Wynonna Earp – When You Call My Name

By starrymag | August 2, 2018

By: Maggie Stankiewicz

 

 

It takes a lot to shock an Earp, but a car accident and a tumble down a cliff will certainly do the trick. Waverly (Dominique Provost-Chalkley) and Wynonna (Melanie Scrofano) both survived their beloved truck’s demise – but their fates are still uncertain. A feral man drags a shrieking Waverly across the barren, snowy landscape with her blood coloring the snowbanks in hasty brushstrokes. Wynonna slowly finds herself roused into consciousness, perched atop a tiny cliff balcony. The eldest Earp cries out for her sister, much to no avail, but she’s not alone out there. A vision of her recently incarcerated mother, Michelle (Megan Follows), appears a few meters above standing on the cliff’s edge, managing to somehow ridicule and encourage Wynonna within the span of a few snarky sentences. Wynonna dismisses the mirage of her mother as a side-effect of shock, but she needs her mother to retrieve the memories necessary for her survival. Their long ago camping trips yielded a set of rules that Wynonna would need to access in order to ascend the cliff and save Waverly. One, don’t panic. Two, assess the situation calmly. Three, take inventory.

 

Wynonna takes the advice to heart, improves her situational awareness and painfully pops her dislocated shoulder back into place. The physical pain is jarring, but the thought of leaving Waverly alone in the wilderness is enough for Wynonna to swallow the symptoms of her injury. While Wynonna ascends the cliff after being forced to leave Peacemaker behind, Waverly has found herself imprisoned within the Rustic Revenant’s hunting cabin. Hunting tarps, weapons and fur adornments only add to the cabin’s sylvan charms – but enough about the décor. This Revenant is more than just an animal, he set a trap for the Earp’s vehicle and he caught them. Beyond his aptitude for trapping, the demon has the Ursulonian ability to steal the voices of his victims. He showboats the magic trick to Waverly and lets her stew in her own fear until she receives a call from Nicole (Kat Barrell). The little Earp attempts to bargain with the demon, but instead he steals her voice and answers the phone, hoping to keep her off the trail.

 

Once Wynonna successfully scales the bluff, she runs to the truck in search of Waverly. Her sister is gone, but the trail of her blood is not. With a little placating from the very vocal illusion of her mother, Wynonna takes inventory, finds a bottle of hooch and a tire iron.

 

Back at HQ, Jeremy (Varun Saranga), Dolls (Shamier Anderson) and Nicole have a few brief and somewhat concerning exchanges. Nicole first grumbles about Waverly’s dismissal of her just a few moments prior. Dolls tells her that it was to be expected given the conversation she was supposed to be having with Wynonna about their mother. Wynonna had been keeping Michelle’s whereabouts secret for a very long time and Waverly was bound to be a little bundle of rage afterward. Jeremy butts in to comment on his hatred of secrets, but Dolls shuts him down. The gang is clearly suffering from some congested lines of communication – something that never ends well for our band of outlaws and misfits. Dolls steers the conversation in a different direction, one related to the Cult of Bulshar massacres. Jeremy reveals that whoever is responsible for the killings was able to move supernaturally fast. If it wasn’t Bulshar, then someone else was killing in his name while the demon was entombed.

 

Nicole is rattled by the news and goes off to meet up with her girlfriend. The moment Nicole is out of earshot, Jeremy asks Dolls if he’s experiencing any symptoms. Dolls goes on the defense, disinterested in hearing Jeremy’s concern for him; then leaves to find Doc (Tim Rozon). Dolls finds him throwing knives at Shorty’s. There is a certain tension between the two men. Dolls offers to lend Doc an ear, but Doc’s mood has been soured by something that only Doc can rectify. Still affected by their time in a Wynonna-less world, Doc is traumatized from the duel that killed both him and Dolls. Doc reveals that he went to hell and questions his own efforts to find heroism. If his fate is not determined by the good deeds he has committed – what point is there in taking the high road? This question represents the intrinsic differences between Doc and Doll and their motivations, but Doc is too blinded by his fury to recognize it. He accuses Dolls of being a murderer, just like him…but Dolls knows himself better than that. Dolls knows that his commitment to good, and not to a good afterlife, is what makes him a hero.

 

Bulshar’s symbol is etched into the trunks of the trees that Wynonna (and her mother) walk through. Too distracted by her conversation with the vision of her mom, Wynonna misses the sinister insignia and reminisces about her own troubled past. Michelle’s presence soon reveals itself to be an optical manifestation of Wynonna’s worst fears; the loneliness associated with being a hero and the consequences of being a part of the Earp-Gibson clan. Wynonna is at risk of become a solitary martyr, but she’s a product of her past environment. The friends and family that she has found now have begun to make her into something more, something better. Wynonna contests her mother’s criticisms, but it’s no use. The fear has buried itself in too deep, the fear that she and her mother are the same; abandoning their children. When the harshness of the self-accusation sets in, Mama Earp disappears.

