Wynonna Earp – Diggin’ Up Bones

By starrymag | May 3, 2016

By: Caitlin Walsh

 

Because no one is made of stone

 

The episode opened with a dream sequence of Wynonna’s (Melanie Scrofano), her as an adult dressed in a white dress (like Willa) running around her home looking for Willa as Waverly calls out for her. Then she sees Willa, who tells her, “Daddy couldn’t save us…they’ll eat you alive.” She wakes up screaming, with Waverly (Dominique Provost-Chalkley) swooping in for comfort.

 

“You can’t keep doing this. Killing people and pretending like it doesn’t affect you.”

 

It’s a rare moment of vulnerability that the sisters are having, though Wynonna is, of course, reluctant to appear anything but strong and fine. Waverly knows better–sisters usually do. But she doesn’t push, not too hard, not yet. Still, to see little sister Waverly looking out for her big sister, knowing her better than her hard exterior? That was big and full of feels.

 

“You called out Willa’s name. I miss her. I can’t quite remember, did she have pierced ears?”

 

“Yeah… One piece at a time, that’s how people slip away. Daddy said revenge was a balm for the soul. If I kill the evil that took him and our sister, then we can dream and remember and I won’t have to be sad.”

 

Flash to a gruesome and graphic scene of the decaying revenant we saw Doc (Tim Rozon) tie to a post episodes before, outside of the limits. Chunks of skin are falling off his face, he chewed or sawed his damn foot off, just to painfully crawl back to some safety. Gross.

 

Professional and…not so much

 

Moving on to not gross? Shirtless Dolls (Shamier Anderson) and a little sweaty, too. A treat for us all and Wynonna, too. (Sorry to objectify Dolls, but it’s a damn nice view, okay?!)

 

“I brought you a shirt, put your coffee back on.” Can anyone in this world blame Wynonna for being flustered? Anyone? Hello? Nice work, Anderson.

 

He lets Wynonna know that they have a meeting with Judge Cryderman (David LeReaney) later and Wynonna stops because, naturally, this is another not so friendly name from the past files of Wynonna Earp. Team Black Badge confronts him about Bobo Del Ray (Michael Eklund) and the illicit activities he may or may not (definitely is*) be up to–and he seems more concerned with paperwork and politics. Dolls lays on the charm and gets the warrant to search the park.

 

Dolls and Wynonna, after a talk of being professional and legitimate, go to search the park. Bobo is quick to make it clear that he’s still got the upper hand here and their search turns up fruitless. Wynonna is losing the little patience she had to begin with and clearly Dolls’ professionalism seminar gave went in one ear and out the other. She hops up on a car and declares that she’s just looking for the remaining revenants involved in her father’s death.

 

“Wynonna’s going all Wynonna again.”

 

Meanwhile, Bobo spotted Waverly photographing it all up from her not so secret perch. Dolls, needless to say, is not a happy team captain and Wynonna is in for another angry lecture. Wynonna, stomping back to her truck, seemed not to notice the revenant who has latched onto the bottom of it, hitching a ride back with her.

 

Let’s make a deal

 

Back at her truck, Wynonna is jumped by the sneaky car latching revenant–a knife to her throat and some directions. Luckily, Waverly has some sort of sixth sense for her sister it seems and she can tell something is up just by the way Wynonna sped out onto the street. Waverly and Doc, dynamic duo, trail the two to the edge of town.

 

It turns out this revenant just wants to strike a deal with Wynonna. He can give her the names of those who killed her father and in return he’s looking for some help tracking down another revenant. It also turns out–he’s an old pal of Doc’s.

 

Judge Cryderman and Dolls go at it, mostly over Wynonna, an ongoing thorn in his side. Cryderman threatens to get Dolls in trouble with his (as yet to be seen or named, suspiciously enough) superiors. This seems to make Dolls pause, if just for a minute.

 

Back to the not-lawyer Ms. Stone Witch, we see that maybe Bobo isn’t the one to fear at all because she’s got him in the palm of her hand and she’s one angry woman. She’s using Bobo, and for what, we’re not exactly sure. In one power move, she’s got him on the ground, sucking on the heel of her stiletto…

 

Back at Shorty’s, we see the giddy bro’s catching up and Fish letting Wynonna finally know what he needs. Fish is looking for a man that he had loved, a beautiful photographer he’d met long ago who’d made his stomach “flutter something awful.” He’s looking for him and he needs her help.

 

As a first step, he gives Wynonna a name to interrogate in the search for his lost love Levi–Vinny. Doc ain’t thrilled at the prospect and he lets her know it won’t be easy talking to him. This is going to involve some torture and he’s not entirely sure she’s ready for that level.

