Episode Recap: Shed Your Skin

Now officially black badged, Wynonna and company are under added pressure to vanquish the demons inadvertently liberated from the other side. And they’ve got quotas to fill, as Lucado, who’s commandeered the Purgatory Sheriff’s office, is not shy to remind them. Wynonna may have found a lead in the disappearance of a construction worker whose body went missing while it was taking a #2 in a port-a-potty. Is no place sacred anymore?!  

The construction site where the worker went missing is supervised by Wynonna's high school friend Mercedes Gardner, the property's owner. She gives Wynonna access to its obviously haunted halls, and while Earp is digging around the site for clues, she unexpectedly runs into Revenant Earl there. We missed him! Turns out he needs a regular job just as much as the next undead guy. While giving Earl chase, Wynonna bumps into the cocooned corpse of construction worker Jesus, wrapped up in what appears to be a spider’s web. She takes the human speed-bag back to headquarters where she can subject it to experimentation, as Earl escapes to creep out another day. 

Meanwhile, Sheriff Nedley is prepared to offer Doc the deed to Shorty's Saloon, the one he used to own, providing he clean it up and maintain it. Which, let’s face it, are not Doc’s strong suits. Now, convincing a half-hearted bartender with whom he may have had past relations is more in his wheelhouse. Doc manages to convince an old flame of his, Rosita, to both sling Madori Sours and help him get a chem lab set up in his basement. What they're doing with all those test tubes and beakers is still a mystery, though. Meanwhile, Waverly and Wynonna crack open the cocoon Wynonna found at the camp site at the Black Badge satellite office, and when they do, it lets loose a small spider/demon creature that runs rampant. In lieu of a bucket of Raid, Waverly traps the creature under the trash can as Wynonna kills it with Peacemaker.

Waverly gives Jeremy (that nerdy lab nerd from Black Badge) the contained, dead spider thing, so that he can play doctor with it at the Earp home. But that’s not the only unnerving presence there: Wynonna believes Willa’s ghost is haunting her, Nicole thinks Waverly’s been ensorcelled by a dark force, and everyone misses Dolls. BAGGAGE! Maybe the exorcism the Earp sisters undertake of house and home will help rid them all of their bad vibes. So they make a pyre of all of Willa's old stuff, and light it on fire. At the very least, will free up some space.

While Wynonna and Doc argue over the latter’s involvement in “the team,” Jeremy informs everyone that that itsy-bitsy-demon-spider Wynonna shot was actually a baby. And the mama has yet to be apprehended. As we find out, mama spider is busy spawning a whole family of babies at the condominium site, which are now terrorizing the property manager, Mercedes, ready to kill her. Gardener gives the Earp a ring in her time of desperate need. What else are friends are for? Wynonna shows up and vanquishes Gardner's eight-legged tenants. 

Again, Wynonna has the great pleasure of running into Earl, who’s still hanging around the site. Threatening to do him some damage if he doesn't explain what the hell is going on in this place, Earl squawks: Many moons ago the condo was a school, and it had a chapel in it. The chapel was the oldest, and most sacred, part of the building, and its aged and hallowed quality are attracting all manner of supernatural visitors. Wynonna demands Earl show her the chapel, which he does. Of course, as they near their destination, Earl lunges at Wynonna and she has to knock him out with a sledgehammer. Wynonna, joined by Waverly, enters that holy place, and the two find it’s filled with the nesting cocoons of body snatching demon creatures. So they pulverize the living s*#@ out of them. 

Meanwhile, Lucado drops in on Doc looking to retrieve some official government documents he stole from her office safe. The documents show that Lucado had plans to disobey Moody’s orders and take out a hit on Dolls, which are grounds for elimination. So the upstanding Doc blackmails Lucado for cash. Doc...that smooth operator. 

Back at the lab, Jeremy gives the Earp sisters a crash course in demonology: in decimating the egg sacks, they cleared a path to an energy source and seal which other supernatural creatures can now access unimpeded. Who are those supernatural creatures? The Widows, of course. But more of them later. The Black Badge are going to have to dig deeper…just, not right away. And back at the Earp residence, Waverly, to celebrate a hard day of work, indulges on a midnight snack: dead baby spider thing. Either she's trying out a new diet, or the black goo she touched is turning her into something real strange real fast.