Keeping Up With the Earps: 3×12 & Season 3 Wrap-up.

That was a loaded fucking finale. Hopefully this break-down will help us all wrap our minds around it. Since this was the Season 3 finale, in addition to an in-depth look at 3×12 itself followed by The Big Picture, where I’ve been keeping track of anything that seemed relevant about our main players, I’ve added a season wrap-up at the end. There are also a few “mini wrap-ups” for some of key players.

You may notice that this post doesn’t go SUPER in depth regarding the religious/mythical parallels and symbolism or the history of Bulshar and those fighting him. That’s because I posted a ridiculously in-depth look at all the religious lore that it seemed the show might be pulling from. AND I’m already working on a version 2.0 that takes into account everything we learned in the finale and cuts back on topics that don’t seem to be making it into the Wynonna Earp version.

Disclaimer: Nothing included in this post should be taken as absolute fact. Even information that I took directly from the show is stated as I see it and is in no way endorsed by anyone officially linked to the show.

Brief recap of  3×12: Fuck Yeah.

I am actually going to keep this one brief, because if I start going into detail this post is going to take longer to read than the episode took to watch and all the important details are probably further down in other sections anyway.

First things first, Waverly totally proposed to Nicole, but thanks to the most hurtful interruption yet by Wynonna we don’t get to hear Nicole’s answer.

Now that that’s out of the way, a few other things happened. The Earp curse is ended and the demon responsible is dead. Wynonna is no longer the heir of killing revenants with a magic gun. Now she’s The Chosen One, appointed by the Angel Waverly as the Guardian of the Garden and the only one who can wield the flaming sword.
Waverly was taken by the Garden or something in it and Doc followed so that he could protect her while Wynonna figures out how to get them back.
Wynonna returns to the Homestead to find the rest of the gang, who she left there unconscious, is missing and that the name Valdez (queue an excited scream from everyone familiar with the comics) is scratched into the wall. Thanks to an evacuation the town was already pretty empty, but now it seems like the only ones left are Wynonna and Nedley.

IMPORTANT reminder about Tarot Cards:
I’ve keep this in for weeks because even though we were living Bulshar’s “future” at the tail end of S3, it was Wynonna’s present, which I interpret to mean that her future, whatever The Lovers is meant to represent, is still do come.

Bulshar’s cards:
– Past : devil
– Present : lovers
– Future : Tower (Darkness and Destruction)

Wynonna Cards:
– Past : devil
– Present : Tower (Darkness and Destruction)
– Future : Lovers

Gems You May Have Missed:

• When Bulshar changes Peacemaker the gun back into the sword he says “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”. He was quoting Jesus. Matthew 10:34- “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”*
• Kate straight up called Nicole “Pussy whipped”.
  Kate says “like you’re not controlled by tu coneja” to Nicole. “Tu coneja” is literally translated to “your doe” or “your rabbit”, but in slang is “your pussy”. She was referring to Waverly and Nicole agrees by saying something about how much she likes Waverly.
• This one may be a reach, but it warms my heart. Wynonna tells Doc that Julian died to save Waverly. Waverly wasn’t in any immediate danger so what might she have meant? Julian died because he was weak after saving Nicole’s life, “I used everything I had to save her.”, but Wynonna knows “if anything happens to Nicole, Waverly would die” so by saving the love of Waverly’s life, he did save Waverly. #WayHaught #YerWelcome
  Also, maybe she just meant because he gave her the ring, but since we don’t see Wynonna knowing that he gave her the ring, I prefer the other version.
• aka snake rant: Jeremy says “maybe he’s poisonous”. No. Venomous and Poisonous are not synonyms. Venom is injected, poison is ingested. “If it bites you and you die, it’s venomous. If you bite it and you die, it’s poisonous”.
  ALSO, you can’t suck snake venom out. Don’t ever try that.
• Waverly tells Wynonna that she didn’t take her shot because she knows Wynonna too well. Go back and watch the scene with the shots, it was played perfectly. She watches Wynonna so intently and you can see the suspicion on Waverly’s face.

*I have cracked open my bible more in the last few weeks than I had in years prior, but when I was a kid I had around 200 verses memorized.

Answers to questions you may have:

• My take on Julian being killed and Waverly not being able to bring him back is that he used up the last of his supernatural strength to save Nicole. He even tells Waverly, “I used everything I had to save her.” before he gives her the ring that he may not have been strong enough to wield anymore.
• When Bulshar and Wynonna were linked by the curse her touch could kill him. He used her blood to not only end the curse, but also to turn him mortal again.
• Nicole’s middle name is Rayleigh.
• Based on the amount of times it’s asserted that one has to be mortal to enter the garden, I have to assume that Doc was by the end of 3×12. The most likely answer being that Waverly’s angel tears turned him mortal or at least returned his soul. He also escaped the holy water rope, and was able to carry Julian’s sword (“You would not have been able to hold this if your soul was truly compromised.”).

