Get ready because this is a chicken kicker of an episode with some dark undercurrents. The purely fun romps couldn’t last forever. This is Wynonna Earp.
Wynonna and Nicole are sparring in the BBD offices with a fair amount of casual banter and titty punches being thrown around (expecting nothing less from Wynonna). Waverly joins, happy to see her two favourite people. She’s especially happy to see Nicole across the hall from the sheriff’s office where she and Wynonna would very much like Nicole to go. Realizing she’s been ambushed by the sisters, Nicole flees with the excuse of wedding planning. She heads to Shorty’s were Nedley is also pitching the Sheriff Haught revival act. She’s not keen on returning to the role, deflecting that she has Rachel to look after. Nedley points out she’s not even doing that because she doesn’t know Rachel let out her monster almost-boyfriend.
Meanwhile, there are people in the sheriff’s office looking for any sort of law enforcement and with no sheriff, Wynonna will have to do. While she has little patience for their petty complaints, they do have some bigger issues to handle. Supplies aren’t getting into town (maybe on account of a memory-erasing fog spread at the border) leaving everyone struggling for necessities. Wynonna thinks the fact that Amon’s ‘vanished’ and they dealt with the reoccurring murder pumpkin that’s enough to call the town face. Jeremy, in a medical gown and apron covered in blood, walks in just then to remind them all of the kind of town they live in. The trio tries to sell the blood as pie filling, but even the oblivious townsfolk pick up on something.
The body in their office belongs to a previous trivia night winner, a fact that makes his passing a tragedy. But not enough of a tragedy for Waverly to not point out the silver lining of him not being there for that night’s trivia games at Shorty’s. That’s the kind of crass humour one expects from Wynonna, not Waverly, so they’re all appropriately shocked. Wynonna questions their priories. She may have been obsessed with trivia night until she got knock out of the competition, but even she knows that’s going too far.
Jeremy points out two puncture marks on their victim’s neck and Wynonna is practically giddy to learn Doc is their prime suspect. She’s no longer alone in the moral low ground if Doc killed someone innocent for a meal. She fluffs her hair and heads off to ‘interrogate’ him.
Doc is entertaining his minions (because he’s got minions now, Amon’s former lackeys) at the Glory Hole. Wynonna’s happy, thinking Doc killed someone, but when Doc promises it wasn’t him she grows defensive. She points to his present demonic company. ‘They may be demons but they would never.’ Doc’s willing to speak up for his men and keep an ear out for any information but that’s not what Wynonna was hoping to hear. She was hoping to find Doc in the muck with her. Seeing that’s not the case, she leaves.
At Shorty’s, Nicole calls Rachel down to the basement for a talk. Getting defensive about releasing, Billy Rachel lets slip something about ‘chicken kicker’ that gets Nicole riled up and agitated. Rachel quickly apologises for bringing it up and for letting Billy go. She promises when she did, he seemed weak and very low on the threat meter. With that Nicole acquiesces, sharing a moment with Rachel listening to a Gaga podcast. As they do, Rachel points out that Nicole should talk to Doc about the deal she made with the Clantons.
The number of bodies at the office has doubled. The new stiff was also a trivia night winner and has marks on his body. These are too far apart to be bite marks and there’s some kind of coloured residue. Waverly notices the victim’s head seems lighter than normal. Shinning a light to get a better view she and Jeremy notice it shines through. There is no brain in the head. As they ponder what fresh horror steals brains, we flash over to a man having a brain sandwich while a woman watches uninterestedly.
Waverly and Jeremy catch Wynonna up on their latest discovery, sure now that Doc wasn’t the killer. As they postulate with their murderboard, a friendly debate about their unsub quickly devolves into a vicious insult match between Waverly and Jeremy. It’s probably for the best when they’re interrupted by someone looking for the sheriff.
The guy tells them about a couple he saw where it was clear the woman was in an abusive relationship. Wynonna puts the murder case on hold so she and Waverly can check on this couple. After they’re gone, the guy mentions to Jeremy that the man wished he’d eat shit and then that’s what he did.
The Earp sisters meet Doug when they get to the house. Although they’d prefer it if they called him Kuru. Inside the house is filled with an odd collection of items. Waverly talks to the woman, offering help but she seems very sure they can’t help her, not that she seems too concerned.
Meanwhile, it takes Wynonna five seconds to realize ‘Kuru’ is their brain thief when he takes a bite of his sandwich and lets it slip that the meat is brain. Wynonna’s ready to shoot him, but Peacemaker doesn’t glow, proving this guy is a normal human. Well, not a ‘normal’ human on account of the brain thing. He starts screaming for the woman, calling her Ginny.
Despite Waverly insisting she doesn’t have too, Ginny gets up to join them. Doug and Ginny try to reach for each other but Waverly and Wynonna keep them away, trying to protect Ginny. Doug tosses brain at them as a distraction and bolts, vanishing. Wynonna takes Ginny back to the office to keep her safe while Waverly heads home to get the brain stains out of her clothes.
When Peacemaker glows around Ginny Wynonna realizes she’s the demon. Ginny admits it, but she’s a genie. She didn’t want to kill anyone, it was Doug’s wishes. He’s been killing the smartest people in town because he wants their brains to be smarter. Wynonna figures out, from the way they were acting in the house, that Ginny and Doug need to be touching for the wish to take effect. Because Doug/Kuru wished for infinite wishes (which is not against genie rules) Ginny is stuck with him as her master/keeper/wish-asking-person until he dies.
