What. the hell. just. happened. Was this the most intense episode of Wynonna Earp since we got rid of the goo? I think it might have been. At any rate, it was so much fun, and so intense, and I felt all the feelings, so let’s hop on the roller coaster and go through them again, shall we?
Here are the things you have to remember before diving into this week’s episode: two evil witchy sister wives are looking for the third seal that, if broken, will release their demon husband from his grave; the last seal is Doc’s ring that keeps him from aging which he has now given to Wynonna; Waverly kissed Rosita and found out she was a Revenant all in one episode; and Rosita ships WayHaught and sent Waverly over to Nicole’s so they could iron things out.
But it wasn’t Waverly at the door when Nicole opened it, it was Widow Mercedes, and it’s not a social call. We open at the close, with Nicole surprised it’s Mercedes and her bum roll, who comes in the Haught House fists first. Widow Mercedes beats up on Nicole, pinning her to the floor and demanding she give up the seal. But Nicole doesn’t have the seal, so she dishes out sass instead.
Before the Widow can switch her rotting face for Nicole’s, Waverly swoops in, breaks a broom handle in half, and uses her badass stick swinging skills to protect her girl.
Waverly lands some Buffy-esque quips before going all out on Widow Mercedes while Nicole tries to drag herself toward her gun. Before she reaches it though, she sees Widow Mercedes throw Waverly to the ground and try to freeze breath her, so Nicole bounds over the couch and puts Mercedes in a choke hold, which gets her bit.
The bite told her all she needed to know, though, which is that Nicole was telling the truth and that she doesn’t have the ring.
But she’s sure the ring willl be there soon, so she poofs away for now just as Waverly gets the gun to point at her. Seeing the immediate threat is gone, Waverly runs to her girlfriend and holds her, begging Nicole not to die as she calls 911.
Wynonna, meanwhile, is already at the hospital, visiting the real Mercedes, her non-face wrapped up and her doctors’ questions being expertly avoided. (Oh and on the way into the room, Wynonna asked Nedley for his help and he made it very clear he’s on her side, and it was very sweet.)
Wynonna tells Mercedes about the baby, tries to imagine what her reaction would be, tries not to blame herself for one of her only friend’s horrible fate. Dolls comes in and tells her the real Beth is dead, and Wynonna wonders if that might be a blessing, considering how long the Widows kept these faceless women alone in the basement to waste away.
Then, Wynonna hears her baby sister’s voice crying out for help and immediately books it for the hallway.
Waverly is running alongside Nicole’s gourney, begging the doctors to save her, insisting she’s not breathing. Waverly hears a familiar voice and looks up to see the Blacksmith — no, her sister. Her twin.
The doctors won’t let her go with Nicole any farther, but as soon as Waverly’s broken little heart turns around, Wynonna is there to hold her. While she waits for the doctors to tell her what’s going on, she gives Wynonna and Dolls the rundown, starting with the fact that she was going over there because they were fighting. Then her eyes get big and she realizes Nicole could die while they’re fighting and she hasn’t even gotten to apologize for kissing Rostia yet and and and—but Wynonna interrupts her.
First she’s going to say one kiss isn’t cheating, but her surprise at the receiver of the kiss takes over. Waverly is like I KNOW! Rosita is Doc’s girlfriend and also a Revenant and everything is chaos.
Wynonna looks at Dolls, who makes it clear he knew about Rosita, and Wynonna is mad she’s the last to know but now isn’t the time. This part hurt me because it was the first sign that Waverly isn’t thinking clearly. Waverly promised Rosita she wouldn’t tell Wynonna that she was a Revenant, and then she turned around and did exactly that maybe an hour later. Regular Tuesday Waverly wouldn’t have. But Waverly who was just up all night fighting a physical manifestation of the entitled white male ego, Waverly who just had to fight a witch whose husband cursed her family, Waverly whose girlfriend had stopped breathing last time she saw her? Well let’s just say our Waverly isn’t in top decision-making form right now.
Anyway, Wynonna tells Waverly not to worry about Widow Mercedes’ rampage for the seal, because she has it and it’s safe. Waverly is mad no one told her they knew where the third seal was, but Wynonna insists this was safer. Waverly is breaking down because Nicole sure isn’t safe and the only reason she got bitten is because she was trying to save Waverly. She needs some air.
