‘Wynonna Earp’ Drops Hints About What Nicole Did & Searches for Peacemaker (RECAP)
Spoiler Alert
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Season 4, Episode 5 of Wynonna Earp, “Holy War Part I.”]
“I know how this looks, but I’m asking you to trust us.” These words from Jeremy Chetri (Varun Saranga) to Waverly Earp (Dominique Provost-Chalkley) pretty much sum up what everyone at Wynonna Earp is asking of the fans at the end of Sunday’s episode.
As the Syfy drama about the titular demon hunter (Melanie Scrofano) and her family and friends nears the halfway point of Season 4, Team Earp knows they’re dealing with the Clantons, a family that has hated their family going back to vampire Doc Holliday’s (Tim Rozon) time.
They also know the 18 months in which Wynonna, Waverly, and Doc were in the Garden weren’t easy on Nicole Haught (Katherine Barrell), who was left to deal with the happenings of Purgatory alone for the most part. But the former sheriff isn’t talking about what happened to her, not even to her girlfriend (and maybe fiancée, if they’d just talk about that proposal from last season) Waverly. Oh, and everyone, including the demons now living in Purgatory, knows that Wynonna needs her magic gun, Peacemaker, which turned into a sword and has since disappeared, back.
Meanwhile, Rachel (Martina Ortiz-Luis) refuses to just give up on the only Clanton to care about them — Billy (Billy Bryk), who gave himself some rough dental work to call off his family’s creature, the Reaper, in Episode 4 — and sneaks off to their property, where she finds his phone. But unbeknownst to her, Billy’s now a Reaper, and since she’s not currently being targeted, she can’t see him come up right behind her.
(Michelle Faye/Wynonna Earp Productions, Inc./SYFY)
“Holy War Part I” addresses all this and more.
WayHaught’s Reunion on the Stairs Was Hot, But Not That Hot!
Nicole’s guilty conscience rears its dark-clothed, bleeding eyes and ugly head in the form of a dream of her and Waverly’s wedding day, only the other bride is nowhere to be seen — not after what the former sheriff did, dream Wynonna tells her before having her light a cigar for her. And then Nicole wakes up to find the house on fire.
Meanwhile, Wynonna wakes in the barn to find Doc sitting there, part of him keeping watch over all of them since they’ve been under siege. (He no longer needs to sleep as a vampire, something she notes they don’t talk about anymore.) He could be doing a better job of that, considering it’s not until Wynonna is leaning in close to him that she smells the smoke and they hurry over to the house. Rachel comes running out, having put out the fire (in the living room), and Nicole carries Waverly out, who then wakes.
They all assume it was the Clantons, but Doc can’t find any prints that aren’t theirs, suggesting something supernatural is responsible. The Reaper was supernatural, but are the Clantons? Wynonna goes with Doc to the demon bar to see if “the biggest demon Dong Corleone in town” — “I’ve never seen Amon’s—” Doc protests — has any information.
And Wynonna makes quite the entrance, firing an arrow into one of the bottles next to Amon (Noam Jenkins), who’s pleased to finally meet the demon hunter. Doc is offended the more the other two talk and steps between them to tell the proprietor why they’re there. “We try not to say the C word around here,” Amon says. “They’ve always been a scourge,” and because of that, it’s time she gets her magic gun and fights back. The good news is he knows where Peacemaker is.
Demons can’t hold their liquor, he explains, and a few have talked of a place where cherished, but forgotten items end up. Why would he help a demon hunter? “The Clantons are more powerful than me, and I don’t bottom for anyone, not even you,” Amon tells Doc. But they’re going to need to bring something to those who have what they need, and with no choice but to trust the “sexy” and “sketchy” demon, in Wynonna’s words, they head to the Ghost River Triangle museum to procure the offering.
(Michelle Faye/Wynonna Earp Productions, Inc./SYFY)
Doc becomes distracted, however, by a projector playing an old film featuring Wyatt Earp talking about him saving his life, from a shooter whose face he never saw. (Any man who would shoot another man in the back doesn’t deserve to be known or remembered, he tells Wynonna.) But he’s surprised when his best friend then says Doc took the first shot at the O.K. Corral because he didn’t.
“That man was the most talented loose cannon I ever did see,” Wyatt continues in the interview. “At the end of our time together, I just rolled Doc off whatever whore he was enjoying on that particular day and pointed him in the direction of someone who needed to be got.” Wynonna wonders what Wyatt would think of his descendant, but Doc’s no longer certain she’d be proud of Wyatt.
They find the painting they must steal, A Woman Scorned, and Doc just takes it off the wall and walks out with it. But once outside, they notice a Celtic Sisters Knot on a building — symbolizing sisterhood and the strong, eternal bond women share — and hear loud bells before Wynonna is suddenly transported to a convent.
A nun, who knows who she is, explains it’s a place of cleansing for women who lost their way and offers to release her from the judgment she’s placed on herself like she has for the other women. Wynonna’s just there to get what belongs to her, but she still has one more thing to do: bring them the woman, standing between two boulders, in the real painting underneath the one that was on display. The nun even shows her where Peacemaker is — if she can find her. Wynonna tries calling her to her, to no avail. Maybe it’s time Wynonna choose a life of peace, the nun suggests, but the former heir doesn’t know why she’d even want one.
Reunited and It Feels So… Ribbit?
