Wynonna Earp – Holy War Part I

By: Maggie Stankiewicz

The WayHaught wedding we’ve all been waiting for is here, seemingly despite Nicole’s (Katherine Barrell) last meal of evil magic insects. Wynonna (Melanie Scrofano) walks Nicole down the aisle, both women donning dark lace evening wear. Doc (Tim Rozon), Jeremy (Varun Saranga) and Nedley (Greg Lawson) are all in attendance, waiting to watch Nicole and Waverly (Dominique Provost-Chalkley) tie the knot…but something feels wrong. The guests look far too grim to be celebrating a timeless love. Nicole asks Wynonna where Waverly is and Wynonna tells her that Waverly will not be coming because of what Nicole did. As if on cue, the guests begin coughing and Nicole startles awake from her nightmare in the midst of an actual coughing fit. It takes her a moment to figure out what’s happening – but the Homestead is on fire. She tries to wake Waverly up, but the younger Earp is sleeping like a log. In a scene that will birth countless firefighter Nicole fantasies, Nicole throws Waverly over her shoulder and carries her to safety.

Just a few yards away in the infamous Earp Shed Wynonna tries her best to seduce Doc – who is not in the mood – despite how smokin’ she looks in her saucy minx outfit. Speaking of smoke…they both smell it and run outside towards the housewhere they find Rachel (Martina Ortiz-Luis) escaping the home with a fire extinguisher. The fire is out and so is Waverly. It takes Waverly a few agonizing moments to wake up, but when she finally does the gang decides to have a little supernatural scrum to discuss their situation. Doc reveals that he’s been keeping watch on the property and found no evidence of visitors. Whomever set the Homestead on fire, he reveals, did not do so on foot. He also makes it known that he has memorized everyone’s shoe size and footprint – because what else is a never-sleeping vampire dentist supposed to do?!

The demon hunters split off into separate groups to get to the bottom of the recent attack. Doc and Wynonna visit The Glory Hole to get a scoop from the underbelly of Purgatory. Amon (Noam Jenkins), in between flirting with both Wynonna and Doc, tells the duo that the Clantons are not fully human and drops a little bomb that suggests he knows the whereabouts of Peacemaker. He speaks to Wynonna in riddles, assuring her that the gun is in a place where cherished and forgotten items go. To get there she must locate a painting of The Scorned Woman, which will serve as a beacon to those who run this forgotten place. Like any good historians, Wynonna and Doc decide to head to the local museum. If anywhere is bound to have an antiquated painting – it’s that place, which Wynonna didn’t even know existed.

The museum stirs up a lot of emotions for Doc when he enters a room projecting videos of an older Wyatt Earp (Scott Hylands), talking about his time with Doc in the O.K. Corral – and Doc is stunned by some of what Wyatt says. It seems as though his past with Wyatt was romanticized, the highlight reel taking precedence. The Wyatt Earp on screen is not the noble man of lore. Wynonna and Doc briefly discuss this sad fact, but quickly move on to find the painting. As they move from room to room, Wynonna insults a series of museum goers until they find the painting. They grab the old canvas and promptly exit the museum, only for Wynonna and the painting to disappear into thin air, leaving Doc alone. Wynonna teleports into Sanctuary of Scorned Women and is greeted by a nun seeking a specific scorned woman, a beautiful woman in red surrounded by towering bluffs. As she explains her plight to Wynonna, they enter a room full of weapons both new and old. Peacemaker is nowhere to be found. Wynonna counts her losses and leaves, now rejected by both Doc and her magic gun in the span of 24 hours.

Doc, alone again, takes a siesta back at The Glory Hole. There he bumps into Sheriff Holt, who tells him that their lives are full of woman who want to make them kill or be killed – giving Doc just one more thing to tack onto his identity crisis checklist.

The rest of the gang are at the Sheriff’s office giving Cleo (Savannah Basley) and Sheriff Holt (Ty Olsson) the boot. Agent Chetri is a brand-new man, asserting his dominance and creating a new Black Badge office. Nicole and Waverly are there for back up, Nicole doing handywoman things and Waverly providing morale. As Nicole drills things in, she is hit with a flashback from sometimes during the eighteen months her family was gone. A desperate Nicole is begging the Clanton Matriarch for help bringing Waverly, Doc and Wynonna home from the Garden. Margot (Paula Boudreau) tells Nicole that there will be a price for this and whispers the deal into her ear. Nicole accepts in the flashback, but when she snaps back to reality – she rejects the notion that she could have promised something so vile. Her little episode confuses the hell out of her companions. When she tries to tell them what happened, she throws up frogs. Live ones.

