Wynonna Earp season 3, episode 1 premiere recap: ‘Blood Red and Going Down’

Wynonna Earp is back for a new season of demons and drama!

When we last saw Wynonna and the gang, they finally killed the Widows, but not before they raised their dead husband Clootie, now known as Bulshar. Wynonna gave up her baby, who was confirmed to be Doc’s, to protect it from the revenants of Purgatory. Meanwhile, Doc lost his agelessness, Waverly confirmed that she wasn’t part demon, and Doc threw Bobo down the well where he was previously trapped on Wynonna Earp.

Finally, in the last moments of season 2, Wynonna went to find her mother for advice about how to defeat alpha-demon Bulshar.

The third season of Wynonna Earp begins four months later. Waverly and Nicole (who have definitely made up) are waiting for Wynonna outside a club where Wynonna has gone to… get drunk and ride a mechanical bull.

More from Recap

• The Santa Clauses season 2, episode 6 recap “Wanga Banga Langa!”
• Lawmen: Bass Reeves season 1, episode 7 preview: Non-spoiler thoughts for Part VII
• Goosebumps season 1, episode 6 recap: “Night of the Living Dummy”
• Beacon 23 season 1, episode 3 recap: “Why Can’t We Go on as Three?”
• Upload season 3, episode 2 recap: “Strawberry”

Now that she’s no longer pregnant it looks like Wynonna’s wasted no time getting back to her hell-raising ways. You can understand her reasons — things got really serious for a while there. Sure, she has work to do breaking the Earp curse and all, but all work and no play, etc., etc.

After failing to keep her alcohol down, Wynonna gets kicked out of the club. Outside she’s surrounded by a band of revenants. Despite her inebriated state, she does a pretty impressive job kicking demon butt.

As the revenants flee, the whole team joins in the fight. Dolls helps with the fighting, Waverly plays sniper on the roof with Nicole, and Doc and Jeremy (who’s rocking a sweet Doc-style mustache) pinch-hit from the alley. Finally, Wynona comes in with her trusty gun to do clean-up.

The next morning, a bus full of beautiful people drive up to the Purgatory town line looking for the Ghost River triangle. As Sheriff Nedley invites them into town, he comments that it’s about time the town had some vampires. He’s so right — vampires are one of the few paranormal things the town hasn’t seen yet.

At the Earp homestead, Wynonna and Doc are training in the barn. Doc is still having trouble coping with what happened with their baby and his new non-agelessness, but when they train at least he’ll talk to Wynona.

On Wynonna Earp, Nicole summons Wynonna and Waverly to the club from the previous night where they find a bunch of dead bodies arranged in a deliberate pattern. The pattern reminds Nicole of a series of massacres Black Badge has been tracking since the 1920s by a group called the Cult of Bulshar. Uh oh!

In the club’s ladies’ room, Waverly is confronted by a woman who puts some sort of hex on her, causing her to become very pro-vampire. Nicole, who’s already under the vampire’s spell, introduces her as Petra.

Wynonna sees a man smear blood on a flyer in a hallway of the club and flee. Wynona tears the flyer off the wall and takes it to her mother, who it turns out is in prison. Mama is reluctant to talk but Wynona tells her about the Cult.

Mama confesses that she hears a voice that tells her things about Bulshar. But when Wynonna says she wants to end the Earp curse, Mama freaks out and stalks away.

At Doc’s bar, a purple fog engulfs the place. Vampires capture Doc and glamour Jeremy. When Doc wakes up, he’s tied to a stripper pole in the bus the vamps rolled into town in.

A vampire tells him the group wants to turn him, but first, he has to prove he’s actually Doc Holliday. The woman starts torturing him, but Doc soon realizes he knows the woman from long ago.

Meanwhile, Wynonna returns home to find a vampire in the barn. After taking care of him, she enters the house to find Waverly, Nicole, and Jeremy all dressed up. They’re still under the vampires’ spell, so when they learn what Wynonna did, they knock her out, put her in a coffin, and deliver her to their vamp masters.

The glamoured trio attends a glittery vampire party on Wynonna Earp. Every human there is either going to be eaten or turned. The vampires apparently are in Purgatory to stay and are planning to watch Bulshar’s return

Dolls frees Wynonna from the coffin, which has been stashed in the basement of the home where the party’s happening. While Dolls was cornered by a vampire who tried to put the whammy on him, it didn’t take, probably because he’s kind of demon-y himself. But it clued him into the latest supernatural threat to the town.

So Dolls and Wynonna are the only ones who aren’t under the vampires’ spell. Dolls has a Black Badge-issued vampire-killing, stake-slinging weapon. He and Wynonna prepare to use it.

Just as the vampires are about to eat the party-goers, Wynonna makes her grand entrance. She discovers which vamp glamoured Waverly and Nicole, and Dolls stake it. As Petra turns to dust, Waverly and Nicole return to their normal selves.

Nicole slides Peacemaker to Wynonna and, as Wynonna shoots every vampire she sees, the others stake the rest of the vamps.

Alone in the vampire stripper bus, Doc frees himself.  He takes off after the vampire who tortured him. But when the time comes, he can’t bring himself to kill her and she runs off.

To make up for his failure, Doc bursts into the mostly broken-up party and dusts the vampire who glamoured Jeremy. Jeremy’s way too broken up about the vampire’s demise.

The team finds one last vampire hiding in a corner. The vamp reveals that Bulshar has returned to finish what he started over a century ago, but he won’t say any more. Wynona lets the vampire live, although he protests that he can’t meet Bulshar without any human tributes to offer.

The next morning, Wynonna goes to see Doc at his bar. They toast their victory over shots of whiskey. Then Doc kisses her.

Later, Dolls goes to visit Nicole at the crime scene in the club. Nicole tells him that she thinks there once was a survivor of one of the Cult’s massacres — her. Whaaa?

Next: American Horror Story: Season 8 title has been revealed!

As the episode ends, Wynonna drives home with Waverly. She has to tell her something but she’s having trouble getting it out. Waverly didn’t know Mama was in prison. Their father told Wynonna to keep the truth from her. Wynonna shows Waverly a prison pass and just then the truck crashes and flips over. Someone drags Waverly out and away from the vehicle but Wynona’s still inside…

We’re off to a rip-roaring start in the new season of Wynonna Earp! Some great action, fun dialogue, and silly scenes tonight. Not to mention — vampires. They were bound to show up at some point on the show! We’ll find out what happened to Wynonna and who rescued Waverly on next week’s episode. Til then, Earpers!