna heads to Willa’s room, climbs into bed, and sobs into a stuffed bunny. The events of the past 24 hours washes over her and the reality of it all hits her. She once tried to save her big sister but killed her father in the process. She thought that sister was dead, but got her back again. But then to save her big sister she had to kill her in the process. Her mentor and partner is gone, her little sister – her only sister – is tangled up in this with her, the whole town hates her more than ever. She’s strong, and she’ll stay strong, and she’ll be strong, but sometimes strength is knowing when to let yourself mourn. So she cries.

WHAT DID I EVER DO TO YOU, SCROFANO. RUDE.

A light flickers in the room, a reflection from something outside, so she follows it to the edge of the Earp property. A hauntingly beautiful Ruelle song plays, Wynonna finds out the reflection was coming from her long lost key necklace, and looks up to see Dolls standing there. He smiles a rare, bright smile, a tear falls from his cheek. They exchange no words, but still say so much to each other. They smile-cry their goodbyes, and just like that, Dolls is gone.

Wynonna finds Waverly back on the porch with hot drinks for both of them. Wynonna says her job now is to keep Waverly safe. That’s all that matters now.

The fun has just begun, my friends.

So it’s time to go break a curse. But maybe it’s herself Wynonna needs to protect, because as Waverly follows her big sister back into the fray, her eyes go black once more.

I hate how into this look I am.

It makes me nervous because I can’t tell if she’s starting to learn to control it, or if it’s controlling her. Is she possessed, or does she have a new power? Are Waverly and a Demon fighting for custody of her body, or is something evil infecting her very being? I need answers and I need them ASAP because I am VERY worried about our girl.

The tag at the end of the episode shows a Black Badge storage room, where a creepy-ass hand with creepy-ass jewelry reaches out of a box and scratches some dynamite. The box goes boom, and sometimes tells me it didn’t kill whatever was inside.

Okay, sound off! What did you think of the first episode of the new season? Worth the wait? (I say yes.) Tell me everything you loved, all your hopes and dreams and fears. We have a whole week to process this episode together.

Oh, but while you wait, because Wynonna Earp cares about its fans, there are plenty of other goodies to enjoy in the meantime. Including but not limited to, Purgatory PD’s functional website: http://www.purgatorysd.com/

Right now there’s a case of a home invasion on there (where I think you’ll find a familiar voice…) and a video chat between Nicole and Waverly. So check it out and let’s talk about that, too.