WYNONNA EARP – Season 3 Episode 4 – SPOILERS

It all starts with Robin (Justin Kelly) finding a bleeding tree along with clothes partly buried in the snow nearby. He calls it a “murder tree” and doesn’t explain further. Robin doesn’t notice, but the tree seems to have someone trapped inside it. (Is he hiding in there, or is he imprisoned?) Robin is a jazz historian working as a forest ranger and later in the episode Waverly will fix him up with Jeremy (Varun Saranga). But before that, Waverly asks Nicole if she’s gotten rid of Bulshar’s ring yet. She says she hasn’t. Then, once Waverly is out of sight, Nicole tosses the ring into the woods, just to be done with it.

The Shelterlands music festival massacre, at which everyone but Nicole died, happened in 1996, and Nicole remembers being already down by the river when the attack happened, and escaping in a canoe. Since Nicole was six years old at the time, it seems likely that someone who knew the attack was about to happen made a point of rescuing her. It might have been Michelle, or Ward Earp, or Bobo Del Rey, or someone else entirely. The question is, why, out of the entire crowd, was Nicole singled out to be the only survivor?

This is the second mention of a canoe on the show this season. A couple of episodes ago, we learned that Wynonna lost her virginity in one.

Jeremy and Robin go into the woods in search of the murder tree and instead find a mysterious stone stairway. Jeremy takes pictures, but none of them turn out, and later, when they look for the staircase again, it is nowhere to be found, causing Jeremy to suggest that the two of them might have experienced a shared hallucination.

That cannibal revenant that wrecked Wynonna’s truck in Episode 3.2 was not being metaphoric when he said the trees were getting up and walking around, because a helpful poplar tree (not the murder tree, which was also a poplar) jumps in front of a revenant being chased by Wynonna and Doc. (Doc has not told Wynonna (or anyone else) that he’s back together with Kate (who likely is still in town, but was not seen at all in this episode. Curiously, having Kate around seems to make Doc even more interested in Wynonna.)

Sheriff Nedley (Greg Lawson) explains to Waverly that the reason her mother got such a long prison sentence was not that she set fire to the Earp’s barn, but that Waverly was inside it when she did. Despite this, Nedley, who was Ward Earp’s deputy at that time, has nothing but good things to say about Michelle. “She was no murderous sociopath,” he tells Waverly. “She was Michelle Gibson, rodeo spitfire, the wild heart and loyal soul of Purgatory. Even the thugs and dimwits drank to her…I don’t know what happened that night, but there isn’t an evil bone in Michelle Gibson’s body.”

Waverly visits her mom in prison and it is not a good experience. This causes Wynonna to visit Michelle, which, in turn, results in Michelle’s escape, and Wynonna’s (temporary) imprisonment. (“Lock her up”, says the warden, after Michelle escapes. “What did i do?” asks Wynonna. “And if you say emails…”) Wynonna escapes from prison as well, but Michelle gets to the homestead first and begins a ritual designed to banish a demon. Waverly goes out to the barn to get Doc some whisky and finds her mother arranging lighted candles inside a crudely fashioned pentagram.

MICHELLE: “The Demon’s here.”

WAVERLY: “Is it me?”

MICHELLE: “No, but she came for you.”

The demon is roughly Waverly’s size and is right behind her. When she sees it, Waverly lets out a scream worthy of Fay Wray, and Mama Gibson threatens the demon with peacemaker (which she took from Wynonna when she escaped from prison). Does Melissa expect to be able to fire that gun, or is it just a bluff?

A reasonable theory might be that Michelle was trying to destroy a demon that was after Waverly when she burned down the Earp’s barn. She somehow took that demon to prison with her, and only a visit from Waverly could allow the demon to escape, hence her requirement that Wynonna not tell Waverly where she was.

When Wynonna gets back to the homestead, she finds Nicole, Waverly, and Doc sitting around a table full of baked goods. Jolene (Zoie Palmer), whom everyone seems to know, feeds her a brownie, and once Wynonna eats it, she seems to be caught up in Jolene’s spell (?) just like the others.

What is a murder tree? (Google doesn’t know, either.) Who or what is Jolene, and what will she bake next? Might she be a different form of that demon from the barn? And when will Doc introduce Kate to Wynonna?

Outside his dad’s house, Robin is grabbed by what looks like a tree root and dragged away, much like Kenzi was dragged into the shadows at the end of the LOST GIRL episode “Fae-de To Black”

NOTES

Kiana Madeira (Poppy in “Whisky Lullaby“) will be The Spin (aka Spencer Young) in Season Five of THE FLASH. In the comics, The Spin was Mr. Auerbach, a villain whose power was to absorb and broadcast emotion. In the TV show, the character will be an ambitious social media influencer who makes herself famous when she discovers that there is a new hero in Central City. (The new hero is Nora West-Allen played by Jessica Parker Kennedy. Nora is the Flash’s daughter, newly arrived from the future.) Season Five of THE FLASH will premiere on the CW on 9 October at 8/7c . The Spin will make her first appearance in Episode 5.4.

Madiera is also Suzzie in SHE NEVER DIED, a sequel to Jason Krawczyk’s 2015 dramedy HE NEVER DIED, which was about Jim, a depressed, anti-social outcast trying to save his long-lost daughter from a crime syndicate. The sequel was originally to be called HE NEVER DIED 2, but Krawczyk got too busy with the TV version, so the re-titled sequel was directed by Audrey Cummings, and stars Olunike Adelliyi as an immortal female who brings psychopaths to justice. Filming of SHE NEVER DIED was completed in June. There is no word yet on a release date.

Caitlynn Medrek (the schoolteacher in “No Future In the Past“) is rumoured to have been cast as Willa of Tuscia in the fantasy/adventure 1000: THE SWORD IN THE STONE, the story of a teenager named Jack who visits a chapel in Tuscany, and notices a sword stuck in a stone. When he tries to pull it out, he is transported to the eleventh century, and a universe that contains druids, magical creatures, and an invincible sword.

Sara Eustaquio wrote about Guido Maria Giordano‘s screenplay in Cult Critic : “An interesting aspect that cannot be ignored in this script is the particular approach to women. In stories set in medieval ages, the plot typically revolves around men. However, Giordano tries to break this cycle. Throughout the story, characters ask for women’s rights and even mention freeing people from slavery (not only men but women as well)…it is a small detail that brings out the uniqueness of this piece.” 1000: THE SWORD IN THE STONE will be released in Italy on 1 May 2019 .







