Henry, Wynonna, and the Jack of Knives
WYNONNA EARP – Episode 108 – Two-Faced Jack – SPOILERS ⁓
Doc Holliday
A horse grazing nearby becomes Doc’s ride into town after he finds Haught’s empty and bloody squad car. Officer Haught (Kat Barrell) is in hospital being treated for unspecified injuries after being found in a ditch by the side of the road. She has no idea what happened to Wynonna.
Officer Haught in hospital
Doc (Tim Rozon) and Dolls (Shamier Anderson) temporarily put aside their differences to rescue Wynonna, whose whereabouts are unknown. Doc identifies her abductor as an old nemesis named Jack (Greg Bryk) from a playing card left behind in the empty squad car .
“In Dodge City,” Doc explains, “there was a schoolteacher name of Sally. She laughed like a mule, but her eyes did shine. I was sweet on her, but she went missing. Wyatt and me, we tracked her to a limestone cave in the hills. That’s where we found her, with three other soiled doves that had been thought to have run off. He had taken their insides out. Spread them around their own bodies like a Thanksgiving feast. Papers called him ‘The Jack of Knives’ on account of the fact that’s what he called himself in the letters he sent, taunting them. Adept at all manner of blade. Wyatt and me, we made it our mission to hunt him down. We tracked him through the Cumberland Pass, nearly freezing to death, and then I got sick. Real Sick. Wyatt never spoke of Jack again, but I know he was the one that haunted him the most.”
Shamier Anderson as Xavier Dolls. — Anderson is also Trevante Cole in the Apple TV series INVASION.
Historically, Wyatt Earp returned to Dodge in May 1878 and served as Assistant Marshal there until September 1879, when he resigned and left town. He never returned to Kansas after that. Doc Holliday also arrived in Dodge in the spring of 1878, having met Earp earlier in Fort Griffin, Texas. They could only have encountered Jack between May 1878 and September 1879.
The Cumberland pass is roughly 600 kilometers west of Dodge City, Kansas, and about 150 kilometers southeast of Glenwood Springs, Colorado where Doc’s gravestone is located.
Whiskey Jim Byers
In the course of their investigations, they come across Whiskey Jim Byers (Joris Jarsky), a former saloon keeper whose corruption got him shot by Wyatt Earp. Jim knows where Wynonna is being held, but he runs a fight club now, and Doc Holliday owes him ten thousand dollars. Doc and Dolls agree to fight until one of them is carried out on a stretcher in exchange for the information they need (and cancellation of Doc’s debt).
Before the fight, Whiskey Jim gets Doc riled by showing him evidence of Dolls’ plan to turn Doc into a lab rat for Black Badge Division. Doc wins the bare-knuckle match with a right uppercut similar to the one Bob Fitzsimmons threw to incapacitate Tom Sharkey in the 1896 Heavyweight Championship bout in San Francisco. Fitzsimmons called it his “solar plexus punch”. Wyatt Earp refereed that bout, and ruled the punch illegal according to the recently introduced Marquis de Queensberry rules. It was an unpopular decision.
Peacemaker’s view (from the bottom of an empty whiskey barrel)
Dolls is able to show his pulse and appear to be dead. Satisfied with the fight’s outcome, Whisky Jim gives Doc directions to Jack’s base of operations.
Wynonna (Melanie Scrofano) wakes up in what turns out to be a fake hospital under the care of Dr. Reggie (Ryan Belleville). The story takes a side trip into graphic horror when Bethany (Sasha Barry), who is in the bed next to Wynonna, dies gruesomely at the hands of Dr. Reggie, whose surgical tortures are paralleled by the interrogation methods Dolls will employ later to find out who leaked secret Black Badge information to Bobo.
While preparing Wynonna for vivisection, Jack, the last of the seven-man posse that kidnapped Willa, confirms that Ward Earp (Wynonna’s dad) made an unspecified deal with Bobo del Rey (Michael Eklund). This has been hinted at before, and it makes one wonder about the purpose of the raid on the Earp homestead. If Ward had a deal with Bobo, then why did Bobo order the attack? Did Ward go back on his word? And when Ward is killed by Peacemaker after making such a deal, what happens to him, afterworld-wise?
The Jack of Knives
This is the only time in the series when Wynonna actually needs rescuing. Doc and Dolls arrive just in time to do that, and, after Wynonna tells them not to kill each other while she’s busy killing Jack, Doc (generously) tells Dolls: “You sir, are an asshole, but you are not a villain.”
Once the rescue operation is finished, Dolls withdraws his report on Holliday, but with the permission of his superior at Black Badge HQ, Agent Lucado (Kate Drummond), he begins to torture Whiskey Jim.
Miscellaneous Info
Kate Drummond (Agent Lucado) stars as Maria, a mother who must her free her son from the clutches of a blackmailer in Meeshelle Neal‘s upcoming thriller MY SON’S DECEPTION. YouTube has a trailer.
Two-Faced Jack was written by James Hurst who also wrote “The Blade” (episode 1.4).
Sasha Barry (Bethany) is Ruby Hawke in POLY IS THE NEW MONOGAMY, a series created by Cat Hostick about the relationship adventures of three New York City women who continually find themselves involved with more than one person. All six episodes can be streamed on TUBI.
A musical connection for this episode could be Hank Williams’ song “Two-Faced Preacher“.
The 90 minutes TV special WYNONNA EARP: VENGEANCE can be streamed on TUBI.
All 49 episodes of WYNONNA EARP can be streamed on Netflix
** — Revised – First published on 23 May 2016