Wynonna Earp – Colder Weather

By starrymag | August 10, 2018

By: Maggie Stankiewicz

 

 

Wynonna (Melanie Scrofano) refuses to go quietly into the light and instead rages against the cold winter night, armed with Peacemaker and a half-empty bottle of whiskey. A lonely tear falls from her eye, a salty stream running down her cheek, down to Dolls’ dog tags, which are now draped around the Heir’s neck. Her silent, solitary moment of grief is shattered by the rage that she allows to eclipse her sadness and she shouts Bulshar’s name into the trees. Waverly (Dominique Provost-Chalkley) and Nicole (Kat Barrell) sit fireside and watch Wynonna make her way through the forest, ready to provide back up at a moment’s notice. Waverly’s anxiety is palpable, but Nicole insists that this excursion is the kind of catharsis that Wynonna needs.

 

Wynonna is not alone, but she’s got more company than just her family. A gloating Revenant approaches her and commends Bulshar for his efforts in thinning the Earp herd. Wynonna is unsteady on her feet and falls to the ground. “I was hoping nobody else would have to die today,” she mumbles – and raises Peacemaker anyway. Her hand is unsteady, and she lowers her mystical sidepiece. When the Revenant moves to strike her, Waverly blasts him in the groin with her shot gun. He flees and “WayHaught” pull Wynonna up into a joint embrace. They need to bury Dolls, but Wynonna’s not ready. If she can’t even put a demon back into the dirt from which he came, how is she supposed to bury the man she loves?

 

It’s a good thing Rosita fled last season, because the chemistry between Doc (Tim Rozon) and Kate (Chantel Riley) leaves little room for any other forms of alchemy. The two stand in Shorty’s Saloon. Kate proposes a truce before offering her condolences at their fallen warrior. Doc declines. Frustrated, she tells Doc to give up on Wynonna, lest he wants to contend with a ghost. Doc knows that while this very well may be true, but there are some things more important than winning a duel.

 

Waverly and Nicole have been tasked with the responsibility of picking out Dolls’ burial arrangements. When the funeral director demonstrates his heteronormative mindset, Nicole finds herself once again fighting to escape Patriarchal B.S. Land – kissing Waverly’s hand to make it known that their husbands have not been brought into the fold about their death wishes. The man awkwardly accepts the gesture yet Nicole continues on to reveal that while she does not want a traditional burial, she’d love to be eaten by birds and spread back over the land via defecation. Waverly’s a bit taken aback – and reveals that she hasn’t thought about what she wants to do if, no, when, she dies. Her family never put much thought into her death either, considering Ward only bought a plot for Willa, Wynonna, and Michelle.

 

Wynonna interrupts the conversation and disregards the entire operation. The funeral arrangements are cut short and Waverly runs after her sister to emphasize the importance of making these decisions. The realness of it all is still too much for Wynonna. She can say that Dolls is dead, but can’t make any decisions that will reinforce or validate that fact. It’s too hard to feel – so she pushes it down and covers it back up with that classic rage and goes target-shooting outside instead. Wynonna pulls the trigger and expertly puts lead through each of her makeshift targets. Doc finds her there, shooting and drinking. They embrace and talk about the dignity of death (bury the man with his boots on, a nice bottle of whiskey on his grave) and glory of Doc’s good ol’ days.

 

Nicole and Doc sit at the Earp’s table, nursing glasses of whiskey while Waverly flutters about. Wynonna, on her own island of pain, sits and stares into the fire – the very element that killed her partner and best friend. Doc and Nicole propose that they hold a wake in Dolls’ memory. Waverly concedes, as long as she’s allowed to distract herself by preparing an abundance of sandwiches. Waverly is suddenly afflicted with a case of the giggles, a high-pitched vibrato in the back of her throat caused only by her body and mind’s inability to process a life without Dolls. Waverly accuses him of being unfeeling, which makes him feel enough to smash a glass against the wall. He leaves without an apology.

 

“What do we do now?” Wynonna turns to Nicole for the answer. Nicole suggests that they go to Dolls’ room and find something for him to wear at the ceremony. He had given her a key. Waverly and Nicole offer to go together. They search the silence between them until Wynonna finds something else to worry about – the fact that Jeremy is slated to perform an autopsy. This act of carnage cannot go on. She storms out in search of Jeremy fast than you can say “WayHaught.”

 

Shorty’s has been ransacked. Dolls attempts to take inventory and makes not of the missing banana liqueur but fails to notice that Rosita’s leftover serum had also been stolen. Heavy movement upstairs pulls Doc back into the Shorty’s main room with his gun drawn. A man stands inside with his own gun drawn. They find themselves at a standoff, but the man insists that he’s a friend of Dolls. Doc ties him up with some fairy lights until company arrives.

