“Wynonna Earp” Episode 401 Recap: Angel In Chains

:kicks down the door with a flourish: WE’RE BACK, BAYBEEEEEE!!!!

Hello! Hi! Hey there! And welcome back to Wynonna Earp recaps! It has been a MINUTE. And what better time for this chaos crew to return to us than in the middle of…well, 2020. The first half of this year has been an eternal night and Wynonna Earp just rode into town with a truckload of sun lamps to help us make it through the back half. I don’t even know if I remember how to write a Wynonna Earp recap, as evidenced by that ridiculous metaphor I just made, but I’m so excited to try.

Hopefully you spent the extra-long hiatus doing a full rewatch but in case you didn’t, here are some important things to remember that happened at the end of Season Three: Waverly kind of proposed to Nicole, Wynonna drugged Jeremy, Robin, and Nicole to keep them away from the Bulshar fight, Wynonna killed Bulshar, the door at the top of the sometimes invisible stairs opened up and vines stole Waverly, and Doc went in after her. When Wynonna got back to the homestead, her friends were gone and VALDEZ was scratched into the wall. All she had left was Randy Nedley.

The first shot of Season Four is of a barren snowy expanse with just a few stone structures looming. Surely that’s fine.

We quickly pivot to Wynonna in Shorty’s, going through some makeshift weapons and arming up. When she’s done, she flips her hair; Wynonna Earp is BACK.

And then Nedley speaks for all of us when he says, “I feel like I’ve been standing here for two years.” And that’s just the first of many, many winks at the audience in this episode, which is basically just a 42 minute love letter to the Earpers who fought and campaigned and wrote and begged and FOUGHT for this show’s renewal.

Wynonna and Nedley head to the woods to find the stairs and are delighted to actually find them. Nedley gives her some words of encouragement and Wynonna climbs them and takes a leap for her baby girl…but lands on her back. She lets out a weak cry for her sister, which is echoed by a much louder scream from Waverly.

When Wynonna gets up, she realizes the stairs have disappeared and is furious. (Funniest line read of the word “architecture” for 800, Alex.) And to make things worse, she’s got crabs. Demon crabs attack her and Nedley and they make it back to the Homestead, not unscathed. While Wynonna looks fruitlessly for a first aid kit, Nedley notices the VALDEZ scratched on the wall, and we get a little flashback showing us how it got there.

With Robin and Nicole still unconscious and some kind of agents closing in on the house, Jeremy is scratching VALDEZ into the wall with a knife because he couldn’t find a pen. The agents approach the door and Jeremy tries to hold them off by saying, “Gays only?” but they burst in and taser him.

When Nedley asks Wynonna what happened to her team, she confesses to drugging them, thinking she was keeping them safe, but now she’s worried it put them in more danger. Wynonna finds Bulshar’s/Julian’s ring on the ground and remembers Nicole wearing it and she realizes Waverly gave it to her. Nedley suggests maybe it was something even more serious than that.

Wynonna makes a quiet plea for her favorite red hot chili pepper to be okay.

And then we find out that Nicole is…well, she’s not NOT okay, all things considered. She’s on a moving train to Bobo knows where, but hey she’s alive. Before even doing a sweep of the train car she wants OUT so she goes to open the door but it quickly pulled back.

Back at the Homestead, Wynonna finds these little explosives called “beaver blasters” (the most Canadian weapon ever) and flips them around and fumbles them like she did with Peacemaker oh so long ago. Her and Nedley are planning their next steps when they hear something in the kitchen. After a near miss with a thrown knife, they find Mercedes Gardner smiling back at them. She looks like she has made herself quite comfortable in the past few hours, and Wynonna can’t help but grab her by the fresh face to make sure it’s really her.

Back on the train, we find out that it’s Kate who pulled Nicole back from the train car door, and it’s because the last guy who tried that got crispier than crispy bacon. Kate tells Nicole about how Mercedes bailed as soon as she saw danger creeping in, and Nicole asks if Kate can help her by giving her a reading and telling her what to do next, how to find Waverly. Kate asks if she has anything of Waverly’s and when she realizes she doesn’t have the ring anymore, she says she does have something of Waverly’s: Her.

Meanwhile Wynonna is literally Googling “Valdez” and only finding images of tankers that caused oil spills (which could be a clue TRULY WHO KNOWS) and Mercedes is giving her own version of the story Kate told, claiming Kate told her to save her own beautiful skin and leave her behind. Also, Wynonna jokes that they “totally boinked” and Mercedes doesn’t deny it so it’s canon no take backs. Mercedes thought she’d be safe at the Homestead with the heir, but Wynonna tells her that the curse was broken. She’s not the heir of anything anymore.

Mercedes makes a joke about Wynonna’s “hot mess files” and that sparks Nedley to tell Wynonna that he actually does have Dolls’ BBD files back at his office. He pulls out the box from inside the couch (claiming nobody ever uses it, another wink) and Wynonna goes through the files, information about Dolls’ fellow agents, mostly those who have died.

