The Warrior Nun
|I finally got around to checking out the Netflix series Warrior Nun. I’d seen the trailer for it and thought it looked amusing. With the plethora of supernatural TV and movies being released in the last decade, I have started to feel some fatigue. But there have not been a lot of warrior nun stories that I’ve been exposed to so I was hoping for something good.
So far there’s only been one season released with 10 episodes. The premise revealed in the first episode seems to have potential: 900 years ago an angel removes his halo to save a dying woman named Areala. The halo makes the bearer even more bad ass than they already were–but not immortal. So eventually they die and a new owner of the halo is chosen. Areala the Warrior Nun sounded familiar to me. Back when I regularly dealt in collectible figures, I remembered seeing a Warrior Nun Areala figure at a flea market booth. At the time I remember thinking, “WTF?!” And learned it was based on a comic book. Wikipedia says there was even an attempt at crowd funding an animated series before crowdfunding sites were a thing. The crowdfunding failed though and only an intro video was ever produced.
Still reading and wondering why I’m going on about stuff other than the show? Well the show annoyed me for the first few episodes as Ava, the current Halo-bearer was reluctant to take on her role as a warrior nun and instead was acting like a bratty teenager. Ava was a quadraplegic who had been stuck in the bed of an orphanage for 12 of her 19 years. So it’s not unreasonable for her to want to walk, dance, run and enjoy life instead of taking up the calling to be a warrior nun. But when you’ve got demons from hell materializing and wanting to murder you, it seems like maybe you’d have the sense to want to learn how to defend yourself properly. Even with the annoyances though, I still enjoyed the show. About halfway through the first season Ava accepts her role and joins the Oder of the Cruciform Sword.
Going back to the comic again, the original story is about a halo-bearer named Shannon and that’s the name of the halo-bearing nun who dies in the first episode of the T.V. series. Since I have no emotional attachment to the comic book characters, this works for me. Where other shows and movies take an existing story and butcher it, Netflix appears to be continuing on in the next chapter of the halo.
I normally like to wait for 3 or more seasons of a show to be out before diving in. That way I can binge through them all and enjoy the story arc without forgetting details. If you are interested in Warrior Nun, Netflix has already greenlit a second season. So you might be wondering, watch now or watch later? Well season one ends with a cliffhanger. A very exciting and interesting cliffhanger. So you might want to wait until next year to start watching unless you don’t mind the suspense of waiting to find out how the story will turn out.