Last week Shorty’s bar was sold, the Stone Witch, Constance
was imprisoned, Waverley and Nicole began their relationship and it feels
almost like a reboot now we’ve moved away from the 7.
On the minor plot line we have a lot of poking at Doc and
Wynonna’s relationship. She gives him Constance’s car (which he declares
perfect and manly since it is pink – reminding us how utterly artificial and
changeable “gendered” colours are since pink was considered masculine not that
long ago – and blue all delicate and feminine. A nice touch, kudos Wynonna Earp). This is the episode where
everyone learns that Doc and Wynonna are having sex. There’s a general lack of “oh
you jezebel!” slutshaming (except Bobo uses it to insult Wynonna) but there is
a lot of concern from Waverley in particular about whether this relationship is
good for her sister and whether Doc’s going to break her heart
It actually looks like more the opposite. Despite Doc
repeatedly telling Waverley that sex isn’t a relationship he seems to be pining
after Wynonna and even looks like he’s going to leave town rather than deal
with Wynonna not returning his affections
Unlike what Waverley has with Nicole – which was really
cute and nice this episode.
Does Doc have a reason to fear? Well I was definitely
picking up a whole lot more chemistry between her and Dolls’ this episode. She even
uses an almost kiss to trick him into being handcuffed so she can discover the
Revenant he’s holding prisoner (and using him to try and find the Black Badge
mole as well as provide samples to keep his bosses happy). When she tortures
more information out of him Dolls is also disturbed. He’s worried about what it
does to her and how she will be changed by it, becoming hard and cold. There’s
definite chemistry building there between the quips
I also really like that he clearly tells her that torture
is not effective or useful tool because so often shows, especially with figures
like Dolls, will have characters declare they simply have to resort to torture
as a last resort when, in reality, it’s simply ineffective.
On to the plot, we have a new revenant called Lou who is
apparently so big and bad even Bobo is afraid of him. He also has a habit of
hunting down women with animals which then torture them brutally to death. That’s
not a good sign.
When Wynonna and Dolls go looking for him (in the woods
much to Dolls’ horror since he’s from Arizona and this is definitely not his
normal habitat), are split up by woo-woo and discover Lou – or Yiska (a Navajo
name) as calls himself is running a cult full of young female run away who
worship him with no forms of electronic communication – or get kicked out and
murdered by said savage animals
Wynonna and Dolls get imprisoned, giving Wynonna chance
to be terrible at undercover, connect with a fellow inmate called Eve before
they’re both discovered and kicked out with murder-by-monster.
They’re thrown out, briefly separated but manage to
reunite so quickly (and with Peacemaker) that I wonder why they were thrown out
in the first place – or separated from the gun – before having a big
confrontation in the compound where they find Lou is preparing to kill everyone
with his pet killer animals. Dolls keeps the crowd of female cultists quiet
while Wynonna and Eve chase after Lou/Yiska
And find he has an enslaved Skinwalker. Yes, a Navajo Skinwalker, capable of changing into animals who is then mauling and killing his marked victims. Faced with a bear Wynonna is all helpless but thankfully former-cultist Eve grabs up Peacemaker, shoots Lou and when he dies the Skinwalker is saved.
Big revelation – the Peacemaker only works for the Earp
heir… Eve is the long lost big sister, Willa. She’s not dead.
Wait wait wait – that means there is no “heir” surely? Because the gun does work for Wynonna AND Willa. So “heir” should probably be better be considered “descendent” and it also means that Waverley, who has major issues with the fact she isn’t the heir despite she worked so hard it – may have as much heir-based woo-woo as Wynonna or Willa.
I’m going to have to look at this “Navajo” storyline and
the complete non-character that is the skinwalker (did she even get a name?).
This whole revelation of another source of supernatural should really really
really have been more show breaking than this. And there is a major, terrible ongoing
issue of raiding different cultures for supernatural elements with no real
development. This Navajo Skinwalker is just a random monster. Lou could have
had a pet medusa, an enslaved jorogumo or any supernatural at all for the way
she was portrayed. It’s completely dismissive and appropriative. If you’re
going to put this much effort into the use of a culture’s supernatural, why not
just say “werewolf” and be done with it?
