OMFGTV had another crazy year at San Diego Comic Con, and part of the craziness was taking part in the Wynonna Earp pressroom! There we talked to the cast, showrunner, and comic book creator of one of our favorite shows. Keep reading Earpers, we got a lot of good teases about where the season is going!
Emily Andras- Showrunner | “We really wanted to show that Wynonna is back, and Melanie is back.” Wynonna Earp showrunner Emily Andras wanted fans to really feel like the Wynonna they know is back after her pregnancy storyline in season 2. She wanted to make sure the premiere would be fun, but said “it’s the next episode you all have to worry about.”
What about Bobo? “I think Bobo is such an interesting character because he’s both beloved, but he’s obviously done terrible terrible things. He’s a survivor, it doesn’t matter if he’s at the bottom of a well, he’s gonna do what it takes to make it. And whether that’s something good or something bad remains to be seen.”
We may think we know a lot about Wynonna, but Emily teases how little we actually do know about her past. “She has a lot in her past we haven’t even heard about yet. I think she’s done some bad things to survive.” Maybe we will get some of that backstory this season. And speaking of backstory, it sounds like we will be learning a lot more about the pasts of many of our favorite characters, including Mama Earp and Dolls.
“The thing that’s the most exciting for me this season is also the thing that’s actually a little bit terrifying,” says Emily about writing season 3. In season 1 Emily just had to introduce the characters and elements of the story, season 2 revolved around Wynonna’s pregnancy, but season 3 was different. “In third season I almost felt like I had a free runway, like it could be anything.” Emily knows her cast very well and knows what they want to be “challenged,” and that “the fandom’s up for potato licking, they’re up for it all.” Emily wanted to challenge herself with season 3 and wanted to “do right by the fans.”
Andras always wants to surprise her fans, which she absolutely does, but doesn’t want them feeling tricked at all. “I don’t want people to feel like they’ve been denied information. I want them to be able to go back and say, ‘believe it or not, that actually led to potato licking, I can’t believe it.’ Not to say, ‘oh they didn’t give us the information.’ And I feel like that’s the difference between good tv and bad tv. I want you to feel like the information’s all there, but you had fun kind of solving the mystery along with us.”
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Emily Andras likes keeping fans on their toes, and what she tells us about this season may excite and terrify the Earpers. “I won’t say this about the last two seasons, I feel like there is a scene in every episode that makes me cry every single episode, there’s a scene in every single episode that makes me pee my pants with laughter, and there’s one good shocking cliffhanger in every episode.” She then teases “there’s some really big stuff coming in episodes two and three, stuff we haven’t really done before, a little bit different too. And then midseason there’s a HUGE change, and then probably also in the end of the season too, episodes ten, eleven, and twelve.”
Just about every single member of the cast teased that episode two is going to be a crazy one, and Emily was kind enough to give us a little information about it. “I would say it’s the coldest episode we’ve ever done. I will say this, I almost can’t joke about episode 2. It’s fraught, we’re gonna have a lot of conversations about it, we’re gonna all hold hands and watch it together. It’s serious and the stakes are incredibly real. I’d say it’s time to see what kind of villains we’re facing this season, and it’s season three and there’s gonna be consequences and really tough choices for the gang. And maybe some sexy demon fighting too.” So basically, hold onto your butts Earpers, it’s going to be a rough one!
Tim Rozon- Doc Holliday | Doc is going into season three still dealing with having had to give up his daughter, Alice Michelle, and he will not be dealing with it very well. “If we know anything about Doc already, he unfortunately just doesn’t deal with things great. He’s dealing with his own mortality and what that’s like for the first time, and now he actually wants to stay alive for someone else. His survival isn’t just about himself anymore, and I think he’s gonna do whatever he can to do that, and Doc sometimes selfishly makes mistakes.”
In the premiere it is revealed that the show’s newest character, Kate, is somehow tied to Doc, but that connection has not yet been revealed. But don’t worry, their connection will be revealed in time. “This is Wynonna Earp, there’s no dots that don’t get connected at some point. Emily and her writers are very smart and we’re going to find out some crazy stuff.”
Doc is fighting both literal and psychological demons this season, and it doesn’t sound like he’s going to handle that too well this season either. “Doc went to Hell in season 2, we can’t underplay that, it’s Hell. This is even more grave for Doc because he’s from the 1800’s, Hell actually meant something to him in the biblical sense. We’re talking about fire, people burning alive, Hell. He was there and he saw that’s where he’s going to end up again. He is going back there, there’s no way he can redeem himself to get out of it, so he’s gonna do whatever he can to not go back to Hell.”
