Wynonna Earp responded to its queer fans saving the show with its gayest season yet

The Washington Post

The first half of Season 4 has included "one of the hottest gay-lady sex scenes that has ever aired on TV" between Katherine Barrell's Nicole Haught and Dominique Provost-Chalkley's Waverly Earp. Wynonna Earp's queer fans were a major reason that the Syfy series has endured despite reported financial troubles, so creator Emily Andras decided to express her gratitude by giving queer fans what they wanted: authentic representations of their community on screen, according to Sarah Hashemi and Monica Rodman. "Aside from the occasional demon possession and near-death experiences, the relationship between Waverly and Nicole still resonates with its audience," explain Hashemi and Rodman. As Wynonna Earp fan convention Earp-a-palooza co-founder Laura Naselli put it: “When you look at Waverly and Nicole in the show, that’s one of the main love stories and it’s right there. There’s no hiding it.” Hashemi and Rodman point out that queer fans have impacted other shows such as Netflix's Sense8, which received a 151-minute wrap-up movie with the help of the show's queer fans. Naselli says giving back to Wynonna Earp is an act of gratitude. “Show me a show anywhere where the writers are touted every week, where people know the directors, the script supervisor’s name,” says Naselli. “We interact with them, so it was a way for us to be a part of that and to bring people together that way.”

ALSO:

• Wynonna Earp's summer finale was a love letter to fans: "As the half dozen episodes of this summer’s run proved," says Alexis Gunderson, "Wynonna Earp returned from the almost-dead with an almost eerily complete understanding of all the ways in which its most intimate relationships—carnal and not—make it the shit show it is. (That’s a good thing.)"
• Melanie Scrofano and Tim Rozon weigh in on the midseason finale