After Waverly is gone, Wynonna asks Dolls to give it to her straight: Nicole got bitten by a venomous witch, how bad is it? Dolls says based on what he saw with Juan Carlos, Nicole has a few hours at most. But Wynonna is determined to keep those bitches from stealing another one of her redheaded friends and says she’ll do whatever it takes to stop this from killing Nicole.
Waverly’s air-getting mission is interrupted by Widow Beth, who Waverly now knows is wearing a stolen face.
Widow Beth tells Waverly she smells “rare” (WHAT DOES IT MEEAAN) and threatens her, forcing Waverly to listen to her proposal: Beth can cure Nicole, but only if Waverly gives Beth the seal. Waverly tries to get out of it by using the gun she took from Nicole’s house (and apparently wandered around the hospital with) but regular old bullets can’t hurt this witch.
Waverly insists she would never betray Wynonna, but Beth just smirks and haughtily walks away. That is to say, she reminds Waverly that Haught is going to die as she walks away.
Waverly goes back inside and Dolls says that the doctors are going to put Nicole in a coma to slow the spread of the toxins, but she won’t go under until she sees Waverly, so Waverly runs.
Before she gets there though, Wynonna comes in to see the patient. The first thing Nicole does is tell Wynonna what Widow Mercedes had said to her, because she’s the best. The second thing she does is ask Wynonna to pull the plug if it comes to that, because she doesn’t want to be a burden on anyone and she knows Waverly would never. She says Wynonna is also the only one Waverly would ever learn to forgive for doing it.
Wynonna reluctantly agrees, though surely she’d rather schedule a night of peppermint schnapps shots once Nicole is better and this baby is born instead.
Waverly rushes in and Wynonna decides now is not a great time for Wynonnus Interruptus so she peaces out. Waverly sits on Nicole’s bed and starts to apologize, but Nicole wants to apologize first. She thought she was doing the right thing, protecting Waverly from the DNA results, but she sees now that lying to her girlfriend hurt them both more than the tests did.
Waverly says they both have plenty to be sorry about, and when Nicole is all better they’ll have an apology party and drown their sorrows in wine and ice cream and then binge The L Word and be glad their fights were never as dramatic as Tina and Bette’s.
Nicole is seriously afraid she’s going to die so she wanted to make it clear that she loves Waverly more than anyone she’s ever loved. Waverly nopes her way out of Feelings Corner and says that they’re going to save Nicole so there’s no need for goodbyes. The doctor comes in and puts Nicole to sleep and Waverly kisses her as she drifts off, just in case.
Waverly goes out to debrief with the team, and is trying to hold it together, but is fraying at the edges. Jeremy says he needs more venom and a test subject, and Waverly is the first to offer herself up.
He says they need someone who isn’t human, and Waverly decides now is not the time to admit she thinks she might not be, so instead she tries to pick up all of Jeremy’s papers instead, flustered, overwhelmed, scared. In doing so, she knocks over Jeremy’s mug (adorkably called Optimug Prime) and Jeremy says it’s fine, he can fix it, but Waverly starts to cry, “Wynonna, what if he can’t?”
It hurts, y’all.
(I do want to note that during this scene, Waverly is still doing The Most to make sure Jeremy doesn’t feel bad; not about being excited about komodo dragons, not about being accidentally insensitive when talking science. She might be miserable but she doesn’t want her misery to spread any more than it has to.)
Wynonna tells her little sister that they all love Nicole, that they’re all going to do everything they can to save her. Waverly asks if maybe they should use the third seal to lure the Widows out, testing the waters to see if she’d be down for Beth’s plan, but Wynonna says it won’t come to that.
She forces Waverly to meet her eyes and asks if she trusts her, if she trust them. Waverly says she does.
So the team has their tasks: Dolls is going to try to learn something from The Order and Juan Carlos’s body, Jeremy is going to do some science, Wynonna and Doc are going to Haught’s House for clues, and Waverly is going to stay by her girlfriend’s side.
Aaand break.
While her team goes off to do their thing, Waverly runs into Beth again.