Questions that I don’t know the answer to:

• Why the actual fuck was Nicole walking down the road after being wounded at the Gardner house. Where the shit was her car?
• Why was Robin immune to the Beekeepers? Why didn’t he turn into a tree? Was I too busy looking for birds in the background that I missed something here?
• Vines come out of “The Garden” and take Waverly after Bulshar is dead. What?

Favorite Lines:

• I fucking loved hunting and killing you all.
• You’re my personal meditation app. – You can double-tap me anytime.
• But how does my hair look?
• Like you’re not ruled by tu coneja.
• Never apologize for love, red.
• You dingle-dangles had to ruin everything.
• We cut through ’em like RuPaul cuts through performances without heart. – I haven’t seen that show. – Get your life in order, son.
• Did Lou Bega give up when Mambos 1 through 4 failed? No, he wrote Mambo no. 5 and the rest is music history.
• Melanie Scrofano’s abs. (whatever it’s my blog)
• There. You’re free.
• I can see it on my best friend’s face.
• I do, Nicole Rayleigh Haught. I really really love you.
• I’m just a girl with a big ass…ass. – Girl. – You’re right, them boots is tight. – Yeah, Top Shelf.
• You clearly underestimate the amount of dick I be.
• Am I your backup? – I think we both know I’m yours…angel.
• I don’t want Nedley to die.
• I bested your mom.
• Wynonna Earp, You are chosen.
• Consent denied.
• Son of a Cobra Kai.
• VALDEZ (!!!!)
• Fuck yeah.

Under-appreciated (according to me) Lines:

• Basically all of the ones I mentioned above. I feel like there was so much action and crazy shit in this episode that we didn’t have time to appreciate a lot of the great writing and deliver.

The Big Picture

My attempt at the timeline:

• Genesis 3 – A deceptive serpent in the Garden of Eden leads to The Fall of Man and two angels are placed at the entrance with a flaming sword to guard the Garden. (Biblical canon, not Wynonna Earp canon)
• Bulshar entombed: 1887
• Willa Born: 1987
• Wynonna Born: 1988*
• Waverly Born / Julian is “pushed outside of the GRT: Sept 8 1994*
• Mama left: 1999**
• Attack on the homestead: May 2000
• Wynonna comes of age: 2015*
• Episode 2×12: Waverly steps outside the bounds of the GRT for the first time.
  *What we know for sure is that the attack was in 2000 and that Wynonna was 12 and Waverly was 6 when it happened. Keep in mind when doing the math, that Emily wrote the pilot in 2015. It all falls apart if you try to use the air date for the math. Also, because the month someone is born can mess up the math, this is all kind of give or take a year.
  **The original line was that Waverly was 4 when Mama Earp left, making me think it was two-ish years before the attack, but in 3×01 Wynonna says that Mama had only been gone six months when the Homestead was attacked.

Season Three Credits Breakdown:

• Angel with one wing in an old cemetery. Surrounded by several dead looking trees. When we zoom in the the angel is wrapped up by a large snake.
• More ugly trees, the biggest one in the forefront has half a face
  – Probably because Bulshar is turning people (and Vampires) into murder trees.
• BIRDS. I have a shit ton to say about the birds. You’ll have to check one of my insane posts on symbolism and religious lore in Wynonna Earp.

Main players: What we know about what we don’t know

Most of this will be things that were shown or stated in the show, however I am including theories that I feel strongly about, those theories with be in italics. Anything that was added since the last post will be in bold.

Mama Earp aka Michelle Gibson:

• Spent nearly 20 years in prison, accused of trying to kill Waverly when she burned down the barn with Waverly in it.
• Was never trying to kill Waverly, she was trying to exorcise a demon that was after Waverly. She ended up binding the demon to herself and lived with it tormenting her the entire time. The demon talked to her about Bulshar.
• Used to run to the Gibson’s greenhouse to escape Ward, she was often met there by Julian, who is Waverly’s father.
• Last seen leaving the Ghost River Triangle to search for Julian. Ouch. 
• I STILL (yes still!) refuse to believe that it’s a coincidence that Mama Earp and the Widows wore the same perfume (I don’t know how to spell it…Shalotel?).

Wynonna Earp:
– Most of the mystery surrounding Wynonna has to do with the years she was away from Purgatory and doesn’t seem like it’s going to have much of an implication on the show (I’ve heard it’s explored more in the comics).

• Earp heir…Maybe not anymore.
• Great hair. Yes, End-of-the-World Great. 
• Refers to herself as “Dubs”.
• Chosen by the Angel Waverly to wield the flaming sword.

