WYNONNA EARP opens at night with a Bluntlines cross-country bus driving across a darkened landscape under a full moon. A brunette in a black leather jacket exits the on board restroom and returns to a seat across from a blonde drinking a travel mug coffee and warns her to put the drink down so she can avoid the “crime against humanity” that is the restroom. The blonde, Kiersten (Sara Troyer), tries to make small talk, asking if the next stop is her companion’s home, only to find out that she’s only arriving for a funeral and refuses to share her name.
The bus drives past a billboard proclaiming the passengers are NOW ENTERING WYATT EARP COUNTRY! as the brunette stares out the window and a flashback from her childhood plays: a small house is surrounded and being attacked while three young girls cry out and their father makes a stand to defend them. A gunshot is heard, which breaks the flashback and is revealed to be a blown tire on the bus.
Kiersten gets up to use the restroom, but is too slow and decides to step off the bus and go in the trees, against the brunette’s objection. The bus driver kneels down to change the tire as Kiersten walks off, but then jumps back onto the bus and tells everyone to sit down after hearing eerie noises and a woman’s scream. The brunette is the only one that wants to help the lost passenger and as she wanders into the woods, the bus is seen driving away.
In the woods, she tracks Kiersten while yelling out to the unknown people to let her go. She then finds Kiersten’s head on a stick as a man with glowing red eyes watches nearby. She freaks and starts to run but is tackled, dragged, and thrown. Her attacker is quick, barely a blur on the screen. When he retreats to watch from a distance, she picks up a stick to use as a weapon and trips herself. She falls onto her back just as her phone begins playing a birthday ringtone. Something clicks within her, her eyes dilate, and she jumps up to her feet, feeling a “head rush”. This time, when the man attacks, she is able to land blows of her own, even stabbing him through the eye with her stick before he runs away.
Her phone rings again and the message “HAPPY BIRTHDAY! xx” is on the screen from Waverly Earp, even though it also shows “No Service”.
The next scene begins with boots on pavement as the lady in the black leather jacket says to herself, “Welcome home, Wynonna,” as she walks past another sign: WELCOME TO PURGATORY. YOU’LL NEVER WANT TO LEAVE!
RELATED: Holy Body-Snatchers! WYNONNA EARP Season 2 Trailer Is Here!
Wynonna Earp (Melanie Scrofano) makes a call to the police to report an animal attack victim as she walks through a wood gate to a farm for her uncle Curtis’ funeral. Politely silent eyes watch her even through the wake where Wynonna apologizes to her aunt, Gus (Natascha Girgis), and then questions her uncle’s cause of death, not believing a stroke would kill him. She learns he was not alone and that “Rodeo Champ” Hardy Champ was with him.
Meanwhile, Kiersten’s body is being tended by the local sheriff’s department and a very inquisitive government agent, Deputy Marshal Dolls (Shamier Anderson). While on the scene, ruffling the sheriff’s feathers, Agent Dolls finds a necklace with a key. He bags it and takes it with him as he leaves, telling the sheriff to tell the people “anything but the truth,” since they both know that the cause of death was not an animal attack.
Wynonna begins her quest to find Champ (Dylan Koroll) by going to Shorty’s Saloon where it is revealed she has a history with being on the wrong end of law enforcement. Champ appears to come to Wynonna’s rescue when a heated discussion with another customer over the Earp history threatens to become physical. Champ’s response to her inquiry into her uncle’s death is an innuendo laced invitation to his place. Once there, an apartment above Shorty’s Saloon, Wynonna pulls a knife on Champ and questions him, learning Curtis’ head had been torn off and he had died on the Earp homestead. Before she can learn more, the bedroom door bursts open and in storms Champ’s girlfriend with a shotgun. Wynonna and Champ roll off the bed, narrowly avoiding the shotgun blast.
Waverly Earp (Dominique Provost-Chalkley) realizes it is Wynonna and the two share a very awkward sister moment.
In another part of Purgatory, three men talk on a wooden porch. One man wears an eye patch and asks about planted birthday gifts. Carl (Michael Rolfe) is punished for talking to Wynonna in the bar by having his tongue ripped out and stepped on by the man with the eye patch. While punishing Carl, his eyes momentarily glow red and his voice gains a deep growl. He tells the other two men to stick to the plan before they kill the girls.
