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 4×12: I wouldn’t have changed a note.

A wedding in Purgatory, what could go wrong? The most important thing of course, the matrimonial icing isn’t vegan! Also, Waverly bought a cursed wedding gown that has been causing brides to massacre entire wedding parties for nearly a century. Much to my delight the Silk Witch who cursed the dress is played by the unbelievably delightful, Charlotte Sullivan, whose performance in this episode I will never get over. This is probably the most fun villain of the week we’ve ever had, but we have lots of crying to get to, so she’s dealt with in the first 20 minutes.

Waverly and Nicole have a beautiful wedding, the wedding they, and we, deserve. Wynonna and Doc spend much of the episode the same way they’ve spent most of the series, trying to find their way to one another and before it’s all over, they finally do.

Speaking for myself, this episode was received the way it was written, as a love letter to the fans. “They say life is short, but is it long and it is lonely. So if you manage to find a group of souls who will tolerate you, and elevate you, and one who will especially love you. Well that is all it’s about. That is what the fight is really for.” And friends, he’s so right. The characters on the show have spent four seasons fighting for their found family, and Earpers fight for ours. Whatever happens next this episode is what they, and we’ve fought for. Everyone’s story ends full of hope, what more could we ask for?

The last image of the episode is a perfect one. The mailbox that has been a symbol of “home” for all these years has a few additions. And if that in itself wasn’t enough to break you, Tim Rozon shared a picture of the last page of the 4×12 script, making clear what Emily Andras’ intention has always been.

A Look Closer: Call Backs and Boops.

• “Apparently, they’re best friends now.”: Back when Wynonna was still oblivious in 1×11 she responds to Waverly saying she has to meet Nicole with “Are you and Nicole best friends now?” How the tables have turned.
• The cup that Wynonna and Doc collect the worms in says Bunny Loblaw for PTA. We first saw that mug in 4×04 when Billy and Rachel are showing off their finds from scavenging.
• Shotgun Waverly. This one goes all the way back to the very first time we see Waverly, complete with a cute eyebrow raise.
• “Where you go, I go”. I’m sure no one missed that the banner at the wedding is a quote from Nicole from 4×11.
• Wynonna’s dress, dainty and delicate in blue: In 1×10 Doc tells Wynonna that back in his day blue was a feminine color, saying “girls were all delicate and dainty in blue” and says he thinks she would be “very pretty in blue”.
• “You’re the best of us, baby girl”. Another obvious one, Wynonna said the same words to Waverly in 2×12.
• “I think goodness every day for that bullet-proof vest.” So say we all.
• “OPA!” is common celebratory expression in Greece. From episode one the show has alluded many times to Wynonna’s time there.
• Wildwood, the song that Rachel sings for Waverly and Nicole is the song that was playing during their first kiss in 1×09.
• There is graffiti on one of the shipping crates that says “Posse of Dipshits”. This is meant as a nod to the Wynonna Writers who refer to themselves as “posse of dipshits”, it’s also a call back to 4×04 where Wynonna referred to her team that way.
• “I’m so glad you finally found someone worthy of you”. It definitely feels like Wynonna is talking to both of them here and has the same feel to it as when she says to Waverly, “finally picked a smart one” in 1×13.
• When Waverly is talking to Wynonna about humans and demons coexisting in the GRT she says “We all have to figure out a way to live here together.” In 4×03 when Waverly is ranting at Kate she says “If we’re all destined to be here and we’re all gonna die here, we need to figure out how to be here…together”.
• The shirt. Another brilliant callback to 1×01. The shirt Wynonna ends the episode in is the same shirt she was wearing at the end of the very first episode (also worn in 4×05).

• Keep The Home Fires Burning, that was the title of the episode where Nicole and Waverly first met (thank you to Emily Andras for pointing that out on twitter). This makes their vows and their last lines especially poignant. In Nicole’s vows she tells Waverly “I promise to hold your hand when the firelight grows dim…” and the last shot is of them sitting on the porch of their home as wives.
• Home. The last word spoken is one that has been a huge theme from the very beginning, said by most of the characters many times throughout the series.

This list isn’t nearly complete, I think I would need Emily to point out the deeper meaning throughout this episode.

