Saturday, June 25, 2016

Wynonna Earp, Season 1, Episode 13: I Walk the Line



So last week by poisoning Champaign, Bobo managed to convince the town full of people who aren’t exactly fans of Wynonna to start with, to attack Wynonna. They’re stopped, surprisingly, by Sherriff Nedley who has been pulling out several surprising moments of awesome these last few episodes. I always appreciate a show and character that can surprise me. Though it has to be said the mob just kind of stands there so isn’t much of a threat to Wynonna anyway

The Revenants could also be a problem so Doc and dolls take care of that – which also involves Doc confronting Dolls about his little phials of unknown substance. Dolls, ominously, says that they keep him alive – oh, and part of him dead. Yes that sounds ominous. More so when Doc decides to inject a wounded Dolls with one of the phials at random- turning Dolls into a lethal yellow eyed killing machine. Oh yes there’s definitely more there

At least Dolls and Doc are bonding. They could be good friends

Oh and Doc fills Nicole in on everything – which was awesome and about time! And fun how it was done.



The main threat is Willa and her lover Bobo the Revenant leader heading to the boundary to finally break down Triangle and let the Revenants out. Which didn’t work because Willa doesn’t have Peacemaker, which is kind of a necessary part of the whole heir thing. Without the gun they can’t break the barrier.

Which means Willa has to go gun hunting by pretending to be all friendly with Wynonna. Their brief team up hardly works as it’s quickly clear Willa doesn’t care about innocent people or even their sister Waverley. It all falls apart when she learns that Waverley – who has been suspicious for a while – is the one who took Peacemaker. There’s a tense stand off, there are guns – and Willa leaves with Peacemaker and shoots Nicole.

Oh someone on the writing team deserves a smack for teasing that. Thankfully, in a practice that all television lesbians should adopt, Nicole is wearing a bullet proof vest.

Waverley pursues Bobo and we get some more hints about a far greater storyline: Bobo saved Willa when she was 13 from the other Revenants – but he wasn’t the only one who spoke to her while she was being held by him. Constance also found her, took her which is how Bobo lost track of her and why he was doing her bidding. He also drops the bombshell that Wavelery isn’t an Earp

Well there’s some questions answered

Probably-Angel-Guy who fixed Doc’s car also drops in to try and convince Bobo of all people not to break the barrier around Purgatory because there are far darker and more dangerous things involved. He appeals to Bobo and not Willa because she is “too far gone” which isn’t a good sign

Black Badge also arrives in force: but not to help, just to observe. At least they can make a cure: but the head has a serious personal beef against Dolls. She’s not going to help – she is going to be a nuisance.


Angel having failed, appealing to Bobo having failed, it comes down to the big show down.

Willa crosses the boundary, with the peacemaker and everything becomes dark and scary… Wynonna faces off against her with a gun but can’t bring herself to fire… Willa can but her gun doesn’t do a great deal with Peacemaker deciding to opt out. Dolls can also fire which he does… Yes he disobeyed orders

But gun fights are shelved because of BIG TENTACED CTHULU MONSTROISTY EMERGING FROM THE STYGIAN DARKNESS

Big tentacle cthulu monstrosities take precedence

The monster grabs Willa – who may even have planned for this: she wants death, the destruction of purgatory et al. Maybe she has a property in R’lyeh.

Wynonna steps up, picking up the discarded peacemarker and points it… at Willa. The gun barrel glows blue, not the normal yellow for sending Revenants to hell – and she shoots her. Willa dies and the monster goes for Wynonna who makes a nice and improbably slide back to safety

In doing the world is returned to light again, the tentacle monster’s appendage becoming dust.

Well that escalated quickly. Huge Cthulu monsters? Who Bobo et all calls the “old one”?


Black badge swoops in in the aftermath and scoops up Bobo for experimenting on and Dolls because she just doesn’t like him. Yes, taking Bobo outside the boundary will do terrible things to him.

Angel guy sweeps in for some vague and ominous words of wisdom for Wynonna. Whatever resolve it gathers in her she and Waverley and Doc are committed to take down the Revanants – and whatever else is out there. And probably bring Dolls home. Step 1 is to shoot Bobo before they can take him away – yes Bobo is now returned to hell and won’t be there as an antagonist for the next season

I think head of Black badge will – especially since Wynonna wants to get Dolls back. Also didn’t she mention something about bombing Purgatory? On the worse side, Waverley touches the black blood and seems to become possessed: including black eyes and pointing a gun at Wynonna. Oh that’s a difficult twist.

That was a definite dramatic ending – but it also opened up the world a lot and begged a lot more questions. In the end I’m left thinking even more that Constance the Bone Witch was a rather unnecessary addition considering how utterly tangential she was to the whole storyline. And since her storyline also included the rather tiresomely underused dead Blacksmith who definitely deserved better.

The relationships did a lot to make me love this show. Wynonna and Waverley have a really excellent bond and it was one of the reasons why I didn’t want Willa to join and am, to be honest, quite happy to see she’s not going to be here next season. Wynonna and Waverley work really well together – they have an excellent sibling relationship. Wynonna and Doc have a fairly typical relationship which isn’t bad but is nothing new. But Wynonna and Dolls has been excellent as they have grown from grudging tolerance to respect and to something more. I have loved to see their relationship develop. I also love that Dolls does have a secret, a past and more going on. While he hasn’t had any of his own storylines yet, there’s clearly more to see in this character than him just being a person in Wynonna’s orbit.

I also really lime Waverley and Nicole – it started covered in a lot of heavy troping but it quickly started to progress. And we actually got a relationship with them before the season finale, that was maintained gained some really excellent support from Wynonna and, despite the fake out (which was cruel) neither of them died! I would like to see Nicole more involved in the next season since she’s very peripheral so far.

And I love the snark. I love some quality snark and this show has brought it in spades. I like Wynonna with her dubious past and shaky life which she’s bringing together – and I like that she isn’t totally ashamed of that past even though she has regrets. Wynonna lives herself pretty powerfully and I do like that a lot.

In all I like this show a lot – sure it may be a guilty pleasure at times and yes it can be awfully corny. But I like it and I really like Wynonna.