Wynonna Earp: Emily Andras Talks “The Other Woman”

*** This article contains major spoilers for the Wynonna Earp Season 3 episode “The Other Woman” ***

Say it isn’t so! After having to give up Peacemaker, not to mention sending her daughter Alice away, Wynonna Earp (Melanie Scrofano) is now faced with having to give up even more: her sister Waverly (Dominique Provost-Chalkley). In this week’s Wynonna Earp, Lost Girl star Anna Silk dropped into Purgatory and was the bearer of this horrible news. It seems like the last weapon Wynonna and her gang have to fight Bulshar is Waverly. What will the heir do now? She’s already given up so much.

Elsewhere, Doc (Tim Rozon) may have crossed the line once and for all as he took a big bite out of Charlie Fire Services and killed him. Nicole (Katherine Barrell) and Jeremy (Varun Saranga) know what he did and he may have lost the last few allies he had. To make matters worse, while Mercedes (Dani Kind) was just celebrating getting her face back, she was grabbed by a mysterious hand at the end of the episode. Back to break it all down is showrunner Emily Andras, as she joins us to discuss where the Earp sisters go from here, what really may be going on with Doc and whether Bobo (Michael Eklund) can be counted on for any kind of assistance.

The TV Junkies: I love Anna Silk, but she can’t be right about this weapon thing. There has to be another way besides Waverly sacrificing herself, right?

Emily Andras: I don’t know, Anna Silk is pretty wise, guys. She’s pretty freakin’ wise. I hope so too. Time and time again on Wynonna Earp we see that fate and the universe are just so cruel. Destiny is just unfeeling and seems to just want what it wants, and time and time again I feel like the Earp sisters are up against what they feel like is their lack of free will. But I wouldn’t bet against Wynonna, that’s for sure. I just don’t know what options she has at this moment.

TTVJ: I liked when Wynonna said she was going to be selfish on this one because that’s how I felt. She’s already given up Peacemaker and Alice and now she’s supposed to give up Waverly? No sir.

EA: But the problem is that Wynonna backed herself into a corner because at the beginning of the episode she said ‘I will literally do anything to stop Bulshar.’ Then it turns out they do have a way to stop Bulshar, but Wynonna is like ‘that’s not what I meant.’ Again it’s so cruel and an ironic twist of fate and Waverly knows it. Waverly knows that if the shoe were on the other foot Wynonna would be like ‘I guess that’s what I’m going to do.’ Those Earp sisters just need to hold onto each other, believe in one another and that their love is stronger than all these machinations of the cold, unfeeling universe.

TTVJ: Up until that last part, I really really loved that we got an episode where it was just our Earp sisters going out on a mission.

EA: Yea it was good to see them again, eh? Just goofing off and I think it’s interesting to see them evolve from Seasons 1 and 2 — their natural ease with one another, they trust each other and each other’s skillset.

TTVJ: Seeing them like that also made it extra painful when you tell us the crushing news at the end of the episode. [laughs]

EA: I also just think the truth is that the only person Wynonna feels comfortable being 100 percent vulnerable with is Waverly. Right? It doesn’t make Wynonna feel good that she had to give up Peacemaker and maybe technically isn’t the heir anymore without that weapon. I feel like the only person she trusts is the person who loves her unconditionally, who is Waverly. For lack of a less petty term, it’s embarrassing for Wynonna and made sense for me that Waverly was the only one and she was going to understand. I also love that in seasons past Wynonna would’ve told Waverly she wasn’t coming with her, but in this case Wynonna was secretly chuffed and relieved that Waverly did go with her on the mission. You really just see that relationship evolve.

TTVJ: So as we said, the bearer of all this bad news was Anna Silk’s Kevin. How did having her on the show come about and where did you get this idea for Kevin?

EA: It’s not a secret that I’ve basically plugged Wynonna Earp with all my favorites from Lost Girl. We’ve had Rachel Skarsten and Zoie Palmer and now Anna Silk. I think Anna is underrated as an actress and she’s an exceptional person. It’s funny because when I hired Melanie I said, not as a threat but just to let her know, ‘I’ve had the best number one in the entire world.’ Anna was always such a professional, she was so prepared and really set the tone on the Lost Girl set. I basically made it clear that I really expected that and of course, Melanie has turned out to be just exceptional. Please don’t make me choose between my number one leading ladies!

