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Wynonna Earp S2.E1 Recap: Operation Save Dolls

As the Internet has pretty much figured out, Wynonna Earp is kind of like the anti-Buffy Summers: whereas Buffy was a “good girl,” Sunnydale southern California-based cheerleader who finds out that she is the heir to a long spiritual lineage of vampire (and other demon) slayers, Wynonna is a middle of nowhere, arctic Purgatory-based “bad girl” figure who is the heir to gunslinger Wyatt Earp’s curse of having to kill 77 demons (called Revenants because they are the demonic form of men that Wyatt killed).

Both carried the day with the help of a gang of supporters (the Scooby gang, in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) who served to provide backup and guidance. The unintentional similarities between them doesn’t diminish “Wynonna Earp,” however; there’s a reason “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” was an iconic show of the 2000s and went six seasons. It represented the zeitgeist of the early 2000s, just as “Wynonna Earp” in many ways represents the anti-hero, anti-establishment sentiment of the 2010s.

The Little Show That Could has tons of things that commend it: good scripts, a fun plot, a cast that’s super engaged with their fans, an awesome showrunner (Emily Andras) and most of all-at least for us-WayHaught, the adorable relationship between Waverly Earp and Officer Nicole Haught. Let’s pause for a moment and recognize that while Willow and Tara were holding hands and singing about metaphorical sex, #wayhaught is an actual dedicated section on syfy.com’s “Wynonna Earp” page, right after the cast tab. There’s no section for the Wynonna-Doc Holliday-Deputy Marshall Dolls love triangle, for the record. That’s how supportive the show is of its lesbian pairing, and that’s how popular WayHaught is among the fans.

 

But if you watch this show, and I’m sure you do, you know all that. So, when last we left, Wynonna had just killed her own long-lost sister Willa to save her from being eaten alive by a giant worm snake thing and stop a Hellmouth opening up in Purgatory, Doc was literally touched by an angel (Purgatory is the battleground between heaven and hell, physically and scripturally, right?), Dolls was letting his inner demon out, Bobo–the season’s “Big Bad”–finally got dusted, and Nicole became The Lesbian Who Lived because apparently no other lesbian TV characters have thought to wear bullet proof vests (it was unintentional, but nevertheless a strike back against Bury Your Gays).

Oh right, and also Waverly was all like, “Oh hey, nasty goey black stuff. I should touch it because that’s definitely what one should do to demonic worm blood. Probably this won’t end badly.” And as one might expect, she promptly got taken over by some demon thing and pulled a gun on Wynonna. Or as I would bet, rather than being possessed, the worm goo or whatever it was actually woke something latent in her. As Bobo said, she’s not an Earp. Half Revenant, anyone? Cue season 2!

We start season two with Waverly and Doc running through Purgatory’s snowy woods. It turns out that what looked like Waverly pulling a gun and taking a shot in the direction of Wynonna and Doc was actually just trick of the camera angle. In fact, Waverly tried to shoot something behind Doc. Psych! To be precise, it was a big ugly thing with no eyes and big teeth, and she must have missed, based on the fact that it’s definitely not dead as it closes in on Waverly and Doc. Wynonna dispatches it handily with Peacemaker, however. Apparently now in addition to Revenants coming to Purgatory, a whole bunch of other monsters have come through the Hellmouth and want to play. This opens the show up to more possibilities (and the comic certainly didn’t confine itself to just Revenants), but also makes it a lot more like “Buffy,” for better or worse. Wynonna, Doc, and Waverly walk away from the dead monster in slow motion because that’s what you do when you’re a modern gunslinger.

 

 

“America, heck yeah!” (filmed in Canada)

Meanwhile, in a secret US government facility, Dolls succeeds in getting the nuclear tipped Tomahawk strike called off Purgatory (TIL, the US arsenal no longer includes nuclear-tipped cruise missiles), but he’s still getting locked away, with a gratuitous cattle prod to the stomach to remind him who’s boss. It’s the angry blonde woman. That’s who’s the boss. Agent Lucado.

At the Sheriff’s office, Sheriff Nedley manages to smoke and mirror away the events of “I Walk the Line” by telling reporters that Bobo was Wynonna’s jilted lover and that he poisoned the town to win her back. It’s “fake news,” but you have to admit that it would actually make some logical sense if you didn’t know your town was basically a Hellmouth for the 77 Revenants. Nedley tells Wynonna she “might be the hero Purgatory deserves, but just not the one it needs right now,” which is a super backhanded not at all compliment.

