If you’ve never seen one of my deep dives before…well it’s a lot. This post is split up into several sections, some highlighting the episode itself and some keeping track of the bigger picture. I hope you gain something from it.
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.
Brief recap of 4×06:Two Become One
Jeremy and Nedley are working some magic to try to free Nicole of the frog-barf hex, but things go sideways when Reaper Billy comes after Waverly and Frog-Nicole gets loose. Nicole breaks the most important rule of frog exorcisms (apparently) and leaves the frog to protect Waverly from the reaper. Ghost Nicole then manages to inhabit the reaper and get some information. We learn that the only way to save Nicole at this point is for Mam Clanton to die. Nicole did whatever she had to do to get Waverly back, now it’s Waverly’s turn.
Wynonna delivers Rosita believing that Peacemaker will be returned to her, but of course it’s not that simple and the Demon-Nun demands they fight to the death. Luckily Wynonna and Rosita decide to refuse that deal before any real damage is done. After a rousing speech Peacemaker returns to Wynonna and she vanquishes the Demon-Nun who has apparently been keeping the other nuns prisoner. It turns out that some of the nuns are Revenants – victims of Wyatt Earp – but are somehow protected in the nunnery. We leave Rosita, trapped and protected, with the nuns who “seem nice”.
Doc has gone full pacifist, wanting to repent and move far away from his violent past. The new-improved Doc makes a deal a with Holt to urge their respective parties to drop the feud once and for all.
Waverly goes to Magpie Ranch with a shotgun and demands Mam release Nicole. Waverly learns from Mam that the deal Nicole made is what got them back from the garden and we all learn that Nicole promised to deliver Doc to the Clantons in return. Mam insists that Nicole will die one way or another and begins the ritual to send a reaper after her. Out of options we see what happens when Waverly is really angry and she kills Mam with her angel brain melting power.
Wynonna heads to the ranch to protect Waverly after being filled in by Jeremy. Before Waverly can tell Wynonna what she’s done, she hears it from Holt, who is less in favor of a truce after discovering his mother dead. Doc arrives in the nick of time and for a moment it seems like peace might prevail, then a we hear a gunshot and see Holt fall, shot in the back by an Earp.
Wynonna thinks that of all people Doc should be able to understand, she doesn’t understand the pain of regret he is feeling for the sins of his past. She sees him as broken in all the ways she is, as the same. What she doesn’t know is that is not who Doc wants to be anymore.
We leave off with an achingly bittersweet moment because as Wynonna and Doc are heartbroken by having moved further away from being able to be happy, Waverly and Nicole have finally arrived. Overcoming the garden, months apart, a hex, Nicole’s guilt, and general Purgatory madness they’ve earned this beautiful moment. Surrounded by their family, both Nicole and Waverly know it’s time. Ultimately, as we’ve seen many times, Nicole let’s Waverly take the lead and with tears in her eyes she asks the love of her life to marry her and just as Wynonna promised, Nicole says yes. Finally. Officially. Forever.
Jeremy shouts “we win!”, and holy fuck do I feel that because WE WON. We fought and won for this show and for this moment. I can’t help but wonder if this is also a nod to the entire queer community, having a gay man announce this after a wlw couple gets engaged to be a married, a right we didn’t have a few years ago, but as they just showed us, love wins.
Potentially Important Takeaways:
- “We are many.” – “How many?” Clantons? Reapers? I don’t think Billy is the only one. Mam refers to the Reapers in the episode saying “my ancestors will devour her”.
- Does a person have to be alive to be turned into a Reaper or do can Clantons become Reapers after they die?
A closer look at Wynonna’s decision:
“Our enemies won’t stop coming just because we want them to!”
“I do what needs to be done because I’m a hero! You know what, yeah, sometimes that makes me a killer.” – That’s when Peacemaker shows itself. Whatever misguided purpose Wynonna thinks she has, Peacemaker agrees, which is proved again by the fact that it even fires at Holt.
There’s no defending shooting a man in the back and I don’t think we’re expected to. It was meant to make us question things, question her, but there is so much to discuss in the context of it.
First, keep in mind what Wynonna did and didn’t know about Holt. They’ve made a point to show Holt as tired of the feud over the last few episodes, but Wynonna wasn’t privy to any of that. Maybe he truly wanted peace, but this is the man who hung people in the street for who knows what petty or made up crimes. He was tired of Mam’s ways, but he was still party to them, he stayed and obeyed her through who knows how much violence, including what she did to his little brother.
