We’ve known that Wynonna has been haunted by the kidnapping and murder of her sister, Willa, but it looks like all this death and terror is starting to take a toll on Wynonna’s subconscious. In her dream, she’s dressed as Willa, and essentially being told she’s a poor substitute for the actual heir, by Willa’s ghost. It’s trippy and beautifully shot, but with dreams like these, it’s no wonder that Wynonna brushes her teeth with whiskey.
Back to reality, Waverly rushes to close all the windows as the prairie winds have been known to usher in bad dreams. Waverley tries to comfort a shaken Wynonna, but she only reminds her sister that there’s still much work to be done with the Revenants. The sisters talk about Willa for a moment, and so much time has passed now that it’s hard to remember all the little details about their oldest sibling.
Back in first episode, under Bobo’s orders, Doc Holliday dragged a Revenant named Levi over the boundary line, sentencing him to an agonizing fate worse than death. Well, it appears that Levi—well, what’s left of him—is desperate to get back over to safety. So much so, he chews his own foot off to escape his chain. Now that’s dedication.
Did you order a hot and sweaty Agent Dolls doing pushups? Well, you got him! The thermostat is broken at the station and the furnace keeps blasting, so why not do some cardio? Wynonna is a little flustered at the sight of Dolls and his 12 pack. Dolls has set up a meeting with the town manager, and he wants Wynonna to join him. She’s on board until she hears that it’s a familiar name: Judge Cryderman. With a history like Wynonna’s, it’s no surprise that she knows the guy.
You can tell by his Twin Peak-esque office, that this Cryderman is a real heel. While Dolls turns on the charm, Wynonna calls Cryderman and his crooked associations on the carpet. BoBo’s been getting some special and sinister looking deliveries that Dolls wants to legally investigate, so he plays into Cryderman’s ego and love for duck hunting. It seems to work, and they get the warrant.
Wynonna wants to go in hot, warrants be damned, but Dolls reminds her of what happened to the last town with a demon infestation. Sunnydale. Wait, no it was somewhere else, but same deal. Also, if Wynonna manages to survive, she’s probably be institutionalized. Welp, guess they have to play by the books. Dolls has brought in Waverly to stake the joint out and Doc to ID any folks from the past. It’s a real team effort.
Dolls and Waverly tear BoBo’s place apart, but don’t find what they are looking for, so they question BoBo. BoBo’s getting a real kick out of this, and has no intentions of helping with the investigation. When he tosses a gross sexual request in Wynonna’s direction, she’s had just about enough. She hops up on a car, guns blazing.
She demands to know the whereabouts of the last two Revs who took her sister and father, or else those unwilling to help will be on the receiving end of Peacemaker. Everyone whips out their guns, punches are thrown and kicks are landed. BoBo goes all red eyed when Dolls handcuffs him for a trip to the station, and flashes Waverly a look in her secret location before getting tossed in the police car. As Wynonna peels out of the trailer park, a Rev hitches a ride on the undercarriage of her truck.
Dolls isn’t happy with Wynonna’s antics at the trailer park, especially now that he will have to apologize and take care of her mess. Before he heads off to see Cryderman, Wynonna passes along intel from Waverly. The trailer park was suspiciously empty, which means someone tipped BoBo and his pals off.
With Dolls gone, Waverly takes the opportunity to confront BoBo, not only about how he knew about her whereabouts, but why he chose her all those years ago. BoBo sees something in Waverly that she doesn’t want to admit—that her anger runs very deep.
Wynonna interrupts their little chat, and Waverly takes off. While BoBo taunts Wynonna, she whips out Peacemaker and plans to send him back to hell. BoBo is more powerful that she anticipated though, and he manages to take the gun, even as it burns his hand. He threatens to torture and kill everyone Wynonna loves, so it must be Monday. The door opens and in walks BoBo’s lawyer, Ms. Stone. BoBo is released and he follows the mysterious Ms. Stone out, much to Wynonna’s chagrin.
A pissed off Wynonna breezes past Doc on the street and hops into her car. Unbeknownst to her, there’s a Revenant waiting for her. He puts a knife to her throat and tells her to drive back to BoBo’s. He needs her help. Well that was unexpected. Seeing Wynonna tear out of town, Waverly and Doc decide to follow her.
In Cryderman’s office, Dolls has to deal with the judge’s wrath about BoBo and his lawyer. He tells Dolls to write an apology to BoBo, but when he starts insulting Wynonna, Dolls loses his cooler than cool demeanor. He not so subtly accuses Cryderman of tipping BoBo off, and Cryderman uses his authority to threaten Dolls’ job.
On the road, Waverly manages to stop Wynonna’s car so Wynonna can get the drop on the Rev. The very carsick Rev. The Rev tells Wynonna that he knows who hurt her family and can provide a picture of the men. Doc recognizes the Rev as his old pal Fish.
In a creepy barn somewhere in Purgatory, Ms. Stone has words with BoBo. She’s also, it turns out, a little bananas. She hears voices screaming, which I am making a guess are the hell bound Revenants. When BoBo uses her real name, Connie, Ms. Stone grabs him in some magical death grip. Meet Connie Clootie. (Wait, isn’t that who Doc is looking for?) Connie doesn’t like the fact that BoBo is a bit obsessed with the Earp sisters, and she stabs BoBo in the chest with her metallic stiletto. She then has him suck his own blood off of the tip. I’m not one to kink shame, but Connie has some serious issues.