The girls, Wynonna and Waverly, are seen leaving Shorty’s. Wynonna fills Waverly in on a mysterious email from Curtis, which is her only reason for coming home. Waverly tells her that they need “that gun” because “it’s starting again”. Wynonna reacts by walking away as if Waverly is talking crazy. Waverly runs to catch up and confronts Wynonna about abandoning her. She tells her that they aren’t kids anymore and they can work together and fight the curse. This angers Wynonna more, but she barely says there is no curse when she turns and pulls a knife on a man that silently approached the pair.
Syfy
Agent Dolls returns the necklace he picked up at the crime scene to Wynonna and asks to speak with her about the events that happened after leaving the bus. In Gus’ dining room, Agent Dolls lays out the events as he understands them, including information on her sealed juvenile record, and passes a file to Wynonna when she tells him that her file was to be destroyed when she turned 18 and she is now 27. The file answers Wynonna’s inquiry into Agent Doll’s agency, the Black Badge Division, which he explains is part of a cross-border task force since US Marshals don’t have jurisdiction in Purgatory. The group, he says, monitors unexplainable activities, which has seen an increase recently. He also explains that they do not see many survivors and he urges Wynonna to come forward with any information regarding Kiersten’s death before leaving.
Waverly waits for Dolls to leave before walking in and asking Wynonna why she looked spooked about her 27th birthday, which Wynonna says doesn’t mean anything. She then takes the keys to Waverly’s truck and leaves.
The beat-up blue and white farm truck pulls up and is parked between a windmill and a vandalized Earp mailbox, outside a raggedy looking, rundown home. Wynonna crosses a wooden bridge to the home, looking in pained horror at the mess of debris in the yard. Inside, tattered curtains and hangings greet her, along with another flashback: her father telling the girls that Wyatt Earp took out 77 outlaws with his gun and a little girl responding that the outlaws were revenants coming for the family. Her father continues his story, saying that since Willa is the eldest, she will be the heir and is destined to inherit Wyatt’s abilities. The flashback returns to the same attack as before, but this time with more information. There are seven men attacking and Willa is taken through a window. Interspersed through the flashbacks, Wynonna is wandering the house and picking up or touching broken items. On the mantel, though, she finds a new piece of paper. It is a note: “Welcome home Wynonna.”
Pain turns to anger and Wynonna storms out of the house toward the truck, talking to herself about needing “the gun”. She drives off and the one-eyed man crawls out from under the bridge and makes a call, telling the person on the other end that Wynonna took the bait.
Back at Gus’, Wynonna throws rope and a shovel into the bed of the truck. Gus confronts her before she can leave and offers her cash, enough for a one-way ticket out of town, so that Waverly can have a nice, crazy-free life.
Instead of leaving, Wynonna crawls in a well to get a cloth wrapped item. Upon her return to the surface, Agent Dolls is waiting for her and offers her a job with Black Badge. Wynonna laughs in his face and calls him desperate, which he does not deny. Instead, he threatens to recruit Waverly and Wynonna’s big sister side steps up. She tells Dolls that the good sister, Willa, was taken into the hills and slaughtered.
When Dolls walks back to his car, Wynonna relives another flashback as she unwraps the thing from the well. It is Wyatt Earp’s gun. In the flashback, she lifts it and shoots at the men taking her father, but she misses and shoots him square in the back.
Wynonna speeds out of town, stopping at the welcome sign. She takes up target practice where she hits everything except her target – her bullets ricochet off the sign posts and never once hit the broad sign, ten feet from her.
Syfy
Meanwhile, back at the well, the rope once again pulls tight. A hand with a silver and ruby ring appears before the scene cuts away.
Back in town, Wynonna runs into Sheriff Nedley (Greg Lawson). He asks why she returned to town before she walks back to Waverly’s apartment above Shorty’s Saloon. Inside, she finds a wall covered in newspaper clippings, photographs, and printouts of events and people leading all the way back to Wyatt Earp’s killings. Waverly tells her she is ready to fight the curse and protect their home, which leads to an argument about how Waverly should be the sane one before Wynonna walks out.
Down in the bar, Wynonna slams shots with the gun sitting on the bar next to her. A few barstools away sits a man with a silver and ruby ring complimenting the “little lady” and her historical gun. She makes fun of him as a Wyatt Earp fan because of the way he talks. The man (Tim Rozon), in bona fide Doc Holliday attire, complete with full mustache, takes it in stride and continues his poetical musings and remarks on the gun, identified as Peacemaker. Wynonna admits to being the great-great-granddaughter of the famous lawman, all but calling him a hypocrite for being a killer and glorifying his gunslinger status.