 

In a diner somewhere in Purgatory, a gang of Revenants load up a syringe with Rosita’s Dragon Juice and inject into themselves. The drugs hit their systems like steroids, PCP, and lighter fluid – not a pretty combination…and they’re on their way to showing the Earp Heir what they can do.

 

Dolls’ hotel room is bare, but Waverly and Nicole take their time sifting through his scarce belongings. Nicole’s armor begins to crack – she’s just as broken as the rest of them. Dolls had shared his traumatic past with her in hopes that it would help her find answers about her own. Nicole was born in blood, so to speak, after her parents left her with her aunt and uncle to go to a music festival in the Ghost River Triangle. Everyone except Nicole was murdered at the hands of The Cult of Bulshar. Nicole was saved down by the river with no memory of the event. Her parents told her that there was a forest fire. It was only last Spring when she heard Bulshar’s name that memories began to breach the surface. Dolls had given Nicole files about the cult after that, revealing that Black Badge had been covering up similar massacres for years.

 

Nicole crumbles into Waverly’s arms, stricken by the familiar feeling of survivor’s guilt. She couldn’t save Dolls, none of them could – but this isn’t the first time Nicole’s escaped death when others were struck down. Waverly tells her that she’s safe and Nicole sucks it up. This day isn’t about her, it’s about their fallen comrade. Nicole makes her way over to the table where she finds an envelope addressed to Wynonna. It reads, “For When I’m Gone.” Waverly looks guilty when Nicole realizes what the envelope was written for…but she’s not the only one who’d been holding onto that secret. They debate over what to with the envelope, but the answer is simple – they need to give it to Wynonna. The next order of business is revisiting the “coincidence” of Nicole being in the Ghost River Triangle as a child only to take a job as an office in Purgatory. Do they even have free will? Waverly is troubled by it, but Nicole is pretty stoked about it since that means her destiny involves being in love with Waverly Earp.

 

Wynonna is shocked to find Jeremy (Varun Saranga), who is not performing an autopsy. He explains to her that he doesn’t need to because both he and Dolls knew what would kill him. Wynonna’s heart shatters at the news and she once again transforms her pain into anger at Jeremy for keeping the secret. Wynonna tells him to pack up his things as he’s no longer needed there and then she heads to Shorty’s. When she arrives, she finds Doc and his daintily restrained friend drinking at the bar. She asks Doc if he knew that Dolls was dying. Doc didn’t know, but his new friend certainly did. The man is introduced as Quinn (Peter Mooney), a former Black Badge agent who is privy to all of Dolls’ secrets including the fact that the experiments would inevitably kill him.

 

Comforted and intrigued by this man who claims to have known Dolls so well, Wynonna sits down for a few shots and a game of Twenty-One Questions where Quinn reveals that he found an ad, placed by Jeremy, in a magazine that communicated a code his squadron used to use to signify the death of a comrade. Quinn wasn’t experimented on, but he watched Dolls escape the BBD facility a number of times throughout his time at the agency. Unfortunately, he also had to watch every single member of his team die. Dolls was the only one left standing and he only held on for Wynonna – the same way she’s only holding on for him now. Wynonna grants Quinn permission to stay for the wake, as long as he leaves down as soon as it ends. He agrees and Wynonna frees him of his handcuffs before putting Doc in charge of watching him. Wynonna leaves Shorty’s and makes her way to the morgue. When she arrives, she sees Nedley (Greg Lawson) guarding what’s left of Dolls. He knows that she’s there to watch his body and promises her that he will stay with Dolls until they decide what to do with him.

 

Nicole and Waverly are preparing to leave Dolls’ room when a levitating figure appears just outside the window. Naturally freaked out by the floating gothic goddess, they run outside where the flying femme fatale, Kata, steals Waverly’s purse the Wynonna’s envelope. The flying femme fatale turns out to be Kate! With the wake approaching, they decide not to immediately pursue her.

 

Reunited at Shorty’s, the gang raises a glass to Dolls. They let go of their sadness for just a few moments, so they can honor his life. Waverly passes her sandwiches around but sets the plate down to tell Doc about her encounter with Kate. Doc; however, has some apologies to make first. He confides in Waverly and confesses that he told Dolls they were both destined for hell. Waverly questions his motives but is more interested in getting her purse and the letter back. She convinces him to bring her along to meet up with the thief and they slip out the back door. Wynonna is too distracted swapping stories with Quinn to notice that her sister and baby daddy have left. The man tells Wynonna that he’s haunted by the names of deaths of his fallen brothers. Wynonna shrugs it off, insisting that she doesn’t torture herself that way. We know that this simply isn’t the case, but when will Wynonna admit it?