Wynonna knew as soon as Holt pointed his gun that she wasn’t going to leave him alive, by the time Doc had his talk with him her mind was made up and there was no going back. Wynonna, who feels the weight of the world to keep her family safe, who is a mother that just found out this family with a vendetta over century old tried to take her child, who is a sister who will kill anyone to protect Waverly – who Holt just threatened. Wynonna decided that she couldn’t live with any chance, any doubt.
“My whole life…I have had to kill again and again just to live another day, Doc. Do you think I give a shit about honor?”
Tarot Cards:
*Portion removed. Check 4×02 if you’re curious.
Gems You May Have Missed:
- Medea. Granddaughter of Helios is actual figure from Greek mythology, “In Euripides’ play Medea she is a woman scorned, rejected by her husband Jason and seeking revenge.”
Answers to questions you may have:
- Some people noticed in the BTS for 4×06 that the Symbol of Bulshar is clearly visible on the back of Demon-Nun’s chair (if it’s not in the show, it’s not canon). Sometimes the simplest answer is the correct one. It’s the same chair Bulshar sat in in 3×11. My take is that they are simply reusing a fancy piece of furniture.
Favorite Lines:
- PINKY SWEARRR!
- D – U – H.
- I think that someone was a ginger goddess.
- I have no fucking clue what’s happening here, but when in doubt…
- I thought she was a goddamn frog! – She is a frog, and dead! And also a reaper. Stay with the plot, Nedley!
- Thank you, Dolls
- A Xena reboot!
- The falsetto fuck is that noise?
- Make your peace.
- I’ll give you one chance to fix it before I give you a buckshot face lift.
- Same, same, bitch.
- Nicole Haught, will you marry me? – Yes. Yes, I’ll marry you.
- I love you. – I love you too.
Under-appreciated (according to me) Lines:
- Doubt I’d be welcome, long as I got Richard and The Twins.
- Taint yourselves. Taint.
- You do you. And you, and you, and you.
- We don’t have to hug.
Wynonna about Rosita:
- Busty, brainy, baby-stealing
- Silky smooth neck
- God, I forgot how good you smell.
- You’re like a sexy spider monkey.
- You gotten enough off your ample, perfect chest?
- Well, be a shame not to. (save Rosita’s ass)
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)
- October 26th 1881: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.
- Bulshar entombed: 1887
- 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*
*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 Four Credits Breakdown:
- The first of the new images is an old photo of two figures standing near a couple of trees. What appears to be a man in a hat and a smaller, likely female figure. As lightning flashes we see them in more, terrifying detail. Their eyes glow and they have marks on their faces. Scars? Lighting?
It’s faint, but the man in the photo seems to have the Clanton brand on his forhead.
- The next image is of a female angel walking toward a threshold of light. Again, there is a flash and the image changes. The angel is gone.
- The next change is a little harder to catch. The card for Dom/Waverly has changed. Now on top of a map of the Ghost River Triangle, is an image of the “garden”/ icy Stonehenge.
- The last and most subtle addition is on Kat/Nicole’s card. On the right there is a tree that wasn’t there last season. And you may not have noticed (other than the obvious murder trees), but there is A LOT of tree imaginary throughout this show since the start.
- The most important image of the credits isn’t new, it’s been there since day one, it’s what this show is really all about, the damn birds.
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. I’ve taken out some stuff that seems obvious, but it’s still in previous versions.
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (Real world):
- 30 second shootout between lawmen and a group of outlaws, the Cochise County Cowboys.
- Lawmen involved included Town Marshal Virgil Earp, Special Policemen Morgan and Wyatt Earp, and temporary policeman Doc Holliday.
- There’s no consensus on who shot first.
Cochise County Cowboys present at the O.K. Corral (Historical, not Wynonna Earp canon):
- Billy Claiborne : ran from the fight.
- Ike Clanton: ran from the fight
- Billy Clanton: killed in the shootout
- Tom and Frank McLaury: Killed in the shootout
The Clantons: “We thank our kin for this feast, and for the sin that roots us. The power of vengeance will damn our enemies. In the name of Clanton, we vow to never forsaken. Never forget. And never forgive”
I think it’s safe to assume they weren’t going around using the last name “Clanton” since no one knew they were in Purgatory.
- Poison. Cursed. Wynonna asks Amon what they are, “Demon? Revenant?”. Amon replies “A little less and a little more than all of that.”
- Live on Magpie Ranch. Magpies are notorious hoarders among other things.
- Margo Jean “Mam”: Deceased
Clanton Heir.- The Swamp Witch
- Refers to a “charm”/”gift” she possess.
- Made a deal with Nicole to get Waverly and Doc home.
- Not a nice person.
