Wynonna Earp Season 2, Episode 12, “I Hope You Dance”
This is it, my friends. The season finale of Wynonna Earp. And you know it’s going to be an emotional ride when Emily Andras herself confesses to crying while watching it. Twice. So grab your whiskey, your donuts, and your tissues; you’re going to need them all by the time we’re through.
OMG, what?
Waverly blows in on the retreating Widows and Bobo like a hurricane, gun in hand, hair wild. She knows Bobo won’t hurt her, but he refuses to help her either. Wynonna shows up, but bullets are useless against the Widows now that Clootie’s rising. Dolls wakes up in a body bag and rushes to the homestead with the weapon plate. The whole gang plays catch up (and Waverly apologizes for giving the ring away), but they don’t have time for feelings or guilt. They have to plan because Clootie’s rising and the baby’s coming. Bobo takes the Widows to an old mine, which lies on ground consecrated to the Assiniboine tribe, to dig up Clootie’s coffin. The Widow Beth is thrilled, but the Widow Mercedes seems…reluctant.
“Okay, it’s settled, everyone stop dying.” –Wynonna
Wynonna shows the team that the plate glows when its near Peacemaker. Jeremy heads to the maps to find Clootie’s coffin, and Dolls heads out to find Doc. Waverly and Wynonna go to find something to do with the plate and Nicole? She has a secret mission from Wynonna. Meanwhile, the Widows and Bobo dig up the coffin. The Widow Beth prostrates herself to her ‘master’; Bobo rolls his eyes. The Widow Mercedes cuts off Clootie’s (demon name Bulshar) hand for one of his rings to restore her power, trapping the Widow Beth and Bobo underground with the coffin. Waverly and Wynonna visit the Iron Witch Greta to ‘persuade’ her to help them turn the ‘stylish dinnerware’ from a shield into a missile.
Wynonna: “What if [Doc’s]…”
Jeremy: “Hey, he’s not. I’d feel it in my groin”
Wynonna: “I feel like just for that, I get to say vagina again.”
Dolls finds Doc standing over the well, contemplating his own mortality. He apologizes to Doc, and talks him off the ledge with the knowledge of Wynonna’s and Bobo’s return. Back at Greta’s, Waverly informs her sister of Nicole’s wife and that she’s not an Earp; Wynonna encourages her that Nicole loves her and ‘like hell’ she’s not an Earp (good girl, Wynonna). Greta returns with their weapon, a single bullet Wynonna plans to use on Clootie. Oh, and labor seems to have started. Jeremy and Nicole track down Clootie’s coffin when the new and improved Widow Mercedes busts in and decides to use them for bait. Waverly calls to tell Doc and Dolls the baby is coming; Dolls heads out to get the OBGYN, and Doc heads to the homestead.
“You’re part of the family and being a part of the family means…dealing with terrifying forces of evil!” –Nicole
On the way to the homestead, Wynonna and Waverly run into the Widow Mercedes, who wants her weapon. On cue, the Widow Beth shows up to complicate matters, as does Doc. The Widow Mercedes wants Wynonna’s help to take out the Widow Beth and Clootie; the Widow Beth threatens to kill Waverly if Wynonna doesn’t shoot the Widow Mercedes. Doc threatens to kill Wynonna to prevent her from making a deal with the devil. Wynonna chooses Doc’s plan. They face each other and fire at the exact same time. Their bullets collide mid-air, sheering Wynonna’s magic bullet in two and sending each half into one of the Widows. They disintegrate, and the team helps get Wynonna into Shorty’s as her contractions really get going.
The Widow Mercedes: “Wynonna Earp, time to meet destiny.”
Wynonna: “That better not be a nickname for your beav because I’m not in the mood.”
Doc and Jeremy head out to find Clootie’s tomb to see if he rose, while Rosita and Waverly assist with the birth. On the road, Dolls runs into Ewan and the Order, who still wants the Earp heir and have killed the OBGYN to get it. At Shorty’s, Rosita attacks Waverly to claim the baby for herself to use as currency to save her own life. Doc finds Bobo outside the mine and tells him the Widows are dead; Bobo tells Doc he promised Waverly to Clootie as a new bride in exchange for power. At Shorty’s, Rosita confesses that she knows Doc loves Wynonna because she saw who he was without her. Waverly wakes and after a struggle and encouragement from Wynonna, manages to shoot Peacemaker and graze Rosita. Rosita runs and the baby comes.
“I don’t got time for this fake bullsh*t macho standoff you got going on, I gotta go find a doctor.” –Dolls
On the outskirts of town, Ewan waxes poetic about the demon fighting abilities of a half-Earp, half-Holliday baby, but Dolls ain’t having it. He goes full dragon and burns the Order to the ground to keep them from the baby. Jeremy and Doc fight Bobo, and the latter impales Bobo on metal spikes, grievously injured, but not dead.
