"Undo It" - Wynonna Earp S03E09 Review

There isn't a lot to say about tonight's episode, "Undo It", of Wynonna Earp. But it's my job to say a relative lot about it, so here we go.

We start with Nicole and Waverly trying to get Bulshar's ring off of Waverly's finger. There are jokes about lube and pulling and tugging, and Nicole saying they'll get off once they get the ring off. Isn't it great to know homosexuals are getting the same kind of (slightly updated) jokes that Three's Company was doing back in the 70s? You've come a long way, babies.

Doc and Wynonna wake up in the barn after sex, and we wonder what happened since last week ended with Bulshar blowing powder into their faces. We soon find out our duo is having a shared hallucination, and they're actually in the barn surrounded by Bulshar and his... beekeepers? They look a lot more impressive than they sound, with their black vaguely plague-doctorish outfits.

We get our hammy revenant guest star of the week when Nicole and Waverly go to the station and call in a jeweler, Derek. He Gollums all over the ring and confirms that it can't be cut.

Wynonna snaps out of the hallucination as Bulshar and his beekeepers take her and Doc through the forest. He blows more powder in her face. Wynonna then wakes up in the basement of Shorty's, goes to the bar, and gets killed with a poison dart to the chest. She then wakes up back in the basement and goes through the same thing a couple of times. Doc's face appears on a wall and he doesn't know where his body is. Wynonna goes back up the stairs and we get her going through the loop several times She describes how she keeps getting killed different ways.

Nicole and Waverly get a police radio report about a disturbance at the Gardner house. We find a faced-bandaged Mercedes Gardner (Dani Kind) trying to break open the family strongbox. Nicole shoots it open and Mercedes takes out the money inside. Mercedes also explains she's been traveling around the world but no one can cure her face from when the Widow Sisters cut it off in season 2. The three women banter a bit, and I don't remember Waverly being that close to Mercedes before. Derek shows up, reveals he's a revenant, and "Oh, my Precious!" all over Waverly's ring. She finally grabs him by the face and the ring burns him.

Wynonna realizes Doc is being slowly buried alive in the foundation of a building. The floor starts burning, forcing Wynonna to go back up the stairs. She finds herself at the homestead, and Doc's face is on the fireplace. They work out he's buried in the homestead foundation and Bulshar is the one who put him there. Doc admits Bulshar offered him a deal to cleanse his soul in return for Doc betraying Wynonna. Doc refuses, so I guess Bulshar imprisoned him.

When Wynonna goes to the barn, she finds Bobo (Michael Eklund) there and shoots him with Peacemaker. The hallucination resets and rather confusingly, Wynonna eventually works out she's been through that cycle and killed Bobo a few hundred times while Doc is slowly being buried. Wynonna leaves Peacemaker behind, goes to Bobo, and tries to talk to him. Bobo rambles on a bit about how he's been cursed by Bulshar and then attacks Wynonna anyway. As they lie dying in a nicely shot spotlight scene, Bobo says he eventually gave up and Wynonna will, too.

Waverly strokes Mercedes' bandaged face and then Mercedes leaves. Jeremy calls and says he's found something in the woods, and Waverly and Nicole head out there. They find beaver lodges and the first one has Bobo in it. They free him and he rambles on a bit. Then they find Wynonna and Doc, comatose in another lodge.

Wynonna finally gets outside and finds Bulshar waiting for her next to a wooden red door. Bulshar does a lot of expositing and finally Wynonna works out he needs Peacemaker to get into the Garden of Eden, and she has to give it to him willingly. The entire hallucination's intent is to drive her to despair so she'll give Bulshar Peacemaker in return for his releasing her and sparing her friends. Eventually Wynonna frees Doc, they kill Bulshar, and they go through the door only to run into another reset with Doc still trapped.

When she goes outside again, Wynonna confronts Bulshar and he shows her the graves of... somebodies. Doc seems to be among them, and Wynonna eventually gives up rather than let Bulshar kill her friends and family.

In the real world, Waverly, Nicole, and Jeremy find Wynonna and Doc near the stairs Jeremy and Robin found a few episodes ago. Wynonna and Doc wake up, and everyone realizes Wynonna gave up Peacemaker.

In the end, Wynonna and Waverly have a girl's night at the homestead. Wynonna is very sad until Waverly cheers her up.

In the end tag, Mercedes discovers that her face is healed and figures Waverly cured her.

So "Undo It" is a strange little bottle episode. Mercedes drops in for whatever reason, and we get Derek (Dylan Roberts) as the single new guest star. The episode is filmed on existing sets, and there's a lot of Groundhog Daying through the sets. On the one hand, there's a lot of "tell, don't show" going on with all of the loops. On the other, the episode is monotonous enough as it is.

There is a lot of decent imagery and directorial touches by April Mullen. I already mentioned the Wynonna/Bobo spotlight scenes. There's a fair amount of Doc's face projected on the walls which is creepy in a Disney/Epcot sort of way. And you can't go wrong with a door floating in space.

The story itself is pretty weird, and finding out Bulshar is looking for the Garden of Eden (in Purgatory?) hasn't really explained anything, like why he has been gathering the descendants of the first families of Purgatory. Is it secondary revenge? Does he need them to find or open up the Garden and the stairs that lead to it? We do find out (I think) that he created Peacemaker and the Revenants.

And why does Bulshar control the forest plants and employ "beekeepers"? We still seem to be missing out on some of his story: how did he go from Purgatory marshal to demonic spellcaster, beekeeper herder, and forest controller? And that's not counting some of the other elements left outstanding, like Waverly being half-human/half-angel. Or heck, who was the guy working for him that killed Xavier?

Hopefully we'll get some answers. But we're coming to the last three episodes, and in the last two years they've usually spent that time to build up to some kind of apocalyptic ending. So I suspect they're throwing out all of this stuff just to boost up the chills. It's a pretty standard, "Evil Spellcaster wants something powerful in the area, needs magical token belonging to the hero to get it, and gets it" story. It seems kind of divorced from the whole Earp Curse/Peacemaker/Revenant thing.

But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?