Previously on Wynonna Earp, the heir herself was trapped by Bulshar in an alternate looping universe for what we learn in this episode felt like MONTHS to her, which resulted in Wynonna giving Bulshar her gun despite Peacemaker seeming like their best defense. Also, Waverly put on the ring they had assumed to be Bulshar’s and it got stuck on her finger, and while it was there she burned a demon’s face and healed Mercedes’.

We open this episode in Purgatory, 1887. Juan Carlo is dictating to a young woman when Robert Svane bursts in saying Wyatt Earp is coming. They talk of hope and blood moon eclipses and Juan Carlo asks Maeve to go hide his notebook. He tells Svane they need to get Peacemaker to the champion, but when he pulls back a cloth it’s not the rune-carved gun we know and love, but a shiny sword.

Modern day Bobo is trying to remember these important details but he’s flickering between memory and reality, unable to quite articulate much to Wynonna. All he can say is that hope is gone, and that he and Wynonna share a fate: heirs of cruelty and torture.

The truth is a cold mirror.

Waverly and Jeremy come in with coffee for Wynonna, but she needs a break from Bobo duty. Waverly is worried about her sister, and worried that she has lost sight of her importance even without Peacemaker. But also she’s still wearing that giant oven mitt so no matter how serious her words, there’s a hint of levity to them.

I mean surely in this eternal winter of a town someone has a cuter mitten to give her.

Wynonna leaves her to her research.

Somewhere nearby, at the entrance of the mine, a minion-shaped person takes off their minion-shaped mask and reveals none other than Anna Silk herself, declaring to no one in particular, “Come and get me, Chosen One.”

Must be a diamond mine for such a gem to come out of it.

Waverly is feeling like they’ve hit a wall with their research. Jeremy says maybe all they need is a recap.

Why haven’t you been reading the Autostraddle recaps?!

So what they boil it down to is that Bulshar can control the trees in the woods which he wants to use to his advantage to gain access to the Garden of Eden, in which are the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge, which is maybe an important detail. While they’re sorting it out, Bobo starts mumbling about a book and tells Waverly to ask Doc about a witch and Juan Carlo, and Waverly uses her murderboard research to deduce this witch’s name. When Nicole comes in to check on them, Waverly sends her girlfriend on a Maeve-finding mission.

Back at the Homestead, Wynonna hears something in her barn and goes in to find Charlie Fire Services fixing her lawnmower without her permission. He attempts some flirty banter, but she’s more concerned with a LITERAL APOCALYPSE so he can go suck a duck.

Wynonna hears another noise, and goes out to see a smartly dressed woman on her porch. Wynonna decides to go on the offensive and is rewarded by a swift punch to the throat. After asserting her dominance, the woman on the porch says, “I’m Kevin and I’m going to help you save the world.”

This outfit may be enough to save the world.

Over at Shorty’s, Doc is buying black market blood but is only able to get one bag. He sucks it down right there at the bar and doesn’t even bother to wipe it off his face when Nicole arrives to ask why he’s being such an animal. But the hunger is strong and Kate is gone and honestly things aren’t going great for him right now. Nicole asks him about Maeve and he tells her that Maeve was a Perley, like the Blacksmith and Iron Witch of seasons past. So they agree they should set out for the Perley homestead, but since he’s not entirely sure what’s going on with him, Doc wants Nicole to take his gun from him. She reassures him that she doesn’t need his gun; Haught came prepared with a clip of wooden bullets.

No one’s ever been cuter while promising to kill someone if need be.

She’s ready to do what she knows no one else would be willing or able to.

Back at the Homestead, Kevin explains that she’s one of a group of Ambassadors who usually just watch and monitor goings-on. But things have gone to shit and Kevin’s dudebosses have been blaming it on the heir being a woman, so she wanted them to prove them and their “boy bullshit” (direct quote) wrong. Kevin warns them that defeating Bulshar will come at a cost, but Wynonna is no stranger to sacrifice, so she’s not afraid.

