Wynonna Earp season 2: Let’s talk about Waverly

So far on this season of Wynonna Earp, Waverly’s pretty much stolen the spotlight with her sweet cheerleading moves and demonic possession.

As far as cute kid sisters go, Waverly Earp’s pretty much stolen the spotlight and most, if not all, of that has to do with how actress Dominique Provost-Chalkley plays her as sweet, competent and eager to help.

In addition to being a key ingredient to the Earp recipe and their Black Badge Division squad, Waverly’s also one-half of WayHaught. Basically, this means we tune in each week waiting to see how she far she and her girlfriend, Nicole, are going to go. In episode 2, they slept together for the first time. Friday’s episode then delivered a cheerleading scene that fans have been waiting for for, like, ever.

It was a pretty big deal in the fandom. Though, as showrunner Emily Andras explained to Entertainment Weekly, Waverly can’t always control the amount of sex vibes and edginess she puts out into the world:

"I want to make it clear: When we see Waverly acting like Waverly, she is in control. It’s very clear when the demon is in control versus when Waverly is the Waverly we know and love. I don’t want there to be any kind of gray area. I don’t want to take away from the sweetness of the relationship between Nicole and Waverly, but we’ve made it very clear from here when the Tentacle is in charge. But that’s not to say it’s not still scary. It’s pretty much a stone-cold possession, and the problem with possession is, the longer it goes on, the weaker the mortal becomes."

But as we saw in “Gonna Getcha Good,” Waverly’s secret will get out soon. Once Nicole mentioned it to Wynonna, even she couldn’t ignore that something was off with her sister. Plus, Officer Dolls saw her goo-out the end of the episode.

And speaking of Dolls, Doc’s insistence that they needed to keep the demon alive just proved how committed he was to the cause:

"He wants Dolls to be back in fighting form and for Wynonna to still pick him. And he has his own very specific code of ethics: Whatever he thinks about Dolls, Black Badge have not been playing fair with Dolls. And Doc, like Wynonna, doesn’t like that. He doesn’t like authority figures. And after being in the well for 150 years, the most horrible thing for Doc is not to be free. So he understands that Dolls is a prisoner in his own way. He’s indebted to Black Badge for this medicine and Doc is having none of it. He kind of embodies those traditional American ideals."

There are supernatural aspects to this show that we’ve seen elsewhere on television. But Andras’ deeper understanding of the characters and what they stand for feels unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Further, she cares so much about the audience for Wynonna Earp and subverting expectations.

My favorite scene of “Gonna Getcha Good” came when Wynonna called out Doc’s chemist for being a hussy, then apologized for being so superficial. Because let’s be real, a biochemist can look and dress however they’d like. So watching Wynonna grow in that way — in just a couple of seconds — felt awesome.

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Well, that and beating up all those high schoolers. That was wish fulfillment to the highest degree.

Wynonna Earp airs every Friday at 10 p.m. ET on Syfy.