The baby has arrived, and Wynonna must give it up to save it. Nicole drives Waverly and the baby to the town border to see if they’ll survive crossing out of Purgatory; they do. Baby Earp is Doc’s child, and Waverly is not a revenant. The revenants attack Shorty’s, and Wynonna and Dolls give ‘em hell. Jeremy sends Doc to go see his baby and promises to guard Bobo.
“You’re wrong, Wynonna; you’re the best of us.” –Waverly
Outside of Purgatory, Perry comes to pick up baby Earp. Doc arrives just in time to meet the baby, remarking on how ‘dainty and delicate’ in blue she looks. That’s right, a baby girl. Waverly tells him she’s going to Aunt Gus. Wynonna and Dolls exit Shorty’s in time to see the helicopter flying off to safety. Doc, meanwhile, tosses Bobo in his well. Bobo admits to Waverly not being his daughter, but still being ‘kin’ and warns that Clootie is coming for her. Doc reveals that, like Bobo, he went to hell when he died. Doc meets up with Wynonna, who tells him their daughter’s name is Alice Michelle, after his mother and hers. In town, Nicole receives her divorce papers from Shae and looks over a file on Bulshar that includes his ring. Wynonna sets off on a motorcycle out of town…and meets up with her mother.
Favorite One Liner: “We’re gonna break this f*cking curse Doc, so she never has to.” –Wynonna
I Gotta Say…
You can tell it’s an Andras episode because of all the vagina jokes. No really, she really enjoys vagina jokes. They didn’t feel out of place either. For all the weight of Wynonna giving birth to and giving up her daughter, a bit of body humor at Wynonna’s own expense worked well. Plus, she snarks when she’s in pain, so it makes sense for her.
As with every Andras episode and just about every episode this season, the balance of action to humor to emotional heft left me breathless. The heaviness is always paced just right. Though I appreciate being given more breathing room to process Wynonna giving the baby away. Dispatching the Widows halfway through left more time to take in Alice’s arrival and departure via each of the most significant relationships on the show: Waverly/Wynonna, Waverly/Nicole, Doc/Wynonna, Waverly/Doc, even Dolls/Wynonna to an extent. That space truly showcased how monumental this moment was for everyone. None of them will ever be the same after this, nor should they be.
And given the short shrift that pregnant women and mothers typically get on other shows, putting Wynonna’s decision and the aftermath in the spotlight for the entire second half of the episode proves just how much Andras and the team value telling this story correctly. This is what the story of a strong woman and a good mother who makes a tough choice for the good of her baby looks like. No shame, no judgment, only sorrow, loss, and a fierce determination to make the world a better place for her daughter. I was deeply worried about how this storyline would go, and if I would be able to watch it comfortably given my experience with infertility. But here I am, sobbing. *sniff* It’s just so beautiful.
One of the biggest mysteries, of course, that remains is Waverly’s parentage. I’m impressed that Andras and Co. were able to drag this mystery out for the whole season and leave it still unsolved without it feeling either stale or obnoxious. That takes skill.
So who are Waverly’s parents? She’s not Bobo’s daughter (nor the daughter of any other Revenant), but she’s not genetically Ward’s daughter either. Who is her father? Will we find that out not that Mama Earp’s coming back? (Ahhhhhhh! Mama Earp!!!!) And what does Bobo mean that he and Waverly are kin? I don’t recall that we were told if Robert Svane had a family, so it’s entirely possible that he has descendants from before he became a demon, one of whom might be the father, or even the mother, of Waverly Earp.
Speaking of cryptic things Bobo says, anyone else get the feeling that he was being literal when he said, “Wyatt buggered us both”? I’d gotten romantic vibes off of Wyatt/Doc and Wyatt/Robert in the past, but Doc’s vehement “You shut your mouth” confirms the idea that they were both more than just friends with Wyatt in the past (at least to me). To be honest, I kind of love the idea of a love triangle between Wyatt-Robert-Doc spilling over into the present day and informing their character arcs now.
Doc has had time, and Wynonna, to help him grow as a person beyond his past jealousies and selfish behavior. Robert, on the other hand, has only had torment and bitterness to keep him company, other than his belief in his angel. Yet even that seems to be beyond his ken now, as he’s sold Waverly to Clootie in exchange for the power to never return to hell. We’ll have to wait and see if S3 will use the well to teach him as it taught Doc, and I cannot wait.
Yet even if they weren’t Wyatt’s lovers, Doc and Bobo are interesting foils in another way: their quest to escape death/hell. When we first met Doc, he was consumed with bitterness and hell-bent on revenge. Giving up his immortality to accept death was the last thing he would have done, no matter who was asking. This season, we’ve seen him give up that immortality to help Wynonna, only to regret that choice once he experiences hell for the first time. Much like Bobo, it is possible for Doc to take a turn toward the obsessive now that he’s experienced hell first hand.
