Wynonna Earp - S2E11 - Gone as a Girl Can Get

Previously on Wynonna Earp, “I See a Darkness”

As any self-respecting geek will tell you, there are two themes that most genre shows eventually dive into head first: time travel and alternate realities. Wynonna Earp decided to double down this season and weave these iffy narrative gambits into an already elaborate story arc and for the most part, it’s been successful!

Expectedly, Alexandra Zarowny didn’t adhere to the standards of the oft-used plot device and added entertaining tweaks to this distorted, ugly existence brought to life by Gretta (Rachael Ancheril). Firstly, it didn’t appear to be a completely different timeline so much as a localized pocket of altered reality. Gretta’s wish of a Wynonna-less life had “holes” in it as Widow Beth mentioned, which allowed Earp’s friends and family to receive faint glimmers of their actual lives.

Still, it was all kinds of fun and weird! Who knew how much the Earps meant to the fine citizens of Purgatory. Doc, a big bad that took over the Homestead? Waverly engaged to Perry “I’m in Forbes” ? Rosita, an undercover BBD agent that believed the entire event was the government testing out the latest in chemical warfare? Huh. Who knew a world without Wynonna is such a grim, depressing place?

The biggest development was the (temporarily?) permanent return of Bobo Del Rey, which Michael Eklund reprised with an even greater level of crazy. The Widows have been a lively pair of adversaries that have countered and surpassed Team Wynonna effectively throughout the season; in their quest to locate and break the seals imprisoning their demon husband, Not-Mercedes and Beth have matched the Earp clan in battle and snark. Now that Eklund is back as an more-unhinged-than-usual Del Rey, we’re reacquainted with the panache that made the revenant a villain we loved to, well, love.

Allowing the weirdness of the day to guide her, Waverly visited Bobo in an asylum (because of course) and realized the rambling psychopath made complete sense than anything she’d encountered beyond those padded walls. Through Del Rey, Waves finally gains a sharper picture of what she - and the world - had lost because of Gretta’s poorly constructed wish and how she could potentially reverse. Plenty of sacrifices were made to restore their confined universe to its natural order, including Bobo attending to his own self-interests. But hey, he’s back! And naturally, the first thing he did was strike a new accord with the Widows and destroy the third seal to prove his loyalty.

Oh, Robert… don’t ever change.

As for that alternate reality, holy Thunderdome was it intense! Although the lives of the townsfolk were scraping the bottom of the barrel, it was oddly gratifying to know the few we saw - including Waverly, Nicole and Perry (Patrick Kwok-Choon) - still held hope for better days. Granted, Baby Earp and Crofte were five seconds away from getting out of dodge but their implanted memories of living in and surviving what is essentially Doc’s version of Hill Valley prove the girls are made of the strongest stuff.

Sadly, that wasn’t to be the case for Holliday and Dolls, both of whom succumbed to the perils of this distorted vision. In spite of Doc knowing full well this world was a lie, Xavier was fully immersed in Gretta’s wish and only knew of the depravity accomplished in Holliday’s name. It’s not so difficult to imagine Purgatory becoming a wretched hive of scum and villainy after we witnessed Doc’s former demeanor in “No Future in the Past”. Hell, he was still very much a scoundrel of the highest order for most of the first season, until the combination of Wynonna’s charisma and Doc’s guilt over past misdeeds set him on the path of redemption.

Nevertheless, this Dolls was as emotionally scarred as his face, giving Holliday and his lowly subordinate Jeremy no quarter as from what we can gather from his and Doc’s multiple encounters, Xavier has nothing left but his hatred for revenants the low-down kingpin that commands them. There was no convincing Dolls he was trapped in a nightmare scenario until it suddenly dawned on him with his last breath that he killed a good friend. It’s heartbreaking stuff and thankfully, if the wish Gretta made wasn’t incomplete, this scenario could have been very permanent.

Ultimately this grand experiment of sorts was an exciting diversion before the big confrontation between Wynonna and the entity she dreaded to face all season long… her child! Yeah, Sheriff Clootie is bound to be a real hellion in every sense of the word, but unless she was going through false labor, the Heir and the rest of her team won’t have a moment to breathe as everything comes crashing towards them.