So I would’ve taken any chance I had to get Anna on board, but to be completely honest, I didn’t think she’d be available. When I pitched her this character she was intrigued enough, because it was so different from Bo from Lost Girl, that she agreed immediately. It’s hard to come on to an established set but everyone fell in love with Anna. I thought her performance was really fun and you can’t dislike Kevin, even though she’s the harbinger of bad news, because she’s so fun and sassy. When Wynonna says ‘in other circumstances we would be friends,’ I kind of agree with that.

TTVJ: Kevin is a pretty strange name for an Anna Silk character though, so where’d that come from?

EA: Kevin is a tribute to our favorite Kevin Bachelder, co-host of the Wynonna Earp podcast and who has been one of the voices behind the Wynonna Earp fandom. He’s just the loveliest and most supportive person. Also, he loves the Earp sisters more than anyone in the entire world, so it feels like a bit of a cruel trick to make his name be the person who has to tell the Earp sisters to make this sacrifice, but I also knew it would mean so much to him.

I really wanted a gender neutral name and even a gender neutral character with Anna Silk, to be honest. So of course, what better name is there than Kevin? We love you, real life Kevin!

TTVJ: On top of all my worries about Waverly and what they are going to do, you had to pile on and we see Mercedes grabbed at the end. We just got her back, please don’t take her away already!

EA: I can’t make any promises, Bridget. I want to keep you hungry. We’ll see! It’s not great to get grabbed by the face out of your own house. Let me put it that way.

TTVJ: She just got her face back! You’re cruel.

EA: Well, welcome to Purgatory!

TTVJ: Since we didn’t get to talk last week, can you discuss the process behind why you wanted to bring back Dani Kind and that she was going to be playing Mercedes?

EA: It’s funny because DFK [Dani Fucking Kind] was just the ultimate trooper when she came to play in Season 2. She didn’t know what she was going to be doing. She auditioned for the role of Mercedes Gardner and then very quickly got her face snatched off and became a villain. So she had to play a Widow pretending to be Mercedes, and then just had to be a stone cold Widow. Then she went full Daenerys and Dragon Queen practically at the end of the season so it was a real journey, but she just went with it. We were kind of doing it as we went and she was just a trooper and nailed all those parts.

The truth is though, I really love Mercedes Gardner. I was so shocked how much I liked Dani Kind as Mercedes, and I realized what I liked about it is that I really love Wynonna having a friend that’s so different from her. I like that Mercedes is kind of a fashion plate and a rich bitch, but regardless, her and Wynonna just have this connection. It’s funny when Dani came back we were near the end of the season and in need of a little bit of a boost, and when she came back on set it just changed everything.

There’s one scene this episode that is one of my favorites of the year and it’s the scene with the four different women — and they are completely different! Wynonna, Waverly, Mercedes and Kevin just having a conversation, not about a dude, but just about what they have to do next. Everybody, I feel, speaks perfectly in character, but they are completely different and figuring it out together. I still feel like that type of scene is so rare in television that I was honestly kind of teary-eyed, even though it was a comedy scene, about how amazing it was that we’ve been able to develop these four completely three-dimensional, different types of characters.

Dani is just the best and brings the best energy on screen. She just pops and is a firecracker. I didn’t even realize how much I missed her until she was back!

TTVJ: You can say it was because of EarperCon UK, but I think that was the real reason why you couldn’t talk last week. You just knew I’d be screaming the whole time about Dani Kind’s return.

EA: I was excited for you. I assume the whole thing was just dolphin noises. I heard it in England. I feel like that and I knew she was coming back.

TTVJ: Elsewhere, we had Nicole and Doc going on this mission together to get the witch. It was a lot of fun to see Tim and Kat paired up together and nice to see Kat get to show off her comedic skills again when Nicole was possessed. Do you make it a point to look for those opportunities since they are so opposite of Nicole?

