Sunday, August 27, 2017

Wynonna Earp, Season 2, Episode 12: I Hope You Dance



It’s the season finale and time for all the drama!

The widows and Bobo are being all nefarious. Waverley tries to stop them to oppose the “shitstrumpets” (which is good) and making snarky comments about Bobo’s coat (though I’m with Bobo, “new gay Waverley is judgy”, c’mon Waves, sexual taunts and gender presentation? You’re better than that). It seems the whole protective “my angel” thing has worn off with Bobo on account of frequent hell visits and Waverley can’t rely on him to be on her side any more. With his telekinesis and the Widows they’re all kind of knocked aside - even Wynonna appearing doesn’t make a difference - and they head off for evil.

That leaves the gang to do some reunioning. Waverley is super guilty for all the unwise betraying thing and Wynonna isn’t exactly thrilled but she’s willing to put a pin in that for later and now focus on them being back together and loving each other et al

Can I say how much I love this? Characters who don’t decide everything should take a back seat to their personal drama? And characters who can be pissed at loved ones without forgetting that they ARE loved ones? I love this, I love their relationships. Waverley also raises not being an Earp but Wynonna has no time for that, parentage or not Waverley is her sister, end of.

Everyone is alive, though Dolls has to crawl out of a body bag and talk Doc down off the edge of a well. His seal is broken, he’s mortal now and he’s just had a near-death experience (well he died then came back) and he’s all feels about that.

Oh and the baby is definitely threatening to make an appearance.

They do have the Stylist Dinnerware of Demon Slaying (I’d love to claim credit for this but this snark comes from Wynonna herself). It glows alongside peacemaker so they’re related. They go to the Iron Witch and give her a dose of menace for screwing everything up, but they won’t kill her because they respected her sister. And totally want to exploit her - Wynonna is always brutally honest

So the good news is that the plate turns to be made of the same metal as peacemaker and the super anti-demon stuff that makes the homestead Revenant thing. The bad news is that the Iron Witch is apparently the worst gunsmith ever and can only make 1 bullet from the whole plate

Time to check on team bad guy. So Bobo leads the widows to their beloved Clooty. He’s still weak because of all that coffin time. Also he calls himself Bulshar now because he’s going to be the big bad of next season and really “Clootie” ain’t all that scary. Anyway he needs powering up and a fresh Earp baby. Beth Widow is super eager to dedicate the rest of her life to serving and crawling before him as a proper evil wifey

While Mercedes Widow declares it’s the 21st century she’s discovered feminism and she’s not here to be Buylshur’s servant for all eternity. Hell no, she’s doing it for herself, stealing all the rings (which are apparently a thing we’ve gone all Lord of the Rings on this) which gives her a huge upgrade to become Sarumen (told you we’re all Tolkein) and buries her hubby, sister wife and Bobo in the mine. Sure she’s evil but honestly all right thinking people are all team Mercedes right now.



She is still out for Wynonna though, but pretty much everyone is. Dolls endsup in a firefight with the hot firefighters wearing evil robes (because they cover the bodies of hot firefights) who want to kidnap Wynonna’s power baby. Dolls guns several of them down before remembering the last 3 episodes of Game of Thrones and throwing away the gun in exchange for dragon fire which is way more effective.

Saurcedes (Merceman?) catches up with Nicole and Jeremy (they have a bonding moment where we pretend Jeremy was a valued member of the team. Nicole asks why Jeremy stays which I also wonder about. Apparently he stays because no-one demands  he control his  weirdness and fit in. Ok.. really? No-one forces him to change because really no-one gives a shit about him enough to care about his behaviour. Also every interaction with Jeremy is one of barely concealed irritation at best and outright hostility at worst. Seriously this is only good if we assume Jeremy was regularly being tortured every time he babbles) and knocks them out with woo-woo halitosis along with some extras so she can be duly menacing when she confronts Wynonna

While Beth has broken free from the mine to grab Waverley to menace Wynonna as well

Yes we have both widows on opposite sides demanding Wynonna kill the other and hand herself over to be duly used/sacrificed/turned into waffles. And Wynonna only has one super bullet. Then Doc shows up and also points his gun at Wynonna. If Wynonna is killed then no-one can use her. Doc movingly tells Wynonna about his recent death experience and how he spoke to Wyatt in heaven… and Wynonna tearfully asks Doc to aim high so her baby can survive

It’s moving and touching as these two damaged people prepare to commit mutual murder/suicide… and I don’t know if how it ends is even more awesome - because all of this pathos and tragedy is followed by Doc, the greatest gunslinger ever, shooting the bullet from Wynonna’s gun, splitting it in half so each half of the super bullet hits a widow. One of which is using Waverley as a human shield

It is ridiculous. So utterly ridiculous that it is awesome. Honestly just embrace it and marvel in awe. MARVEL I tell you!!!

Time for the gang to split up again since Wynonna is having a baby and we still to deal with Bobo.