 

Nicole slips downstairs to retrieve more vodka and finds Jeremy skulking alone. His reservation to join the rest of the group upstairs is blatant and Nicole tells him that he deserves a place at the grieving table. He doesn’t feel deserving of that privilege, so he changes the subject and asks why the basement looks like a tornado blew through it. He spins around and check to see where Rosita’s synthetic serum is. When he discovers that it’s gone, he breaks out into a full-blown panic just juiced-up Revenants from earlier kick in the doors to Shorty’s. Nicole and Jeremy bolt up the stairs to help. Quinn and Nicole fight the Revenants and knock them off their feet for Wynonna to put down, smashing them with everything from chairs to sandwich platters. Jeremy tries to fight them off as well, but his brain is certainly much stronger than either of his biceps – and he finds himself on the receiving end of a beating.

 

They send a handful of the Revenants back to hell, but the others flee. Wynonna calls Doc and Waverly to ask to where they have gone off. Waverly says they need to make a quick errand and Wynonna hangs up in frustration. Waverly and Doc find themselves back at the Gardner House where the klepto-vampire is squatting. Doc informs Waverly that the woman is in fact, his wife, before they enter the home to find her doing yet another tarot card reading. Waverly demands that Kate return her purse, but instead she pulls a tarot card from the top of the deck. It shows Reverse Temperance, a symbol of imbalance and lack of foresight. Waverly is offended but doesn’t quite understand the implications of such a reading.  Waverly is special – but that’s an issue for another day. Kate returns the purse to Waverly and insists that all she wanted was an invitation.

 

Quinn is on edge after the fight. He heard that civilians had access to the Dragon-Drugs. Wynonna corrects him and says that they synthesized them in hopes of weaning Dolls off of BBD’s formula, thanks to Jeremy. Quinn identifies Jeremy as a Black Badge Agent and secretly follows him back to the station. With Wynonna and Nicole left alone at Shorty’s, Nicole dishes out some much-needed tough love to Wynonna telling her that she doesn’t get a monopoly on pain or grief. They all lost Dolls, they’re all broken by it and they need to come together to get through it. Nicole urges Wynonna to get Jeremy back – he’s one of them and he lost Dolls, too. Wynonna listens. Grief is often the loudest emotion in any room, but Wynonna allowed it to be drowned out by the sound of rage. It’s easier to listen to shouting than it is sobs, but she’d wallowed long enough.

 

Wynonna arrives to find Quinn torturing Jeremy. Quinn is under the impression that Jeremy is still loyal to Black Badge. Wynonna inserts herself into the situation and convinces Quinn to put down his gun. Though Jeremy worked for Black Badge, he too was a victim. Quinn’s kamikaze idea of injecting himself with the synthetic drug to swarm Black Badge is a death wish. Wynonna is gentle enough to disarm Quinn and save Jeremy. She understands Quinn’s pain. She lied earlier – she feels every single death that’s touched her but running into the arms of death isn’t the answer. The answer is to live, no matter how hard it gets. That’s exactly what he promises to do as he boards the first Bluntline bus out of Purgatory…as long as Wynonna promises to never let Dolls’ fire go to waste.

 

This is it. To prevent Dolls’ body from becoming currency, they need to set him free in the very same way Black Badge enslaved him – through the fire and this time on his own terms. They’ve found the perfect way to say goodbye, by finding themselves at the top of a hill on the homestead – where he’ll always be watching over them. Wynonna lowers the box of Dolls’ ashes into the hole they’ve dug and one by one they say goodbye – this time for good…each in their own way.

 

Waverly, who always does get a little cold, kisses a scarf and places it over him. Nicole, who always did respect her superior, palms his badge, lowers it into the ground and salutes him one last time. Doc, who never let a good man die without whiskey by his side, gives Dolls a bottle for the road ahead. Jeremy, with his fondness for mugs, lays Doll’s favorite one to rest. Wynonna, who holds him in her heart, wraps the necklace that rested on her chest around his headstone. Xavier Dolls died with his boots on. They take turns sharing an embrace, finally feeling their grief together.

 

Doc later returns to the Gardner House to speak with his ex-wife. It doesn’t take long for them to fall into bed. Elsewhere, Waverly and Wynonna are discussing their post-mortem plans. Wynonna says that she, Waverly and Nicole can all be buried together. In that moment Waverly hands her sister the envelope which contains two images. A photo of them all in happier time and a photo of Wynonna, wearing the necklace she left with Dolls. Waverly asks Wynonna what the photo means and she knows exactly what he meant when he said, “Keep going.” Today, they may be stuck in colder weather, but tomorrow will be better.