Waverly knows she can’t trust Beth, but Beth shows her a tempting vial of anti-venom. Beth leaves her with one last threat, and Waverly is all ready to chase after her, but Nedley interrupts. He gives her an awkward dad hug and says he’s going to take care of Nicole’s cat, Calamity Jane. Oh and also, just to warn her, he had to call Nicole’s next of kin. Waverly is confused; Nicole doesn’t speak to her parents. (A tidbit I liked because it’s a detail about Nicole that we didn’t know but obviously Waverly and Nicole have talked about.) But Nedley isn’t talking about her parents…
So Waverly goes to meet this next of kin and finds a sexy doctor instead.
Said doctor explains that she’s actually not NICOLE’S doctor, she’s just A doctor. And she’s Nicole’s wife.
?!?!
More on that later.
Dolls goes to talk to the Order and Ewan wants Wynonna’s baby to “protect” because “others” will come for it but Dolls is like I’m still not even entirely sure who or why you are but your robes are weird and you just burnt all the bodies we could have used to make an anti-venom so pardon me if I don’t hire you to be the Earp Nanny.
Also Ewan drops that it’s possible Black Badge kidnapped Dolls as a little baby dragon? (Or I guess as a baby who they turned into a dragon?) But we don’t have time for that right now, there’s a lesbian on her deathbed. Ewan decides Team Earp is their only hope of killing the witches, so they give back the plate that caused all that hullabaloo a few episodes back, calling it a weapon.
Back at the hospital, Waverly is at Nicole’s bedside, reassuring her that they’re looking for a cure, wondering aloud why Nicole never told her about Shae.
Speaking of Shae, she comes back and Waverly asks how they met. Sweet Waverly might be in bad decision mode right now, but she can’t be cruel to this woman she just met who introduced herself as her girlfriend’s wife. But Shae explains: She and Nicole were rock climbing in Nevada and after a night of Britney Live in Vegas, they got married on a whim.
But things cooled off and they realized they rushed into things. Just then Nicole starts to wake up, and Shae, being a doctor, jumps to check on Nicole, nudging Waverly out of the way. When Nicole’s doctor comes in and asks about allergies, Waverly starts to say she has none, but Shae knows otherwise from a rock climbing accident. Waverly tears up, says she’s making things worse and leaves.
Wynonna goes to Shorty’s and interrupts a Revenant named Stevie trying to get Doc to let him into his basement, and at first Doc is salty about having to give up his ring and giving Wynonna attitude, but as soon as she mentions Nicole is dying and needs their help, he’s on his feet and ready for anything. When he goes to get changed, Wynonna confronts Rosita by putting Peacemaker on the bar.
What’s really heartbreaking is, when Rosita runs through the list of people who know, she decides she doesn’t think it’s Doc, and picks Dolls as the culprit; Waverly never crossed her mind. Waverly promised. Wynonna explains that Waverly is a bit distracted by now, and Rosita seems understanding; she even offers up help if there’s anything she can do.
Wynonna tells her that she can help by going to Black Badge and being their test subject; in exchange, she’ll shoot Rosita last after she gets the rest of the Revenants. Wynonna says she likes her, and would rather not give her this ultimatum, but Nicole needs their help. Rosita is upset; Wynonna came here with her claws out and gun waving around when all she had to do was ask Rosita nicely and she would have said yes anyway. She cares about this band of weirdos, and it hurts to hear that just because she’s a Revenant, Wynonna can’t see that.
Rosita goes to Black Badge and offers up her body for science and Jeremy actively hates this plan. He never intended for his friends to get hurt during this experiment and he doesn’t care that she’s a Revenant. But she grabs the needle and sticks her own self, immediately feeling the pain of it but gritting her teeth and taking it like a bamf.
Waverly and Dolls rush in and are upset Rosita is being tested on and Jeremy says he’s upset too but this was Rosita’s decision. Waverly pulls the IV out of Rosita’s arm and says there has to be another way. She tells them about Beth’s deal, and Jeremy hates that plan even more than he hated the first one, and Waverly doesn’t love it either because she super doesn’t want to betray Wynonna, but Dolls more or less orders her to do just that. He SAYS it’s because if Waverly gets the anti-venom from Widow Beth, Nicole will be better, and then they’ll have their whole team to fight the Demon Clootie, but it seemed very suspicious to me. Because even if he knew Wynonna was kind of thinking about raising the Demon Clootie herself, he’d know she had intended to wait until after the baby was born.