Before leaving the table, Tim made sure to talk about the Earper fandom and how much it means to him. “As happy as I am about all the shows success and stuff, I’m more happy about the fandom and the success of the fandom and how big that fandom has become. The fact that they all have this special place where they all come together is the most beautiful part of this show, because there’s no other fandom that exists like this shows fandom. It’s such an important thing, and it’s even so much bigger than our show.” Meeting Earpers has been the highlight of Tim’s year, and if that’s not the sweetest thing you’ve ever heard then I don’t know what is.
Shamier Anderson- Dolls | Dolls is known for his lizard/dragon side, which really took off in season two when he actually breathed fire. Now in season three, we will explore that part of him a little more. “You see some reptilian stuff, some reptile lizard stuff. You just gotta watch!”
There’s always been a bit of a love triangle between Doc, Dolls, and Wynonna, which Shamier alluded will kind of continue into season three. When asked who he thought was Wynonna’s soulmate, this was his response. “Obviously it’s Dolls!” But that Doc/Dolls rivalry is only on screen, Shamier says Tim is the person he always has the most fun in scenes with. “I think Tim is really funny, we have a really good time together and Tim is always such a riot on set.”
As of now, we haven’t really explored Dolls’ backstory, and Shamier would really like the opportunity to explore what his family was like. “I’d love to hear about Dolls’s family, I think that’d be super interesting.” He really hopes we explore some of those things in season 3, or potentially also in the comic series.
Melanie Scrofano- Wynonna Earp | Last season Wynonna became a mother, and now this season her own mother has been reintroduced to her life, which is definitely going to complicate things. “It’s really interesting just becoming a mother who has given up her daughter, facing the mother who has walked away from her. There’s a very interesting messed up dynamic there to explore. It’s just really interesting that she’s now in the position that her mother was in, and trying to understand, but yet you’ll always be that little girl who was like ‘where were you?'” And now that she’s had a child, that child will someday ask that same question about her. “It’ll mess her up I think.” But one of her favorite things about where Wynonna is going this season is being a daughter again, while at the same time being a new mother. She may begin to understand her own mother more through her experience with motherhood and having to give Alice up.
Not only was Wynonna pregnant in season two, Melanie was pregnant in real life and learned a lot that she brought with her to season three. The biggest thing that she learned from her pregnancy was “self-reliance.”
Because she now has a daughter, Wynonna is working her ass off to break the Earp curse. “She’s bigger than ever, she’s stronger than ever, she’s faster than ever, and she’s more dedicated than ever.”
Melanie also thinks that Dolls is Wynonna’s true soulmate. “I think Dolls. He’s her guiding star. He’s what she wants to be good enough for. Doc is pretty messed up, so it’s like they’re sort of equals in that way. I think Dolls is the just out of reach ideal.”
Beau Smith- Comic Creator | Though not officially a part of the show, Beau Smith is the one responsible for creating Wynonna and the Earp curse. He had the pleasure of watching the season three premiere with almost 250 Earpers, and it was an amazing experience for him. “This was TV viagra for me.” Beau is used to watching the episodes at home in West Virginia with his wife, so watching characters he had a hand in creating on the big screen with hundreds of fans was incredible for him. He now wants to watch every episode in this fashion.
There are definitely more Wynonna Earp comics to come! Beau is currently working on ‘Bad Day at Blackrock,’ which he is co-writing with Tim Rozon. “We’re going to explore not only Dolls’ [backstory]…Waverly, Haught, Valdez, even the character Smitty [which is based off of Beau himself], you’re seeing stuff that’s gonna be the future.” You’re also going to see a lot of Wynonna and her backstory. “The relationship between Waverly and Wynonna as sisters, which has always been a key component, now in this we’re gonna see the darker side of the relationship between Bobo Del Ray and his younger brother Mars Del Ray, who’s in Blackrock. So you’re gonna see a comparison, a parallel, and a twist from that as well.”
Chantel Riley- Kate | We were introduced to Chantel’s character Kate in the season premiere, but we don’t really know much about her other than she’s a vampire who has a history with Doc. Chantel is very curious to see how fans react to her character a little later on in the season. “I wonder if they’re gonna hate me, or if they’re gonna like me? I feel like it’s one of those things where you’re gonna have to make that decision on your own when you watch.” Sounds like she may be in a morally gray area, sort of like Rosita in season two.