 

In her quest to find Waverly, Nicole encounters a man in the wilderness who was separated from his son. He reveals that he was only able to make his way back to civilization after spotting a flash of blue – color from an upturned pickup truck. The desperate father shows Nicole the scene of the wreck and instantly knows that the Earp women are in trouble. And, oh, in trouble they are. Back at the hunting cabin, the man’s son responds to the pleas of a “woman” just out of eyesight. He enters to find a shackled Waverly, but when he advances towards her – a rigged wire opens up his throat. He falls to the ground while Waverly struggles to let out a scream. The demon returns, pleased with this unexpected kill, and throws Waverly into a cage.

 

Doc is left alone at Shorty’s to contemplate his motivations, but only for a few brief moments. Jeremy arrives soon after Dolls leaves and promptly spills the beans about Dolls’ questionable behavior. Doc had already deduced that Dolls’ drugs were not working, but Jeremy’s inability to keep a secret lead to just a little more leakage. The drugs are making him unstable and they’ve been unable to revise the formula. Doc is frightened at the prospect of Dolls’ instability, but when Nicole sends a text out to the team alerting them of the car accident – everyone buries their present issues to save their girls. Doc leaves with an earpiece from Jeremy and tells the tiny scientist to notify Dolls that he is needed. Jeremy agrees to oblige, but never does make the call.

 

Not one to be kept away from her sister for too long, Wynonna barges into the Revenant’s cabin. Waverly uses body language to stop her sister, not wanting to watch a repeat of her last attempted savior’s demise. It takes a few seconds, but the Earp women find their groove and are able to evade the traps set within the cabin using non-verbal cues. Before the rescue can be fully executed, the demon returns. It’s a brief encounter, as he runs off to check his trap line, giving Wynonna another opportunity to liberate her sister. In the moments in which Wynonna fiddles with the old iron lock of Waverly’s cage, we realize that the sisters had no time to discuss the secrets Wynonna had been keeping from her sister.

 

Waverly is clutching the penitentiary visitor’s pass that had been stowed away in the truck. Wynonna’s knows she messed up again and Waverly knows that she has once more been perceived as the little broken bird in need of protection. Waverly Earp has been in a cage for her entire life, secrets forming iron bars around her; only tasting freedom when those around her deem her worthy of the truth. Wynonna apologizes with her words and Waverly acknowledges her sister’s sentiments but does not forgive her. Wynonna runs outside with her trusty tire iron to engage the revenant. When she mentions Bulshar’s name, the lesser-demon begins to tremble in a sure sign of the hell that’s to come. Yet Wynonna needs to take her demons out one at a time. She bolts into the woods, using a recording of her voice to throw off the demon, and traps him in his own ditch. Waverly’s voice returns instantly and Wynonna runs back inside to save her sister without distractions and angry silences…or so she thinks.

 

Elsewhere in the Iceland tundra, Nicole and Doc survey the scene of the truck wreck. With their women missing, the newly formed team known as “Haught Doc” are ready to storm each and every proverbial castle until they find their damsels in distress. Jeremy guides Nicole and Doc from his makeshift laboratory until Dolls saunters in looking for an update on the whereabouts of the Earp sisters. Guilt chips away at Jeremy’s face until he resigns with a half-hearted, “I was gonna call you,” a clear indicator that he in fact was not planning on doing so. He lied to Doc and he hid the truth from his superior. Dolls’ frustration grows and he warns Jeremy of the dangers of inaction in the face of fear. Dolls grabs the vial of his dragon juice and eyes it suspiciously. Jeremy’s begs Dolls to warn the others of what might happen if Dolls uses it, but his mind has already been made. Help his family at all costs.

 

Thanks to Jeremy’s prior assistance, Nicole and Doc make their way to the now dead-ish revenant’s property, where they spot Wynonna just hanging around – literally. Caught in the snares of one final trap, Wynonna swings from a rope that pulled her upside and up in the air. Doc cuts her down quickly. Unbeknownst to them they have an audience. Through the thicket Bulshar and his Black Beret watch the team band together. They smile in knowing that it’s not yet the time to strike. Their audience isn’t big enough, but it will be soon.