She sees files for Lucado, Moreno…and Gloria Valdez.

On the train, Kate draws the first two cards for Nicole. The Empress, representing feminine power, and Death, which makes Nicole freak the freak out.

But Kate reassures her that it doesn’t necessarily mean literal death. It represents transition, a doorway. Nicole tries to convince Kate to come with her to save Waverly saying she can save Doc too, but Kate is realizing that her relationship with Doc was toxic and that she has to be on her own for a while. The last card is The Fool, which represents a journey, and Kate knows she needs to help Nicole on hers. So she uses her vampiric fortitude and opens the door for her Haught pal.

She gets zapped and Nicole jumps, but Kate is strong and as soon as two men come in to check on the prisoners, Kate’s eyes glow and her teeth gold up and you know she’s going to be just fine.

Wynonna learns from the files that Gloria Valdez was a scientist who may have information on the Garden, and they find a photo of a city Mercedes recognizes as Monument, so that’s where Wynonna will go next. The thing is, Nedley is too injured to join her and Mercedes is too…Mercedes.

So she has to go it alone. Nedley sends her off with a bunch of beaver blasters and a, “Nobody fucks with our family.”

We cut to the Garden, where a door opens and Doc enters in all his cowboy glory. The door locks closed behind him so he sets off to find the littlest Earp girl.

Waverly, still chained to a rock, hears him enter and starts calling for him, her chains tightening.

Doc starts pulling at the chains and even though they go down into a well, he pushes through his fear to save our angel. He pulls out a mass of flesh and branches that my friend Monica wisely pointed out could be what’s left of Jolene, which would explain why Waverly looked so defeated when she was being pulled into the Garden, saying she couldn’t fight anymore. And it DOES look like a very, very big version of the gross seeds Bulshar was shoving down people’s throats, and Bulshar is the one who turned Jolene into a tree. But anyway Doc saves Waverly and holds her and she’s not alone anymore.

Exactly 169 miles from Monument, Wynonna’s trusty truck quits on her and she slumps against it, feeling like she can’t do this alone. She tries to imagine what Doc and Waverly would say to her, with adorable impressions of two of her favorite people.

She thinks of Haught next and is surprised to hear how accurate her impression is before realizing it’s the real Nicole. Wynonna flings her arms open, wanting a hug from her sister’s maybe fiancée.

But she gets a fist to the face instead. Nicole is SO mad at her for counting her out before she could prove herself in the boss battle and Wynonna tries to brush it off as ancient history but it was literally yesterday. Wynonna says that you had to be special to get into the garden, and that Nicole isn’t a bisexual angel or an undead gunslinger.

And I think it’s important that Wynonna said “bisexual angel” here. Because no one has said bisexual out loud on the show about Waverly yet, even though Dominique Provost-Chalkley has said it plenty off-screen. Because the only times her sexuality was referenced specifically was a) Willa, who grew up in isolation and then in a cult and also didn’t know Waverly at all, b) Mercedes, who doesn’t know Waverly all that well either, c) Alternate Reality Waverly who didn’t really know what was happening to her feelings, all she knew was that she was into the redhead in the barn with her, d) Mama Earp who certainly didn’t take the time to sit down with Waverly and discuss the nuances of her sexuality. So it’s nice to have someone say bisexual, and if it couldn’t be Waverly (she’s a little busy), it had to be Wynonna. It’s of course something they’ve talked about, it’s of course something her sister would know. I know it’s such a small moment but it felt important and I enjoyed it.

And anyway, Nicole is pissed that Wynonna would even say that. Wynonna doesn’t get to decide who matters here, who would or would not have been able to go after Waverly. Wynonna begs for forgiveness but Haught just rolls her eyes. Wynonna tells them that finding another door into the Garden might be their only shot of getting Waverly back. Nicole remembers her tarot reading and agrees to go with Wynonna, but she’ll be the one calling the shots.

Nicole says all Wynonna has to do is wield her magic gun and Wynonna is too nervous to piss Haught off again so she zips her lips about her distinct lack of Peacemaker.

Up in the Garden, Waverly and Doc are having a hard time finding a way out, but they do find Julian’s throne. Waverly inherently knows it’s her birthright and wants to sit on it, but Doc stops her and she snaps out of it. They decide to leave the chair-that-could-turn-Waverly-to-stone in their wake and instead go down into a bunker of sorts, where they find a man covered in blood and looking a little worse for wear.

The man rambles about keeping “it” fed with fresh human blood and when Waverly asks how they can get home, he says there’s only one way out and lops his own head off. Doc tells Waverly to use her powers to bring him back to life so they can ask him more questions but she doesn’t have her Speak with Dead spell prepared so instead they buy themselves some time by squeezing his blood into the stone machine that’s whirring angrily.

