[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Wynonna Earp: Vengeance.]
Wynonna Earp is so back with Vengeance, a fantastic special which features everything we love so much about this cult hit. But it also leaves us needing more immediately because it ends in tragedy!
Demon-hunter Wynonna (Melanie Scrofano) and Doc Holliday (Tim Rozon) return to Purgatory when the usual chaos comes calling, specifically with “Earp” spelled out in the body parts of a loved one. Once there, Wynonna gets a blast from her past, Waverly (Dom Provost-Chalkley) is left to ponder what her future holds besides all the odd jobs she’s taken around town, and Nicole (Katherine Barrell) just wants to keep everyone safe and in the dark about demons.
Read on as Scrofano, Rozon, Provost-Chalkley, Barrell, and creator Emily Andras break down all the major moments. Plus watch the video above for more from the cast.
Killing Off Doc Holliday
When Wynonna was a teen, she ended up in a group home, with Mina in charge. The teens held a seance, and after, Mina was dragged to hell. She returns, out for revenge, and sends hellhounds after Waverly, Nicole, and Wynonna and Doc’s daughter Alice. Wynonna, after her own trip to hell, is able to trap her in a containment box, but a dirty Black Badge agent takes the box to sell it. Doc follows him and his men to the town line and wins the ensuing shootout—but takes a bullet himself and dies in Wynonna’s arms. “Please let me save you,” she begs. “You did,” he tells her.
Tubi
After a happy ending to the original series, “I really had to think about what happened after happily ever after, and what is a bigger journey or a bigger adventure than death?” explains Andras. “Doc Holiday has lived for 172 years. He’s literally done it all. He has been a famous gunslinger, he’s been married, he’s been a vampire, he’s been a good guy, he’s been a bad guy. So I think him facing death and also sacrificing himself for the people he loved felt like the right move.”
Furthermore, she notes, “In the spirit of Wynonna Earp, too, it’s often a storyline we used to see a lot from female characters. So I think it felt good to do it with our male character. Just to be clear, this was a storyline that Tim Rozon actually pitched. He really thought that it was a good way to explain us coming back, to tell a story we haven’t told before.”
Rozon loves Doc’s story in the special, calling it, “a beautiful ending to four years. I knew I was in good hands literally dying in Mel’s hands. If I’m going to go out, that’s who I want to go out with. I love that it was just two of us. I didn’t need everybody else there. I really didn’t. I just needed to die there in Wynonna’s arms and I was good. I knew Emily was writing that scene and I knew I’d be taken care of. And Paolo Barzman was directing. He died with his boots on in the arms of the woman that he loved for his daughter. So I’m happy. I might be the only one,” he adds with a laugh.
Scrofano also praises Barzman for that scene. “One of his many gifts is that he doesn’t overshoot things,” she shares. “I find [scenes like that really taxing emotionally. Paolo kept us moving. It was really easy and it just allowed us to be in the moment together.”
Before his death, Andras “wanted to give [Wynonna and Doc] an honest conversation and a little bit of closure about what their relationship meant to them, what they really want in the next steps,” their conversation the night before the battle, about the house they wanted to have overlooking the barn. “But I think you can’t win them all, and that’s life. That’s always what’s been good about Wynonna Earp is it lives in the realm of the supernatural, but sometimes unexpected things happen and we have to deal with them, and grief is a huge part of life. I think Wynonna had to learn to say goodbye and to her person, the person she loves the most, while also knowing that they were fighting for something so much bigger than themselves, which was their daughter.”
The creator was moved by Doc’s death scene, which was filmed at 6 a.m. “Just watching Mel and Tim do their magic and having to get ramped up to that moment is really difficult. But they’re such incredible performers and trust each other so much. It was truly gorgeous,” she recalls. “Doc’s last talk to Wynonna, he made the choice to kind of be laughing when he says goodbye. I think he had made peace with it in a way she hadn’t and was determined to kind of comfort her, which is so Doc at the end. I get chills every time I watch that scene.”
RelatedWhere ‘Wynonna Earp: Vengeance’ Finds Wynonna & Doc and Waverly & Nicole
Bringing Doc Back From the Dead
“This is Earp, you never know what’s going to happen next,” points out Andras. “I don’t want to make promises. Death is a tough one, but have we seen the last of Doc Holliday? Who knows?”
Wynonna at least thinks that Jeremy (Varun Saranga), with Black Badge’s resources (which now include researcher Waverly), can. But is that just her hoping and her way of dealing with the grief, or does she truly think that’s possible?
“I think she hopes against hope,” says Andras. “I don’t know if Jeremy would’ve given her false hope just because he’s known her for so long that I think he wouldn’t allow her to kind of not move on with her life if he didn’t think there was a possibility. But these things always come with a terrible cost. Bringing someone back, do I think that’s going to be easy? No. On the other hand, if this is the Earp we get, and Doc has gone and Wynonna is kind of at peace at town, she’s going to have to find a way to move forward. But as always, she’s not alone. She’s with her sister and her best friend and people who love her, and we’ll see.”