Wynonna discovers that the Black Badge Division has swept in and is sanitizing all of Dolls’ workspace, so she sets off to find out where Dolls lived, which turns out to be a motel occupied by Tamsin from “Lost Girl.” Which of course necessitates a half-naked wrestling match. Because why wouldn’t you do that if you were Emily Andras? “Contributes to the plot.” Actually, I love it because at ClexaCon Andras was asked whether she’d have Rachel Skarsten on “Wynonna Earp” based on their work together on “Lost Girl,” and it’s great to see they enjoy working together so much that they did reunite on “Wynonna Earp.”

  Tamsin, I mean Eliza, is Dolls’ partner, and she’s never heard of Wynonna. “Well, you have amazing taste in underwear,” Wynonna replies, because really, what else can you say when straddling a half-naked woman whose room you broke into? And speaking of straddling, Waverly is applying some wound cream to where Willa’s bullet struck Nicole’s chest and trying to start some half-naked wrestling of her own, but Nicole pulls away with the remark that Waverly tastes different…contributing to my belief that Nicole is probably a werewolf. It’s a hunch, roll with it. Doc arrives and Nicole leaves to feed the cat because you know, lesbian. Doc wants to know how Waverly is holding up, but Waverly is doing just fine. Strong like a demon.

Back in the sexy hotel room, Eliza has put on skin-tight clothing because in Purgatory, laundry machines have REALLY hot water. This also explains why Nicole, Waverly, and now Eliza all have their midriffs bared in the middle of freaking winter. It’s a sexy pandemic of epic proportions. Eliza knows that Wynonna isn’t true Black Badge because she “couldn’t sneak up on a corpse” and her “holds are atrocious,” which is totally disingenuous coming from the woman who ended up on the bottom of the sexy pile. She’s been in Dolls’ room for the last two weeks, but Wynonna is initially more interested in protesting how big of a deal she is than finding out more information about Dolls. You know, Wyatt’s curse, killing Revenants…Eliza reminds Wynonna that she took her out with a lamp, to which Wynonna snarks, “And it was awesome.”

Wynonna finally reveals that Dolls has been taken by Black Badge, and Eliza immediately intuits that they will take him to Black Rock, a prison in the middle of the Baltic Sea with an average life expectancy of 2 months. Plus it’s surrounded by Dementors. Just kidding, it’s not, but I wish it was. Eliza has a passkey that will get them into any Black Badge facility, and since everyone loves Dolls, it’s time to launch Operation Tiny Clothing to get him back. Just kidding, it’s Operation Save Dolls. Eliza warns that they might all die and Dolls might already be dead…or worse. What’s worse than dead, Wynonna asks, and off the top of my head I can think of at least three things and all of them involve crying babies and small spaces. The real answer, of course, takes the form of Dolls with his weird lizard dragon eyes twitching and sweating in a cage.

 

Back at the Earp homestead, Wynonna has gathered the Scooby gang to plan Dolls’ rescue. Black Badge compartmentalizes its information, so finding where Dolls is being held will be difficult (or actually not at all hard, as we later find out). When Eliza walks in, all eyes fall on her, with Doc’s eyes lighting with interest. This is Dolls’ “friend,” Wynonna says with palpable airquotes, clearly not too keen on Eliza’s presence.

Wynonna introduces everyone, with Waverly taking care to call Nicole her girlfriend (awwwwwwwww), and Eliza immediately intuits that Doc is the Doc Holiday. Not to compare, but it definitely took Wynonna more than a minute to figure that one out. Wynonna’s plan is to break into the nearest Black Badge safehouse, but Eliza says there’s a problem: no guns (metal) allowed. Even the Black Badgers only use cattle prods and baseball bats when on security patrol, which is clearly absurd because 1) cattle prods must be metal to conduct electricity and 2) a baseball bat? Really? But whatever, you do you, Black Badge.