When Haught and Wynonna get to Monument, Nicole is getting furiouser and furiouser as more pieces of what Wynonna has and has not told her fall into place.

While they’re sneaking into the Black Badge facility, Wynonna points out that there’s something Nicole hasn’t technically told HER yet, and asks about the ring situation.

Nicole admits that Waverly proposed, and says she didn’t get to answer because of a little thing called Wynonna Interruptus. (Yet another wink.) Nicole won’t tell Wynonna her answer before she tells Waverly, and also they’re being shot at, so they’ll have to table that conversation.

Up in the Garden, after a little bit of a vamp out situation while squeezing the dead body, Waverly finds Doc sitting by the fire, having collected himself. He’s feeling all turned around, also he’s not even sure if he made this fire. Waverly says she wants to rest in a way that makes me feel like probably they shouldn’t close their eyes.

Doc wants to atone first but Waverly says they’ve all done bad things. She says they’re going to get back to them. Them. Haught and Earp. Nicole and Wynonna. Right? They’re starting to forget. Doc falls asleep to the sound of Waverly trying to hold onto what Nicole looks like.

Wynonna and Nicole are still kind of fighting but still manage to team up to stop the person shooting at them. Nicole snarks again about being drugged by her best friend, and Wynonna can’t even quip back because she’s touched. She’s never had a best friend before. Nicole can’t even be annoyed with her anymore, because she meant it. Wynonna IS her best friend.

Nicole and Wynonna quickly learn that the person shooting at them had been a teenage girl holding Valdez’s ID badge. As soon as she comes to, she meets them sass for sass and Nicole proves once again she’s not as good with teenage girls as she thinks she is. They eventually get it out of her that Gloria Valdez is her mother, but she doesn’t know where her mother is. Since Wynonna knows a thing or two about moms bailing, Valdez introduces herself as Rachel and agrees to help them find the information they’re looking for.

After an unknown amount of time passes, Waverly leaves the still-sleeping Doc and wanders off on her own. The whirring stone machine wants more blood but the body they bled is “jerky” now (not a great sign re: the passing of time.) so she gives it a little of her own blood, hoping a little angel blood will go a long way. As soon as she does that, lily pads appear in the water and she hears a voice whisper her name. She follows the voice through a door, all by her lonesome.

In the Black Badge building, Wynonna, Nicole, and Rachel are bonding about how Dolls saved them all and it’s clear she’s been through some shit but is a tough cookie.

Eventually they get to a point where Rachel tells them they have to be quiet going forward, a foreign concept to Wynonna.

Through her door, Waverly finds a bag and some books on a pedestal. Carved into the stone is, “Choose one, choose wisely,” and there are four books there: Wynonna Earp, Doc Holliday, Waverly Gibson, and Nicole Haught. Which is interesting, that it says Waverly Gibson but not John Henry Holliday, which makes me wonder if these names are how Waverly thinks of these people vs their legal names according to whatever Powers that Be. Anyway, we don’t get to see what book(s) she picks before she heads off again.

The BBD trio find a lab of bodies and realize that Black Badge gassed their own employees, and Rachel says she doesn’t see her mom among the bodies. Wynonna, ignoring Rachel’s orders, throws a beaver blaster to try to get in the lab, and the scientists all wake up and start lumbering toward them. Zombies.

They start running and shooting and Wynonna “Sure Yeah I Have Peacemaker” Earp asks why Rachel failed to mentioned the LIVING DEAD and Rachel says that she needed their help and was afraid they wouldn’t help her if they knew there were zombies. How was she supposed to know they were from Canada’s answer to Sunnydale?

The girls get separated while fighting like champs (Rachel swinging around a baseball bad with deadly precision that would make Harley Quinn proud) and Wynonna accidentally steps on a gate that Rachel specifically warned her about. Nicole says it’s her turn to save the day and shoves Wynonna out of the way, falling down the hole herself. Wynonna screams after her that if Nicole dies she’ll kill her, a threat I’ve yelled at my friends before, and even though she’s trying to quip, you can see desperation in her voice. She’s never had a best friend before, and she’s not ready to lose her.

Back in the Garden, Doc wakes up and realizes there are trees and flowers blooming and thinks perhaps his angel companion has something to do with it. He hears someone calling out so he heads toward the sound and is surprised to find Nicole Haught with a season one french braid saying, “Hello!” like a freshly activated Westworld host, a friendly smile on her face but no recognition in her eyes. Oh, and also no clothes.

The end! We did it! We’re back! It’s happening! They really hit the ground running and having 312 and 401 in the same day, I can confirm that they really did pick up right where they left off. They might have had to take a 2-year hiatus, but they didn’t lose any of the energy, heart, or magic. And it feels SO good to be back. Even if everything feels a little desperate and scary with our friends all so far from each other in space and time.

Next week, the fight to get Waverly back continues, and it looks like it might be harder than just finding her.