Bobo, on the other hand, has taken what seems like an irrevocable step away from redemption by trading his angel to the devil in exchange for the equivalent of eternal life—life free from hell, that is. Rather than soften, his pain has hardened him. He’s fixated on escaping pain and suffering by any means necessary, even if it means throwing away the one spark of ‘humanity’ left in him. Doc, when faced with a similar choice, was able to be talked down. He had Wynonna and his baby to care for, so he refused to give in to the obsession with escaping pain. For a man who betrayed his best friend to avoid death, willingly running into its arms to aid that friend’s descendant—who is also his lover and the mother of his child—distinguishes Doc’s growth from Bobo’s downward spiral.
God, just Doc Holliday. This episode killed me. He dies last episode, goes to hell, and comes back mortal, and we see the weight of it in every face Tim Rozon made. The single tear when Doc was ready to kill himself, the look on his face when Bobo says he promised Clootie Waverly. The awe laced with panic on his face when he meets his daughter. Then, the sucker punch, the way his face caves when Wynonna tells him their daughter’s name is Alice and the way he keeps his eyes closed long after Wynonna has ended their kiss. He’s a changed man. Time will tell if he’s twisted beyond repair, as Bobo was, but for now, the emotionality he exudes is powerful and heartbreaking. My hats off to Rozon.
Side note, the synchrony in Doc and Wynonna’s subtextual conversation that led to the Widows’ death was sheer brilliance. Then the tragedy of him talking about how pleasant it is ‘up there’ when we found out later he went ‘down there’. Ow.
The other star, of course, is Wynonna herself. Her scene with baby Alice just after she was born and then giving her up to Waverly breaks me in pieces. Mel acted her ass off in that scene, as she so often does, and the weight of her choices was palpable.
Yet even in this moment, we get to see just how much Wynonna has grown since S1. When we first meet her, Wynonna’s a self-absorbed jerk with a chip on her shoulder the size of Canada. But throughout this episode, she thought little of herself. Every thought was for the welfare of her baby, her sister, her lover, her other lover, her friends. Hell, two episodes ago she dropped everything to find a cure for Nicole and not just for Waverly’s sake, though that was a significant part of it. Wynonna’s begun to expand her family circle to include more than blood relatives. Nicole went from declaring it difficult to break into the Earp family to proclaiming Jeremy, and herself by implication, to be a part of the family as easily as if she were saying she loves Waverly.
Wynonna’s even come so far that she, self-professed despiser of romance that she is, can see with her frequently oblivious eyes that Nicole loves Waverly. And will tell her sister so.
She’s grown so much, so I’ll probably have to save that for an analysis, but I do want to mention the one physical gesture that says everything about how far Wynonna’s come: wiping away Doc’s tears. She doesn’t comment on his display of emotion, doesn’t mock him or push him away. No, she reaches out, brushes his tears away, then kisses him gently, tenderly. It’s a beautiful moment and one that encapsulates just how far she’s come. I’ve already rewatched it several times because I can’t get enough of it. Melanie Scrofano and Tim Rozon are superb, and they deserve all the awards.
To wrap up, we’re certainly left with a lot of questions for next season to answer. Can Clootie fully rise without his wives? Thought seems so, at least enough for him to come after Waverly, as Bobo hinted, we have yet to see how. And what was the deal with the look between Dolls and Nicole about Clootie’s ring? What does it mean? Are they keeping that a secret or something? And was it just me, or did Jeremy kind of imply he’s psychic? Maybe that’s why he knew about the baby without anyone telling him?
I need to know everything about Waverly shooting Peacemaker. Why did it glow blue? Why did it only graze Rosita instead of killing her? Was it really just responding to Wynonna calling it an assh*le? Is it kind of sentient? What is going on???
And last but not least, MAMA EARP IS GONNA BE IN S3. I’M SO HYPE.
I see you, Andras
- The sound editing in the ‘previously on’ was oddly clipped and rushed. It’s the first time I’ve seen less than stellar sound editing from the team, and it stood out.
- Nice callback to Waverly’s opening scene in S1 with the wild hair and giant gun.
- Bobo licking the gun gave me the gibblies. Michael Eklund does creepy so well.
- Bobo is such a voyeur watching the Widows bicker, & adore his eye rolls.
- Wynonna is 10x the gunslinger Wyatt ever was. That is canon.
- Jeremy calls baby Earp “Pod”; Waverly and Doc call her “Pot of Gold.” My heart.
- Doc’s car is named “Charlene”.
- Doc called Wynonna ‘big mama’.
- Jeremy said “WayHaught” in canon.
- Doc saying “delicate and dainty in blue” about his daughter just…bury me alive.
- I thought they had destroyed the magic keeping the demons in the Ghost River Triangle at the end of S1? Maybe I need to do a rewatch.
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See you all next summer for season 3! Until then, stay tuned for meta and come to ClexaCon so you, too, can meet many of these lovely actors, and Emily Andras, in person!
