'Wynonna Earp' Season 4 Episode 3: What happened to Purgatory in the 18-month time gap?
Spoilers for 'Wynonna Earp' Season 4 Episode 3 'Look at Them Beans'
While Wynonna Earp (Melanie Scrofano), Doc Holliday (Tim Rozon) and Waverly Earp (Dominique Provost-Chalkley) were spending mere minutes fighting Eve in the Garden, time back on Earth passed very differently. In the 18 months that have gone by, Purgatory appears to have turned upside down - so what exactly happened in the year and a half that the Earps were away?
It all traces back to the town's evacuation. As half-demon Casey (Andrew Phung) explains, as people started to come back, so did the demons. For reasons that were not made clear, described as a party that no one knows who started, a wide variety of demons decided that Purgatory was the place to be. As the revenants of the Earp curse could have told them, though, Purgatory has the danger of quickly becoming the ONLY place to be. As soon as the Black Badge division caught wind of Purgatory's new demon infestation, they quarantined the city with a speed that would have done Marshal Dolls (Shamier Anderson) proud - meaning that nobody gets in or out unless they can prove they're not a demon.
This has led to a state of near-anarchy in Purgatory. The citizens are not against public or mob enforced lynchings. The rule of law hasn't been totally subverted, but things are different. The former Sheriff Nedley (Greg Lawson) went missing and was presumed dead (don't worry, he's fine, just infested by mossy demon puffballs), and Nicole Haught (Katherine Barrell) was ousted from her position, clearing the way for a new Sheriff Clayborn (Ty Olsson). He's not the real trouble, however, the town is under the law of an all-new Magistrate Cleo (Savannah Basley) - though how she came into power may be the biggest question of all.
The show mentioned that the Magistrate simply waltzed into town and set herself in charge, though why the townspeople accepted her is something of a mystery. Her leadership style is whimsical and petulant, offering prisoners freedom in bizarre competitions. It turns out that she's not been truly freeing the prisoners, but sacrificing them to the demons in the woods, but the biggest question of all is how she knows Wynonna and why she has it in for her. The Magistrate could possibly be Eve who was kicked through a portal last episode and is a known shapeshifter.
After losing her job as the Sheriff, Nicole spent a lot of time on the homestead. She was alone for a long while before Rachel Valdez (Martina Ortiz-Luis) came to live with her, and that time alone appeared to have had a detrimental effect on her mind. Even with Waverly's return, Nicole's been shown to blank out during emergencies, be unable to focus on the present and is suffering from paranoia - although when demons are surrounding your home, a certain level of paranoia is justified.
Speaking of demons, a number of them have made themselves at home in Purgatory. A new demon bar, known as the 'Glory Hole,' now sits on the edge of town. The demons' biggest crime so far appears to be tackiness, but there have been reports of people who have gone missing through the town. It's only a matter of time before Wynonna is called in to deal with a more serious demonic threat and all without her trusty Peacemaker by her side.
The next episode of 'Wynonna Earp' airs August 16, on Syfy.
