Synopsis of 2×10: Waverly comes to Nicole’s rescue but in the end our favorite red-headed officer is still laid up in the hospital near death. The team has to come together to find a way to save her. But while they are pursuing all angles, Waverly becomes more and more desperate and makes a devastating choice…
Which is kind of crazy because basically the whole episode is about saving Nicole from certain death. And I freakin’ love Nicole! Plus, this episode starts out great with Waverly quoting Ellen Ripley by telling demon Mercedes to “Get away from her bitch!” when she goes to save Nicole.
So there’s a lot of promise!
But in the end I think it just felt like a filler episode. Nothing too major happened throughout the bulk of the episode. The couple of really big moments were crowded into the episode’s ending — with the final moments serving essentially as an introduction to the next episode. In my opinion, it leaves this episode sort of unfinished and a lot of important moments unrealized.
I’m getting ahead of myself, though. Let’s get back to the actual recap part of all this and try to break down what happened.
Like I said before, this episode is entirely about saving Nicole Haught’s life. Though Waverly shows up to save her from demon Mercedes, Nicole still ends up mortally wounded. In trying to protect Waverly she gets bit and poisoned by the widow – just like Juan Carlo, who Dolls ultimately had to put out of his misery. The hospital manages to sedate her and sort of stabilize her but she’s going to die. Hands down, no question about it. The venom is going to kill her.
So what does the team do next?
Well, Dolls goes off to try and get a sample of the venom from Juan Carlo’s body from The Order so they can maybe use it to create an anti-venom. Jeremy starts working on an anti-venom with the help of Rosita, who offers herself up as a test subject (after Wynonna threatens her with Peacemaker). Wynonna and Doc go back to Nicole’s place to investigate. And Waverly considers offering demon Beth the final seal in exchange for her healing Nicole… before making a deal with a witch in which she ends up giving the final seal to demon Beth anyway.
I’d say that we need to break this all down a little bit more but this basically covers it all.
Sure, some other things happen, too.
When Dolls goes to find Juan Carlo’s body he finds that The Order have already cremated him and their other fallen brothers. But they do give him the ‘plate’ thing they were so determined to have back in their introductory episode. Also, kinda weird and cultishly, they offer to take Wynonna’s baby into hiding and to protect it, raising it up within their order. Yeah, Ewan, stop being creepy.
Jeremy isn’t particularly thrilled at the idea of using Rosita as a test subject, nor is Doc happy about the fact that Wynonna forced Rosita to do it. Poor Rosita, guys. I mean, she just wants to be a part of the group and she cares about Nicole as much as any of them at this point. But the fact that she had the misfortune to be hanging with someone Wyatt intended to gun down is basically going to be held against her forever. No matter how much Wynonna may like her as a person, she does still have this curse to end and all.
Also, this is a big episode for Nedley, which is nice because I love him. He’s the best. It turns out he’s the one Wynonna trusted to hide the third seal and he hides it in his hand-made ‘DAD’ coffee mug. Yeah, not the most secure place in the world.
But demon Mercedes figures out through her demonic means that Nedley knows about the seal. She kidnaps him and tortures him — and all the while he hangs tough. “Do you think this is my first demon rodeo? Do you know we had an actual demon rodeo?” Nedley, I love you. And don’t worry, Wynonna and Doc manage to save him and capture demon Mercedes in order to make an anti-venom.
Bad news, though. Like I said earlier, Waverly makes a deal with a witch who uses her powers to help Waverly save Nicole… by directing her to the third seal. So she can give it to demon Beth so she can resurrect her evil husband (which she promptly begins trying to do). And then the witch ends up somehow using the cursed trophy with that whole ten-year curse thing to make Wynonna disappear from existence.
Yeah, that’s how the episode ends.
Not with Wynonna confronting Waverly for her betrayal. Not with Clootie being resurrected. Not with the baby coming or, you know, anything that would be a natural narrative progression. No, instead we see Wynonna wiped from everyone’s memory and Doc somehow magically sent back to his well prison. He can still remember Wynonna, for some reason, but I’m not sure anyone is going to remember Doc either. But who knows.
Some other things worth noting:
- Dolls did save faceless, human Mercedes who is now in the hospital – without a face.
- Doc plays poker with Revenants in the bar which actually seems like a great way to keep abreast of what the creeps are up to – though Wynonna kinda ruins things by barging in like she’s wont to do.
- Nicole has a cat named Calamity Jane that she asks Nedley to take care of and even though he claims to hate it, he still buys her a new scratching post.
- Also: the cat that plays Calamity Jane is locked in a closet at some point and seems to have no idea what it’s doing on set.
- NICOLE HAS A WIFE!? Yeah, apparently they had a short whirlwind of a marriage that basically began with a Vegas wedding and a honeymoon rock climbing and quickly devolved from there. But in a rather uninspired TV trope, she’s Nicole’s next of kin and shows up despite no one knowing she even exists. Luckily she’s pretty cool and she totally ships #WayHaught too.
So, yeah, that’s the episode.
I loved seeing how everyone came together to save Nicole and how important she was to everyone. But the episode as a whole felt a little disconnected and Waverly’s ultimate betrayal was pretty blatantly expected. I think that was probably my biggest issue – a lot of it was a just a little too predictable. I thought the witch tricking her into locating the seal and betraying Wynonna was a nice twist but I was hoping for more afterward.
I wanted to see the sisters upset with one another. I wanted to see heartfelt apologies and cute moments with Nicole reuniting with the team. Instead we immediately jumped into a story arc where Wynonna apparently disappears. Yet somehow most of the world remains the same – including the Black Badge Division gang who only ever really came together because of Wynonna in the first place.
Not that I’m not excited for this arc – I totally am.
I just think we jumped into it a little bit too quickly. There’s a lot to be resolved before the end of the season and we’ve only got two more episodes to go. But I’m going to trust the process because Emily Andras hasn’t steered us wrong yet and I doubt she will now. Still, this was definitely my least favorite episode of the season – even if I am all about bad ass Nedley.
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