Swans in the Winter Air
WYNONNA EARP – Episode 113 – I Walk the Line – SPOILERS ⁓
Willa retrieves Peacemaker from Waverly (Dominique Provost-Chalkley), then leaves to meet Bobo, but not before shooting Nicole (with a conventional gun) to slow down pursuit. She could just as easily have shot Wynonna (Melanie Scrofano), and may have at least suspected that Nicole (Kat Barrell) was wearing a bullet-proof vest.
Sheriff Nedley (Greg Lawson) saves Wynona and Waverly from an angry mob looking to turn her over to Bobo (Michael Eklund) in exchange for the antidote (see previous episode). Wynonna goes in search of her renegade sister Willa (Natalie Krill), while Waverly heads for the treehouse where she finds Bobo. Willa is not there, but will be soon, and Waverly tries to dissuade Bobo from his plan to escape the Triangle. “The thing is,” Waverly tells him, “if you open that door, you’re not the only thing that can leave. All the other revenants will flee. You’re letting filthy demons loose into this world.”
Waverly doesn’t know it, but Bobo put all the other revenants in Shorty’s Bar to “guard” the antidote, setting them up for Dolls (Shamier Anderson) and company to capture or kill, and making the antidote easy to find. It is possible that he did this to prevent the escape of the other revenants.
Bobo tells Waverly more about what happened after Willa’s abduction. “I was her saviour,” he explains. “Those other revenants wanted to do horrible things to her. I told them I killed her. I hid her away, here…But days before she was due to turn 27, Constance [Clootie] erases her memory and says she will only give me back Willa if I help her put back together her boys. [see episode 1.5, “Diggin’ Up Bones“] I rallied an army together to dig in the dirt. And I dug, and I dug, and I dug. Do you know why? Swans mate for life.” (Despite the fact that his last name means swan in Norwegian, Robert Svane – aka Bobo Del Ray – is not actually a swan.)
BOBO: “I used to watch you girls and I’d wonder how a man like Ward Earp ended up with so much goodness. And then there was the baby. And I used to think about saving her too.”
WAVERLY: “Only I wasn’t the heir.”
BOBO: “Oh, Waverly, you’re not even an Earp.”
When Willa does arrive, Bobo tells Waverly to hide.
The notion that Waverly is not an Earp fits with Waverly’s annual height measurements not being marked on the doorway at the Earp homestead (see episode 1.2 “Keep the Home Fires Burning“). This could mean that Ward’s wife had an affair resulting in a pregnancy. Ward Earp was not a nice man. (Willa mentions later that Ward beat his wife.) Why would he take in her illegitimate offspring? Waverly will not find out for sure if she’s an Earp until “No Future In the Past” (Episode 2.8). We will not meet Ward’s wife until “Blood Red and Going Down” (Episode 3.1).
During Doc and Dolls’ attach on Shorty’s, we learn (incidentally) that Doc once had a horse named Lavender and (possibly not at the same time) a a one-eared black and tan coon hound named Plucky.
THE OLD ONE
The antidote is recovered and Agent Lucado (Kate Drummond), who has arrived in town after being summoned by Dolls, arranges to make more of it. We find out that Lucado’s hostility toward Dolls is because he survived unspecified events at Kandahar (Afganistan), when “others” did not.
When Willa crosses the line with Peacemaker, that side of the boundary grows dark, and when she tries to shoot Wynona, Peacemaker refuses to fire. Bobo is stopped from joining her, and as Doc prepares to shoot him, Bobo suggests that Doc should be shooting at something else. Pointing to the boundary, he says, simply, “The Old One.”
H P Lovecraft mentions The Old Ones (there are several) in two short stories. In “At the Mountains of Madness“, he describes them as beings who “filtered down from the stars and concocted earth-life as a joke“. In “The Call of Ctulhu“, he says the Old Ones are gone now, but “their dead bodies had told their secrets in dreams to the first men, who formed a cult which had never died“.
As Willa is encircled by The Old One’s tentacle, she tells her sister: “Bobo doesn’t know, but he’s not the only one who came to visit me in that treehouse, making promises in the dark.” Wynonna crosses the line, retrieves Peacemaker, and shoots Willa, who does not go down in flames after being shot. She disappears, with no body left behind. A tentacle pursues Wynonna across the border, but disintegrates when it closes, leaving behind a puddle of black goo.
Afterward, Juan Carlos (Shaun Johnston) speaks briefly with Wynonna and tells her that while some things are trying to escape the Triangle, other things are trying to get in. “The triangle is not only a prison,” he tells her. “It’s also a sanctuary.” Earlier, Juan appeared after Bobo exclaimed “Jesus Christ!”. Juan replied: “Right initials, wrong fella.” (Coincidentally, those initials also belong to the fella who sang “I Walk the Line“, which is also the episode’s title.) Juan also tries to persuade Bobo not to go through with his plan. Bobo responds: “You have no right to be here. You’re not allowed to interfere, remember? So step aside, old man. I can save her. If we get out there, I can save us both.” Who Juan Carlos is will not be revealed until “No Future in the Past” (Episode 2.8).
Meanwhile, Lucado has taken both Bobo and Dolls into custody and plans to ship them to Black Badge HQ. Wynonna shoots Bobo as the truck heads out of the Triangle, and he is devoured by flames. Lucado has already called for a missile strike on Purgatory, but the demise of her only sample revenant might cause her to reconsider that. Waverly pokes her finger into the goo, and, once that happens, her eyes turn black suggesting that something has possessed her. Waverly smiles as she walks toward Wynonna and Doc, then pulls a gun and fires.
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. Originally posted on 27 June 2016.