The characters have been authentic and relatable, and their relationship affectionate and passionate, without ever falling into the voyeuristic male gaze that lesser shows still seem unable to shake. The move helped “Wynonna Earp” earn the trust and devotion of its fan base and cement its place in LGBTQ TV history.Īndras and the show’s cast have been vocal about how much they cherish Waverly, Nicole and their relationship, and that care is manifested within the show itself. It was an acknowledgement of - and a direct rebuke to - a hurtful trope. After years of watching queer women on TV die of gunshot wounds, particularly on genre shows, seeing Nicole survive because she was wearing a bulletproof vest was revelatory.

In the Season 1 finale, Nicole was shot to distract the Earp sisters from stopping a villain’s big plans. While the promise alone was meaningful enough, how she kept it has been even more significant. The series established Nicole’s attraction to Waverly the moment the then-deputy was introduced in its second episode, and although Waverly had a boyfriend at the time, it was easy to see that the attraction wasn’t exactly unrequited.īut in the environment “Wynonna Earp” entered when it premiered in April 2016, Andras understood viewers’ anxieties about becoming invested in a queer relationship on TV - and promised viewers early in the show’s run that her queer characters would survive. Loosely based on a comic book series by Beau Smith, “Wynonna Earp” follows the quippy great-great-granddaughter of the famed lawman Wyatt Earp as she returns to her hometown of Purgatory and activates a family curse that tasks her with sending resurrected demons back to hell with her ancestor’s magical gun. Even in the context of TV’s long history of offing LGBTQ characters, the numbers were grim: according to a 2016 tally by GLAAD, more than 25 queer women died on scripted TV and streaming shows in that year alone.Ĭreated by Emily Andras, Syfy‘s supernatural western features a gunslinging demon hunter - Wynonna Earp (Melanie Scrofano) - and her close-knit found family, including her half-angel sister, her brave town-sheriff bestie and her nearly 200-year-old sometimes lover. An overwhelming number were being killed off in scripted TV, often simply to advance their straight counterparts’ storylines. The spring of 2016 might have been remembered solely as a dark time for queer women on television.

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