Waverly:

• Was born in the greenhouse on the Gibson farm.
• Her real father is an angel named Julian, making her half-angel.
• Bobo referred to her as “kin”. I don’t think we really know why.
• Promised to Bulshar by Bobo. Is this something that was dropped or does it have something to do with why she was dragged into “The Garden”?
• The Arabic words that translate to “Garden of Paradise” appeared on the ring after she put it on.
• Happily taken Virgo with hair for days. 
• Was taken by something in “The Garden”.

Waverly is half angel and I think we’ve only began to scratch the surface of what that means. Everything we’ve seen her do has been credited to the ring, EXCEPT having likely “cured” Doc. For now, we just need to worry about getting her back.

Julian (RIP):

• One of two angels tasked with protecting the Garden.
• Kevin says that Julian and Bulshar “were the original haters. ”  Who or what did they hate?
• Owner of a badass angel ring that Bulshar somehow stole 130 or more years ago.
• Per Mama “Ward pushed Julian outside” the GRT the night Waverly was born. And he’s been lost ever since. This raises so many questions. Did Ward physically push Julian? How did Ward make an angel do anything?  
• Was lost being outside the GRT. When Waverly crossed the boundary in 2×12 it showed him the way back, but he had no memory.
• Lived as a firefighter called “Charlie” until his ring gave him his memories back.

John Henry Doc Holliday:
There are plenty of questions, but I’m not going to dig TOO deep unless I think it’s going to have an impact on the show in the near (this season) future.

• Has a wife named Kate dating back to his pre-well days. Regardless he still talks about Wyatt as if they were soulmates
• Totes doesn’t deny being Wyatt’s boyfriend.
• Went to hell when he died in the AU. Is super emo about it.
• Is a vampire. Or is he? Popular theory is that Waverly’s tears cured him.
• Was able to climb the stairs to “The Garden”. This likely means that he is mortal. Also, when he handed Julian his sword Julian said that he would not be able to touch it if his soul was truly compromised.  

Jeremy Chetri:

• Has a sort of empathetic connection to people (“now I can sense when my friends are super scared”) every since he was in a car crash with his mother and stuck with her body for three days. My poor child.
• Black Badge “did stuff” to him as well.
• Not “purely human”. I don’t really take this to mean anything more than what we already know as stated in the bullets above, but who knows, maybe he’s the werewolf. 

Nicole Rayleigh Haught:

• Only survivor of an attack linked to the Cult of Bulshar. During the attack she “somehow” got down to the river. After getting herself down to the river and in a canoe to get away from the massacre, she was found by Nedley! He “kept an eye” on her after that and offered her the job after finding out she was in the academy.
• Is a Capricorn….This fucking show. They think of everything.
  

Bobo Del Rey aka Robert Svane (RIP):

• Was a good guy and close friend to Wyatt before he became a revenant.
• Was part of Black Badge.
• Can telepathically move metal objects, including Peacemaker.
• Was there the night Waverly was born. Took the baby to Ward and threatened his life if he didn’t care for the child, his angel.
• Killed and finally set free by Waverly. 

Kate aka Katalin aka Countessa:

• Nobility from Hungary. Finally the nickname makes sense.
• Became a vampire after she heard that the Stone Witch gave Doc immortality and hid him so that she could look for Doc no matter how long it took.
• Had her friend Sally pose as the outlaw Big Nose Kate because Vampires can’t be captured on film.

Peacemaker: This section is a bit complicated after the newest developments.

• Bluntline Special that Wyatt Earp used to put down 77 “outlaws”.
• Only weapon that will send the revenants back to hell and can only be fired by the current Earp Heir.
• Cannot be handled by a demon without burning the shit out of them.
• Glows orange when aimed at a demon.
• Glowed blue for the first time when Wynonna used it to kill Willa.
• Glowed blue for the second time when Waverly pointed it at Rosita and Wynonna ordered it to fire, grazing Rosita.
• As Wynonna prepared to shoot the Stone Witch, which was presented more as putting her out of her misery, the barrel started to glow orange, but quickly switched to blue.
• When Wynonna pointed the gun at Bulshar it glowed white, both IRL and in her hallucination.
• Bulshar needed “the tower” to get into the Garden of Eden, Peacemaker is the tower, but it has to be given up willingly by the heir, which it was. Bulshar returned it to the form of the sword and stuck it in the stairs, like a key in a lock I suppose. 
• Was originally The Flaming Sword meant to protect The Garden.
  • referred to as “the garden’s security system” by Julian.
  • the sword can only be wielded by a Champion chosen by an Angel. As of now that is Wynonna who was chosen by Waverly.
  • Disconcertingly referred to by Bulshar as “my sword?”, but that’s one of those things that makes me question if anyone or anything on this show is what we’ve been led to believe they are so I’m not going to think about it.