- Sheriff Holt: Deceased
Clanton Heir.- His name-tag says Sheriff Holt, but Nicole, Cleo, and now Doc refer to him as “Sheriff Clayborn (Claiborne)”, which is the name of another family involved in the O.K. Corral shootout.
- He seems to be ready to be done with the “war” Mam is fighting.
- Magistrate Cleo.
- Like Holt, potentially uses the last name “Clayborn”. She has a certificate in her office that I’m 80% sure says Cleo Clayborn.
- Billy: Reaper
- Performed a ritual to save Rachel. “A soul for a soul. We are rooted together, enemies and kin. But I sever that root and I offer myself.”
- Reapers are Clanton ancestors, including “Uncle Ike” who is likely the same Ike who was present at the shootout. Billy says he has “the might of a thousand ancestors”. What we don’t know is if being a Reaper can be reversed.
Waverly:
- Fully grown half-angel and adult human lady.
- Happily taken Virgo with hair for days.
- “Destined” to take her place on Julian’s throne as “The Guardian”. “I am trying to protect this place, just like my father did.”
- Is able to melt brains without Julian’s ring.
John Henry “Doc” Holliday:
- Participant of the famous Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
- Went to hell when he died in the AU. Is super emo about it.
- Is a vampire.
- Was able to climb the stairs to “The Garden”.
- Seemed genuinely hurt by old Wyatt’s assessment of him.
- Potentially having some sort of existential crisis over his violent history.
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:
- An Earper, @LoveAndDonuts, pointed out on Twitter that a man named Samuel A. Haught owned a cattle ranch in Arizona where the “Cowboys” were known to do business. And here is a great thread by @PurgatoryArcheo that goes into some Haught family history. Coincedence, Easter Egg, or well thought out plot point? Time will tell.
- Is a Capricorn….This fucking show. They think of everything.
Black Badge Division (Guess who’s back):
- “No longer defunct”. They’re different and in way over their heads (I mean Naomi Hycha is no Agent Lucado), but maybe our gang will start getting paid again. For now they are to “observe, not interfere”.
- “If you think I’m afraid of demons, just wait until you meet upper management”.
- Supposedly a highly classified branch of the U.S. Marshalls, but as we according to Agent Moody BBD “isn’t a government agency, never was.”
- Early members include Robert Svane aka Bobo Del Rey.
- All the main characters except for Nicole have signed a contract in blood.
The Garden:
- (Bible) Home to two very important trees, The Tree of Life and The Tree of Knowledge [of Good and Evil].*
- There is some sort of living machine that requires blood.
- from Eve, “what kind of batshit playground experiment for creation was this?”
- Has been used as a prison for Eve. It seems that as long as there was a Guardian on the throne or the machine was being fed, Eve was kept from escaping.
- From Juan Carlo’s journal “We guarded the entrance to keep him in, to keep everything in, but we failed, Julian and I”. Maybe the Guardians were to keep Bulshar and apparently Eve IN their prison and to keep them away from the Tree of Life.
- Waverly’s angel blood caused flowers and trees to pop up.
Eve:
- (Biblical) One of the first of two (or three depending where you stand on ‘Lilith’) humans created. Lived in relative paradise until she was tempted by The Serpent (our Bulshar) to eat the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
- There has been mention in certain versions of her story that well…”the motif of Eve copulating with the primeval serpent takes priority over her other sexual transgressions.”
- From 3×10: Wynonna – “Don’t forget Eve.” Kevin – “Oh, I wish I could. Don’t even get me started on that girl”.
- Has been imprisoned in “The Garden”, potentially, but not surely since her creation.
- Has a long list of things she is “pissed about”, a list which she hopes to address once she is free.
- Her plan, or part of it includes getting to the Ghost River Triangle to get what she is “owed”
- Self-described “nightmare unto the world”.
Amon:
- Demon
- Doesn’t like the Clantons. Seems a bit afraid of them.
Peacemaker: This section is a bit complicated after the developments of 3×12.
- Found.
- Is a Buntline Special that used to be a flaming sword that used to be a Buntline Special that used to be a flaming sword.
- 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.
- As a gun glowed orange when aimed at a demon. As a gun 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.
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.
- 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.
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.
Mel and Kat Tweets of the Week:
I feel like Mel and Kat are pretty consistently hilarious when it comes to live-tweeting, so let’s recap some of the best of the best.
Questions going into 4B:
- Where is Eve?
- Who’s book did Waverly choose?
- What the heck did Doc do with the book?
Thanks so much for reading. Feel free to leave theories and feedback in the comments or hit me up on twitter. If you really liked it feel free to head over to my Ko-Fi page and contribute to my Chipotle fund https://ko-fi.com/earpermarine.
Sorry, it's a lot. 