Wynonna Earp: Diggin’ Up Bones Recap

Synopsis of 1×05: Wynonna and Dolls make a daring raid on the trailer park run by the lead Revenant; Henry comes face to face with an old nemesis.

Rating: ★★★★½☆

What a great episode of Wynonna Earp, and I’m not just saying that because we opened on a scene of Dolls working out half naked and closed on a scene of Wynonna and Doc hooking up in the woods.

Though, that certainly helped.

No, the reason why this week’s episode of Wynonna was damn near perfect was because it illustrated some of the best things that can come from this show. What makes the show so enjoyable is not just the campy wild wild west theme of the show or the fact that it’s basically oozing kickass in a way that is so characteristic of Emily Andras, but the fact that it also really gets at the meat of the story.

For the last four episodes, Wynonna has been bent on chasing down the seven revenants that attacked her house when she was young, the seven that killed her sister and destroyed her life. She’s no law-loving Wyatt Earp, bent on justice for the world. She wants revenge, plain and simple. She’s a good person capable of real empathy and sympathy, but it doesn’t stop her from wanting to kill all the revenants who make her life a living hell.

And for the most part, she’s justified. All of the revenants we’ve met so far are justifiably nasty in some way or the other, even Levi was a little shady in the beginning. No one really sheds a tear when she sends them back to hell. But this week we not only see Wynonna go further past the line in search of a photograph of the seven, but we also get to meet the sort of revenant we haven’t seen yet.

Ambrose Fish jumps Wynonna in her truck and holds her to gunpoint after sneaking out of the trailer park during a Black Badge raid gone wrong. He orders Wynonna to drive, threatening her with a gun. Waverly and Doc catch up to her and stop her in the middle of the road to see what is happening. It doesn’t take long for Doc to recognize Fish, but instead of holding him at gunpoint like Wynonna, he embraces him.

Seriously, I don’t think I’ve seen anything quite as precious and bromantic as Doc and Fish happily hugging each other and squealing like teenage girls.

Compared to the skulking, sinister, and barbaric revenants we’ve met previously, Fish is mild mannered and even helpful when it comes to our protagonists. He’s not bent on killing or coming after Wynonna, he’s just searching for his boyfriend. He’s even willing to help out Wynonna, specifically by giving her a photograph he took of the seven in front of her dad’s hanging body.

Obviously Wynonna agrees to help. In order to find out where Fish’s boyfriend is she has to torture a revenant named The Vulture. Although Doc initially stops her, telling her there is a difference between killing and torture, Wynonna handles the job on her own, but not without it affecting her. It doesn’t sit well with her, but she also doesn’t shy away from doing what needs to be done. After sending The Vulture to hell, she finds out that Fish’s boyfriend, Levi, was dragged past the Ghost River Triangle by Doc.

Yup, that’s the guy from episode two. We see him briefly in the beginning of the episode chewing off his own leg from where he was staked.

Without giving the details of her find, Wynonna counts her interrogation as a success and asks for the photograph. Downside is that the negatives are held at the police department and Wynonna has to break in. There’s a funny scene of Wynonna attempting to seduce some of the ladies working in the basement to pull the alarm, after she fails, she sends in Doc to objectify himself.

Pulling the alarm, Wynonna and Fish break into the records to get what they need. Meanwhile, Doc sneaks into the Black Badge headquarters to see what Dolls has been up to. He is intercepted by the long awaited Stone Witch. Also known as Constance Clootie, she’s as bad as they come, and it looks like she still has a strong hold over Doc. She paralyzes him in place before leaving him alone and dazed.

With the introduction of Constance, we have another piece to Doc and Bobo’s story. Constance acts as Bobo’s lawyer after he is arrested by Dolls and Wynonna. While it seems that Constance might have a pull with the judge, who in turn might be connected to the revenants, she and Bobo share a much more intimate bond. Granted their revenant foreplay was a little freaky, it was still kind of great at the same time.

She is seen with two incomplete skeletons while she’s talking to Bobo and it seems like they might be her sons. It’s a little unclear what her relationship with Bobo is exactly, in one scene she’s clearly got him under her thumb (or her heel, if we’re being specific), but in another scene she’s asking him for permission and being man handled by him. Maybe it’s just their version of foreplay? Similarly, she seems to have a hold over Doc, but Bobo mentions that she is apparently afraid of him.

After successfully finding the negatives from Fish’s photos, he demands to see Levi. Wynonna and Doc bring him to the border of the triangle, but only find Levi’s dismembered foot. They track Levi to the nearby woods where the two lovers are finally reunited. Despite being the cause of Levi’s suffering, Fish doesn’t hold much resentment towards Doc.

This is one of the best things about Fish, and what makes him such an interesting character. He holds none of the ill will that the others do, the only time he seems to carry some bit of his revenant self is when they’re stealing evidence and he says that it’s fun to break the law sometimes. He even deals the two of them some real talk by telling them, “Vengeance is hollow Doc, it isn’t worth a thing.” He makes his peace, in some way, and Wynonna sends them both back to hell as he hopes that she breaks the curse to end their suffering.

Wynonna and Doc argue between the rights and wrongs of what happened to Levi and Fish. Despite their differences in purpose, Wynonna and Doc are both people bent on revenge. They are willing to cross many lines in order to achieve their goal. Wynonna is willing to torture people, she’s willing to break the law, she’s willing to take advantage of a situation, she’ll do a lot in order to find justice for her family. The same goes for Doc, he’s willing to stake Levi, he’s willing to stake anyone and everyone in order to get his revenge on the Stone Witch.

He’s not wrong in telling her that she’s exactly like him. Wynonna may walk on the line between good and bad, but at the end of the day, she’ll do what she thinks is justified. This doesn’t exactly make her a bad person, it just makes her human. Neither she nor Doc can reconcile what has happened to them. And of course, like most couples that hook up early in a show, I sense doom for these two even if their hook up in the woods was aesthetically pleasing. Doc might care about Wynonna and Waverly, but his ultimate goal is still painfully clear.