 

It isn’t exactly easy, if only because Vinny’s (Christian Goutsis) got a nice “party trick” of haunting Wynonna with her father’s voice, getting in her head. She’s stronger than that, but Vinny…well, isn’t. He lets Wynonna know where Levi is and it wasn’t the answer she was hoping for. Levi is the revenant that Bobo had Doc tie to the outlying post a few episodes back, the one who was desecrating at the beginning of the episode. (This may be a bump in the friendship road for Fish and Doc, no?)

 

Wynonna, nonetheless, promises Fish back at the bar that she’ll take him to Levi, without letting him know what state he may be in–and by whose hand. Levi lets her know where the photograph she’s looking for of the seven revenants with her dead father is, but it will require a little breaking and entering into the civic building, a.k.a. her place of work. How to get in? Doc suggests dynamite. Wynonna has a better idea.

 

“What is better than dynamite?”

 

“Boobs.”

 

Dolls, meanwhile, is still arguing with Judge Cryderman and Ms. Stone (posing as Bobo’s lawyer) over Wynonna’s little outburst at the park earlier. Again, Dolls might seem like a hardass, but we know he loves Wynonna. He’ll defend her, always. And throw out some shade while he’s at it, consequences be damned.

 

“Wynonna is an unconventional, vital asset to my team. She is a survivor that never gives up. And we could do with fewer child abusers behind the bench.”

 

Doc, Fish and Wynonna have set off the carbon monoxide alarms in the building, pushing an evacuation and Doc finds his way to the Black Badge Division headquarters, snooping for a minute before he’s interrupted by the Stone Witch herself – Constance Clootie (Rayisa Kondracki). After speaking some jibberish or a spell (I couldn’t tell), she disappears and leaves Doc spooked, to say the least.

 

After getting the box of negatives from the building, Wynonna is looking to develop them, but an impatient Fish has waited long enough and he wants to see Levi now. Doc and Wynonna take him out to the post where they’d left him and where nothing but his boot and severed foot remain. Wynonna can’t exactly understand how or why Doc left Levi out there like an animal to be tortured, but Doc reminds her he didn’t have a Black Badge Division to back him up so he had little choice in carrying out the hard act to please Bobo–and save his own skin.

 

It’s never black and white

 

They don’t have to search too long before they stumble upon the rest of Levi. He holds Levi in his arms, a chance at goodbye and a chance to totally break my heart, unexpectedly. Wynonna and Doc watch on, Doc almost confessing, but–Fish isn’t stupid. “Vengeance is hollow, Doc. It isn’t worth a thing.”

 

Wynonna tells him it’s just about time and he knows. They didn’t want to live just waiting to be shot by the heir. Wynonna asks him if he’s made his peace and he has.

 

“You’re gonna be the one to break this curse, Wynonna. For all of us. And I thank you.”

 

She shoots them and she’s got a haunted and broken look in her eyes as she does it. Doc is not looking much better beside her. Waverly’s words from the opening come back to mind: she can’t keep pretending it’s not affecting her. She’s Atlas and that world is getting heavy on her shoulders.

 

Cut to a quick creepy scene with Constance and two piles of bones, as she sings to them, telling them that Bobo will find them. I don’t know what’s going on, not a damn clue really, but her and Bobo have some power struggle going on and they’ve both got something on the other. She lets it slip that she wants to know why he didn’t mention Doc Holliday being back and he wants to know why Doc scares the shit out of her. Make that two of us.

 

Doc and Wynonna, back in the woods, go at it over their time with Fish. Doc isn’t thrilled, reminding her that revenants are bad and Wynonna wants to know why she can’t offer them some shred of peace before they go if that’s what they’re searching for. Doc is angry and it seems bigger than this, bigger than just today. Vengeance is driving him, just like it is Wynonna, and his is in the form of finding Constance Clootie who made him what he is today: “a monster.”

 

“You’re not a monster.”

 

He adds up all the reasons why he just might be, but Wynonna is not ready for that. She seems to see through his bullshit. At the very least, she’s not ready to admit that she’s like that (like him). But he tells her to stop kidding herself because they damn sure have a thing or two in common.

 

Naturally, this leads to forest floor sex and props to Scrofano and Rozon for making what should probably be uncomfortable as hell (twigs, pebbles, dirt, c’mon you guys) sexy. Can I also say I called this? Because I definitely did. From the start.

 

Dolls, in the meantime, is working on the photo negatives that the delinquent team stole earlier in the episode and finds a home photo of Willa, Waverly and Wynonna among them. This makes Wynonna well up with tears and my heart break. Also among the photos? The photos of the revenants with Josiah Earp, hanging.

 

Dolls realizes he’s seen the photo before and the camera cuts to Cryderman’s office, where it hangs on display.

 

See you next week, Earpers.