Wynonna points out there are still 62 Revenants prowling around Purgatory trying to kill her and with Bobo gone, they no longer have a single leader to keep them in check. Doc suggests that Waverly go check out the trailer park and Nicole offers to go, too. Deputy Haught, that is. It is very important to Nicole that everyone knows Dolls deputized her before he was carted off and it’s adorable. Like, if you put a tabby kitten in a tiny little Purgatory sheriff’s department uniform, that is Nicole Haught. Wynonna, Eliza, and Doc break into Dolls’ office to try to find out where the Black Badge safehouse is.

Eliza opens Dolls’ safe to find his medicine is missing, and without it, he’ll “devolve.” What are they talking about, Wynonna asks. Dolls is not…a man, Doc says gingerly. Wynonna doesn’t care to pursue a further explanation. Threatening one of the Black Badge cleaners, she easily elicits the location of the safehouse. So much for secrecy.

Wynonna and Doc sneak into the facility by posing as Black Badge cleanup crew while Eliza literally ninjas her way out of an air duct. She and Doc flirt about it, prompting Wynonna to retort that Doc’s head looks naked (he’s still missing his cowboy hat). Someone is jealous. Eliza had a reason for being in the air duct: she had to cut the wires to disable the alarm.

Eliza and Wynonna hiss at each other like angry cats some more, then head off to execute Operation Save Dolls. Back in the barn, Nicole is awed by the weapons that Dolls has stockpiled, but Waverly only has eyes for a giant axe. As Nicole lesbian processes the implication of the two of them working together, Waverly’s eyes get all black and demon-y. “This, Nicole, is for the greater good,” she snarls as the axe falls towards where Nicole is crouching looking at the toothy monster from the beginning of the episode. Has she just decapitated her girlfriend? Cue commercial.

Psych again! Instead of Burying Her Gay, Waverly actually cut off the head of the monster and put it in a bag to bring with them. Nicole knows something is up with Waverly, but Waverly is still pretending like everything is totally cool. “Will you help me be someone else?” Waverly asks sweetly, putting on glasses. (Pro tip: glasses are always a good disguise because no one can recognize you. Even people who know you well.) Back in Operation Save Dolls, Wynonna notes of the interior design of the safehouse, “How whimsically nautical,” which is a perfect example of the hilarious deadpan humor of the show. Eliza’s one pass to rule them all, however, has been deactivated and now they’re trapped in a hallway. After initially accusing Eliza of betraying them, Wynonna decides it doesn’t even matter anymore because Plan B is walking through the door. Plan B is Waverly dressed like a sexy librarian, talking in Dominique Provost-Chalkley’s posh British accent, with a “jolly big mouth demon” that she’s brought Black Badge.

Agent Lucado is having a final crow over Dolls before he’s shipped off to Black Rock. Eliza Shapiro is on the grounds, Agent Lucado tells him. Apparently Dolls saved her in a firefight in Qandahar, but left her husband to die and this is the root of her undying bitterness towards Dolls. Dolls corrects her: her husband was mortally wounded and bleeding out, so he told Dolls to rescue Eliza instead. Agent Lucado doesn’t care. She shows Dolls the surveillance footage of Wynonna, Doc, and Eliza waiting on the steps to be rescued by Waverly just to torture him. Waverly, meanwhile, walks through the laboratory of cryptozoological and demonic marvels, still pretending to be from Scotland Yard. Uh oh, Black Badge already has the exact monster whose head she’s carrying, only this one is still alive.

In the hallway where they’re trapped, Wynonna is still incensed that Eliza and Dolls shared a hotel room until Eliza admits they didn’t. She just liked to see Wynonna jealous. Eliza and Dolls are the same, she explains: whatever Black Badge did to Dolls, they did to her too, and she shows them her glowing yellow lizard eyes. She warns them that even if Waverly is successful as Plan C, Dolls might not be able to control himself anymore. Wynonna just wants to go 24 hours without killing someone she loves.

Waverly is trying to best to flirt her way to finding out how to open the security doors at the safehouse, but the lab tech isn’t paying attention to her. When at last she gets him to tell her how to activate the security protocol (my only criticism for the episode is that this part is done really badly. Why would the tech be that dimwitted?), she beans him on the head expecting to knock him out, but instead he just starts to bleed…which triggers the eyeless, toothy monster-a Bulgarian devourer of souls, to be precise-to break through his glass cage and charge them. Waverly and the tech make it out of the room and cower at the door, at which point Waverly admits who she is and what she’s there to do (it involves a “super fit secret agent”). Unexpectedly, the tech agrees to help.