The ring:

• Belonged to Waverly’s father, Julian. Bulshar stole it.
• Kate tells Waverly not to “underestimate the power of this relic. It’s older than most things on earth.”
• When Waverly finally puts it on, not only can she not take it off, Arabic writing appears on the ring. The writing translates to Garden of Paradise.
• So far we’ve seen the ring: give Widow Mercedes a serious Glow-Up and enable Waverly to punch a zombie witch across the barn, melt a demon’s face, control Bulshar’s former arm (connected to a radioactive revenant), heal her friend’s face, raise Julian, it’s rightful owner, from the dead, and put an end to Bobo.
• Waverly is now able to remove it, which she does and she places it on Nicole’s finger.* 
• Can’t say if this is on purpose or not, but Waverly yelling at the ring to get it to suddenly be useful is too similar to Wynonna yelling at Peacemaker in 2×12.

*I think the ring will play a part in getting into the Garden to get Waves and Doc back. I think the ring saying “Garden of Paradise” after Waverly put it on is bigger than just telling us what Bulshar was looking for. I wonder if Waverly being able to remove it now has something to do with Julian being dead or if it’s related to the fact that the sword had been returned to the entrance or neither of those things. 

My original theory was that the flaming sword, the gun, the ring, and the plate from S2 were all made by the same source of metal. Now we know that the gun was the flaming sword, but I still think there is a connection. I also came across some stuff about a very old black stone that is related to biblical story of the Garden of Eden. 

Bulshar aka The Demon Clootie (DEAD):

• Was created in the Garden to enjoy the spoils of Paradise. That’s right, Bulshar is the infamous serpent from the story of the fall of man.
• Clootie is a term used to refer to the devil in Scotland. 
• Entombed around 130 years ago (1887) by Robert Svane, Constance Clootie, and Juan Carlo after he was shot by Wyatt Earp.
• Cursed the decedents of Wyatt Earp.
• Really mad at the Original Families of Purgatory for letting him be defeated.
• His ultimate goal was to “enslave humanity”, somehow the Garden seems to be the key to doing so.
• Turns people (and vampires) into creepy trees, which he controls and communicates with, that’s how he found the Garden.
• Kevin says that Julian and Bulshar “were the original haters. ”  Who or what did they hate?

The Garden:

• Home to two very important trees, The Tree of Life and The Tree of Knowledge [of Good and Evil].*
• The creepy staircase in the woods is supposedly the entrance to the Garden.
• From Juan Carlo’s journal “We guarded the entrance to keep him in, to keep everything in, but we failed, Julian and I”. Which begs the question, were the angels supposed to keep the serpent IN the garden or OUT of it? J.C. talks about keeping “him” in, but the whole season is about keeping him out, including Julian saying that Bulshar can’t be allowed to enter. In the bible their job is to keep everyone out of the Garden of Eden and away from the Tree of Life after Adam and Eve are kicked out for eating from The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil lest they end up with knowledge and immortality. 
• It stole Waverly and made a terrible noise. Plus Waverly seemed pretty freaked out by whatever she saw in there. Doesn’t sound like my idea of Paradise. 

*I wrote an insanely in-depth look at the trees and the sword and the guardians of the garden and all things religious or just really interesting that we’ve been teased with this season.

I’ve read some of Emily’s post 3×12 interviews and I honestly have no idea what is going on with this Garden. I’m so fascinated (if you hadn’t noticed by my recent obsessive researching and writing) by how she is incorporating biblical lore. As of right now I have to take what is stated on the show as truth or I’ll lose my damn mind, so I’m working under the assumption that they are talking about “The Garden of Eden” and that the stairs were the entrance. It’s been a long time since anyone saw what was going on in that Garden so who knows what we’re up against next season. I still think there is a connection between The Garden and the Gibson Greenhouse.

Where did everyone go? Why was Nedley left? Who is Valdez (rather, how similar will she be the comic character)? Will I ever understand where the beekeepers came from and why they were called bees so much? Was Bulshar their queen? What happened to the revenants when the curse was ended? Have Kate and Mercedes agreed on a color scheme?

 

Ok, friends, that’s it for Keeping Up With The Earps in Season 3. I’ve loved doing these posts and appreciate every person who took time to read them more than I can say. Hiatus is long, but I’ll continue to write about all my Wynonna Earp feels as well as get back to writing about myself, because as you probably noticed, I have a lot to say.

Feel free to discuss theories in the comments. If you think I got something totally wrong from the show that I should correct, please offer proof. If you hated this, keep that to yourself, I’m sensitive. If you enjoyed it, please let me know by liking, commenting, and sharing it on twitter.

RIP

Sgt Xavier Dolls.
Julian.
Robert Svane.