Wynonna Earp Season 4: Kat Barrell on What’s Next

Due to unexpected funding issues, we still have months before Wynonna Earp Season 4 will be gracing our brains and eyeballs with its zany, heartwarming, and hilarious presence, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t anything to talk about.

OK, fine. Production on Season 4 hasn’t even started yet (it’s slated to begin in January when Calgary is nice and balmy), but that doesn’t mean Kat Barrell, who plays Sheriff Nicole Haught on the Syfy show, doesn’t have insight into what might come for her character in Season 4—or at least questions she needs answered, just like the rest of us!

“I have questions about [Nicole’s] darkness, what lengths she’ll go to to save the person she loves,” said Barrell when we sat down with her earlier this month at New York Comic Con. “Because Nicole is such a morally-just person, and I feel like there would be some really interesting things to explore with how far she would go to save Waverly.”

read more: Fans Take to Times Square to Fight For Wynonna Earp

Now that Nicole is sheriff of Purgatory, she has even more responsibility and accountability to consider.

“When she’s in this position of power as sheriff, will she always use her resources for good?” continued Barrell. “And what is good? And what’s the line? And if it’s maybe personally beneficial to go get your love, but it’s putting a lot of other people, perhaps in jeopardy, what does that look like? So I think there are a lot of interesting moral dilemmas that I would like to watch her and witness her go through.”

Wynonna Earp Season 3 saw some casual delving into Nicole’s past. We learned about her survival of the Cult of Bulshar a massacre when she was just six. Little Nicole was the only survivor, found by Officer Nedley after hiding in a canoe during the incident.

read more: Wynonna Earp Showrunner Emily Andras Has New Show in Development at Syfy

While the reveals gave some insight into Nicole’s past before she came to Purgatory as an adult, Barrell isn’t as interested in learning about Nicole’s past as she is seeing the character continue to move forward.

“I don’t have the desire, too much, to dig into Nicole’s past,” said Barrell. “I think we did it in Season 3 and I think we got the answers we wanted, and I’d love to have her move on, to move past it, with this new sense of a sort of father figure in Nedley, her transition in her relationship with her sort of being engaged but I still think we need some clarification on that. She’s the sheriff. I just think she’s entered into the new chapter of her life story, and I just want to celebrate and explore that and not dwell on the past anymore.”

Part of that future is Waverly, with whom she shared a hasty engagement with in the Season 3 finale before Waverly was pulled into the Garden. Presumably, Waverly will escape from the Garden eventually (possibly, with some help from Nicole, even if she is currently disappeared, along with the rest of Purgatory, save Wynonna and Nedley). What might that Wayhaught future look like?

read more: Wynonna Earp Season 3 Episode Guide

“I want them to sit in their engagement a little bit,” said Barrell of her hopes for a Wayhaught future, “but I also want them a re-do on the engagement because I think it was sort of a rushed, spur of the moment kind of thing, and I want that moment for them to be clarified and confirmed and done justice. Not justice because life happens and I sort of love that about the way it was written: is they would have wanted this perfect moment, but life doesn’t allow for that a lot of the time, and maybe it’s perfect in its imperfection.”

Continued Barrell: “I really would like to have a WayHaught wedding, but I would love for it to play out in a more real amount of time. I don’t want them to be rushed. I want them to be enjoy being engaged. Because being engaged is such a beautiful time, and I want them to be able to bask in all that that is. As much as you can in the Ghost River Triangle!”

read more: How Wynonna Earp Nurtures Healthy Fandom

Personally, I want at least two separate Wayhaught bachelorette parties, planned by Wynonna and Jeremy, respectively, even though both parties would have the same exact guest list.

One member of the Wayhaught friend group that might not score an invite is Doc Holliday, considering the last time Nicole saw him, she told him to leave town and that, if she saw him again, she would kill him. (Granted, this was after Doc had killed Charlie/Julian, but before Charlie/Julian had miraculously come back from the dead… only to die again in the season finale.)

Did Nicole mean it when she told Doc she would kill him if she ever saw him again? And how might that hard line have softened now that Doc willingly went into the Garden to keep Waverly company?

“I like to think that [Nicole]’s the type of person who always means what she says,” said Barrell. “However, I also think she’s also a very empathetic and understanding person and I think, like it or not, he’s in there with Waverly, and she may have to work with him. She’s gonna have to pull out some forgiveness and empathy to be able to… I don’t think she would leave him behind, let’s put it that way. I think if they were both in there, I don’t think she would leave him there. I don’t think she could do that. So I think she meant it, but I can definitely see her forgiving.”

Is it Wynonna Earp Season 4 yet?

Kayti Burt is a staff editor covering books, TV, movies, and fan culture at Den of Geek. Read more of her work here or follow her on Twitter @kaytiburt.