Jeremy remembers the name Kuru from his trivia night research, a disease some cannibals get when they eat the brain. Wynonna decides to stay at the office to keep Ginny safe. She wants Jeremy and the others to find Doug. Jeremy refuses to miss trivia night, getting angry about it. Wynonna realises Doug must have wished for everyone to be obsessed with trivia night to ensure everyone in town took part so he could get the best brains. She’s not affected anymore because she already lost.
They figure Doug will go to trivia night to learn who the winner is, which works for them because Jeremy and Waverly’s wish induced obsession force them to Shorty’s regardless. Speaking of Waverly, she and Nicole are at the homestead. While discussing Wynonna’s plan, Waverly brings up the sheriff position again. Nicole admits that when she lost the election, she did something she’s not proud of but won’t say what it is. But she admits that it made the town hate her.
Waverly points out everyone hates Wynonna but she’s out there annoying people. Waverly wants Nicole to be happy, and being the sheriff did that. Nicole says Waverly is her happy now. And this whole conversation happens while Waverly is just in her bra and they’re trying to wash brain from her shirt.
Ginny and Wynonna, meanwhile, are bonding over poor taste in men. Wynonna thinks Ginny had a say in killing those people but she says it was just the wish, she didn’t want to do it.
At trivia night, when Waverly and Nicole arrive, some of the townsfolk start calling her chicken kicker. Nedley stops them, but Nicole is properly spooked at that point. She tries to leave but the spell won’t let. She does the next best thing, hides in the basement.
Trivia night dwindles down to Waverly, Jeremy, and Doc as the contestants. They’re all aware they need to catch Doug, but the spell forces their focus to the questions. Doc is the first one knocked out, tripped up by a question for an incident he was present for but was recorded differently by history. Once the wish’s hold breaks on him, he realizes Doug isn’t here and must be going for his genie, meaning Wynonna is in trouble. He tries to leave but is stopped, the same as Nicole.
Seeking out Nicole, they realize the only way they can leave is if someone wins trivia night. Jeremy and Waverly realise this, but again the wish makes it impossible for either to willingly give in. Nicole knows they need a distraction. She asks Rachel for the chicken kicker video. Rachel swears she deleted it but Nicole knows she wouldn’t. No one would delete a video like that.
The video? Its Nicole storming into Holt’s celebration after he won the election dropping f-bombs every third word and punting a whole roast chicken across the room. The video distracts Waverly long enough for Jeremy to win. Allowed to leave, Doc hightails to Wynonna.
Wynonna, when she lets her guard down, misses Doug walking into the cell (he wished to walk through walls previously). Back in contact with Ginny, he can wish again. He’s realized that trivia smarts aren’t the only smarts out there and wants Wynonna’s brain for her street smarts.
With wishes, he forces her to lie on a table. Ginny convinces him to remove her brain himself instead of wishing for it and she stalls him a few times. When Wynonna starts screaming Ginny suggests he wish she couldn’t. But before he can make a cut he falls over, dead. The Kuru disease (at least this show’s version of it) finally caught up. Doc arrives but the danger has already passed.
Back at Shorty’s Nicole and Doc finally talk about the Clanton deal. Nicole admits she doesn’t know what the Clanton’s wanted, but she knew Doc could handle it and she would have been there to help. She would fight for him. He points out she should also fight for herself. She does just that, standing up to everyone in the bar, declaring she’s going to be their sheriff even if they didn’t vote for her. She promised to protect the people pf Purgatory and she’s going to do that even if they don’t like her because she’s an outsider or because she’s gay. They raise a toast to her and there’s a new, old sheriff in town.
At BBD Wynonna stops Ginny as she’s leaving. At first Ginny thinks Wynonna wants to become her new ‘matriarch’ but Wynonna isn’t interested. She’s not convinced that Ginny only killed those people because Doug wished for it. Doug died sick and insane on power and Wynonna thinks he wasn’t the only one to die like that. Ginny didn’t have to kill, she got to kill. Wynonna isn’t about to let someone with power that corrupting walk out the door.
She releases the genie, the only way she knows how. She makes her peace.
Review
Here’s the emotional trauma Wynonna Earp likes to slap you with. With Ginny, we finally see Wynonna acknowledging her actions with Holt. She didn’t look Holt in the eyes before, but she did this time. “You got to listen to the screams.” Wynonna’s been dragging herself in the muck for a while now. Holt’s death was more than just her killing a man by shooting him in the back. The man she loved witnessed it and judged her the same as she judged herself. Wynonna’s never seen herself as the saint—that’s for her literal angel sister and ‘promises to protect and serve’ Nicole.
Wynonna is the cursed demon killer. Even with the Earp Curse over, here she is, still in the muck, still killing demons. Maybe Peacemaker is its own curse. As long as there are demons out there hurting people, someone needs to stop and she has the power to do that. But now she’s listening to the screams when she does.
It’s heart-breaking, how happy she was when she thought Doc killed someone. She wasn’t alone anymore. That’s what haunts her more than anything else. It’s not what she has to do., it’s how lonely she is while she does it. People like Waverly and Nicole will always be there for her, but they won’t ever do things she’s had to do. Wynonna would drown herself in the muck before she lets her babygirl sink down here with her. But with Doc, he was already down here in her eyes. He was with her. But he pulled himself out of the dregs and now she’s alone again.
Best of Earpisms
- Jeremy and Waverly would still be this competitive at trivia night. Maybe with fewer insults though.
- Loved Nicole and Rachel’s conversation. She’s going to love and support her even if she is straight.
- While I’ll never complain about scenes like the stair’s scene from 402, the casual intimacy between Nicole and Waverly as they talked in the kitchen means so much to me.
- Again, the later time slot has done so many favours for Wynonna Earp. Nicole’s ‘chicken kicker’ video filled with f-bombs was top their laugh out loud material.
Images courtesy of Syfy
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