EA: Kat has an incredible comedic range and she really thinks hard about how she’s going to play these characters. She’s so funny and it’s extra funny because of who we know Nicole to be. It’s also a great opportunity to pair up two characters that haven’t really had their own storyline, Nicole and Doc. I like that Nicole was the last person to believe in Doc as he’s made mistake after mistake after mistake because of his vampirism, and then the heartbreak at the end where she realizes that they can’t trust him at all right now, to say the least. I really love that pairing.

Kat really did develop and think hard about her character. She didn’t want it to be the same as Waverly and Wynonna’s possession. She really wanted to make it her own and we came up of this idea together of the teenage girl witch, which I thought was really fun.

TTVJ: Doc really does seem to have crossed a line though by killing Charlie.

EA: I know, RIP Charlie!

TTVJ: Does he have any allies left now and what will Nicole and Jeremy do with that information?

EA: Well they can only keep it from the Earp sisters for so long, right? Doc basically killed a civilian. A civilian who just happens to be Wynonna’s kinda maybe F buddy / boyfriend. Look, I don’t think Doc’s little smile when he was leaving the crime scene was good news.

TTVJ: Was that smile an indication that the witch maybe jumped inside of him?

EA: That’s a good question. I would say it’s pointed that the witch says she needs a mortal, non-supernatural body.

TTVJ: Right. So could she maybe be in Charlie? Is he really dead?

EA: I don’t know. I do know, but I mean I don’t know in so far as I ain’t gonna tell you. No amount of yelling about Dani Fucking Kind is gonna get me there, Bridge. Enjoy your theories for six more days.

TTVJ: Poor Bobo is just getting crazier and crazier. I really enjoyed seeing Robin (Justin Kelly) and Bobo have those scenes together. Will Bobo snap out of whatever is going on with him and help the cause?

EA: I think there’s always hope. I think that Bobo is such a complicated character, right? We’ve seen him as Robert Svane and understand that he was such a good man that was corrupted by this curse as much as anyone. He’s almost as much a victim of it as the Earps which is so horrible. He’s kind of a broken person and again, kudos to Michael Eklund’s range that he can give Bobo all these millions of layer.

I like he and Robin. I like the idea that Robin is not a very judgy dude. Robin doesn’t have this kind of backstory and baggage when it comes to Bobo Del Rey. He’s just curious about the Bobo he’s meeting now and able to have an honest conversation with him just out of curiosity. Lots of people are capable of redemption and lots of people, as we’ve seen with Doc, are capable of taking a dark turn. We’ve got two more episodes to answer those questions.

TTVJ: Speaking of Bobo, we got a flashback between him and Juan Carlo. What’s up with Peacemaker being a sword?

EA: I don’t know, Bridget. What was up with that? Surely that was some sort of continuity error. I feel like maybe the Biblical theology scholars should start tackling that this week and let the rest of us know.

TTVJ: We now have a double dose of episodes for finale week ahead of us.

EA: This is it, people!

TTVJ: How can we prepare ourselves and what can you share about what to expect?

EA: It’s just a fucking ride! So much happens in the last two episodes! I would say that 311 is setting the stage and then 312 is insane. So much happens, but the good news is that we’ll have so much to yell at each other about over the hiatus. That’s my gift to you. There’s heroic moments for all your favorites and dire circumstances. There’s also action we’ve never done before and jaw-dropping surprises, some of which I’m completely terrified to talk to you about. Once again, we’ve backed ourselves into a complete corner, and I can’t wait to figure out what the hell happens next in Season 4 thanks to the Earpers. Honestly, I’m telling you it is a lot.

TTVJ: OK, I’m sufficiently nervous.

EA: There’s so much. There’s some things that people are going to be like ‘what the hell?’ There’s still so many things we have left to answer, right? I’d say that even though there’s only two hours left you’re going to get a ton of answers, but new questions for sure.

TTVJ: Oh we know by now how you play.

EA: You know how I play, exactly. I just gotta keep you guys guessing.

What did you think of this week’s episode? Are you ready for the finale? Sound off below!

Wynonna Earp airs Fridays at 9 p.m. ET on SYFY and Space Channel.