Wynonna Earp season 3 episode 1 review: A big Nicole Haught reveal

Tonight, Wynonna Earp season 3 episode 1 (which aired as a part of a special preview on Syfy) wasted very little time getting things started. The opening minutes gave you just about everything that you wanted — drinking, action, humor, and Wayhaught. If the rest of the season is like this, there’s a lot to be excited about. Granted, the name Bulshar was also bandied about, which tends to almost always be bad news.

Yet, the bad news in Purgatory continued after that with the arrival of several super-persuasive characters into the Ghost River Triangle — think of them as rebellious vampire hipsters. They posed to be the threat-of-the-week for Wynonna in company, but soon after that we got a pretty good sense that our leading lady was ready for anything — while also fighting/sorta-flirting with Doc in the process. (Wayhaught fans, rejoice! There was also a domestic bed scene thrown in there.) Wynonna is training to fight Bulshar, obsessively so, and it makes sense for Waverly to be concerned.

Speaking of concern … let’s get to the fruits of the vampires’ labor (if you want to call it that.) Not too long after partying, Wynonna, Waverly, and Nicole found themselves back to their familiar locale to find a series of dead bodies, arranged in a way to send a message. According to Nicole, the culprits here could have connections to the Cult of Bulshar. She’s known some things via Black Badge and that research has given her some wisdom. It’s too bad that wisdom itself can’t keep some of these people at bay. Take, for example, one of them hiding in the bathroom.

After all of this, we turn to the biggest shocker of the season: The debut of Megan Follows as Mama Earp! She is locked up, and Wynonna thinks that she is going to be key to figuring out precisely what’s going on with Bulshar. What is the connection to Bulshar? That’s a question that she needed some sort of answer to. Yet, she wasn’t altogether interested in offering much support, which led to an opportunity to get a little more backstory on the woman. She was locked away long ago, back before Waverly would really understand what was going on. There’s also a difference between what she knows and what she is willing to share.

Let’s get back to the vampires

Why not? After all, these vampire hipsters dominated a lot of the episode, especially as they methodically managed to get many of our leads in their grasp. One by one, they put their influence on various members of the cast, leaving it so that everyone from Waverly to Nicole to Jeremy was completely brainwashed. They went to a big celebration party, one that Wynonna and Dolls showed up right in the nick of time. Waverly, Nicole, and all of the other good guys got themselves free of the spell and engaged in some rather fantastic vampire-stabbing. From here, they had to find Doc; eventually, they did, and we would like to consider this, strange, hazy, and hilarious madcap vampire-stopping sequence a highlight of the entire episode.

Yet, stopping the cult doesn’t mean ending the war. While Wynonna and the rest of her team got a chance to celebrate eradicating Purgatory of some vampires, there were still some problems out there.

The problem within the group

Wynonna Earp wouldn’t be what it is without a devastating reveal, and we got that moments before the end of the episode: Nicole may be the survivor of the Cult of Bulshar. There’ve been some theories out there for some time but, for whatever reason, we never bought it!

After that big, emotional bomb, we eventually moved back over to Wynonna and Waverly, where Wynonna offered her up a pass to go see her … at least before flipping her car. What happened here? Well, the episode concluded with Waverly being dragged from the car by a mystery figure, pleading for her life.

CarterMatt Verdict

Wynonna Earp season 3 episode 1 served as a worthy introduction to the season, and it was absolutely the Syfy series at its finest. Was it strange and super-gory? Absolutely, but it was also all sorts of entertaining from start to finish. Still, we’re worried about Haught — and both Waverly and Wynonna judging from that ending.

Related – Be sure to get some other news when it comes to Wynonna Earp, including a preview for what’s next!

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