WYNONNA EARP – Episode 210 – I See a Darkness – SPOILERS ⁓

Believing that Waverly (Dominique Provost-Chalkley) knows where the third seal has been hidden, Faux Mercedes (Dani Kind) tries to beat the information out of her. Nicole (Kat Barrell) comes to Waverly’s rescue and is bitten, which ends the fight, because a taste of Nicole’s blood reveals that she doesn’t know the seal’s location.

When Nicole, suffering the effects of the Widow’s bite, is wheeled into hospital, Dolls (Shamier Anderson) and Wynonna (Melanie Scrofano) are already there. Dolls found the Gardner sisters alive but faceless when he searched their home last episode. Beth Gardner could not be saved, but Mercedes is still alive, her head covered in bandages.

One of the nurses treating Nicole is Gretta Perley (Rachael Ancheril), twin sister of Matty Perley aka The Blacksmith, who died in “Walking After Midnight” (episode 107). Gretta is the Iron Witch, and believes that involvement with the Earp sisters is what got her sister killed.

After Waverly agrees to give the witch “anything she wants” in exchange for Nicole’s cure, Gretta incants: “Wo ist die antwort auf dieses leben?” (Where is the answer to this life?) and writes down the location of the third seal. Gretta does not provide a cure directly, but instead provides the location of something that could be traded for a cure. Nedley (Greg Lawson) hid it in his favourite mug which has “Dad” written on it and was likely made by his daughter Chrissy in shop class. Faux Beth (Meghan Heffern) offers to cure Nicole in exchange for the location of the third seal, something only Wynonna knows.

Waverly lets it slip that Rosita (Tamara Duarte) is a revenant, so Wynonna more or less conscripts Rosita into service as a guinea pig to help find an anti-venom in time to prevent Nicole’s death. Jeremy (Varun Saranga) goes along with this, but strongly disapproves, then Dolls finds out what’s going on and takes over as test subject since he is part demon and better able to withstand the pain.

Nicole has a wife named Shae (Clark Backo) from whom she was never divorced. (Nedley notifies her because she’s Officer Haught’s next-of-kin.) Shae met Nicole while rock-climbing. They “got married in a fever” but separated soon after. It’s a good thing she shows up because she knows Nicole has an allergy to Thiopental.

When Doc (Tim Rozon) gave up his immortality by giving Wynonna his ring, he may also have lost his luck. Wynonna finds him playing poker with a revenant named Stevie (Reamonn Joshee), and loses every hand. (Stevie’s winning streak drives the other two players out of the game.) Doc suspects Stevie might be there, not just to play poker, but to look for something Bobo Del Rey might have left behind in the basement. Bobo is believed dead, but he was resurrected at the end of “No Future in the Past” (episode 208).

Doc and Wynonna go to Nicole’s house, where they find fresh blood and Nedley’s hat. (Doc determines that the hat does not belong to Officer Haught because her hat size is “barely a seven”, while Sheriff Nedley wears a seven and three quarters.) They deduce that Faux Mercedes came back and kidnapped the Sheriff, so they track the demon to a barn where she has been torturing Nedley for information about the seal.

In the memorable scene where Faux Mercedes tortures Nedley, we learn that the Sheriff is skip of the Purgatory Poachers, who have been county curling champions for six years in a row. This is in sharp contrast to Purgatory’s hockey team which wins infrequently and then only with demonic assistance. (see episode 203, “Gonna Getcha Good”).

Wynonna and Doc rescue Nedley and capture Faux Mercedes from whom they extract a venom sample that leads to an anti-venom which Wynonna delivers only to find Haught already cured. She is initially upset that Waverly made a deal with the Iron Witch to get the location of the third seal which she in turn traded to Faux Beth for a phial of anti-venom. But then Dolls explains that he ordered Waverly to do just that, with the idea of allowing the Demon Clootie to be resurrected, so a new weapon might be used against him.

Earlier, Dolls went to see Ewan (Brendan Fehr) of The Order, and Ewan returned the Purgatory Fair Commemorative Plate that Wynonna traded to them in “Let’s Pretend We’re Strangers” (episode 205). Ewan implied that the plate was a weapon, if one knew how to use it. While expressing concern for Wynonna’s baby, he also revealed something about Agent Dolls.

EWAN: “Others are coming for it. Demons. People from dangerous cults. Like the one you used to work for.”
DOLLS: “Black Badge is a secret intelligence organization. They may be misguided, but they are not baby-snatching crazies.”
EWAN: “You were taken, weren’t you?”

Gretta names her price for the cure she provided. She takes the hockey trophy in which the Marzaniok was imprisoned in “Gonna Getcha Good” (episode 203) and uses it to wish Wynonna out of existence. (She uses another German incantation, and one can make out the word verschwinden, which means “disappear”.) Suddenly, no one remembers that Wynonna Earp was ever there. Doc is not one of the witch’s targets, but when he grabs the trophy as Gretta is making her wish, he vanishes and is deposited at the bottom of the same well where the Stone Witch once put him. (Perhaps Doc should steer clear of witches.) It is unclear if anyone remembers that Doc exists.

Reality has been altered, but in a limited and local way. Jeremy has not vanished, though his arrival in Purgatory was indirectly caused by Wynonna. Everyone’s hairstyles and clothing are different. Waverly and Jeremy are planning a wedding.

Noting that the commemorative plate from “She Ain’t Right” (episode 204) is made of metal, Wynonna asks: “What kind of metal is this?”, and then says: “I know what we need to do” just before she vanishes.

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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 15 August 2017