Welcome to Five Things about “Friends in Low Places,” episode 2 of the long-awaited fourth season of Wynonna Earp. This one has our heroes escaping from the prison of Eden, a super-hot WayHaught reunion, and a plot reset. Anything can and will happen from here. (As usual.)
1. Friends in Low Places
This hit song by Garth Brooks will be forty years old this week.
“Blame it all on my roots/I showed up in boots/ And ruined your black tie affair” are the first lines of the song. Last week, Nicole Haught showed up in Eden wearing nothing but her smile. Is she that needed friend? Maybe. Maybe not.
No. The ultimate friend in low places is Wynonna herself, crashing the Garden of Eden to save her sister and her baby-daddy.
This fun party song definitely suited the happy events of the story. However, I worry about next week because the episode title is Johnny Cash’s “Look at Them Beans.” Despite a somewhat silly name, the song is about parental death and change. (And here I was hoping for an episode based on “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy.”)
2. WTF??? Just Happened.
Previously on: Nicole fell through to..Eden? Or is that an evil doppelganger?
Yep, definitely an evil doppelganger aka Eve, who was imprisoned and abandoned by God. Eve takes the forms of Nicole, Jeremy, Wynonna, and spouts threats like wanting to flay people’s skin for revenge. This is not the fun, somewhat insecure, party-girl, pansexual Eve of Lucifer. Nope, this is a very angry Eve who proclaims that she is “Death.” Eve is kicked through a mystical door by Doc, who’s had enough of her shapeshifting and her whining about revenge. Where did she go? We don’t know but it seems like Eden is gone?
Our heroes have bigger problems than worrying about Eve when they return, considering the scaffold full of bodies on Purgatory’s main street, an interesting callback to the death of the Earp patriarch way back when.
3. The Feels: It’s Been 18 Months, 3 Weeks, and Four Days
It’s the real Nicole, the real Waverly, and once they get the obligatory “I almost killed you” scene out of the way, they have a reunion.
A long, beautiful, sexual reunion on the floor and the stairs and who knows where else at the Earp homestead. This is a beautifully filmed scene, full of passion and emotion, and earned by the lovely relationship of these characters. But the killer moment comes post-sex when Nicole has to confess that Waverly has been gone for “18 months, three weeks, and four days.” I’ll put that right up with Shaw’s “You were my safe space” declaration to Root on Person of Interest.
In any other episode, Doc and Wynonna’s various reunions and declarations of support would rate more than an honorable mention, to say nothing of Wynonna being convinced to leave Nicole behind with zombies so Wynonna could save Waverly. Kat Barrell had so many wonderful moments this episode, from talking with Rachel Valdez as death seemed imminent, to her turns as Eve dressed in nothing but flowers, and, finally, to her confession of how long Waverly had been gone. “Your laugh is like Christmas.” How does one sleep after all this?
4. Your Pop Culture References
First, I missed the Friday Night Lights reference from last week. I’m sure I’ll miss some more than this week but we kick off with Rachel’s baseball bat prompting a “You are in a League of Your Own,” quip from Wynonna, quickly followed by “Stay alive, I will find you!” from The Last of the Mohicans.
Nobody does lighting-fast pop culture references like Melanie Scrofano. At this rate, Wynonna’s language will evolve into only pop culture metaphors and quotes, and it’ll turn into a “Darmok at Tanagra When the Walls Fell”-style episode in order to communicate with her. That would be fun.
5. Flipping the Destiny Script
I’m going to become a little serious here and talk about theme. The show is about a found family who will always have each other’s backs, even if there are some strained moments, such as Doc becoming a vampire and trying to kill people.
The show is also about growing up and putting aside the path created for you by other people and instead choosing your own destiny. It’s about wanting to break the curse, not simply kill all the Revenants. It’s about tossing away Bulshar’s ring because you want to make your own legacy. It’s about putting aside a metaphysical inheritance handed down from your angel father in order to be with the one you love instead.
Eve might be free. She might be a problem again. But they won’t stop her the way destiny insisted she be stopped. They’ll stop Eve the Earp-way. Which means with love, whiskey, screw-ups, and counting on each other.
