Wynonna Earp EP says Waverly is under 'a stone-cold possession'

Spoiler alert! This article contains details from the third episode of Wynonna Earp season 2 — so quickly get to another page if you haven’t watched “Gonna Getcha Good,” because you won’t be able to unmake your peace.

It’s homecoming in Purgatory (which means it’s time for the much-awaited Waverly cheerleading scene)!

If there’s one thing we know Wynonna (Melanie Scrofano) hates, it’s her old classmates… and she has even more reason to now: Turns out a few of them made a deal with a demon trapped in their high school trophy case. They received 10 years of good luck, but now their time is up and said demon is coming for them. Luckily, Wynonna is there to intervene.

“Gonna Getcha Good” also sees Officer Haught (Katherine Barrell) attempting to go up against a sleazy guy, actually going up against a demon (and losing), and learning that Sheriff Nedley (Greg Lawson) wants her to take over someday. Meanwhile, Wynonna is concerned about Nicole’s effect on Waverly (Dominique Provost-Chalkley), leading her to dismiss the fact that her sister is acting differently. As a result, Wynonna doesn’t notice her new penchant for hoarding silver in their barn. Unfortunately, Dolls (Shamier Anderson), who’s smuggled himself back into town, has. And Waverly has set her goo-mode sights on him.

Here, showrunner Emily Andras walks us through episode 3’s biggest moments…

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: First things first — Dolls is back! You’ve mentioned it would be a terrible idea for him to come back to town, so what can you tease about why he’s returned?
EMILY ANDRAS: One of the things I love about Wynonna Earp is there’s a real sense of destiny and fate versus free will. Wynonna has been fated to become this hero. She has to pick up the mantle of fighting these revenants. She isn’t really given a choice. The Ghost River Triangle is a mystical place that really likes to have its players where it wants it — so Dolls didn’t have a choice on some level. But we’ll find out very shortly why he’s back and how he has returned and what they’re going to do about it ’cause he’s not in the best shape. In fact, Waverly is looking at him like she looks at a spider snack.

Speaking of Waverly, in this episode, we see she doesn’t know when she’s being possessed. How much of that was her feeling confident in her relationship with Nicole or just the actual goo demon being in charge?
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.

So let’s talk about happy Waverly moments, a.k.a. the cheerleading scene! I was not expecting it to literally kick off the episode. When in the writing process did you come up with that bit?
I love starting out each episode with different energy. I really want to grab you in the first five minutes. But that being said, the care that Dominique took with learning the choreography and really bringing it left us all with our jaws on the floor. We thought she’d do a little bit of rah-rah-sis-boom-ba, not this intricate Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, 1981 slow-motion-slash-hair-swinging cheer routine for the ages. I’m just so glad I tried it … it’s a subversion of tropes because, while normally we’d be watching her cheerlead with the male gaze, you turn that on its head because it’s all a performance for her girlfriend. It feels very empowering and fun, instead of salacious. But you are forgiven if you also admire Dominique. She’s a very talented lady.

RELATED: Wynonna Earp EP discusses how the team came together

We talked about this last week, but we’re really seeing more of Nicole on the job. She faced a demon and Nedley trusted her with this big secret.
You don’t see enough women on TV who are unapologetically ambitious and want to be good at their jobs. She feels a little bit let down that she didn’t get the promotion, but at the same time there’s a reason Nicole became a cop. Nedley actually has it right. Black Badge are running around and they’re fighting scarecrows, but somebody needs to just protect the citizens of Purgatory. His speech to Nicole is one of my favorite things in the whole season. Nedley has become this breakout character, who’s like Alfred in Batman, refusing to be impressed by these stupid, sexy, young people. And I like that Nicole, deep down, is such a good cop. Now, for better or worse, she has rediscovered why it’s so important to be a cop and learned that maybe there’s a path for her — which is eventually to become the Sheriff of Purgatory. And no more khakis. Sorry to the cosplayers, but I think you’ll be fine with her new outfit.

What was important about Nicole going after Tucker Gardner, a non-supernatural?
I really like the addition of Tucker Gardner because he is completely human, and he’s just the type of creep that a lot of women have to deal with in their day-to-day lives. We’ve all met this guy before: a guy who feels like he’s entitled to a certain amount of attention from women. That is someone that Nicole would personally find particularly offensive. It felt really relatable and he’s so incredibly creepy. We wanted to talk about human villains that we all have to deal with every day.

What did it mean for Wynonna to make that wish for Perry instead of asking to save Dolls or even get rid of her own curse?
It shows that she’s evolving and starting to understand that if something is too good to be true, it will have consequences. Over and over again, Wynonna has been forced to make choices that are incredibly difficult. And over and over again they come back to bite her in the butt in one way or another. She is starting to realize it’s not just black and white. It’s shades of gray. Everything has to be decided on a case-by-case basis and sometimes you’re picking the lesser of two evils. You’re not just picking a win, you’re picking the loss that generates the least amount of casualties, for lack of a better term. She’s doing the best she can under the circumstances.

Doc tells Wynonna that he’s been working to reverse-engineer Doll’s serum. Might that have something to do with what Dolls whispered to him in the first episode, or is this because he genuinely cares about Wynonna and wants her to be happy?
It definitely has something to do with what Dolls whispered to him. They don’t hate each other the way they used to, but they’re rivals. They have very complicated feelings for Wynonna. Doc is a gentleman and used to being number one, but he wouldn’t want to win Wynonna’s feelings just because Dolls isn’t there. He wants to win fair and square. 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. Nothing is more important than freedom and he’ll be damned if someone else is making that decision for a man, even if on some level he hates that man because he’s in love with the woman that he really likes.

And the Ladies in Black are back! Is Mercedes still alive or is this the last we’ve seen of her?
I can’t really tell you. But we really liked Dani Kind and it would be a shame if we didn’t see her again… But those Ladies in Black are incredibly creepy. I don’t like how they make you breathe cold air when they show up. Though I do admire their finger accessories. It’s top-notch, even if their meet-and-greet massively leaves something to the imagination. They’re definitely two major villains this year.

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