Waverly Earp's Future: Wynonna Earp Showrunner Emily Andras

Waverly Earp's future after the season 1 finale

The first season of Wynonna Earp ended on June 24, 2016, with an episode called "I Walk the Line," written by showrunner Emily Andras and directed by Paolo Barzman. It packed in character deaths, a bar fight, an uprising, explosions and tentacle demons. It also ended on a question that the show's fans were still arguing about weeks later: is Waverly Earp actually an Earp?

Andras, whose earlier credits include Lost Girl, answered that and a number of other questions in a post-finale interview. The conversation arrived while the series was still waiting to hear whether it would be renewed. Syfy confirmed a second season on July 23, 2016, and season 2 premiered on June 9, 2017. At the time of the interview, though, Andras could only ask viewers to keep tweeting, emailing the network and rewatching the episodes.

Her answers are worth reading in sequence, since they explain how the writers think about the show's characters: Waverly as the series' moral center, Wynonna as an heir who refuses to be told what to do and a supporting cast whose secrets are the engine of the plot.

Is Waverly really not an Earp?

The twist comes from Bobo, who tells Waverly in the finale that she is not an Earp. Andras is careful not to confirm it. Bobo has no record of always telling the truth, she points out, but the claim is tantalizing because Waverly embodies the values of a descendant of Wyatt Earp more than anyone else on the show. If it were true, the one thing that anchored Waverly through a season of changes, the idea of herself as an Earp, would be gone.

Andras says the scene between Michael Eklund and Dominique Provost-Chalkley was the last one shot for the entire season, and that it was the most emotionally devastating of the finale's many cliffhangers. She adds a clue about the timeline: Waverly is not yet 27, only around 21, so if Wynonna died, there would be some time before anyone knew whether Waverly could use Peacemaker. The season also gives hints in her backstory. No one marked her on the family growth chart, she had a difficult relationship with her father and her sister Willa was cruel to her, so it was easy for Bobo to convince a lonely child that he was her imaginary friend.

Whether the claim is true or not, Andras says, it will affect Waverly, and it could affect her relationship with Wynonna.

Cliffhangers, Bobo and Willa

Asked why the finale did not end at one of several earlier points, Andras says she loves the moment when Wynonna mercy-kills Bobo, because it expresses the character's defiance. Wynonna's purpose is to end the curse, and no one is going to tell her otherwise. It was a complicated moment, but also a righteous one: she would not let the government take him.

She is open about why the ending is a cliffhanger. Some viewers love them and some hate them, but it sets up stakes for a second season and gives fans something to speculate about in the off-season. She adds that the series prides itself on speed, and the audience is sophisticated enough to keep up.

Are Willa and Bobo dead? Andras answers with a joke about defining the word. Willa was tentacled and shot in the head, but the show never showed her body. Bobo was shot between the eyes by Peacemaker and sent back to Hell, though he was outside the Ghost River Triangle when it happened, so what that means is open. Her advice is to treat them as dead until they are not.

Dolls, Black Badge and the love triangle

On Dolls, Andras says the finale offered more hints: his eyes changed again, he was injected with a drug, and he told Doc it was just medicine he had taken since he was a child that keeps some parts of him alive and some dead. He is also in serious trouble with the Black Badge Division and is being carted off to Siberia.

Season two, she says, is a tantalizing unbaked muffin that could come in many flavors. Black Badge was a bit like a neglectful landlord during season one, but after the finale they will pay closer attention to Purgatory, for better or worse.

As for the triangle between Wynonna, Doc and Dolls, Andras says the most confused person is Wynonna herself. If a gun were put to both men's heads, she says, Wynonna would not know whom to pick, and that is what makes it compelling. She just wants Wynonna to keep kissing people.

What Andras said about season 2

• The cast would be put into more situations together, because the lore and the characters are now established.
• The writers want more emotional weight behind each fight, treating the show as a character study of the group.
• Black Badge will be paying more attention to Purgatory.
• Wynonna on her motorcycle more often is Andras's personal wish.
• With a bigger budget, the show would be "bigger and badder," but the plan does not depend on it.

Wynonna Earp season 1 at a glance

WayHaught, representation and what Wynonna Earp season 2 needed

Before the fan questions, it helps to remember what the first season is built on. Melanie Scrofano plays Wynonna, the heir of Wyatt Earp, who returns to the town of Purgatory to deal with a family curse under which the outlaws Wyatt Earp killed come back as revenants. Beau Smith's comic book series is the source, and Andras developed it for television. The finale pushes every one of those threads to the breaking point, so the questions in the interview pile up quickly.

Andras talks at length about the pairing of Waverly and Nicole Haught, known to fans as WayHaught. She says the chemistry between Dominique Provost-Chalkley and Katherine Barrell was real from the start, that the writers did not plan it as a headline feature, and that planning a fan favorite would be cynical. She had worked with a passionate lesbian fan base on Lost Girl and learned that the community wants complicated, real representation, not diluted versions of it.

She had known since conception that Waverly would explore her sexuality, she says, and that Waverly's secret, unknown even to herself, is that she is probably not straight. Andras declines to put the character anywhere on a spectrum because Waverly is still exploring. And when Nicole first walked into Shorty's, in a scene of about two minutes, the fan response told her the writers had something special. She says she did not expect the pairing to be embraced as it was.

The interview closes with the practical question of how to get a second season. Andras says that even if she had heard anything she could not say it. Her appeal is straightforward: keep talking to Syfy, keep tweeting, email the network, rewatch episodes and spread the word. If renewed, she adds, the show would want to deepen the characters' relationships before testing them in new fights. That is the plan she lays out, and it points toward a show that leans harder on its ensemble.

As a snapshot of a show at a turning point, the interview is useful. It records what the writers wanted to keep, namely the pace, the humor and the emotional cores of Waverly, Wynonna and Nicole, and what they were prepared to unsettle.

Sources

• Wynonna Earp (TV series), Wikipedia — Checked against: seasons, cast, showrunner and air dates.