 

The entire gang, except Jeremy, regroups around the upturned body of Wynonna’s truck. Nicole and Doc work to warm and comfort a chilled and betrayed Waverly while Dolls and Wynonna share a tender moment of mutual respect, love and tenderness. Dolls reads Wynonna’s face like a book, understanding that the secrets she kept from Waverly have already driven a wedge between them. He lets her go, watching hopefully as she wordlessly approaches her sister. Waverly isn’t ready to accept her sister’s apologies or even her explanations. The tension between them is thicker than Wynonna’s luscious locks, but even the sharpest pair of shears couldn’t cut it. Waverly turns her back on Wynonna and asks Dolls to take her to his truck. He obliges. His love for both of the sisters is obvious in the way he holds them, in the ways he lifts them up. When Waverly asks him why Wynonna kept such an earth-shattering secret from her, he tells her that sometimes it’s hard to tell the truth to people knowing that it will devastate them. He knows this all too well.

 

But Dolls isn’t the only member of the team with an impenetrable love of the Earps. Nicole approaches Wynonna and asks about the tension between her and Waverly. Wynonna doesn’t give her too much information, only that she screwed up. Nicole understands and tells Wynonna that it’s nothing they can’t get through – together. They are a “we” and no one of them is ever just a “me.” They are a family and families rappel down cliffs to retrieve the enchanted antique guns of their comrades. Nicole does just that, using the climbing gear she stows in her car for spontaneous weekend getaways. A few dozen yards away, while Dolls holds Waverly, he begins to groan in pain. The instability Jeremy had warned him about seems to be rearing its ugly head. His eyes begin to glow that familiar shade of burnt orange and he grabs the single vial of serum. He eyes it knowingly, fear evaporating from his eyes as he realizes what needs to be done. “Waverly,” he says, “Wynonna’s gonna need you more than ever.” His words roll off his tongue like an epitaph.

 

Nicole is hovering no more than five feet above Peacemaker, when she calls up the ledge for a little more slack. As Wynonna turns around to oblige her, Bulshar’s Lieutenant materializes and cuts the rope that’s keeping Nicole from plummeting to her death. The heir leaps to grab the rope, saving her sister’s love from certain death. Doc swallows the fear he had been harboring during his conversation with Dolls earlier in the day and attempts to tackle the man, but he disappears in a cloud of bats that blink in and out of sight. The team is in over their head. Wynonna’s grip is growing weaker by the second. The Black Beret is teleporting circles around Doc, throwing the outlaw around like a ragdoll. Dolls cocks his gun and begins to shoot. Bulshar’s Lieutenant is not fazed. He is impervious to mortal weapons. Dolls dutifully lays his sidearm down and approaches the demon as a weapon in his own right.

 

While the team’s core fighters are distracted, Nicole manages to grab Peacemaker. Jeremy gets into contact with Waverly through the team’s earpiece. Jeremy decides it’s time to come clean about Dolls and his serum. He tells Waverly about the instability, the potential dangers. It’s too late to stop him now. Dolls has fully engaged the demon. Wynonna can’t stop him – her hands are already occupied on the rope keeping Nicole alive. No single member of this team is expendable, but Nicole knows that her life is less valuable than Wynonna’s. Nicole begs Wynonna to let her go, to let go of the rope so she can save herself and the others; but Wynonna refuses. Waverly runs towards the scene of the action when Bulshar’s right-hand man stops the fight to tell Wynonna that blood would be shed. He asks her to choose. Her eyes lock with Dolls’ and he grabs Bulshar’s Lieutenant. Fire blasts from his mouth and engulfs the two of them in flames. Waverly reaches Wynonna and together they pull Nicole to safety – but not everyone is safe.

 

Bulshar finally steps onto stage, applauding the show he’d been directing from the safety of the shadows; clapping as the curtain falls for one of our heroes. Doc calls Wynonna’s name in desperation and that’s when they see him. Dolls is on the ground and he isn’t getting up. Doc pleads with him, Nicole attempts CPR and Waverly accepts the truth. Waverly tearfully looks into the eyes of her sister and tells her that Dolls is gone. Nicole and Doc gracefully leave the scene to allow the Earps space to mourn their loss, but they’re not completely alone. Mama Earp appears behind the two of them, whispering words of comfort into their ears – giving Wynonna the validation she needs to believe the words forming in the back of her mind. Just as Mama Earp had said at the start of this whole mess: sometimes it’s the fear that kills you, sometimes it’s the demon. It was the demon who killed Dolls, the demon within him, but in turn Dolls killed his demon. Xavier Dolls didn’t let the fear of what might happen stop him – he let it push him through the hardest decision of his life; and through it…he found peace.

 

This was his love letter to Wynonna, to the entire team. It was his goodbye kiss to the woman who never ceased to challenge him, it was a warm embrace to his good friend Waverly, it was one last machismo stand-off with Dolls and it was the ultimate salute to his comrade Nicole. Xavier Dolls died a hero, died a man, not a demon; in the ultimate act of love.