Synopsis of 2×12: The Wynonna Earp second season finale leaves us all super emotional — and sets things up for the show’s upcoming third return to Purgatory. The widows meet their demise, a few mysteries are solved and secrets revealed, and the next generation begins.
Bobo helps the widows escape using his weird powers leaving Wynonna and Waverly flat on their asses for a second. Unfortunately, because Clootie had risen, the widows were protected from Peacemaker and able to protect Bobo as well. So all they can confront at the time is their feelings towards each other and Wynonna’s disappointment at her sister’s betrayal.
That’s a bit of a theme this episode. Wynonna is pissed at Waverly but with everything else going on and a baby coming literally any second it’s hard to focus on that.
Back at the Homestead they find that both Nicole and Jeremy survived the explosion in that alternative ending from the last episode. Wynonna’s glad to see them and tells everyone to get their shit together and come up with a plan because they’re running out of time.
Meanwhile Bobo leads the widows to Clootie’s hideout, where they find him shriveled up and weak. No worries, though. They plan to feed the baby to him so he regains his power. At least, they were planning that until widow Mercedes betrays them all, cuts off Clootie’s hand, and steals his all-powerful ring, restoring her to her full glory. She embracing the modern age where a woman doesn’t need a demon husband to get ahead! You go, widow Mercedes…?
Except then she immediately goes to the police station to attack Nicole and Jeremy and take them hostage. It’s sad because this happens like immediately after Jeremy tells Nicole how he stayed behind in Purgatory because he finally found a place where he belonged. But no worries. They aren’t held hostage for long. Wynonna and Waverly happen across them (and a bunch of other people) passed out in the road with Mercedes laying in wait for them.
Luckily, Dolls has found Doc and Doc is able to come to their aid. Their reunion was a bit emotional. Doc is having a hard time reconciling his own mortality – we have to remember that this is a guy who historically died of tuberculosis and, you know, probably has it again now that he’s no longer immortal. But we’ll deal with that in a later episode, I’m sure. In this one, after a little bit of a pep talk from Dolls he’s back in town ready to save Wynonna and the baby.
And , it turns out, Waverly.
Because while Mercedes is monologuing, widow Beth comes up and takes Waverly hostage. I like Doc’s response, though. He walks up, points a gun at Wynonna, and says he’d rather just kill her to stop them from using her as well as himself and the baby if it came to it. Wynonna goes right along with it, too.
Remember that plate she got back from the Order? She has the iron witch forge it into a bullet that she can use to kill Clootie and the widows. But she only has the one bullet. In a physics defying show of marksmanship, however, Wynonna fires that bullet at Doc who shots it, splits it in two, and manages to kill both widows at once.
Okay, yeah, I’ll suspend my disbelief. It makes for good TV and anyway this is a show about demons and Wyatt Earp. Weirder things have happened.
Wynonna and the others can’t make it back to the Homestead for the baby to be born on safe, consecrated ground so they go with the next best option: Shorty’s. If anyone was going to have a baby in a bar it would be Wynonna. Waverly and Rosita end up being the only ones that stay with her. Dolls goes off to find the doctor, Nicole goes to get baby Earp’s evacuation plan started, and Doc takes Jeremy to try and find Clootie’s tomb.
It turns out that Wynonna made the decision not to keep the baby with her in Purgatory. While we’re led to believe she might be giving it up for adoption for a little bit, we learn later that the baby is being sent to Auntie Gus – the same person who raised Wynonna and Waverly. She just won’t be raised as an Earp.
Let’s break down how things go for everyone.
Dolls doesn’t make it past the edge of town because the Order is there to stop him. It turns out Ewan was serious about his whole “let’s raise the Earp heir” thing and they’re willing to kill anyone who tries to stop them. They’ve murdered Wynonna’s doctor and try to kill Dolls, too. He ends up going all Dragon on them, though, so he’s fine.
Jeremy and Doc run into some trouble when they confront Bobo. Whether or not Clootie is still in that old mineshaft is something we never actually learn. Bobo says he’s going to give Waverly to Clootie as his new wife in order to save himself from going back to Hell and that’s about all we learn. They throw down outside of it and eventually incapacitate Bobo. But then Doc finds out that Wynonna is going into labor and the baby is going to be evacuated so he goes off to the rendezvous point to see it before it’s gone.