Anyway, Rosita makes a “that’s what she said” joke despite being nearly delirious with venom and pain, proving once again her and Waverly are perfect as best friends, then Dolls offers himself up instead to finish the testing.
Waverly goes see Nicole before she decides anything re: the seal (not that she knows where it is anyway) and kisses Dolls on the cheek to thank him before she goes. Dolls wails a lot more than Rosita and at first I was going to make a joke about how it reminded me of those gifsets of men’s soccer injuries vs women’s soccer injuries but then I remembered that it’s likely Rosita has been to literal hell and back at least once so I’ll give Dolls a pass on this one.
At Haught’s House, Doc and Wynonna find fresh blood on the floor. They hear something in the closet and go to attack it but it’s just good old Calamity Jane.
They put the clues together and realize Nedley must have been attacked when he came to pick up the cat and sure enough, Widow Mercedes has him in a barn, sticking her rotting face into his and threatening him, demanding he give up the seal. He just sasses her like a champ (not to be confused with a Champ), even through literal torture.
Back at the hospital. Shae is telling Waverly that things aren’t looking good for their girl.
She’s starting to get suspicious about their line of work, and Waverly insists she tried to keep Nicole out of danger. Shae scoffs and says that if she thought that was a thing she was capable of doing, she didn’t know Nicole Haught at all. She meant it as a lighthearted comment on Nicole’s character, but she sees it hits a sore spot for Waverly, so she talks to her straight (well, not exactly strai—you know what I mean): Nicole and Shae were a fun fling; they thought it was love but it wasn’t the kind of love that lasts. But Shae knows that what Nicole and Waverly have is special; which implies perhaps Nicole has been talking to her lately which makes it weirder she hadn’t mentioned Shae to Waverly yet, or maybe she just knows it from these conversations with Nicole as she drifts in and out of consciousness, who knows. The point is, like Rosita, like Nedley, like all of us, Shae ships WayHaught.
Shae says her professional opinion is that there’s nothing they can do for Nicole right now unless Waverly has a miracle up her sleeve, but Waverly just might.
Waverly storms out and confronts Greta, the Blacksmith’s sister, the Iron Witch. She calls Nicole “my love” just to hurt me, then says that the iron in Nicole’s blood is shutting down her organs and she needs Greta’s help.
Greta has heard of the Widows, the spider sisters, and of an anti-venom. She says her price will be steep but Waverly is willing to do whatever it takes to save her girl. So they shake on it; another terrible decision even Waverly wouldn’t have condoned if she wasn’t desperate. You never agree to pay a price before you know the cost.
So Greta writes something on a piece of paper and Waverly follows the note to Nedley’s office where she finds Doc’s ring in Nedley’s Dad mug. She realizes now what happened; she was technically being lead to the anti-venom, but by way of the deal with Beth. It’s a rude be-careful-what-you-wish-for trick that Clear Headed Waverly would have seen from a mile away
Doc and Wynonna track the Widow to a giant barn and Doc tries to ask Wynonna to sit this one out but with that voice that knows she won’t say yes, he just has to ask to be a gentleman. Like how I offer to help pay every time I go out to dinner with my parents even though I know they won’t let me. Wynonna does say she’ll stay in the driver’s seat of the truck, but that’s only because her plan is to drive through the barn and plow down Widow Mercedes, which she does with great skill, just as Widow Mercedes wrongly accuses Wynonna of being selfish.
Doc shoots Widow Mercedes a few times, saying it’s for Officer Haught, and then he pistolwhips her for Waverly. Even typing this my heart is swelling up; this former loner cowboy loves his galaxy of women.
And Wynonna gives her a few punches for Nedley, because she’s the only one who gets to torture the only guy she has left that’s something of a father figure (or at least supportive uncle figure) to her THANK YOU VERY MUCH.
