WYNONNA EARP – Episode 101 – Purgatory – SPOILERS

The moon is full when Wynonna Earp (Melanie Scrofano) gets off the bus to Purgatory to protect fellow passenger Kiersten Lesko (Sarah Troyer). The bus has been stopped by a flat tire caused by a railway spike, which may be the first reference to Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the series. (The vampire Spike got his nickname from his preferred method of torturing people with just such spikes.) Wynonna fails to save Kiersten, and in the course of being tossed around by demons, she is stunned by a blow to the head. At exactly midnight, her sister sends her a happy birthday text, and Wynonna wakes up. Realizing that she has her powers, she easily chases away the demons that killed Kiersten. The demons (aka “revenants”) give up too easily, because they have a plan.

After walking seven miles into town, she tells her old friend, saloon owner Shorty (Peter Skagen), about what happened, and explains why she didn’t tell the cops her name when she phoned in a report. “Two stints in juvie, a summer riding with the Banditos, and I’m still wanted for questioning in the Bleaker case,” she says. “My relationship with law enforcement es un poco complicated.”

She shoots pool (bank shots that hint at things to come) while questioning a local named Champ (Dylan Koroll), and the questioning quickly moves upstairs (because Champ lives above the bar) but is interrupted by the spectacular arrival of Wynonna’s younger sister Waverly (Dominique Provost-Chalkley). It turns out Champ and little sis are dating, and Waverly is a bit possessive about him. Cut-off jeans, a side-braid, a shotgun, and a snow-like rain of pillow feathers, combined with Dominique Provost-Chalkley‘s instant shift from anger to delight when she realizes her sister is there make Waverly’s entrance unforgettable.

Meanwhile, the investigations of Sheriff Nedley (Greg Lawson) into Kiersten’s death are complicated by the arrival of Deputy Marshall Dolls (Shamier Anderson), who asks a lot of questions and finds the necklace Wynonna lost the night before, from which hangs a key with “Athena” engraved on it in the Greek alphabet.

After Wynonna fled Purgatory, she spent time in Athens. Her Aunt Gus (Natascha Girgis) was initially less than pleased about her niece’s return and gave Wynonna enough birthday money for a one-way ticket back to Greece (about $800 Canadian).

Dolls might have timed his arrival to coincide with Wynonna’s 27th birthday, because later when he encounters Wynonna, he shows her a detailed file on her past transgressions. He may know more about the Earp Curse than he lets on. A CSI technician (Maria Fernandez Tongol) from the Sheriff’s Department is at the crime scene with Nedley. Her ultimate fate is unknown, since this is her only appearance in the series.

Soon after meeting Wynonna, Dolls offhandedly validates her worldview.

DOLLS: “We know who took your sister. Officially, coyotes. Unofficially, demons.”
WYNONNA: “You said it. You actually said…”
DOLLS: “Yes.”
WYNONNA: “They had me committed. They had me sent away.”

Dolls eventually makes a reluctant Wynonna a Special Deputy on his Cross-Border Taskforce. She even gets a badge, an event foreshadowed by her earlier discovery of Ward Earp’s badge at the old Earp homestead.

Wyatt’s Buntline Special (aka Peacemaker) was hidden at the bottom of a dry well, and soon after Wynonna retrieves the gun, Waverly is kidnapped. Wynonna leaves the rope she used dangling, and John Henry (Tim Rozon) takes advantage and follows her out. This is inferred, because we see a ring on the hand of someone climbing out of the well, and J.H. is wearing that same ring later while talking to Wynonna at Shorty’s Bar. He does not tell Wynonna that he is John Henry “Doc” Holliday until “Leavin’ On Your Mind” (episode 1.3).

During her rescue of Waverly, we get a glimpse of how Wynonna’s powers work. Her mode of perception changes. She sees what the gun sees, as though looking through the barrel at the target. The rifling of the Buntline Special contains runes to guide the bullet on the path intended by the shooter. Despite the prowess Wynonna displayed at the pool table earlier, a magical assist would be needed to make the trick shot that severed the rope, saved her sister, and (after ricocheting off a pulley and a windmill) knocked the gun from the hand of Malcolm Ramaker (Diego Diablo Del Mar), the revenant who planned the kidnapping. Ramaker becomes the first revenant to be sucked into the flaming ground after being shot by Wynonna.

The other two revenants involved in the abduction are Carl (Michael Rolfe), and John (Robert Nogier). John and Carl are locals who were killed by the previous Earp heir and because of the Curse, they were resurrected when Wynonna turned twenty-seven. Waverly mentions the Curse, but details about that will not be entirely revealed until “No Future in the Past” (episode 2.8).

When Wynonna was 10, her 12-year-old sister Willa (Anna Quick) was “taken into the hills and slaughtered” by demons. (This will later be found to be not exactly true.) Wynonna shot and killed her father with Wyatt’s gun, either accidentally, or to prevent him from suffering a similar fate. Waverly (seven years old at the time, according to the credits), watched it happen. The Wynonna Earp Wiki says that Waverly was born on 8 September 1995. That would mean Ward was killed the day before Waverly’s 5th birthday.

From Waverly’s scrapbook board, we learn that Wynonna’s father was Ward Earp (Patrick J MacEachern), born on 17 November 1966. Wynonna killed him on 7 September 2000. He might have had a sister named Wendy Rossier (last letter inferred) who also was born on 17 November. The year of Wendy’s birth is unspecified, but they could have been twins. Edwin Earp (1940-1968) was Wynonna’s grandfather.

John Henry is living at a nearby trailer park, and in the final scene, a revenant neighbour named Red (David Haysom) tells the moustachioed stranger that his kind is not welcome there. John Henry responds: “I reckon I’m the only one of my kind left.” It is unclear at this point what he means by that.

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Miscellaneous Info

Christina Merlo appears in a flashback as the young Wynonna (at the age of ten, according to the credits). The Wynonna Earp Wiki, asserts that Wynonna’s birthday is 12 September 1989. If this is so, she was five days short of her tenth birthday when she killed her father. To further complicate Wynonna’s birthday mystery, on her twenty-seventh birthday the moon was full. In September 2016, the moon was full from the 16th to the 18th. (This episode first aired on 1 April 2016, either 165 or 169 days prior to the events depicted.)

Summer McBrien (young Waverly) is Lynn Harper in MARLENE, a film directed by Wendy Hill-Tout and inspired by the true story of Marlene Truscott, who fought to exonerate her husband from a crime he didn’t commit. Ryan Northcott and Greg Bryk, both of whom will appear in later episodes of WYNONNA EARP, are also in the cast. MARLENE can be streamed on TUBI.

This episode was written by Emily Andras and directed by Paolo Barzman, who also directed and wrote the 90 minute film WYNONNA EARP: VENGEANCE, which will premiere on TUBI later this year

The show’s theme, “Tell That Devil” is sung by Jill Andrews. Other songs in the episode are “Something’s Happening to Me” by Arum Rae, and “Drinking Double”, track four on the album In Preparation for Saturn’s Return by Ali Holder.

This episode’s musical connection: “Purgatory” by Iron Maiden.

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The 90 minutes TV special WYNONNA EARP: VENGEANCE can be streamed on TUBI.

All 49 episodes of WYNONNA EARP can be streamed on Netflix

WYNONNA EARP: TALES FROM PURGATORY, an Audible Original, will be released on 17 October, and can be pre-ordered from Audible.com.

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** — Revised. Originally published on 5 April 2016. .