WYNONNA EARP – Episode 203 – Gonna Getcha Good – SPOILERS ⁓

In 2007, The Purgatory Blue Devils got tired of losing hockey games and invoked a Marzaniok demon to win them a championship. Ten years later the demon returns to collect a literal ‘pound of flesh’ from each of the players involved. Marzaniok are male expressions of the Polish goddess Morana, and are not usually associated with wish-granting. Chernor would more likely be called on for that.

The story is similar to “Witch” (Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode 1.3) in which a witch trades bodies with her daughter so she can relive her youth as a champion cheerleader and ends up trapped in a trophy. When Waverly (Dominique Provost-Chalkley) role-plays as a cheerleader for Nicole (Kat Barrell), the similarity is underscored.

Waverly has acquired odd eating habits (lipstick in this episode). Her cravings are not exactly symptomatic of pica, since the strange things she consumes often have nutritional value. And she collects shiny objects, e.g. a lipstick case, a cocktail shaker from Shorty’s, and Tucker Gardner’s medic-alert bracelet. While it seems certain she is possessed, Waverly hasn’t done anything demonic in Purgatory thus far.

We meet more of the Gardner family when Nicole arrests Tucker Gardner (Caleb Ellsworth-Clark) for harassing local women. Tucker’s sister Beth (Meghan Heffern) comes to the station to get him released. Sheriff Nedley (Greg Lawson) insists Tucker not be charged because the Gardner family is an important one in Purgatory. “Boys will be boys,” he says. Nicole responds with her oft-quoted line: “I’m sorry, did I hit my head and wake up in patriarchal bullshit land?”

On his way out of the station, Tucker calls Officer Haught a “Nasty woman”. Nedley gives Nicole a pile of paperwork to keep her occupied and out of trouble, but later tells her he’s grooming her to be his replacement and hands her a thick file on Tucker, explaining that he’s been playing a “long game”. Then Nedley gives one of his more memorable speeches: “You wanna know how Purgatory really works? Everyone pretends the whole goddamned town isn’t overrun by demons. The people who choose to live here they want a simple life. in a small town with a shitty hockey team. and a view of the Rockies. Some of us feel that’s worth ignoring the occasional mermaid poltergeist.”

At the grand re-opening of Shorty’s under Doc’s proprietorship, Wynonna meets the new bartender Rosita Bustillos (Tamara Duarte), and runs into Mercedes (Dani Kind) who fixes her up (or attempts to) with their old schoolmate Perry Crofte (Patrick Kwok-Choon). Perry calls her later and asks her out, but the date turns into part of the investigation into the deaths of Perry’s hockey teammates. Perry will return to Purgatory in “Gone as a Girl Can Get” (episode 2.11).

The protection symbol Perry paints on the door of his friend Skip’s house (and also on Skip’s forehead) is identified by Waverly as an Algiz, one of the 24 Elder Furthark Runes. The Algiz was used by Vikings as a symbol of protection.

Mercedes tells off her younger siblings and takes control of the Gardner estate. Soon after that, she is surprised from behind by what appears to be the creature from the crate in “Steel Bars and Stone Walls” (Episode 2.1). The Black Badge crate that the creature once inhabited had writing on it in an ancient Egyptian alphabet, and was shipped from London to New York City, possibly during the reign of Queen Victoria. The creature is wearing a black veil, which goes with the gloves. It inserts two taloned fingers into Mercedes’ mouth. We don’t get to see what happens after that.

When Wynonna locates The Marzaniok Perry is trying to break its hold on himself and his teammates by reciting an incantation in Old High German. The demon somehow knows that Wynonna’s gun would be fatal to him. To avoid being killed, grants Wynonna a wish and, after a slight hesitation, she wishes him back into the trophy. Doc (Tim Rozon) and Rosita (who is a biochemist) are reverse-engineering the medicine that keeps Dolls human on the sly, and they plan to use the blood of the trapped Marzaniok as the main ingredient.

Dolls (Shamier Anderson) returns to Purgatory and encounters Waverly in the Earp’s barn. He gets a good look at her goo-blackened eyes, and screams. Showrunner Emily Andras told The TV Junkies that Waverly “…turned and looked at Dolls like he was a delicious hamburger.”

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Miscellaneous Info

Madison Nyenhuis (unnamed attendee at the Blue Devils’ pep rally) is Clare Summers in CONNECTING FLIGHTS, a film based on Ron Bilcq‘s stageplay ‘Closure‘, the story of a Canadian pilot in England during World War II and the woman he meets and falls in love with there. Directed by Gilbert Allan from a screenplay by Jesse Ardern, CONNECTING FLIGHTS can be streamed on TUBI.

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All 49 episodes of WYNONNA EARP can be streamed on TUBI, as can the 2024 film WYNONNA EARP: VENGEANCE.

WYNONNA EARP: TALES FROM PURGATORY, is available from Audible.com.

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**– Revised. Originally published on 27 June 2017