At Shorty’s, Fish explains himself and why he needs Wynonna’s help. Back in Wyatt’s day, Fish got mixed up with some bad stuff all in the name of love. He fell for a photographer named Levi, and they made a promise to meet again when they regenerated. The thing is, Levi didn’t show up and he knows BoBo is behind it. Fish wants Wynonna’s help to find Levi and make sure he’s alright. Then, he will face the Peacemaker without a struggle. She agrees and he sends her to meet up with a guy named Vinnie in a crab shack. That sounds savory. Doc stops her on the way out, warning that Vinnie the Vulture isn’t big on spilling the beans. He wants to help, but Wynonna isn’t looking for a sidekick.
Doc was right, Vinnie is a tough nut to crack. He even seems to delight in Wynonna’s attempt to torture him. He’s able to mimic Wynonna’s father’s voice, and tries to taunt her. When she’s about to fishhook Vinnie in the eye, he finally cracks. He tells her how Doc took Levi to Hellsgate, and left him to suffer outside the boundary. She does away with him via the Peacemaker after he mentions Willa being in pieces.
Back at Shorty’s, Wynonna has trouble even looking Doc in the eye. She tells Fish she knows where Levi is, but she wants the photo Levi took, first. To get it, they have to break into the precinct and look through the records room. Done and done.
Wynonna thinks she can use her lovely ladyness to con her way into the room, but she comes up against something she didn’t expect: two very hetero middle age repairwomen. She sends in Doc instead and when he shows a little chest hair, it works like a charm. Meanwhile, Dolls apologizes to Ms. Stone (Connie Clootie if you’re nasty). She’s not feeling it and wants to hear it from Wynonna too, but too bad lady who I’m 99% sure is the Stone Witch. When Cryderman calls Wynonna a low life, Dolls goes on the defensive. Wynonna is a survivor, he tells Cryderman, and a vital part of the operation. He doesn’t even give a damn about Cryderman’s threat to tell Dolls’ bosses.
A carbon monoxide alarm goes off, causing an evacuation of the building and giving Wynonna a way to find the pic she needs. While searching the building alone, Doc finds himself face to face with Connie Clootie. Before Doc has much time to react, she freezes him in place and says something spell-like. When he’s finally released from his frozen state, she’s long gone.
With boxes in hand, Wynonna and Fish head out and run right into Dolls. He lets them go because he knows Wynonna is up to something. The box is full of negatives that have to be developed, but Fish can’t wait. Wynonna agrees, and when Fish mentions Levi’s name in Doc’s presence, Doc realizes what he’s done. Wynonna confronts him about it, and Doc reminds her that Levi was in league with the Shadow Assassins. They arrive at the last place Levi was seen, and find little more than a foot and a boot left behind. Doc thinks that he probably crawled back somewhere safe, sans foot. After looking in the woods, they find Levi, or rather what’s left of him. He’s alive (barely) and horribly disfigured. Levi embraces his love and shares sweet words of comfort with him. Fish knows that Doc was the one who handed Levi his fate, but he has no room for vengeance in his heart right now. There’s only room for Levi. Fish isn’t afraid to die, and it’s a better fate than spending his life waiting to be tracked down. He knows Wynonna can break the curse and he is resigned to his fate. He and Levi die by Wynonna’s hand, just like they wanted.
I wanted to talk a little bit about this, especially since there’s been so much attention surrounding LGBT character deaths. I recently interviewed showrunner Emily Andras and we talked about the trope and her feelings about it. In regards to queer character deaths on Wynonna Earp, she had this to say. “If you are on a show where danger is ever-present, and the stakes have to be that anyone is expendable, sometimes you have to put your money where your mouth is, and I don’t think someone should not be expendable just because they happen to be a girl who likes girls. That being said, for me personally, I would really strive to never punish a character because of their sexuality. Do you know what I mean? I think that is the connection that is being missed here.” I think Andras is very true to her word when it comes to Levi and Fish. The men are Revenants, and their death was always going to be on the table. They weren’t killed because of their sexuality, and in fact, their love for each other gave them much more humanity than the other Revs we’ve encountered. Their deaths didn’t feel superfluous. They had weight and meaning, and showed a different side to the story. I’d like to know what you thought about Levi and Fish’s deaths in the comments.
Back in the barn, Connie is spending some cuddle time with two piles of bones. BoBo who is getting more and more impatient with her and his imprisonment in Purgatory interrupts her. They have a deal where he finds the rest of her “boys” and she provides him with a lead. She changes the subject to why BoBo neglected to mention that Doc was around. He in turn, would love to know why she’s so scared of him.
Doc takes issue with how things went down with Fish and Levi. They are Revenants after all, and he doesn’t understand how Wynonna could see the humanity of it all. This causes Doc to tell Wynonna about the century he spent at the bottom of well, and it was vengeance that kept him sane. For Wynonna, she can’t live being fueled on vengeance. All this talk about vengeance gets Doc and Wynonna hot under the collar and they finally do the deed on the forest floor. Watch out for ticks!
Wynonna finds Dolls at the office, developing some of the photos that Fish pointed them to. She tells Dolls about her new code, of offering the Revs a chance to come clean before she sends them to hell. Dolls is skeptical, but it’s something Wynonna needs to help her sleep at night. One of the photos Dolls develops is of the three Earp girls, before Willa was taken. He gives it to Wynonna to keep. He promises to call when he finds the picture of The Seven. When he develops it, Dolls realizes he’s seen the picture before somewhere: Cryderman’s office. Well, I think we saw that one coming, no?
Dana Piccoli is a pop culture critic and entertainment writer who lives recently relocated from New York to Greenville, SC. She’s a current writer and former Staff Editor of AfterEllen and covers The 100 for Alloy Entertainment. She’s also written for Curve Magazine, Go Magazine, PopWrapped, and Gaygamer.net. She’s currently writing a lesbian romance novel she’s hoping you will read one day soon. You can follow her on Twitter and Tumblr.
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