Wynonna Earp Recap: Episode 8, “Two Faced Jack”
When we last saw Wynonna and Haught, they were heading out to have delicious pancakes and talk smack about demons. However, some massive buzzkill has evidently captured them, as Doc deduces from Haught’s bloody squad care and two missing badass ladies. Well, anyone could really deduce that something bad happened, but we’ll give Doc this one. He finds a Jack of Spades card resting beneath the windshield wipers, and knows that the women are in serious danger. He swipes a horse and rushes to the precinct to get Dolls’ help.
Wynonna wakes up in a haze in a hospital bed, attached to a bunch of tubes and whatnot. Dr. Reggie, the coroner, is there by her side when she comes to. When she realizes she can’t move her legs and starts to panic, Reggie informs her that she’s paralyzed from the waist down.
In addition to being a tough cookie, Wynonna is also a smart cookie, and from the get go, something doesn’t feel right. She stops the flow of her IV, as Reggie really shows his cards when he starts talking about pioneering some seriously messed up experimental surgeries. She calls him on his bullshit, and he ups the creep factor, telling her he’s going to search inside of her until he finds the bad parts and cut them out. Yuck, dude. As Reggie heads out to prep an OR, Wynonna hears moaning in the bed next to her. It’s Bethany, who we last saw in a fur jacket and very un-sensible shoes being picked up by a strange car. I thought perhaps she was a goner already considering the massive gush of blood in the car, but she’s still kicking.
Dolls and Waverly (with her arm in a delicate sling because she’s Waverly) to call in the cavalry to search for Wynonna, but Doc warns them that it will do no good. This Jack character is a brutal and powerful sort. He tells the tale of how back in his day, Jack would kidnap women and mutilate their bodies. Wyatt and Doc tracked him down, but by the time they could capture him, Doc was very ill. Wyatt was supposedly always troubled by this Jack of Knives. While Doc and Dolls set off to find Wynonna and Haught, Dolls has Waverly stay behind to do more research on this devil. The men run into the Sheriff on the way and find out that Officer Haught has been found alive, but badly injured. First stop is the hospital to see her.
Bethany is pretty hopped on happy juice, so when Wynonna questions her, she thinks that Reggie is there to help them. Wy is able to convince Bethany of the truth, but Bethany is too frightened and it’s too late to take any action. Reggie comes whistling down the hall and wheels Bethany away.
The following scene is so gruesome (in fact one of the most gruesome I’ve ever seen on television) that I promise not to screencap it. In the operating room, Reggie starts removing Bethany’s organs, while she’s alive and conscious. It’s no surprise when she dies on the table, but Reggie seems shocked by it. He’s also furious and starts tearing the place apart.
At the hospital, the Sherriff isn’t so sure about letting Dolls talk to Haught until her Doctor oks it, but Haught calls to him to let Dolls, Doc and Waverly through. Haught is awake but traumatized, and her last clear memory is of Waverly smiling at her. Dangit Haught, you are adorable. Anyhoo, Dolls continues to question her and she remembers a man stepping out into the road, then being carried into the woods and left in a frozen ditch to die. Dolls is frustrated with the lack of details, so Doc steps in and helps her remember some other sensory related clues. She remembers ethanol and rotten fruit. The man didn’t take her along with Wynonna because according to him, Haught was “the wrong kind.” Dolls assumes this to mean that Wynonna is exactly Jack’s type. Seeing Waverly get so upset, Haught cries and tells her how sorry she is, but Waverly has to run from the room.
Wynonna can hear Reggie screaming with rage from the operating room, and in a great little nod to the Beatrix Kiddo in Kill Bill, she wills her toes to start moving again. That and she’s cut off the supply of drugs making her paralyzed. She throws herself out of bed and crawls over to a tray filled with medical instruments.
Waverly is in tears over Wynonna’s possible fate, and Doc comforts her. She tries to pull it together by the time Dolls shows up with the findings from Haught’s uniform. There were traces of ethyl alcohol, which Dolls thinks may be from designer drugs, but combine that with the rotten fruit smell and you have yourself some ol timey liquor. Score one for Team Doc. This rings a bell for Waverly, who whips out the map of Purgatory and points out that there was a series of bootlegging tunnels from Prohibition (a time Doc is grateful he was stuck in a well during.) Waverly also has a guess as to which Revenant may have some info for them on where exactly to find the tunnels, and as luck has it, Dolls has a relationship already with the guy—Whiskey Jim.
At Whiskey Jim’s Bare Chested Fight Club and Grille, it’s not long before Whiskey Jim catches of whiff of Dolls and Doc. Naturally, Doc owes Jim a large sum of money, which makes Jim a lot less eager to lend a hand with the location of the tunnels. Dolls steps in and offers to pay Doc’s debt in exchange for info. How adorable.