On Scrofano’s part, Wynonna “has to think it’s possible,” she says. “She’s been through so much and she’s lost so much. And just for her own survival, maybe it’s like a hopeless hope, but I think she needs to have something to hold onto and if she keeps moving, the pain won’t catch up to her. She’s like, ‘You’re smart, you can fix this. Do it.’ She doesn’t give him an option not to fail. It’s not if, it’s when. And I think that’s how she survives this enormous pain.”
As Andras points out, it’s not easy to bring someone back from the dead and there’s always the question of if it should be done. But Rozon is all for it. “I’d love to come back and be on Wynonna Earp. Listen, John Henry, he’s got the curse of immortality still in inside him from the Stone Witch. He’s got the undead vampire blood still coursing through his veins,” he reminds us. “This is a sci-fi television show. Doc’s died before. For the people that are sad or nervous, it’s not that big a deal. He only died. We didn’t shave his mustache. That’s the way I look at it. But yeah, Doc would love to come back. So would I.”
Tubi
Waverly Joining Black Badge
While Waverly loves her life in Purgatory, Nicole knows that she’s an Earp and needs adventure. With Jeremy thinking Black Badge is compromised, he needs people he can trust—currently stationed in Egypt. And that’s where she’s heading at the end of the special. But without everything leading up to it, would Waverly have made that choice to go when she does?
“She was stuck” at the beginning, Andras acknowledges. “It’s funny because she adores her wife, there’s nothing wrong with the marriage. It’s asking for something that sometimes people are scared to ask for, which is they just want another adventure. They just want to pursue something else. But in a way, I think Waverly would’ve been happy to stay at home forever. Nothing was wrong exactly.”
But everything that happens in Vengeance gives her “the push she needed,” the creator continues. “Wynonna has always been a truth-teller and recognized that Waverly is somewhat unsatisfied. [That] and Doc’s death are the catalyst that Waverly needed to take a leap, and I’m so proud of her for doing it. I think it’s a good character beat.”
Provost-Chalkley thinks that Waverly still would have ended up in the same place. “On a deeper level, Waverly’s been yearning for adventure and I think that if she doesn’t get that and if we were to see the representation of a relationship that holds one another back, that would be such a disservice to these characters because it’s amazing that Waverly is super ambitious and it’s amazing that Nicole understands that and sees that in her and is like, ‘Baby, go spread your wings. You need to do this,’” they explain.
“Because otherwise there would be built-in resentment for the rest of her life of not being able to explore outside of Purgatory. She’s never been outside of purgatory before, whereas her wife has—you’ve had another wife at one point,” they add, looking to Barrell. “I think that it was important for us to see that for Waverly, but definitely that the main catalyst is wanting to get her friend back and making sure that she can put her skills where it’s needed alongside Jeremy.”
WayHaught Remains Golden
But just because WayHaught will be in different countries for the time being, the great thing about the special is they feel golden as they part ways. “Their marriage will be fine,” Andras promises.
This special has allowed her to delve into “after the wedding stuff, after happily ever after,” she says. “Lots of us have long-distance jobs or we have to travel or we have to go take care of aging parents, and it doesn’t mean the end of anything. There’s a little bit of growing up and maturity, and if your roots are as good as WayHaught’s roots are, there’s no danger of them straying or not understanding one another. And I just think it’s nice to put such a supportive marriage on screen, to show that they’re solid and it’s okay, they can weather this, they can weather anything. And that to me is real true love. Not just the wedding, but how you deal with everything afterwards. So yeah, they’re golden.”
Tubi
Both Provost-Chalkley and Barrell also love what they get to portray with WayHaught’s relationship.
“It was really important in a beautiful evolution of these characters who have always been an incredible beacon of representation,” Barrell notes. “We usually end at happily ever after. What happens after is something we so rarely get to see, and I think it is so important to see that’s the mark of a solid relationship when you could say, ‘Yeah, go do your thing. I’ll be right here when you come back.’”
Adds Provost-Chalkley, “It really moves me. Honestly, I thought it was so courageous and awesome for Emily to write that because it’s not necessarily what you imagine after happily ever after for them. You would be like, ‘Okay, maybe it would’ve been a baby. Maybe we would’ve stayed in the homestead.’ Whereas I think there’s something so courageous to showcase that side of relationships where it’s okay for you to have different dreams and different adventures and it doesn’t take anything away from the love that you share for one another. If anything, it can amplify it and help the relationship grow.”
What did you think of Wynonna Earp: Vengeance? How are you doing after Doc’s death? Let us know in the comments section, below.
Wynonna Earp: Vengeance, Streaming Now, Tubi
More Headlines:
‘The Simpsons’ Star Hank Azaria Reacts to Trump’s ‘Pet Eating’ in Springfield Claims‘Wynonna Earp: Vengeance’ Team on [Spoiler]’s Death, Waverly’s New Job & More (VIDEO)‘Deadliest Catch’ Stars Flounder on ‘Celebrity Family Feud’ Over ‘Strip Club’ Question‘Karate Kid’ Star Chad McQueen, Son of Steve McQueen, Dies at 63Todd Chrisley’s Son Kyle Speaks Out After Getting Arrested for Aggravated Assault