As Eliza and Wynonna bicker some more, Doc slips out and locks them in. It’s his turn to play hero and give Wynonna a break from having to kill all the time. If Dolls is too far gone to save, Doc will put him down. I ship Doc and Wynonna as they share a look, but then the moment is broken and Eliza and Wynonna run for the lab, where the sirens are coming from and Waverly is probably in danger. Together, they take on some Black Badge guards.

“I thought you were good in your underwear,” Wynonna remarks. “You should see what I can do naked,” Eliza returns. Because lesbians are watching. Doc arrives to find Dolls…but also Agent Lucado. She insults Doc’s moustache and pulls a gun on him…and he reveals he’s carrying a lot of sticks of dynamite under his coat. Undetectable by a metal detector and highly unstable, they don’t even require much of a spark. “How do you like my moustache now?” He asks. He backs her into the cage, where Dolls chokes her out from the slot in his cage and the two leave together. Back in the lab, Waverly and the tech decide to confront the devourer of souls. The tech bravely tells the monster to devour his first and let Waverly go, but Waverly’s got this. Whatever is inside her, foreign or inherent, it’s stronger than the monster, which backs away like a scared dog.

It’s pretty awesome to see Waverly have some power and control for once, but when Wynonna runs in, Waverly immediately reverts to normal and Wynonna dispatches the monster with Peacemaker, none the wiser about her sister’s extracurriculars. Dolls and Doc have gotten away from the cage, but not very far.

Dolls isn’t doing well. Doc has saved some of Dolls’ serum, however, which Dolls administers to himself like an eyedrop in the absence of a syringe. He whispers something in Doc’s ear to tell Wynonna, then escapes as Doc turns to face their pursuers. He’s quickly rendered unconscious and dumped before Wynonna, Waverly, Eliza, and the tech, who have been cornered by Agent Luchado. Lucado’s reign of terror is up, however, because a bigger boss has arrived to take things in hand, and now Wynonna and the Scoobys are his. They will patrol Ghost River Triangle on behalf of Black Badge because when Willa opened the Hellmouth, a whole bunch of bad things ran out and now Black Badge needs the Heir to take them down.

 

The Scoobys refuse, Eliza most especially, so the boss shoots her. Just like that. Boom. And I am sad because I liked Eliza and now Skarsten been killed off two Andras shows. A contract is brought out for the Scoobys to sign in their own blood (dramatic much?) and the boss offers a deal: in return for signing, he’ll help Wynonna find all the Revenants to kill so that the Earp curse will be broken. Without him, she’ll never find them all in her lifetime and the curse will continue. He asks if anyone else knows about Black Badge and they fall over themselves to deny it…as Nicole sits waiting in the getaway car, undetected. As Wynonna, Waverly, and Doc walk away, bruised and battered in the case of Doc, Wynonna asks if Dolls said anything. Nope, nothing, says Doc.

  Back home, Wynonna invites Doc inside (there’s a potential sexual suggestion implied in the invitation), but Doc turns her down. Things have changed between them since the events in “I Walk the Line.” Meanwhile, Nicole rues that she left when Waverly told her to so that Black Badge wouldn’t discover her. She feels left out of the blood contract, like she’s standing on the outside of everything just as she finally got on the inside. She never was quite one of the gang and it’s seriously looking like she never will be. This disappointment and dejection mean that she and Waverly are broken too, now, and neither has the energy or will to fix it at present.

In Willa’s room, Wynonna finally cries the tears she hasn’t cried yet. She killed her own sister just days after finally finding her again, and now she’s killed two members of her own family. Light shines off her face and Wynonna climbs across the field in front of the homestead to find Dolls standing there like a mountain goat, a single tear running down his cheek and a happy smile on his face. Then he’s gone.

On the porch, Wynonna and Waverly ponder what the future holds. The usual, is the answer; their new normal. Or as Wynonna puts it, “Braving the winter while hunting the demons in an endless cycle of violence? Sounds fun.” Back at the Black Badge safehouse, a claw reaches out from a box and scratches a stick of dynamite that Doc left. Boom.

What do you think, Earpers? A fitting return for season 2, or do you wish the show had limited itself to Revenants and not added these new Hellmouth monsters? Does “Wynonna Earp” need a nefarious, shadowy government foil, or were demon Revenants sufficient?

 

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