When Reggie comes back, Wynonna is safely back in bed, but with a scalpel tucked under her forearm. Because he’s a sadistic SOB and has an inkling something is up, Reggie takes a pair of giant pliers and squeezes Wynonna’s toe between them. It’s almost as cringe-inducing as poor Bethany’s open heart surgery. Wynonna plays along and doesn’t react, which tells you she’s even more of a physical badass than we even thought. He decides to up her meds, and then try to psychoanalyze her, which is frankly, rude. Wynonna does disclose some of the awful treatment she received in psychiatric institutions after she accidentally shot her father. As Reggie saunters over the medical tray, he paws at a rusty bonesaw, but is distracted when he sees Wynonna’s lucky necklace on the floor. Oops, not such a clean getaway. She does her best to convince him that it fell off when he moved her to the bed. When he keeps talking about “The Doctor,” Wynonna calls him a psycho, which doesn’t go over well. She then misses her chance to slice him when he refuses to give her back the necklace.
Things aren’t going too smoothly with Whiskey Jim, who doesn’t feel too generous with his intel. He agrees on one condition: Doc and Dolls fight it out in the ring. Get you’re smelling salts, y’all. Before they can bust out the fisticuffs, Jim hands Doc a message from BoBo. Inside the bag is the taped together reports about Dolls handing over Doc to the Black Badges for scientific experimentation. Doc is furious, which might help him a little in this match.
When Reggie comes back into the room, he finds Wynonna missing. He walks off screaming her name like a demonic Canadian Stanely Kowalski. “Wynonnaaaaaaaaa!” Ask and you shall receive, Mofo. She grabs him from behind when he goes to retrieve Peacemaker. He uses his knowledge about Haught to try and convince Wynonna not to kill him, but when she does cut him and he bleeds human red blood, it’s a whole other ballgame. He’s no Revenant, but he is working with one—The real Jack of Knives. For his assistance, Reggie gets a literal knife in the back from Jack. Jack and his neck beard introduce themselves to Wynonna.
Doc and Dolls are beating the crap out of each other in a hell of a fight sequence. Dolls may have a muscle and weight advantage, but this isn’t Doc’s first rodeo. He tells Dolls that he knows about his plan to turn him into a human guinea pig, and Dolls is taken aback. When Dolls uses Wyatt’s name to hurt Doc, he knocks Dolls out with an uppercut, and Whiskey Jim declares Dolls dead. Well that was not Doc’s intention, and his regret is written all across his face.
Outside after the match, Jim gives Doc the info he asked for and a little more. BoBo is much more tapped in to the game than any of them realized. Jim gives Doc keys to Dolls’ car, and a completely befuddled Doc tries to turn it on, but it’s basically a spaceship to him. Luckily for us all, Dolls is not dead! He tells Doc he used his special forces training to convince Jim he was dead, but I think it has to do with that lizard juice he’s injecting. Off to the tunnels!
While strapped to an operating table, Wynonna deduces that Jack only really used Reggie to handle Peacemaker. Because he’s a monster, Jack uses his scary sharp nails and super unhygienic fingernails to cut Reggie’s head right off. Why do guys have to show off? When her nose starts bleeding, Jack comments that Wyatt’s nose used to do the same thing in his presence. He tries to say that he and Wynonna are alike, which is what all evil dudes try to say to their captive audiences. Get a new line, Jacky boy. He starts drawing a line across Wynonna’s chest where he plans to dissect her, and how he plans to show her organs to her as well. Halp!
Wynonna stops him before he starts slicing, to ask about BoBo, the posse and her father. He then tells Wynonna something that cuts her to the core: her father made a pact with BoBo, and in fact, they were friends. Just then, he goes to cut her open, Docs appears and shoots him. It also gives Dolls a chance to unstrap Wynonna. Jack isn’t about to go down without a fight though, and he nearly kills Doc before Wynonna stabs him in the back. He stumbles away, badly wounded and Wynonna follows.
With Wynonna safe, Doc and Dolls whip out their guns and go for round two. After some verbal sparring, they get to the heart of the matter. Dolls turned in Doc to save Wynonna. Docs gets it. He also tells Dolls not to take this Black Badge business lying down.
Wynonna follows the blood trail to Jack, who tries to bargain for his life. He warns Wynonna that BoBo is a much more dangerous character than anyone thinks. His voice then changes and he reveals his true identity: Jack the Ripper. So what’s a girl to do? Send his ass back to hell, of course.
This whole ordeal has been very traumatic for Wynonna. Not only was she kidnapped, drugged and almost vivisected, but she learned her father was not the man she though he was. Not even Waverly can comfort he sister tonight.
Dolls meets up with agent Lucado, who is rather pissed that she doesn’t have Jack the Ripper in custody. Dolls also informs her that their deal to bring Doc in is a no-go. He has someone else instead. Someone on BoBo’s team. Well if it ain’t Whiskey Jim.
Doc knows there’s a mole in the organization, and he’s going to use Whiskey Jim to find out who it is.
Dana Piccoli is a pop culture critic and entertainment writer who recently relocated from New York to Greenville, SC. She’s a current writer and former Staff Editor of AfterEllen and covers The 100 for Alloy Entertainment. She’s also written for Curve Magazine, Go Magazine, PopWrapped, and Gaygamer.net. She’s currently writing a lesbian romance novel she’s hoping you will read one day soon. You can follow her onTwitter and Tumblr.
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