Wynonna is giving birth in the bar with Waverley and Rosita (and still making hilarious quips), they send Doc off to deal with Bobo because, as Doc put it “in his day men stayed outside and smoked” leaving Waverley and Wynonna to get in lots of sisterly bonding before Rosita turns on them

Ok part of me is sad to see Rosita a good character, added to the complexity of Revenants and generally someone I liked. Especially since at least part of removing her seems to be about opening up Doc for his love triangle potential for Wynonna. But at the same time I’m kind of happy to see her pushing back against how terribly she’s been treated. Wynonna’s “I’ll shoot you last” doesn’t exactly endear her to Wynonna. And why should Rosita invest in Wynonna or her family after that when Wynonna made it so clear that she wouldn’t be accepted or even spared. So, yeah, kind of understand why Rosita would be looking after herself even if it involves baby selling. I think this is going to depend a lot on how Rosita is portrayed next season

Wynonna is saved by Waverley picking up peacemaker. Of course peacemaker doesn’t work for none-Earps… but Wynonna makes an awesome plea to Peacemaker to work, to accept Waverley… and it glows blue (not its usual orange… it’s done this before when shooting Willa. Is this because it’s shooting someone who isn’t entirely demonic? Or Is it because a non-Earp is using it?). Does it work because Wynonna asked? And if she asked does that make Waverley an honoury Earp or was it because Wynonna was using it remotely?

Either way she does shoot at Rosita… does she hit Rosita and it not kill her or did she miss and Rosita just ran away? And once Rosita left, Waverley drops peacemaker which burns her - so her semi-heirness doesn’t seem to be lasting.

Wynonna does give birth before having a beautiful and deeply sad moment with her baby before saying goodbye - because she’s giving her baby up to be taken by Waverley and Nicole to Perry and all the people his money can buy so baby Alice can be raised outside the Ghost River Triangle and away from the gazillion people who all want to steal the baby and do evil things with her. In running we see that both baby Alice and Waverley can leave the Triangle - something Revenants cannot do. Doc is Alice’s father and whoever Waverley’s dad is, it isn’t Bobo

Over to the B team, Doc and Jeremy try to fight Bobo, facing off against his telekinetic power. Jeremy provides some distraction but Doc is the one who wins. Hey, am I the only one who didn’t realise that Bobo is Magneto? His telekinesis only works on metal? Am I the only one who didn’t know this? Anyway he is so that means you can, for example, drop him down a well like Doc was and if that Well doesn’t have lots of metal there’s no way he can get himself out. Doc loves this poetic justice even as he talks about what has truly had him traumatised: when he died he didn’t go to heaven as he told Wynonna. He went to hell. Which means he’s briefly experienced what the Revenants have experienced over and over again. This is used for Doc’s trauma not his sympathy.

Jeremy tells Doc about baby Alice about to leave so he better go if he wants to see his new baby. How does Jeremy know? Apparently he has super powers. No, really, Black Badge recruited him because he has completely undefined, NEVER MENTIONED powers of some kind. It seems to be the power of breaking the fourth wall since he refers to Nicole and Waverley as “Way Hought” which is the ship-name.

Jeremy has woo-woo and in the entire season we haven’t mentioned this once? Really? Honestly my main complaint about this awesome show, these awesome characters et al which I’m generally merrily happy to fanpoodle is the terrible treatment of Jeremy as disposable comic relief.

This does give Doc chance to see his daughter. While all the Revenants find a very very very pissed off Wynonna and Dolls and they all get merrily massacred.

We also continue to have huge chemistry between Wynonna and Dolls and Wynonna and Doc. Yup, the love triangle is back on! Y’know what? I think a three way relationship between them would be way way way way better than a tired love triangle trope.

Time for denouement - everyone is happy and alive. We’re warned that Balshur is going to be the big bad evilness of next season. Nicole gets a divorce from her extra-wife who was dropped in for no apparent reason and she has a big file on Balshur. This could be a sign that she’s prepared for the big bad - but the file is old. It seems Nicole has known about Balshur for some time?

And we have a voiceover from… Wynonna’s mother? Wait she was around? We had all the drama about Waverley’s dad and no-one thought to pick up the phone to mumsy?


This ends the season, and I’m sad to see it go. I did like so much about this season - ok not so much the plot per se (though it has lots of cheesey goodness)  - but definitely the characters. I especially loved Wynonna’s relationship with Waverley, these sisters are awesome and their connection is very real. While it’s had a whole lot of ups and downs with various magical complications, Nicole and Waverley have also had an excellent relationship. But there have been a lot of barriers and it looks like there may be more next season. I’d like to see some opportunities for these two just to be next season - without black goo possession, or hidden DNA tests or some other reason why we see snapshots of relationship with the sword of damocles lurking over them at all times. I want to invest in this relationship, I want to love it, I want to like how it is neither completely de-sexed nor reduced to titillation. We do have a bit of a dubiously prejudice-free world but that’s a minor issue compared to what I’ve seen with so many LGBTQ portrayals.


I’ve already spoken about the pretty terrible way Jeremy has been portrayed and mentioned Rosita; I do like Dolls but I also want to see him more centrally involved next season. This season Dolls didn’t even come back full time until episode 4-5 and he was a little edged out for a while. Not always an issue but these three characters represent the total POC inclusion of the show