Synopsis 2×01: Picking up immediately where the last season finale left off, Wynonna and the team have to find a way to rescue Dolls from Black Badge with the help of a new ally from Dolls’ past. Meanwhile, we’re all left wondering what the hell is going on with Waverly.
By the end of this first episode, we still don’t know. We get some hints but obviously they’re going to drag out that big reveal at least for a little bit. But it’s clear that Waverly obviously doesn’t shoot Wynonna as the finale would have you believe.
In fact, the second season starts with Waverly and Doc running through the woods from some kind of demonic creature before Wynonna valiantly rescues them. Meanwhile we see Dolls being transported to some Black Badge site outside of Purgatory where he’s about to get locked up forever by Lucado. Despite this, he some how calls someone to call off the airstrike she had ordered on Purgatory. I don’t really know what kind of clout someone who is getting locked up has but hey. At least no one is getting blown into smithereens!
Purgatory starts to recover from the finale’s shenanigans with Nedley explaining that everyone’s just gonna end up blaming her again because they already hate her. Plus it’s a better cover than admitting to the supernatural elements in town. Black Badge starts combing through all of Dolls’s stuff and when Wynonna tries to beat them to the punch by checking out his hotel room she uncovers a few of Dolls’s secrets. Namely, he’s been hiding out in a rundown hotel with a woman named Eliza.
And Eliza is pretty bad ass. She kicks Wynonna’s ass in lingerie.
After talking things through, we learn that Eliza and Dolls are Black Badge counterparts. Throughout the episode we learn that she, too, has been turned into whatever sort of creature Dolls becomes without his medication and they were working together to figure out what they did to them. She is, apparently, the person he rescued in Kandahar when he left Lucado’s husband for dead.
Speaking of which, can we talk about how insane her need for revenge is and how it hardly seems like a justifiable reason to lock someone up for the rest of their life – especially when the person who wants to lock that person up is breaking a shit ton of rules herself?
I digress.
Wynonna and Eliza team up with everyone else – so basically Doc, Waverly, and Haught – to rescue Dolls. After a few mishaps, Waverly gets some help from a hapless lab tech named Jeremy to get everyone inside the building. But in the end Doc goes to rescue Dolls alone.
Eliza makes it clear that without the medication, Dolls could go past the point of no return pretty easily and that if that happens they have to kill him. Doc isn’t exactly willing to let Wynonna kill two people she loves in less than twenty-four hours so he goes after him. Everyone’s concern about Wynonna is a reoccurring theme throughout the episode for obvious reasons.
After a brief showdown with Lucado, where Doc threatens to blow the whole place up with super old dynamite he found somewhere, he helps Dolls escape. Unfortunately, Doc gets captured and along with Wynonna, Waverly, and poor hapless Jeremy they get conscripted into Black Badge’s ranks permanently through a weird, magical blood contract. Basically, Black Badge owns them now. But at least they were able to keep Haught out of it – for now.
Eliza, though, they murder on the spot as a show of force. Black Badge means business and they make it clear that a.) they will do what they are told and b.) they will find Dolls eventually. Don’t worry, though. Dolls escapes and before the end of the episode he sees Wynonna again and leaves her what looks like some strange key on an ornament-looking neckless. And Wynonna and Waverly resolve to protect Purgatory from revenant and demon alike regardless of Black Badge or their influences.
Oh, and then at the very end some demonic creature that could possibly be Bobo’s remains uses some of Doc’s discarded dynamite to blow up a part of the Black Badge.
So, basically, this was a solid return to the series with all the action and silly jokes you could want. Doc loses his hat and can’t get over it the whole episode. Waverly teases Wynonna about doing math. Nedley is Nedley… I’ve missed this show a lot and this episode just goes to show you why.
But what’s happening with Waverly?
That’s the big question that’s going to be on everyone’s mind and this episode doesn’t really do much to soothe your fears that something is very wrong with her. She’s got some kind of demonic influence spreading through her and the show isn’t shy about showing it. We see her eyes go black multiple times throughout the episode – including once when she swings an ax precariously close to Haught’s head! She even uses whatever power she has to save her and Jeremy from an escaped ‘devourer of souls’ demon in the lab.
And Waverly knows something is going on, too. When Wynonna asks her how she is she deflects. When talking to Doc about what happened she says she feels “strong.” And when she kisses Haught, Haught tells her that she ‘tastes different.’
With clues like that being littered indiscriminately throughout the second season premiere, we’re left to wonder not just what’s going on with Waverly but when we’re going to get some real answers. They’re not shying away from the black eyed Waverly so we could go another few episodes like this with a few appearances of her darker self – or we could get answers pretty quick because clearly she’s got no problem going all black-eyed in front of people like Jeremy.
We’ll just have to wait and see what they decide to do, I guess!
English