Kevin has more to tell Wynonna, but she’s not going to do it with a nondescript man in the corner, so Wynonna pulls Charlie Fire Services to tell him that he should go back to the fire station for now. CFS chooses now to want to DTR with Wynonna and she’s like, “Are you…kidding me right now?” The actual apocalypse is looming and he’s whining at her because she’s not paying enough attention to him. She says my favorite thing a woman can say to a man – “It’s not about you!” – and he screws off.

Meanwhile, Waverly comes in the back door to find a strange, beautiful woman eating pickles in her kitchen. Wynonna comes back and explains what’s happening the best she can.

“I’m getting a weird I-want-her-to-suck-my-chi vibe from her.”

Kevin says she’s a WorldSaver and that the Earp girls need to find a magical arm. What I noticed about my second viewing that should have been a clue of what was to come is that despite just having kicked Charlie Fire Services out for being a civilian, she welcomes Waverly to the fold.

Kevin says the arm they need is in the mine and only the Champion can retrieve it, and watch the Earp sisters with a smirk as they decide a dangerous mission is just the kind of Earp sister bonding they need.

I don’t know why Waverly Earp nibbling on a pickle while discussing the end of the world was the cutest thing I’ve ever seen but here we are.

For a moment, Wynonna hesitates about letting her baby sister come with, but she does a cute little pout and begs and reminds her that “we is the team” so Wynonna relents. Ride or die.

How can you say no to that smirk?!

Kevin thinks probably they’ll die.

I never thought I’d be this attracted to someone named Kevin.

Across town, Doc leads Sheriff Haught to the Perley homestead and tells her that Maeve didn’t like men and was often helping women with childbirth and abortions. When the town got wind of this, they burned her at the stake, because misogyny. They go inside and see no sign of Greta, so they start to light a fire. But before Doc can even get the match to the wood, a fire roars to life and starts to talk to them.

Doc introduces himself to the fire as John Henry Holliday, and the fire responds back that he’s Wyatt Earp’s boyfriend. (I love the sentences this show has made me write.)

“So the rumors are true? No one is entirely straight in Purgatory?”

Doc doesn’t disagree with the fire witch, who is now bouncing around to lanterns and sassing them instead of telling them where they can find the book she was keeping for Juan Carlo. Nicole thinks she’ll be better with the teenage fire witch than John Henry “flailing around a fire poker and growling” Holliday, but as soon as she leans in to get chummy, Maeve jumps into her body and possesses her, putting a wild smile on her face we’ve never seen on Officer Haught, at least not while she’s sober.

I feel like there’s a firecrotch joke in here somewhere…

Maeve can tell Doc is undead and asks him to kill her a body of her own so she doesn’t have to share this one with Nicole. In fact, Nicole’s body will do, she just needs the pesky soul to go away, so she cuts Nicole’s finger and taunts Doc with her blood. He growls at her to get out of that body, but Maeve, in true teenage form, just says, “Make me.”

Jeremy and Robin are eating french fries as a “fuck you” to Bulshar and his plant people when they get a desperate call from Doc; Jeremy is still so mad at Doc but he quickly drops his grudge to go help Nicole.

Waverly and Wynonna catch up on their walk from the truck to the mine, and Waverly tells her sister about how Mercedes is back even though her face is not-so-much. Wynonna vows to go hang out with her soon anyway. As they approach the mine entrance, an angry-looking, probably-radioactive Revenant stumbles out. Waverly recognizes the Revenant as One-Armed Clint, and Wynonna points out that he has two arms; so now they know. They’ve found the arm.

Dream. MotherEarpin. Team.

Jeremy isn’t in the Perley homestead five minutes when Maeve decides to try him on for size. But she’s not in him very long before she hops back into Nicole, saying Jeremy isn’t purely human (and implying Nicole is) and that he was itchy. Also that she could sense how mad he is at Doc.

Jeremy wonders if they’re wasting their time fighting with a fire witch when Maeve proves her worth by coughing up a page from the journal. So they know now that they really do have to appease her, or get the information about the journal some other way.

