Episode number: S02E10
Episode title: I See a Darkness
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Gayness: 
3/5
This episode picks up where the last one left off: Nicole is being attacked by a Widow! Am I the only one who’s a bit surprised that Nicole isn’t better at hand-to-hand combat? Be that as it may, there’s a fight and Nicole is losing, but Waverly arrives just at the right time to beat the Widow with – wait, where’d she get the stick she breaks in half? Unclear!
Waverly could’ve needed more training though, and then SHE needs saving and Nicole, who is ridiculously slow at getting to her gun, essentially sacrifices herself and gets Widow rabies as a result. Widow rabies can’t be healed, of course, unless you a) make a deal with the devil or b) have Jeremy create an anti-venom that you test on assorted demons until you perfect it. So that’s what this episode is about.
Mercedes Without A Face is in the hospital – gosh, I hope she gets her face back when the Widows have been murdered – and Wynonna drops by to see her, so they’re conveniently all in the right place when Officer Haught gets brought in. Waverly blabs that Rosita is a demon, which I thought was terribly unlike her, especially since she promised not to tell – plus, Rosita could “out” her as a result, so I think she’d doubly not have told! Anyone but Wynonna already knew this, though.
The next upsetting thing is the way Wynonna consequently behaves towards Rosita. They are friends! They were getting along so well! Rosita was going to throw her a baby shower! And yet Wynonna points Peacemaker at Rosita, threatens her and orders her to go be tortured by Jeremy. Low point, Wynonna. She’s still the same person, even now that you know her secret, right?
Back at the hospital, the second Widow entices Waverly to find the third seal. If she does this, she’ll hand Waverly the anti-venom she’s carrying about with her in a little vial. Wait, wouldn’t that be a good time to have someone with a big gun attack her and get the anti-venom off her? Maybe that would be too easy.
Also at the hospital, it turns out Nicole has a wife – wow, I didn’t see that one coming! – and Waverly gets all weird about it. The wife, Shae, is a doctor Nicole spontaneously married in Vegas before things cooled off and she can mysteriously tell from a comatose Nicole that she must really love Waverly. Other than that, Shae’s role is only to make things a bit more awkward and add a tiny bit of backstory for Nicole. Speaking of which, we finally get to see Nicole’s cat in this episode, Calamity Jane. (And Nedley loves the cat. Aww, I like you, Nedley.)
Waverly and Doc go and trap the Widow who stole Mercedes’ face to use her to make an anti-venom (good, because she was torturing Nedley), but by that time Waverly has already made a deal with the Blacksmith’s evil twin (a witch) to save Nicole. The witch leads her to the third seal, Doc’s ring, which was given to Nedley by Wynonna for some reason I can’t quite grasp. If the witch is so powerful, why didn’t the Widows get the info from her?
Also, can we talk about this paradox for a moment? The Widow finds out that the ring (or the knowledge where it is, I suppose) is at Nicole’s house. So she goes to Nicole’s house and bites her, only to realize she was “at the right place at the wrong time”. She was meant to wait for Nedley. But Nedley only ever goes to Nicole’s house BECAUSE she got bitten by the Widow and needed a catsitter. So shouldn’t the Widow’s magic have led her to the police station in the first place?
Anyway, to wrap this up: Waverly makes a deal with the witch and gets the seal to the Widow (Dolls kind of condoned it), Wynonna is livid, and the witch requests one wish from the wish demon they captured in an earlier episode. (If you knew the wish demon was there, why did you even wait for Waverly’s permission?) The witch mumbles something that is extremely garbled German and apparently wishes for Wynonna to not exist and so she doesn’t. That should be an interesting episode next! But hey, at least Nicole is better.
Stray thoughts from the wife
- So much drama in this episode! And tragedy. Faceless Mercedes! Dying Nicole! Captive Nedley!
- Oh hello, Nicole’s estranged wife. I didn’t really need to know you existed.
- Nooo! Come on, Waverly, you expressly said you wouldn’t tell Wynonna about Buxom Biochemist’s rampant revenantism!
- Predictably, Wynonna is “not cool” about it.
- On the topic of bad judgement, who makes a deal with someone who calls herself the Iron Witch and asks for “anything she wants”? I know Waverly was desperate, but that was sending up a whole lot of red flags.
- I was positively surprised that Waves told Dolls about Beth’s deal. But I don’t follow Dolls’ reasoning that agreeing to it would be fine because Nicole would be there to fight the resulting demons with them. Sure she would, but would that make any tactical difference? Half the time Nicole can’t even find her gun, for goodness’ sake!
- And so we head into Wynonna-less territory, presumably to allow the actress to take maternity leave.
- I noticed the clothes switch at once at the end. Did you?
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