Wynonna shoots Widow Mercedes in the leg with Peacemaker and has Doc tie her up so they can wheel her into the Purgatory Sheriff’s Office looking like something out of Hannibal. Jeremy tells them they need to extract the venom directly from her veins, and Wynonna goes at her with the big needle without hesitation.
Once they’ve got the anti-venom, Wynonna practically skips down the hallway of the hospital, so proud of what they did, so ready to save Nicole. Btu when she gets to Haught’s hospital room, she sees Nicole sitting up, looking fine, Waverly beside her.
Nicole says it’s a miracle and Wynonna’s eyes dart to Waverly’s face and the guilt plastered over it tells her it’s anything but. I don’t know that I ever truly understood the phrase “her face crumpled” until I saw Wynonna’s do just that. The gift and the curse of Scrofano Face is that you get to see every single moment of Wynonna’s experience here, from the delight that her friend is okay, to the realization that Waverly did something she shouldn’t have, to the understanding that Waverly didn’t trust that she would come through. It’s hard to watch.
Waverly just had to wait, to trust her sister. And she didn’t.
Waverly runs out of the room, upset, and probably scared.
As she should be, because Widow Beth has the ring now and she’s on her way to the burnt remains of the old church and it’s only a matter of time before the Demon Clootie rises.
Waverly goes to Shorty’s, putting herself in a time-out to think about what she’s done.
The Iron Witch flounces is, not caring that Waverly is feeling like her sister will never forgive her.
Which is a fair concern, considering how Wynonna storms into the Black Badge office and tells Dolls that Nicole is fine but Waverly is decidedly not. Dolls seems almost pleased the Widows have the third seal now, and Wynonna adds him to the list of people she’s pissed at when she realizes he knew/supported this plan.
Greta tells Waverly she’s here to claim her prize, and skips over to the demon trophy, which apparently they just keep on the bar at Shorty’s…in plain sight I guess? She grabs it and starts chanting in German. Doc runs in because she got a text from Wynonna that Waverly ran off (because she might be rull mad at her little sister, but she still wants her to be safe) and is concerned to see a woman who looks like the Blacksmith he left to die chanting in German.
Doc steps forward to try to stop her, putting his hand on the trophy as if to pull it away, when he vanishes. Proud of herself, Greta turns to Waverly and explains that this is punishment for the Earp girls being directly responsible, in her mind, for her sister’s death. Her methods are a bit more vindictive (Wynonna would have just put a Peacemaker bullet in her brain) but her motivation — justice for her sister — is more understandable than, say, wanting to raise one’s demon husband from the dead to wreak havoc.
Anyway Greta’s plan is, one sister will disappear, the other will have to live with it.
Wynonna is still mad, but Dolls says he might know the solution and hands Wynonna the plate. She asks what kind of metal the plate is and realizes she might know what they have to do, when the Iron Witch’s spell kicks in and POOF. Wynonna is gone.
Dolls starts to exclaim in confusion but then just puts the plate back in its briefcase and sits down on his laptop.
Similarly, Waverly screams her sister’s name…
…but then forgets who Wynonna is entirely by the time Jeremy comes in to ask her why she’s shouting. Oh and also? Waverly is now dressed like she was in the pilot, Shorty’s crop top, bump-it and all.
She tells Jeremy that they have a wedding to plan, and since she was looking like season one Waverly my first guess was that she was planning her wedding to Champ and man, I know he was relatively harmless, but we JUST got rid of Tucker, and I’m not ready for the return of another punchable face.
Oh and by the way, not everyone forgot Wynonna; Doc still remembers. But he’s back in his well.
Holy stressballs. It looks like we’re about to see a world where the same amount of time has passed since the pilot, but without Wynonna. So I have questions; did Black Badge still come to Purgatory? Is Ward Earp still alive, or is it not a reality-bending spell and just a mind-erasing/memory-changing spell, meaning all the physical things that happened (deaths, for example) still happened? Where is Wynonna? Will she be wandering around town without anyone being able to see her? Or did she….cease to exist? Is all this magical dimension-hopping good for the baby?
If you need me, I’ll be scouring theories on Twitter until the next episode. Feel free to share yours in the comments and I’ll add them to my murder board.