Down by the mine, Waverly’s shotgun is out of bullets so Wynonna goes street smart and jabs the Revenent in the neck with her keys. Unfortunately, Waverly was right about the radioactivity and Wynonna’s hand gets hella burned up and causes Wynonna to pass out.

Waverly gets her sister up and they shuffle down the road away from the very-slow-moving Revenant and Wynonna knows she won’t make it all the way back into town on foot (and they couldn’t use the truck anymore because of the whole keys-in-the-neck thing) so they decide to make a pit stop at the Gardner house.

The flip phones and the oven mitt are two of my favorite running gags so this shot is just pure comedy gold if you ask me.

And then, in a surprising turn of events that somehow still feels right, Robin and Bobo have a scene together. Robin is on Bobo duty and listening to some jazz, which happens to be something Bobo is into, too. Together, they listen to a piece called Like Wolves on the Fold and Bobo loves that devil’s horn. Robin watches this strange being, half-naked under a wild fur coat, half-feral and trapped in a glass box, and wonders aloud if Bobo is a good guy or a bad guy. And I mean…welcome to the team, kid.

At the Perley homestead, Maeve is still rolling around in Nicole’s body, refusing to give up where the journal is until someone promises her fresh new digs. But since she’s a teenager and she’s desperate, she ends up giving up that the journal is tucked up in the fireplace, so Doc retrieves it while Jeremy somehow wrestles Nicole to the grown while begging her not to arrest him when she comes to.

Kat Barrell was a wonder to behold during this entire possession.

At her breaking point, Maeve puts a gun to Nicole’s head and says she can take the body herself. The boys distract her by telling her she can’t use a head with holes in it, and Nicole fights through and takes back over before Maeve can pull the trigger. Pissed, Maeve the fire witch burns it all down. And by all I mean the Perley homestead.

When Wynonna and Waverly show up at the Gardner house, a fresh-faced Mercedes greets them.

I feel like this sight cleared MY skin.

They all squeal about her perfect face, which is #relatable, and say that there’s sort of a radioactive demon man with a magic arm chasing them so maybe could they come in for a moment?

Also my reaction when I see Dani Fucking Kind.

And she welcomes them in like they’re neighbors who need respite from the rain and is not at all concerned by the Revenant because of course she’s not.

As Wynonna and Waverly barricade the door, Mercedes fluffs her hair and says that Waverly stroking her face and calling her beautiful healed her. Which, frankly, tracks. She calls it a miracle and so when the Revenant busts in again, Wynonna asks Waverly to try to use her magic ring again. Waverly tries to do what her big sister asks of her but if burns her hand instead of his face. They fight some more and only seem to be mildly annoying him so Waverly tries to have a heart to heart with her ring.

Wind? Water? HEART!

In a last ditch effort to get the ring to work, she throws her arm up in the air, and the Revenant’s stolen arm does the same. She waggles around a little and realizes that the ring controls the arm, so she plays the Revenant like Wii tennis for a minute then has the arm choke the Revenant to death. (Well, temporary death.)
They grossly pull the arm off the gross Revenant and it’s very gross.

Kevin shows up then and is rather impressed with them. The Earp girls are pretty impressed with their own selves too.

“What’s next, are we going to play Just Dance with a demon’s feet?”

Kevin talks about gifts and trials and Wynonna is like HAVEN’T I DONE ENOUGH but Kevin isn’t talking about Wynonna. She turns to Waverly and holds her ringed-and-mitted hand and says that Waverly is the one. Waverly is the Champion.

The irony of Waverly having dated a Champ is not lost on me.

Which is all Waverly has ever wanted, right? To be important? To not just be the heir’s sister, the research monkey. She knew she was more, and now she has proof. Half-angel, a champion, a light in the darkness. She is hope.

Across town, Fire Services shows up to put out the fire witch’s handiwork but as soon as Charlie FS has Doc a safe distance away…he eats his face. Doc the vampire bites Charlie Fire Services. Kills him dead. I’m sad that this will make Wynonna sad, and I’m stressed about what this means for Doc, and it broke my whole heart to watch Nicole realize that Doc just flat-out murdered a human man…I can’t say I’m going to miss Charlie Fire Services.