As the team settles back into its Black Badge Division office in Purgatory, Jeremy reunites with Waverly and Doc (happily) and Nicole (awkwardly). He had a lot going on, he offers as an explanation for his lack of contact over the past 18 months. And he couldn’t call because his employer, Black Badge, monitors his phone. (The mystery of what happened to his boyfriend continues, as all he’ll say is Robin is “safe.”) “We all did what we had to do to do survive,” Jeremy says.
(Michelle Faye/Wynonna Earp Productions, Inc./SYFY)
Speaking of doing questionable things, Nicole, while in what seems to be a trance, aims the drill in her hands at her friends at one point. And then comes the really weird behavior when she starts throwing up … frogs?! A flashback shows her meeting with the Clanton matriarch, Margo, more than a year after the others disappeared, and agreeing to a steep, unknown price to rescue them from the Garden. In the present day, Nicole can’t believe what she promised. She did something terrible while Waverly was in the Garden, she tells her girlfriend.
Meanwhile, Margo is eager to celebrate with the rest of the family (who haven’t been turned into Reapers, at least). She’s no longer worrying about who will become the heir after her, either, thanks to an article on Oprah.com. She’s set the wheels in motion for the end of the Earps, she announces to Cleo (Savannah Basley) and Holt (Ty Olsson). The Earps and Doc don’t deserve death, she continues, but to be destroyed by one another.
Waverly and Jeremy bring Nicole to Shorty’s, where Nedley (Greg Lawson) is cleaning up. Nicole wants tequila to wash the taste of frogs out of her mouth (who can blame her?), as every time she tries to tell them anything, she throws more up. When she tries to write it down, she draws tadpoles, which is kind of cute but also worrisome.
After Wynonna disappears outside the museum, Doc heads back to Amon to find out what kind of trap he set for them, but the demon insists it wasn’t him. (He’s just in it for himself, which should sound familiar to the vampire.) When Doc spots Holt sitting at a table, he joins the Clanton, who wants to know if he’s really proud of shooting people who don’t have the chance to fight back. Some people deserve to be shot, the gunslinger replies. But who decides that, Holt wonders, because the history books say one thing while his family says another. He suggests they’re just in a town filled with women who would have them both fight to the death.
Once home, Jeremy digs into the books and finds three possible cures: a spell reflecting ceremony, which could turn her into a demon dog; an exorcism and drowning her in salted holy water; or brewing an antidote soup of fennel, jasmine, and nettles, but the wrong ratio could turn her intestines into snakes. Nicole chooses the last one.
(Michelle Faye/Wynonna Earp Productions, Inc./SYFY)
Everything’s Going to Be Just Fine … Right?
Wynonna returns from her time with the nuns and, after getting caught up on what’s happening to Nicole, assumes she got caught in the crossfire when the Clantons came after her. Nicole corrects her and admits she did give up on them in those 18 months, eventually. But since everyone’s trying to keep her from continuing to void amphibians, Wynonna fills Nicole in on the painting, and the former sheriff is able to point her in the direction of the boulders. But when Doc drives up to the homestead, Nicole gags and goes inside … to the kitchen, where she tosses out the soup that’s almost ready and opens the knife drawer.
Wynonna catches Doc up in the barn; she’s not surprised Peacemaker wouldn’t come to her because she’s not the heir or much of anything now that the curse is broken. (“You are everything,” Doc says, another swoon-worthy line that has to be leading somewhere.) The vampire is questioning his own legacy; he’s not sure he and Wyatt were much different from the Clantons other than having stars pinned to their chests. Maybe they should make peace, he suggests.
But their conversation is interrupted when Nicole throws a knife at them and then runs at Wynonna holding a cleaver. Wynonna punches her friend, stopping her, and Doc, fangs out, reports they’re dealing with the “darkest of magics.” Furthermore, he smells gasoline on the clothes Nicole was wearing the night before, and there’s a lighter in a pocket. She set the fire. Wynonna’s ready to storm the castle ranch, but Waverly stops her. They need Peacemaker, which means finding the woman in the painting and bringing her to the sanctuary. If Wynonna still can’t find Peacemaker after that, they’ll make do against the Clantons and their monsters.
And so while Waverly and Jeremy watch over Nicole, Wynonna and Doc head to the place in the painting and are shocked to find who’s behind the boulders: Rosita (Tamara Duarte), Doc’s ex-girlfriend and the revenant who planned to sell Wynonna and Doc’s baby.
Meanwhile back on the homestead, Waverly ties Nicole up — not for the first time, she admits — but when the rope isn’t tight enough, she heads upstairs to get the handcuffs from their room. Once she’s gone, Nicole looks to Jeremy, who reluctantly frees her so Nicole can go upstairs, tell Waverly she loves her, and cuff her to the bed.
Nicole and Jeremy then head to Shorty’s, and Nicole apologizes to Nedley for spending a year and a half trying to kill him when he was a monster. She let him down, let everyone down, but she’s going to change that. She just needs him to kill her. Wait, what?!
(Michelle Faye/Wynonna Earp Productions, Inc./SYFY)
The episode ends with Waverly walking into the bar to find Jeremy holding Nicole under water in a tub, Nedley chanting, and then her girlfriend … dead?! “I know how this looks, but I’m asking you to trust us,” he tells her.
Nicole’s going to be fine … right? Really, Rosita’s probably in more trouble since she’s on Wynonna’s hit list as soon as she gets her gun back.
Wynonna Earp, Sundays, 10/9c, Syfy