The Earp clan aren’t the only ones making moves. Cleo and Sheriff Holt, recently relieved of their duties, complain about being beholden to old family grudges until Margot appears and tells them there is cause of celebration. After decades of obsessing over her ancestors being shot down in the O.K. Corral, things are falling into place. Margot, having birthed both ineffectual and somewhat kind-hearted children, was worried about who would be the next true Clanton Heir. Now, she no longer has to worry about who will inherit her proverbial throne. The Earps and their partner Doc Holliday are within her clutches and soon the Clanton curse will be brought to an end.

Having moved from the new Black Badge office to Shorty’s, Nicole desperately tries to drown her amphibious friends from the inside out by downing far too much tequila. Nicole continues trying to fess up to whatever promises she made to Margot, but the words are replaced by frogs that just don’t stop coming. They try to find loopholes through writing and guessing games, but any attempt at a confession yields more frogs. They resign and return to the Homestead to regroup with Doc and Wynonna. Jeremy researches possible solutions and finds a few that vary in severity. They can turn her into a demon dog (but Nicole is a cat person), drown her into holy submission or risk giving her intestines the full reptilian treatment. Nicole, despite the risks, picks option three.

With Jeremy and Waverly occupied by some good old-fashioned witchcraft, Nicole and Wynonna sit down for a little one-on-one. Wynonna is receptive and thankful for Nicole not giving up on them, but Nicole feels otherwise. She confides in Wynonna that she feels as though she gave up on them and failed them in the process. Wynonna comforts her and assures Nicole that she had to do what could to get them home. The conversation then drifts to Wynonna’s Peacemaker problems. She herself feels like a failure as an Heir and as Peacemaker’s handler. To do so, she tells Nicole she has to find The Scorned Woman from the painting. Nicole looks at the painting and recognizes the backdrop as Steve Gulch, a clue that will later help Wynonna and Doc find the mystery woman.

Now that her concoction is almost ready, Nicole slips into a fugue state, grabs her antidote, dumps it out and grabs some cutlery. Wordlessly, Nicole makes her way into the barn and attempts to attack Wynonna, who punches her back into her body. Realizing that they’re going up against dark magic, the gang discover that it was Nicole who set fire to the Homestead. Wynonna knows the truth of Nicole’s hearts and immediately suggests that Nicole’s bouts of possession are the work of the Clantons. However, it is not yet the time to fight them. Peacemaker is still gone and the Clantons have supernatural attack demons that can’t be put down by ordinary guns. They lay their figurative arms down and agree to develop a more thought-out attack plan before charging the rival Heir.

Doc and Wynonna once again embark on their search for The Scorned Woman and Peacemaker and find their way to Steve Gulch. As they approach the bluffs, they see a woman in red looking off into the distance exactly like the painting. When she turns around the pair see that The Scorned Woman is Rosita Bustillos (Tamara Duarte). Indeed, a scorned woman, wrongfully killed by Wyatt Earp and wrongfully vilified by Wynonna. The pair are stunned to see a familiar face – which leaves them in an even deeper predicament than before.

Things continue to complicate throughout Purgatory. Rachel is snooping around the Clanton junkyard and being stalked by Reaper!Billy (Billy Bryk) – whom she cannot see. Waverly is at the Homestead tying Nicole up to prevent her from doing anything else to cause the Earps harm. Nicole, romantic and smooth-talking as ever tells Waverly that she loves her – then promptly finesses her way out of bounds and handcuffs Waverly to the bed. Nicole, already getting Jeremy on board with a secret plan, leaves with him for an expedition to Shorty’s that will result in…well, killing Nicole. Waverly breaks free in the middle of the ritual and interrupts Jeremy and Nedley as Nicole drowns in an ice bath. Jeremy, with the energy of a manic scientist, asks Waverly to trust him – but it’s no easy feat.