The Origin of the Earp Curse
WYNONNA EARP – Episode 208 – No Future in the Past – SPOILERS ⁓
Nicole and Waverly
When his car breaks down, Juan Carlos (Shaun Johnston) encounters the Widow Mercedes (Dani Kind) on a cold and lonely stretch of road. “I put you and your sister in a box,” he says, and refuses to reveal where the last seal is hidden. He is bitten by the Widow Beth (Meghan Heffern).
Widow Beth prepares to bite.
Waverly (Dominique Provost-Chalkley) tells Wynonna (Melanie Scrofano) she remembers falling through the ice of a nearby lake when she was young because Willa put her stuffed rabbit on the ice, knowing that Waverly would go after it and that the ice was thin, and to her it’s just another reason why she thinks Bobo (Michael Eklund) might have been right when he told her she wasn’t even an Earp at the end of Season One. “Nobody ever celebrated my birthday,” she explains, “or ordered copies of my school photos, or noticed my report cards. And Daddy wouldn’t even look at me. I don’t know; maybe because I wasn’t his.” Waverly has submitted a DNA sample to find out for sure, and is awaiting results, which she had sent to the Sheriff’s Office to keep Wynonna from finding out about it.
Waverly finds the results of her DNA analysis in Nicole’s purse
“Mama always called you her angel,” Wynonna says reassuringly. “I remember when you came home from the hospital, Waves. I picked out your name myself. You know they wanted to call you ‘Welcome’?”
Rosita (Tamara Duarte) conspires with Waverly and Nicole to throw Wynonna a baby shower at Shorty’s, complete with a piñata full of donuts. Wynonna never gets there, and the three women get drunk. Waverly accidentally discovers that Nicole (Kat Barrell) has read the DNA results and kept them from her. This does not make her happy. The results are not revealed in this episode, but from her reaction after reading them, they are not what Waverly wanted to hear.
New Touch, by CAVEBOY (Michelle Bensimon, Isabelle Banos, and Lana Cooney), plays in the background as Rosita arrives at Shorty’s with the piñata.
Vision Quest
Juan Carlos, Wynonna, and Wyatt Earp’s badge
With some difficulty, Juan Carlos convinces Wynonna to come with him to an abandoned chapel on Highway 62. With the aid of a pentagram, Peacemaker, and Wyatt Earp’s badge, Wynonna goes on what Juan Carlos calls a vision quest, and witnesses events in 1888 Purgatory.
Through her out-of-body time traveling, she learns three things:
— Bobo became a revenant when Sheriff Clootie used him as a human shield, causing him to be accidentally shot by Wyatt Earp.)
— the third seal is hidden on Doc Holliday’s ring finger.
— the Widoes are two of Sheriff Clootie’s three wives.
After being rescued from the burning church that housed the pentagram, Wynonna dies, and 77 seconds later is revived by Dolls.
Robert Svane comforts Wynonna who is being affected by smoke from the fire in the future
When the Earp heir dies, all the revenants he or she has sent to the underworld are revived. There are 77 revenants, all of whom should be alive again now. This includes Killer Miller who brought the darkness in “Keep the Home Fires Burning” (Episode 1.2). Miller comes to mind because Doc Holliday (Tim Rozon) tells a story about how Miller was “filled full of lead” by Wyatt Earp. (The actual Jim (KIller) Miller was hanged by a mob in Ada, Oklahoma in 1909.)
It is implied that Robert Svane might have avoided the curse had he committed a truly selfless act and helped Doc escape from the well, but he didn’t trust Holliday (possibly with good reason) and instead tried to trick Doc into giving up the ring that gave him immortality. At episode’s end, we see Bobo Del Rey brought back to life by Wynonna’s temporary death.
Bobo rescues young Waverly
When near death, Svane was able to see Wynonna. (She was invisible to everyone else in 1888.) He called her his “angel” and swore he would never do anything to hurt her, then asks her name. “Waverly,” Wynonna replied. It was Svane (known after being resurrected from Hell as Bobo Del Rey) who rescued Waverly after she fell through the ice. Waverly’s origins will be further explained in “If We Make It Through December” (Episode 3.5). Svane did seem to make a genuine act of contrition at the end, and rang the church bell in 1888 that brought the fire department to pull Wynonna from the burning church in 2017, but none of that saved him from the curse.
Bobo’s relationship to the Earp sisters is complex. He rescues Waverly from an icy pond, but later tricks her into burying a talisman that allows The Seven to attack the Earp Homestead and kidnap Willa. Then he falls in love with Willa. Bobo probably knows the identity of Waverly’s dad.
Wynonna hears two townsfolk talking about Sheriff Clootie’s wives
The Wives of Sheriff Clootie
During Wynonna’s vision quest, two townsfolk (played by Trevor John Campbell and Caitlynne Medrek) are heard chatting in the street.
WOMAN: “Clootie’s three wives are kicking up a real fuss over that demon’s body.”
MAN: “Yeah, well, those devil ladies are the Padre’s problem now. If he don’t drink himself to death, they’ll probably eat him alive.”
That statement was prophetic. The Widows devour Juan Carlos outside the chapel during Wynonna’s excursion into the past.
After Constance (the Stone Witch) uses a spell to paralyze the widows, the Padre imprisons them in a wooden box where they will remain until Doc accidentally frees them in “Steel Bars and Stone Walls” (Episode 2.1).
Constance Clootie tells Robert Svane that he is cursed
Sheriff Clootie, who will not appear on the show until “Blood Red and Going down” (Episode 3.1), could not be killed, and was buried alive behind three magical seals by three people: Constance Clootie (Jessica Sipos), Robert Svane, and Father Juan Carlos.
“Wyatt Earp killed my poor boys. He will pay for it,” Constance says, addressing her co-conspirators, “But I have priorities. Should my demon husband get free, it’ll be me running for my life…We need more than earth to hold him though. She produces phials containing a dark liquid. Pour this upon the talismans have given you. The key is to use iron or silver, or even something like a wedding ring. Repeat the words I taught you, then add your blood fresh from the vein. Hide your seal on a holy site and they’ll keep him locked away forever.” The three agree that none of them shall know the location of all three seals, so none can betray the others.
WYNONNA EARP: TALES FROM PURGATORY, is available from Audible.com.
** — Revised. Originally published 31 July 2017