Wynonna Earp Season 4 Episode 9 Review: Crazy

It's trivia night on Wynonna Earp although the prize isn't all it's cracked up to be.

[Warning: this contains major spoilers for Season 4 episode 9 of Wynonna Earp, “Crazy”]

It’s trivia night on Wynonna Earp, although the winner doesn’t get a great prize, but this is Purgatory so what else is new. Nicole Haught is battling her guilt over the actions she took while her loved ones were stuck in the garden and it’s revealed that she humiliated herself in front of the town. After losing the sheriff election she was nick named “chicken kicker”, when she drunkenly barged in on a celebration for the new sheriff and punted a cooked chicken.

Waverly, Wynonna, and Nedley push for Nicole to take the now vacant position, because although the town may not like her, they do need her. Nicole’s conversations with Rachel are also a highlight, showing the relationship they built in the 18 months that Nicole’s loved one was missing.

Wynonna, Waverly, and Jeremy investigate a case of dead trivia winners who seem to have been killed by a vampire. Wynonna happily suspects Doc and confronts him smugly assuming he had fallen off his moral high horse just to be shut down once more. However, the trivia winners were not killed by a vampire, instead they’re missing their brains. This leads Waverly and Wynonna Earp to the house of a man named Doug, who has taken on the name “Kuru” after the disease he has contracted from eating human brains.

Doug, or Kuru, has managed to become the “master” of a genie and wished for the town to become obsessed with trivia night, so he could eat the brains of the winners to become the smartest person in town. Not the best plan, but Doug throwing a hand full of sliced brains at Wynonna and Waverly then getting punch in the throat by Wynonna was pretty satisfying.

Wynonna bonds with Ginny the genie who initially seems like a victim of her unending servitude, but it becomes apparent she may not be as innocent as she plays it. When Doug tries to kill Wynonna Earp while the others are stuck at trivia night the genie seems all to eager to kill Wynonna and when Doug tries to do it himself, she is quick to get him to wish for Wynonna’s silence.

Doug succumbs to the Kuru disease just before killing Wynonna and Doc arrives to save the day. Wynonna kills the genie in the end and dubs her too dangerous to leave alive, but not before the genie warns Wynonna Earp of what is to come and offering to make Doc love her again.

WYNONNA EARP SHOWS DEMONS AND HUMANS IN A VILLAINOUS LIGHT

This episode featured another case of the week, with an insane human as one of the main villains. Featuring a human as the major villain, along with a manipulative demon who seems to be pulling the strings, is an interesting way to remind viewers that not all the evil in Purgatory is demon or curse based. Sometimes it’s just an idiotic cannibal. Perhaps what was most interesting is that Ginny the genie was first introduced as a victim of circumstance, but her actions when Doug wanted Wynonna’s brain made it seem she was the one in control of the brain eating buffoon manipulating him to her whims.

In one of the most poignant confrontations Wynonna Earp has recently had with a demon, the genie first seems to be putting on the veneer of a victim forced to do horrible things against her will. However, when Wynonna doesn’t yield her position as demon hunter, Ginny’s true colors shine through as she attempts to manipulate Wynonna using our heroine’s fear and self-hatred. This was the first time in a while that Wynonna killed someone that she had connected with and it seemed like she saw even more of herself in the genie right before she had to use peacemaker to kill her.

Wynonna’s final words after the genie freed makes it seem like our titular heroine feels trapped and is unable to escape her fate as the lonely demon hunter, a dangerous weapon with no end in sight. Perhaps what is most worrying about this is she is no longer tied to the curse. So while that no longer holds her back, this new feeling of endless battles may never truly have a light at the end of the tunnel unless she finds it herself.

Wynonna’s sense of isolation is further exacerbated by Doc’s continued separation from her. His judgement of her lack of honor was on display once more with him saying that not even his new posse of demons would shoot a man in the back. Never mind they tried to kill the unarmed Earp sisters last week and very well may kill people regularly. Doc’s new sense of morality still needs some refinement, especially since he also unintentionally talked the Earp’s enemy, Cleo Clanton, into continuing her family’s vendetta.