Gems You May Have Missed:

• Before Wynonna puts on the dress she is in the barn carving something. Turns out it’s a sign lovingly stating “and Haught”.
• Science lesson of the day: The scientific name for a silk moth is Bombyx mori.
• In 4×07 Doc offers to build an arbour for the wedding. I think it’s safe to assume the he made the one they got married under.
• This one I’m only about 60% sure of, because it doesn’t appear in the CC, but after listening to it a few times I THINK that when Doc is hugging Waverly and Nicole bye after wedding he whispers, “good-bye, my loves”. Who knows, he could be saying “vamanos” (he’s not.)
• Another one that doesn’t appear in the CC is when Doc is walking off, Jeremy says “he’s going” to Nedley.
• Andras cameo!
• That’s the same trailer Doc was staying in back in season 1.

• The same cartoon people appear on the Leaving Purgatory sign as the Welcome To Purgatory sign, except this time the driver is flipping the bird.

Answers to questions you may have:

• Waverly and Nicole perform a Handfasting as part of their ceremony. There is tons of history and meaning attached to Handfasting, but basically a handfasting is an old Pagan custom that dates back to the time of the ancient Celts. It’s popular in Wiccan and Pagan ceremonies, so it was cool that part of Jeremy’s speech includes “if the right amount of magic is involved…”
• Miracles, Montana is not a real place.

Questions that I don’t know the answer to:

• Is Billy still able to be invisible? Because where the heck did he come from?
• How did Wynonna shoot with her right hand…you know, nevermind, let’s just enjoy it.

Potentially Important Takeaways:

• There’s still so much story to tell. Fight for Wynonna.

Favorite Lines:

• Save something for the wedding toast.
• Hey, Waverly Earp. I can’t wait to be your wife. – Aw, I can’t wait to be your wife.
• My pee found your gown.
• Okay, nobody cares.
• Baby, if you left me at the altar, I would fuck shit up. I might kill Nedley.
• Failure is never irreversible and I’m living proof of that.
• I agree with the new girl.
• Are you two lesbians? … Oh, and you’re getting married?
• Then why was the aggressive one in your wedding dress?
• I haven’t done a lot of things before I met you…heroes.
• I wouldn’t have changed a note.
• Was he not wearing his hat?
• I don’t have to sleep with him. – Have to?!
• My fourth favorite Britney song.
• Not you, sweetie pie.
• How do you have like 72 bras and one pair of panties?
• Read the room, dingus.
• I’m where I’ve always wanted to be. Home. With my wife.

Under-appreciated (according to me) Lines:

• Forget the glasses, water the arbour!
• …this bleak freak boutiqe.
• I’ll make sand out of that witch. (guys, she made a sandwich joke)
• There’s no way that’s your middle name.
• No, uh, no that’s like a long story. No, not that long, just like average size. (in reference to his crotch…powers?)
• What are you in my nick-nacks for?

Fuck count: 9, with Waverly being the “fuck” champion.

• And you were gonna tell me in a fucking note?
• I would fuck shit up
• The fuck you can’t!
• Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you!
• Oh fuck, I do.
• You’re the fucking hero we need

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 26^th 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 forehead.

• 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 and there are spatters of something (likely blood) on the walls.

• 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 took out most of the things I’m usually tracking here to just focus on out core characters. Check out previous posts if you want to see all the info I’ve collected on various entities that played a part in this season.

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).

• Heir of a broken curse.
• Great hair. Yes, End-of-the-World Great. 
• Refers to herself as “Dubs”.
• The Champion, chosen by the Angel Waverly to wield Peacemaker

Waverly:

• Nicole Haught’s wife.
• 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.”
• Nephilim: The offspring of an angel and human. There is much lore surrounding Nephilim, so check out the link if you want to go down that rabbit hole.

Nicole Rayleigh Haught:

• Waverly Earp’s wife.
• The Angel’s Shield. Sworn to protect the Ghost River Triangle.
• 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.
  

John Henry “Doc” Holliday:

• Participant of the famous Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
• Was a vampire.

Jeremy Chetri:

• Deputy Chief of Black Badge, in charge of the whole Ghost River Triangle.
• Has a date.
• 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.

Mel and Kat Tweets of the Week:

I feel like Mel and Kat are pretty consistently hilarious when it comes to live-tweeting, this week though, they came for our emotions as well.

It was hard to post this without going on and on about how much this show has meant to me, maybe I’ll try to put it into words soon or even better, after Season 5.

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.