WYNONNA EARP – Episode 104- The Blade – SPOILERS ⁓

In Doc Holliday’s time, August Hamilton (Peter Strand Rumpel) aka “The Blade” was the local barber, and, since folks confide in their barber, he also served as Purgatory’s unofficial confessor. This made him privy to everyone’s wrongdoings, and he covertly enforced his own brand of justice. Hamilton qualified as a revenant after Wyatt Earp forced him to testify against one of his customers, and the friends of the convicted had Hamilton drowned in a nearby lake. (It was Holliday who dropped The Blade in the lake.) Like the rest of the revenants, Hamilton resurrected when Wynonna (Melanie Scrofano) became heir to the Earp Curse, but since his body was underwater, he came back as a reflection, accessing his victims through mirrors.

An occult connection between mirrors and water was also illustrated in the LOST GIRL episode “Mirror, Mirror“.

The Blade‘s first victim is Megan Halshford (Jennifer Rae Westley), who went to high school with Wynonna. She is found next to a mirror with her throat slashed. Wynonna and Dolls (Shamier Anderson) visit Samantha Baker (Aimée Beaudoin), the last person to see Megan alive

Hamilton (we learn) killed Megan after Samantha (nicknamed “perky tits” by Wynonna) refuses to forgive her for killing her father in a hit-and-run, and since her hostility seems to extend to Wynonna, she may also have found out that Megan found Wynonna banging her boyfriend, which made Megan grab his car keys and drive off, though she didn’t know how to drive, making Wynonna indirectly responsible for the death of Sam’s dad. Wynonna is surprised to learn about that connection, and gets another surprise when Waverly (Dominique Provost-Chalkley) reveals that she resents her sister’s return, because she believes herself more qualified to be the heir end end the Earp Curse.

This episode focuses on forgiveness and indirect responsibility. Hamilton offers to spare his victims if their own victims forgive them, but he’s pretty sure that won’t happen. Doc has to shoot the blade out of Hamilton’s hand to stop him from killing Wynonna, because nobody really forgives her.

At Shorty’s, former probation officer Jay Novak (Luigi Riscaldino) waits for The Blade to finish him off after his wife Suzie (Karen Barker) refuses to forgive him for secretly being a long-time drug dealer. When Jay’s throat is slit in the men’s room, Doc (Tim Rozon) becomes a suspect, and Dolls takes him in for questioning.

Doc regards Dolls with suspicion. “I am a professional card sharp, Mr. Dolls, so I can read a man’s eyes,” he says, “and I do not like what I see in yours.” Asked to elaborate, Doc continues: “I see a captain piloting a ship full of secrets through a stormy sea. and as a gentleman who cares about Wynonna, I would recommend that she quit you, lest she drown.” While Doc is being questioned, Suzie phones the Sheriff’s office asking for Wynonna, because The Blade has visited her, and she needs to be forgiven for framing Earp on a drug charge. Wynonna can’t muster forgiveness, though she makes an effort, so Suzie is the next victim.

In passing, Dolls says that Black Badge collects powerful artefacts, and once had the Ark of the Covenant, which makes them sound a little like WAREHOUSE 13. In “Steel Bars and Stone Walls“(Episode 2.1) The Earps and Holliday will visit a Black Badge Division warehouse full of unusual things.

Waverly has a degree in ancient cultures and languages, so Dolls has her recite the incantation to conjure and materialize Hamilton’s spirit. “August Hamilton, extra velum dicam audite vocem meam. Quia audisti vocem” August Hamilton “te iubeo velum coram me transire apparueris mihi spiritus carnem ipsum praecipio tibi,” she intones, which loosely translates as: “August Hamilton, from outside the veil I say your name. The sound of your name commands you to pass through the veil in front of me as a spirit. August Hamilton, I command that your spirit be made flesh.”

A spirit called Mictian possesses Dolls, and calls him Xavier. (It is the first time we hear Dolls’ first name.) Waverly fishes a stun gun out of her purse and Doc zaps Dolls with it, driving the spirit from him. All this conjuring causes time to behave strangely. In the first scene in Dolls’ office, the time is 11:18am. After the conjuring, the clock reads 9:43am. (Though the office seems darker, it is still morning, because when they arrive at the lake where Hamilton drowned, it is daylight).

In a flashback to 1897, Wyatt Earp (Ryan Northcott) asks Doc to ride with him to “a burg called Purgatory [because] a corrupted lawman there is out of fix and in need of a little adjustment.” Doc is dying of consumption and too ill to make the trip. When Wyatt returns (possibly to Glenwood Springs, Colorado where records show Doc died) he finds a healthy Holliday in bed with two young ladies.

WYATT: “Too sick to ride with me to Purgatory, but here you are, carrying on like a horse gone to stud…”
DOC: “A bona-fide miracle. I am cured.”
WYATT: “How, Doc? How did you do this? Sweet mercy. Have you made a pact with the devil?”
DOC: “Now, you never mind that. I am strong again. Let’s fight, let’s ride together, like we used to. I did this for us.”
WYATT: “You did it because you’re selfish and a coward. All men must die.”
DOC: “Who says it…men like you so high and so almighty? And cursed by Hell itself.”
WYATT: “I thought they only existed in fairy tales – angels, devils – yet demons walk among us, and they mean to end my line. But what you have done pains me more…Doc Holliday is dead. And that makes you nothing but a memory. One I surely hope to forget.”

Wyatt Earp’s lack of forgiveness toward his best friend, along with his indirect responsibility for the death of Hamilton (and others like him) might have made him vulnerable to the curse that was placed on him. That corrupted lawman from Purgatory who made Wyatt believe in demons will not make an appearance until “Blood Red and Going Down” (Episode 3.1).

The episode’s title might have been influenced by “The Blade” by Ashley Monroe.

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

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

All 49 episodes of WYNONNA EARP can be streamed on Netflix

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** — Revised. Originally published on 28 April 2016