(TV SERIES) Warrior Nun Season 1 - One of the Most Unique & Fun Heroine Origin Story

This was a series that caught my attention in Netflix. Again it was one of their originals which I had mentioned few times earlier that usually translated to good quality series. I was interested after reading the premise, which gave the impression of intriguing fantasy and possibly with some actions. Well I'll just get on with it now.

Brief Story Line

Set in Spain, the Order of Cruciform Sword (OCS) was created centuries ago to serve Catholic church and secretly protect the world from evil/supernaturals by training a group of Nuns as a team of highly capable operatives and referred to as Warrior Nuns. The team leader would have extraordinary powers from an ancient artifact. However, due to some freak incident, the artifact somehow ended up with a young woman who was a quadriplegic after involved in car accident named Ava (Alba Baptista) and totally recover & gave her powers. 

The rest of the nuns that included the hot headed Sister Mary aka Shotgun Mary (Toya Turner), the calm & intelligent Sister Beatrice (Kristina Tonteri-Young) and the supposed new leader Sister Lilith (Lorena Andrea) were all trying to locate Ava. Father Vincent (Tristan Ulloa) who had been tasked to lead OCS was trying his best to ensure Ava could become the next Warrior Nun, though this got huge resistance from people inside the Church.

Meanwhile, a wealthy scientist named Jillian Salvius (Thekla Reuten) who was having a bit of dispute with the Catholic church because of her work, would later take a special interest in Ava as well. So what would happen to Ava who only wanted to be a normal girl and did not want anything to do with becoming Warrior Nun? Find them all in this fun series.

End of Brief Story Line

This series has a well done pilot episode to my opinion. Despite not having any faces that I am familiar with, I still could enjoy it due to combination of some suspense, mystery, sufficient action and most importantly the interesting & fun characterization of Ava. The main lead Alba Baptista was so perfect in portraying this character that it was really nice watching her. As a person who was unable to move and use jokes for her self defense, it was so refreshing to see her seemingly experiencing many things for the first time. And the voice over of what was on her mind were sometimes quite hilarious too. In fact, I think her character was the main reason I like this series and intrigued me to continue watching subsequent episodes.

In order to enjoy watching this one, we have to keep an open mind and certainly not take things too seriously, like the creation of this so called secret sect in Catholic church (which was obviously fictional) with the training of nuns who could really fight. From what I read in the internet, apparently it did create controversy just as I suspected. Anyway, by disregarding that part, the main character became quite standard "hero by condition" type who accidentally acquire unwanted power with other people trying to do anything to acquire such power while she reluctantly learn how to use it. 

The story which ran for 10 episodes first season was not difficult to follow. The journey was what you would expect in a hero origin story. The additional main cast were wonderful as they really complimented Ava, especially Shotgun Mary (her relationship with Ava was delightful), Sister Beatrice with the amazing fight skills she possessed, and even the envious Sister Lilith. All of them, including Father Vincent were not black & white type of Nuns and Priest as they have their own colorful background. In addition to those characters, there were also a number of recurring roles like Father Buretti who was played by the only familiar face to me Joaquim de Almeida (24 TV series, Fast Five etc), Sylvia de Fanti as Mother Superion, Olivia Delcán as Sister Camila, Peter de Jersey as Kristian Schaefer and Emilio Sakraya as JC.

Apart from the fun interaction between Ava and the nuns, there were also some action sequence which surprisingly were done decent enough. Of all the 10 episodes in first season, my favorites were episode 6 and especially episodes 9 & 10. That season finale was really fantastic but it has such a cliffhanger ending that would certainly be upsetting if this series did not pick up for a second season. There was also a truly surprising twist in one of the episode that I mentioned earlier which blew my mind as I did not see that coming.

Overall I thought that this was an interesting series with some decent actions. Its main attraction for me was the interesting & fun character of Ava plus the other nuns, as well as some of the fight sequence. So if you are looking for an adventure of a young woman who suddenly have amazing powers and must fight evil as Warrior Nun despite only wanting to be normal girl, with some dark humor, then you can definitely give this a try. 

Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

PS: The story was based on comic book character Warrior Nun Areala by Ben Dunn