After sundown, Wynonna returns to Gus’ place to say goodbye as she had planned on being on the first bus out of town the next morning. She instead finds the house a wreck and Gus laid out on the back porch. Before fainting, Gus relays a message from her attackers, who took Waverly: “Tomorrow, high noon”. Over Wynonna’s shoulder, on the window, the words “bring the gun” are written in blood.
RELATED: C2E2: News from the WYNONNA EARP Panel
The next day, Wynonna meets with Agent Dolls, angrily accusing him of doing nothing. He shows little concern for Waverly’s hostage status and Gus’ health status (she is in the ICU), but he does say his division is monitoring the situation. He also tells Wynonna that he knows Waverly has been taken by demons, which makes her step back because she had previously been committed for talking about demons. When he tells her to let it go because she’s already dead, Wynonna punches him and walks off to borrow a vehicle from Shorty (Peter Skagen).
Astride a sleek motorcycle, Wynonna drives out to the Earp homestead and finds Waverly tip-toeing on a stool with a rope strung up to the entrance gate. The revenant wearing the eye-patch, an entrepreneur from Wyatt’s day by the name of Malcolm Ramaker (Diego Diablo Del Mar), introduces himself as a man hung by Wyatt. He relays information to Wynonna about the curse, about how when the Earp heir turns 27, those killed by the last heir are resurrected, albeit more demonic than before.
In exchange for cutting down Waverly, Wynonna agrees to hand over Peacemaker. She leaves it in the holster on the motorcycle, telling the trio of demons holding Waverly hostage that they can keep both as long as she gets her sister. One of the revenants walks over to the bike as Ramaker tells Carl to get Wynonna – there will be a double hanging. Before Carl makes it near Wynonna, she pulls out a detonator and blows up the motorcycle, which sends Peacemaker in its iconic flight through fire that lights up the opening credits.
Wynonna runs to Waverly, holding her up until she can find the stool. With Waverly safely, relatively, balancing on the stool, she fights off Ramaker and makes a dive for Peacemaker, which landed on the wooden bridge. Ramaker’s demonic side takes hold as he turns his gun toward Waverly; his voice deepens to a gravely undertone and his one eye glows red. Wynonna stares at him down the barrel of Peacemaker. She reminds him that she is crazy, so crazy, in fact, that she will shoot Waverly first, and she gets a lucky shot off that ricochets off the pulley holding the rope around Waverly’s neck, then ricochets off the windmill and buries itself in Ramaker’s gun. He turns to her in surprise to find the gun’s barrel begin to glow bright orange. A matching burn appears on his temple as he realizes she is the true heir. Wynonna shoots Ramaker and the ground turns to fire and swallows him up.
Syfy
When Wynonna rushes to help Waverly up off the ground where she had fallen, Carl stumbles over with a gun in his hand. An unknown backup shoots Carl, startling Wynonna, though she tries to hide it when Waverly screams out “you brought backup?” in surprise. Agent Dolls drives up in a black SUV, lights flashing, and picks up the sisters.
Near sundown, on Gus’ porch, the sisters discuss Wyatt and the curse. Waverly asks if Wynonna is staying to which Wynonna replies “that’s why they call it a curse.” Agent Dolls arrives and blackmails Wynonna with murder allegations into working at Black Badge saying she has gone up against demons twice that he knows of and survived. Her first assignment is to identify and hunt down the 77 Wyatt Earp revenants and keep them contained. Wynonna tells him they can’t leave the Ghost River Triangle, which surprises Agent Dolls. He then neither acknowledges nor denies he is her savior shooting from the trees when she thanks him. Instead, he directs her to address him as Deputy Marshal Dolls as he hands her a deputy badge of her own.
The episode ends with the man dressed as Doc Holliday lighting up a cigarette outside an RV. An unknown revenant tells him there is talk that he shot Carl and warns him to stay away from the center of the RV park; the raucous party is not celebratory festivities, but a war party full of revenants drinking and glowing in their demonic way, anticipating an Earp hunt.
Total Revenant Kill Count: 1/77
Wynonna Earp returns to Syfy on Friday, June 9, 2017, at 10/9c.
- Celebrate PI DAY With Food and Crafts - March 14, 2024
- PI DAY Gift Guide: Geeky Gifts for Lovers of Pi - March 14, 2024
- Students Bring Ralph McQuarrie’s STAR WARS Concept Art to Life - May 4, 2022