Interestingly, we actually find out some stuff about Jeremy here that I assume will be elaborated on next season. He survived a car crash when he was younger which led him to be pieced back together with a lot of “metal.” This was somehow the real reason that Black Badge recruited him and it may have given him some kind of abilities that we haven’t seen – or at least haven’t recognized – at this point.
Oh, and Wynonna and the baby?
It turns out Rosita’s finally had enough of Wynonna and the rest of them. After being threatened and told she’d be “shot last” and after seeing how Doc is just a terrible person without Wynonna she’s decided she’s worth nothing to them. So she’s going to sell the baby to the highest bidder. Damn Rosita. That’s cold.
Thankfully, by the time the baby is born Waverly has regained consciousness. After earlier telling Wynonna that a.) she’s not an Earp based on the DNA tests and that b.) she’s pretty sure she’s half Revenant, the two of them actually end up getting Peacemaker to work (sorta) for Waverly. She is an Earp – blood or not! After she’s born, Wynonna has a hard time letting the baby go but Waverly quickly spirits her away to meet Nicole.
Nicole drives them to the edge of town to see if either of them can actually cross the border or not. And despite the fact that both of them might have been half-Revenant they both cross the line with no problems. Waverly takes this to mean that the baby is Doc’s and that Bobo really isn’t her father – something that she had come to believe. They quickly take the baby to meet Perry, who has used his wealth to charter a private helicopter to take the baby to safety. But Doc gets to say one final goodbye to her first.
Later, when Wynonna and Doc meet again I’m not so sure he’s on board with the idea of sending the baby away. But they have bigger issues to deal with. And maybe if Wynonna can end the curse they can someday go find her again. Her name, we learn, is Alice Michelle after Doc’s mother and Wynonna’s mother.
Speaking of Wynonna’s mother…
The episode ends with a voiceover from Mama Earp. She’s speaking to Wynonna about what’s to come once Clootie rises. We see most of the team hanging out together, with Dolls and Nicole both solemnly sharing a nod as she looks over a case file about the Clootie cult (and sets aside some divorce papers). But at the very end we see Wynonna leaving town on a motorcycle to meet her mother who is just saying “I told you so” about Clootie in a long drawn out way. Which sets up what’s to come in Season 3!
All right, let’s break this down a bit.
I’m glad that they didn’t defeat Clootie in this season. I think rushing that resolution into the finale would have been a mistake – and it makes me wonder if the writing team didn’t already know they were going to get a third season. The finale ends in a way that we could have walked away satisfied if they hadn’t been renewed. There was no dramatic cliffhanger ending like with the first season.
But it also sets up an epic final showdown with Clootie that could break the curse once and for all. And I think if that’s what happens in the next season, it’d be very easy for them to wrap up the Wynonna Earp television series. Or, alternatively, transition the show into a more demon-of-the-week serialized format following a similar plot to the comics. Either way, I think we’ve got a lot ahead for us in the third season. It’s going to be big, folks.
That said, I’m not sure how I feel about a third season without baby Alice.
Wynonna’s decision to send the baby away was a bit cliche to me. I understand the idea of keeping her safe, but there’s no guarantee she will be no matter where she goes. Sending her to live with Gus in the real world means Wynonna and Peacemaker aren’t there to protect her. She could be kidnapped en route by Black Badge. Once that baby is out of sight we have no idea what happens to her. As dangerous as Purgatory may be, at least there are people there to try and protect her.
Also, how many people’s lives get completely screwed up when they grow up and find out about some secret destiny they have? They’re literally setting up Alice to be some kind of YA protagonist. She’s going to end up being some ‘orphan’ abandoned by her parents who gets stuck with some shitty destiny completely unprepared for any of it.
Because we all just assume that the Earp curse ends with killing Clootie. But who knows if it does. Maybe it still continues after he’s gone or it morphs into some other kind of destiny. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
All that said, this was a really good season finale.
I’m really looking forward to seeing what happens in the third season and I think the return of Mama Earp is going to be really good for the show. We’re going to hopefully get a lot of answers – including a more definitive answer to where Waverly really came from and why Bobo calls her “kin.” She also seems like she might have the answers about Clootie, which is something we’ll need now that the widows have been dispatched.
It’s going to be a long wait until Wynonna Earp returns in 2018!
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