But as I said, Nicole freaking out was hard to watch, and Doc tried to say she can’t understand the hunger, that the fire got to him and he was too weak to fight it, but all she can do it point her gun at him. But the thing is, he’s not an active threat right now, and she’s still looking up into the face of the man who has fought by her side, who has mourned by her side…this ended up being harder than she thought. So instead she just sends him away, saying she’ll kill him for real if she sees him again.

She even calls him John Henry. Jeremy watches him leave and doesn’t move to go after him, just goes to Nicole’s side.

But as soon as Doc is out of their line of vision, he smiles and cackles evilly. And the question on the table is, was it the monster within, the vampire taking over? Or did Maeve somehow finagle her way into him as they left the burning building? My guess is the first thing, that Doc is losing control of his killer instincts. Only because of how uncomfortable Maeve seemed in Jeremy’s not-totally-human body, and because she didn’t seem to jump directly into Charlie Fire Services, which would have been a fresher, humaner corpse (presumably). But truly who knows, right?

At the Gardner’s, Kevin explains that the ring isn’t Bulshar’s at all, but Julian’s. Julian and Juan Carlo were both tasked with guarding the Garden of Even, and obviously both mediocre at their jobs. Waverly is a little overwhelmed by all of this and steals a shot from Wynonna.

See also: me watching this episode.

Back at BBD, Jeremy is reading Juan Carlo’s journal to Nicole and Robin at the same time, so we all learn who Bulshar really is at the same time:

He’s the snake. The harbinger of sin, the first asshole, the Original Worst.

Kevin had to make sure Waverly could even wield the ring, since she’s only half-angel, but now that she knows she can, Waverly can be the one to save us all. And they have to do it during the blood moon eclipse, which is happening tomorrow. No pressure.

As they walk Kevin out, they ask what exactly they have to do, and Kevin says that Waverly will take her father’s place guarding the Garden. Realizing this doesn’t sound like this is something they can take care in an afternoon, Wynonna asks Kevin to level with her: what will it cost?

And Kevin says it will cost Waverly. Waverly will turn to stone.

“A fragile soul caught in the hands of fate.”

Wynonna nopes so hard at this plan. Kevin thinks one life is worth saving everyone’s but the Earp girls are both not thrilled about it. Waverly doesn’t want to die, and Wynonna doesn’t want to lose her baby girl.

Kevin calls her selfish then drives away in her little smart car.

Back at BBD, Nicole is yelling at Charlie’s body, hoping Maeve will wake up, or maybe hoping he’ll pop up a vampire, but he’s not moving, and there’s no sign of the fire witch. Nicole doesn’t understand how this day got so out of hand. How DOC got so out of hand. She is, as they say, shook.

I hope she isn’t the one who has to tell Wynonna…their relationship is delicate enough without Wynonna having shoot-the-messenger feelings toward her.

The Earp sisters take their spot by the fireplace and Waverly says that if it comes down to it, if there’s really no other way, she’ll make the sacrifice. She knows Wynonna would. But Wynonna’s eyes fill with tears and she puts her foot down; this is not a sacrifice she’s willing to make. She’s been through enough, lost enough, sacrificed enough. Waverly is the only thing that keeps her going. She says, “Even my destiny can’t be this cruel.” They’ll find another way or they’ll die trying.

“For the first time in forever, I finally understand…we can fix this hand in hand.”

Tears fall from Wynonna’s eyes and Waverly says being an Earp sucks. But they have each other, and for now, that’s all that matters.

As they hold each other though, they realize that it’s still bright outside despite being 9pm and definitely normally darkness time. And if I know anything, it’s that weather doing things the weather isn’t meant to do is never a good sign.

Back at the Gardner house, Mercedes answers the door for her date but her date is a little too handsy and GRABS HER FACE and pulls her out of the house. Her shiny, new face! Her precious, perfect face! Poor gal can’t catch a break.

Next week is the finale double-header, the last two episodes will air on the same night and I will be cramming what I imagine is a double scoop of FEELINGS into one recap! Wee!

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