Chantel really loved playing a vampire who wears gold grills and has sexy pink fog following her everywhere. Wouldn’t everyone love that?!? One of the biggest challenges she faced coming into such a crazy show was “diving into the whole vampirism and the tarot side of it as well. I wasn’t really into tarot reading and all that stuff, palm reading. So I had to do a lot of research.” Chantel studied and watched videos on tarot reading to prepare for her role as Kate. Another big challenge for her was the brutal Calgary weather, especially with Kate wearing sexy dresses all the time.
Katherine Barrell- Nicole Haught | Other than having a crazy trip to Vegas that resulted in a marriage, we haven’t really learned much about Nicole’s backstory, but that changes this season with the introduction of the Cult of Bulshar, and Kat is very excited about that. She had developed a bit of her own backstory for Nicole, which turned out to be mostly wrong, and she had to redevelop that this season. “I remember end of episode three this season, going home to my apartment in Calgary and rewriting the entire backstory for what I thought Nicole was.” It’s a much darker and chaotic backstory than Kat could have ever thought for her character.
WayHaught [Waverly and Nicole Haught] is the fan favorite couple on Wynonna Earp, and I highly doubt that will change this season, especially with a more “domestic Wayhaught. It’s just like a really solid team, they’re really like together and we feel great about it.”
But Waverly isn’t the only person Nicole has a strong relationship with this season, Nicole and Dolls also seem to be bonding more. “I feel like he’s the one on her level, they both are professional officers of some sort. They both have training in the field of law. So I think she kind of identifies with him.” Nicole and Dolls are definitely the more grounded characters who keep everything running smoothly.
Varun Saranga- Jeremy | One of the most notable changes we see in Jeremy in just the premiere is his facial hair. He’s got a new mustache that is identical to Doc’s. The idea started off as a joke back in season two, but after traveling for two months without shaving they decided to make it a real thing. But life with a mustache isn’t as cool as Doc makes it look. “It was a bizarre experience having a mustache. It’s really irritating because Doc’s mustache actually goes over your upper lip, so when you eat soups or drink coffee, it stays there. But I enjoyed the experience of doing it. I understood the pain that Tim suffers.”
Last season we saw Jeremy’s obvious crush on Doc, and though it’s sort of still there this season, their relationship has definitely evolved. “It really settles into an older brother, younger brother relationship. Kind of a beautiful sibling thing.”
Jeremy is an openly queer character, and Varun loves representing that. “This season has been really great exploring that aspect of Jeremy, and it made me realize how important having those characters are.” And though he couldn’t really say much, it sounds like he may explore his sexuality more this season.
Dominique Provost-Chalkley- Waverly Earp | Waverly has gone through quite a lot in the first two seasons of the show, from finding and losing Willa, to becoming Gooverly, to finding out she’s not technically an Earp after all. She’s had the biggest character arc thus far, and Dom attributes that to her age. Early twenties are a time of learning about yourself and exploring your options in life, and that is definitely what Waves has done. This season we are going to see another side of Waverly. “She’s more confident this season, I would say. She’s gaining confidence in every season.”
The question of Waverly’s parentage still hangs in the air, but Dom says “we get to the bottom of a lot of stuff, and I’m really grateful for that too…She gets answers.”
As far as Mama Earp goes, Waverly has no idea what truly happened to her. She’s always been told her mother ran off and abandoned them, when in reality she’s been in a prison/mental institution. “I think Waverly had a very special bond with her mother when she was younger, as we know she didn’t have a very good relationship with her non-biological father but the father at home had some issues with Waverly, so I think she looked for a lot of comfort and support from her mother.” Waverly has very high expectations of what reuniting with her mom would be like, so naturally she will most likely be disappointed. “It’s not what she expects, but it’s not necessarily bad, it’s just not what she expects. And I think that it’s a really interesting time for her.”
Dominique has started an incredible campaign called Start the Wave that centers around protecting our environment and trying to reverse some of the damage we’ve done to it. Because she practices what she preaches, she has stopped using plastic water bottles and uses a reusable one, but she went a step further than just that. She got reusable water bottles for everyone on set, and they went from going through 12,000 plastic water bottles a season to several thousands less than that. After the season wrapped is when she officially birthed Start the Wave, and it has really taken off throughout the Earper community. “You plant the seed and it just grows.”
Alright Earpers, get your tweeting fingers ready to live tweet every Friday night at 9pm when Wynonna Earp airs on Syfy! Just because we’re getting a season four doesn’t mean we don’t have to get our show trending!