Wynonna Earp: Keep The Home Fires Burning

Synopsis of 1×02: Wynonna gets started working with Dolls as an official part of the Black Badge Division. Meanwhile Doc Holliday tries to make good with the Revenants and inadvertently sets a terrible, murderous demon after poor Waverly.

Rating: ★★★★☆

Picking up shortly after the pilot, this second episode of Wynonna Earp goes a long way in proving the series staying power. The pace of this episode is a little slower and focuses a lot more on the plotting and scheming of not just the Revenants but Tim Rozon’s Doc Holliday as well.

That’s not to say that there is any less action or excitement than you might expect, of course.

After accepting her fate as the heir to Wyatt Earp’s legacy and the only person who can weird the demon-killing gun Peacemaker, Wynonna finds herself working closely with the enigmatic Agent Dolls from the Black Badge Division. Her first mission goes pretty terribly when she goes into a night club after a Revenant with guns blazing, after being told specifically to keep a low profile. Let’s just say Wynonna isn’t exactly the model example of a ‘lawman.’

She is, however, Purgatory’s only chance.

While she schools Dolls in the mythology behind the Revenants, he tells her a bit more about the history of the Black Badge Division. Founded by Teddy Roosevelt with the help of yet another Earp heir they are the only defense standing between the supernatural and our world. And, unfortunately, they don’t always succeed. When Wynonna brings up the idea of informing the people of Purgatory what’s of what’s really going on he reveals that Purgatory isn’t the only town haunted by demons that he’s dealt with. And things really didn’t end well for that other town.

Elsewhere, Doc Holliday is trying to find a place for himself among the Revenants. They aren’t exactly fans of his for good reason, though he’s a charming enough person that he’s able to get on with most of them. His charms have a limit, however. The leader of the Revenants isn’t willing to trust him or help him in his quest for revenge against the Earps until the man proves himself.

The only way for him to do that was to activate a particularly dark and dangerous Revenant named Jim Miller to kill Wynonna Earp and retrieve Peacemaker. Jim Miller has turned into something else entirely – a dark shadow of a man vaguely resembling a redneck Dementor. Apparently activating Jim is something only a human can do and since Holliday is still a man and not a Revenant he’s able to do that.

Calling himself Henry, he goes to the bar where Waverly works and gets on her good side. She assumes he’s just a Wyatt Earp fanboy and he learns that she has some things of Wyatt Earp’s in her room. He breaks in to try and find something he can use to sic the Revenant on Wynonna. But when Wynonna arrives all he can grab is a book of Waverly’s. In the end he unintentionally feeds that to the Revenant and instead of going after Wynonna it goes for Waverly.

The girls retreat to the Earp homestead which used to be safe from demons. After a little bit of research they realize that a naturally occurring mineral that surrounds the homestead wards off demons. However, there’s a way to disrupt the effects using a particularly designed talisman.

Waverly remembers that as a child – shortly before Willa and their father died – her imaginary friend had told her how to make that very talisman and she buried it on their property in their pet cemetery. Named Bobo, that ‘imaginary friend’ turned out to be not only not imaginary but also not her friend. In the end Waverly manages to dig it up the talisman, destroy it, and Wynonna ultimately defeats the shadowy Revenant with a little assistance from Dolls.

With the homestead now protected again Wynonna and Waverly resolve to move back to the homestead together. And Waverly gets to come on as a Black Badge Division consultant. Meanwhile Doc Holliday continues to charm them with his “Henry” the fanboy persona.

But as nice as he may seem, Henry has his own plans. While he may be playing nice with the Earp girls he’s also deep in bed with the Revenants now. Bobo the imaginary friend turns out to really be the leader of the Revenants. In a crazy Viking-esque moment he administers quick justice on a Revenant who managed to muck up the whole effort to retrieve Peacemaker. In order to get Henry to prove his loyalty he ends up forcing him to kill the Revenant after which he accepts Henry as his partner in crime.

All in all there were some really great moments in this episode. It’s good to see Doc Holliday taking center stage now and again. As much as I love Wynonna and Waverly we seem to know their end game at this point. But Henry is something else entirely. The same can be said of Agent Dolls who is always a joy with his stoic, deadpan demeanor.

I will say, though, that this episode introduced us to someone else we’d like to see more of in the future: Officer Nicole Haught. After her little flirtatious encounter with Waverly and a way less enjoyable (for her, anyway ) encounter with Dolls later, we can’t wait to see her again!