[Warning: this contains major spoilers for Season 4 Episode 2 of Wynonna Earp, “Friends In Low Places.” If you haven’t watched the episode yet you can watch it on the official Syfy YouTube Channel.]
Wynonna Earp “Friends In Low Places” opens up immediately where “On The Road Again” left us with Nicole having fallen down a grate and possibly ending up in the garden with Doc and Waverly…or not. Wynonna and Rachel work together to find a way down to the lab, where hopefully the entrance to the garden and Nicole are both waiting.
With some classic Wynonna humor (of course everything is a sex joke Rachel!) the duo snag badges from still sleeping zombies while wearing full decontamination suits and masks (before it was the new style of the world). While in most cases the tension would be palpable, you can’t focus on the mine field that they are walking through because of Wynonna’s antics as she gets hypoxic from lack of oxygen.
Doc and Waverly have a new inhabitant in the garden with what seems to be a naked Nicole Haught standing under a cherry blossom tree. But the pair quickly realize all is not as it appears, with a bit of help from the garden itself they learn the truth. This Not-cole is actually Eve the very shape shifting demon that the garden is meant to keep imprisoned.
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Kat Barrell does a fantastic job playing double duty with the creepy and maniacal Eve who wants to get to Purgatory and destroy humanity and Nicole Haught who pushes Wynonna to embrace the fact that she is the one who once again has to save the day. Varun Saranga’s appearance when Eve shape shifts into him was amazing and the show did an impressive job of making Eve feel like her own character, even though we only saw her as imposters of our heroes.
Wynonna manages to save Nicole from being zombie food, but with a busted-up leg the sheriff is staying put. Wynonna and Nicole once again have outstanding scenes together flipping from humor to vulnerability and a truly touching moment of friendship and trust. Nicole trusting Wynonna to save the people they love without her speaks to the fact that even though Wynonna constantly hides things, when shit gets real, Nicole can count on her.
Wynonna’s plea for Nicole to help her because she doesn’t feel she can do it alone speaks to how far she has come as a character. When we first met Wynonna, she was a lone wolf who didn’t want any sort of responsibility or to deal with a curse. Now she has people she loves who depend on her and the fact that she can admit she wants help, but also accept that she must step up in the moment. It was a truly fantastic scene between Scrofano and Barrell.
Rachel Valdez’s family history was a great Easter Egg for fans of the Wynonna Earp comics that the series is based on. Hopefully it’ll come into play later in the season if Rachel pops up again. When Wynonna does get into the garden alone, she spots Eve who has transformed into Wynonna herself. Wynonna seems relatively unphased, which shouldn’t be a shock given what her life is, but still the fact that she greets this new situation with jokes instead of shock and horror is as always fun.