Doc’s anger is understandable and perhaps even warranted, but his search for how to be a better person may need some refinement. Perhaps he can’t forgive Wynonna or even have a mature conversation with her about her actions, but he continues to push her to further spiral with his judgement.

Although to be fair Wynonna’s glee at Doc apparently falling off the wagon and killing someone was problematic and may have been part of why he was so harsh. Instead of Wynonna trying to do better after her actions or understanding why Doc can’t get past it, she is hoping he stoops to her level. “Welcome back to the moral low ground.” She says upon joyfully confronting him with a murder she believed he committed.

Even with this, Doc did rush to help her when Wynonna was in mortal peril and had a mature conversation with Nicole. We finally saw Nicole and Doc hash out the fact that she offered him up to the Clanton matriarch in order to bring him and the Earps back from The Garden. Given Nicole’s isolation, feeling of failure, and desperation her actions are understandable, but still a betrayal.

WYNONNA EARP CELEBRATES NICOLE CAREER AMBITIONS

Nicole owns her decision and makes clear she would fight for him and assuming they would handle the Clanton’s together so she never thought he was in real danger. Doc is quick to forgive her actions, understanding why she did what she did which may be connected to Doc’s own poor choices in the previous season.

Nicole’s motive may have been selfish, but Doc has been a selfish man for his entire life and most of his afterlife. Hopefully some of his understanding will come into play with Wynonna soon, although she may need to own her actions in a way similar to Nicole before that happens.

Nicole’s shame at her actions while her loved ones were gone for more than 18 months has been hanging over her for the duration of the season. Although the “chicken kicker” incident and nickname was more comedic than a lot of the revelations it alluded to, the bigger issue that Nicole faced when alone. She lost everything, including a job that she worked for and loved.

The moment Nicole takes back her power, making a speech to the patrons of Shorty’s and steps up as sheriff with Holt gone was a moment of celebration. Nicole has finally owned her mistakes and has found herself once more. The celebration of Nicole’s ambition and career was an ongoing thread throughout the episode with Waverly, Wynonna, Nedley, and Doc all supporting her. As Waverly says when trying to convince Nicole to retake her place as sheriff,

“I never want you to blunt your ambition. It’s one of the things that makes you…you.”

Although it does seem strange that the people of Purgatory miss Holt as sheriff, given that when Wynonna and Doc returned to town there were bodies hanging from scaffolding in the center of town and Purgatory was run amok by demons. Not to say it isn’t now, but at least there is the fear of Wynonna Earp and her demon killing gun.

It also seems odd that the people are worried about nuisance reports when again, literal corpses were hanging in the center of town not that long ago. The town apparently didn’t vote for Nicole because they see her as an outsider, instead electing someone who didn’t seem to have any experience in the sheriff’s office and who had never been mentioned before.

This episode of Wynonna Earp featured an interesting demon, with the genie being more manipulative and using her wish maker to possibly fulfill her own blood lust. Wynonna’s perspective that the genie was too dangerous a weapon to survive will undoubtedly tie back to her own self-loathing. While the episode had some important character growth for Nicole, as well as diving deeper into some of what is going on with Wynonna, it was a bit disappointing that we didn’t learn more about what is going on with Black Badge, The Garden, or even Cleo Clanton.

The genie alludes to something coming, offering to stop it in exchange for her life, but that was the most the impending battles were alluded to. With only three episodes left, Wynonna Earp has a lot to cover, but the series hasn’t failed to deliver epic finales in the past so although the last three episodes were case of the week, it looks like the larger arc of the season will be ramping up again in the next episode of Wynonna Earp. Earpers can get an inside look into the making of Wynonna Earp “Crazy” in the behind the scenes video below.

New episodes of Wynonna Earp premiere Fridays at 10pm/9pm Central on Syfy. What did you think of season 4 episode 9 of Wynonna Earp? Leave your thoughts in the comments below or on our social media.

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