Warrior Nun (Season 2)

Warrior Nun doesn’t pick up where season one finished, but it’s relatively close, there’s a two month gap rather than the two years we’ve had to wait. This is just long enough for the plans of various factions to have started to develop.

Adriel is using his powers to create new followers, human possessed by wraiths he is calling over of course. The nuns are on the run, hampered by the fact that Father Vincent is thoroughly on Adriel's side. Beatrice and Ava are trying to lie low in a bar in the Italian Alps, but Bea is super-organised and Ava is… well Ava so it doesn’t go too well. There’s a new, anti-Adriel group called The Samaritans, and Ava gets mixed up with one of them in the bar. Because this is television, this is obviously significant, but the ways it’s significant turn out to be complex and interesting. Lilith’s story keeps developing, as does Jillian Salvius' story and the new pope’s. Some of these story developments are in moderately predictable ways, some are frankly not, they’re not world-breaking in their novelty or anything, but they’re not what I’d have guessed from where we started and many of them keep twisting from there. Even the fairly predictable ones, because they’re interacting with some more unusual ones, are interesting and feel fresh. I didn’t necessarily like all the story twists, but I did enjoy the overall story.

Overall, this makes for a story that could feel too busy but actually feels fresh, fast-paced and fun.

There are, as you might guess given the warrior part of the title, a lot of fight scenes. For a show on a TV budget there are a lot of clever fights. Ava, Lilith and Beatrice are our main returning regular combatants but we see Mother Superior and Camilla fighting quite a lot too, as well as the new characters. They all have different styles of combat and some of them have different powers, and this all comes through really nicely when you see them fight. I don’t normally notice this kind of thing (I am aware of it but I don’t really register it) so for me to be commenting on it suggests it really stands out, in this case as well done. We also have small fights, huge fights and middle-sized fights. I’m sure budget constraints affect the choices here but they planned and wrote it well enough that it feels natural. Three random guys mug Miguel (a Samaritan), and Ava and Bea join in. Sensible small fight. Ava goes to rescue people from a congregation converting them to Adriel worship by possession and you have a nice mid-sized fight. And so on. The choreography of the fights extends beyond the main fighters. In a good combat-heavy show, like this fights tell a story - they either advance the plot in some way, a character arc in some way or both. In that sense they’re just like any other scene, but instead of words, gentle movements, sipping cups of tea and the like you have aggressive movements, swords and guns, high impacts and grunts. But if Ava sees a demon and uses the halo, blowing her cover, because the demon is heading towards Bea doesn’t that tell us something about her feelings for the other nun? If Lilith is trying to kill Vincent (who can blame her) but he tells her something, that can change her next few actions and so the course of her arc. A lot of shows don’t do that, at least not consistently. I’m not sure, but as I’m writing this I honestly can’t think or a fight scene that doesn’t look good and do at least one, quite often both, of character of plot development too.

The relationship between Ava and Bea develops as well. For a long time it flirts with that line between subtext, forbidden love and queer baiting. For me, and you may read it differently, the relationship feels real but with them both in denial. It actually becomes almost a running will they/won’t they tease about their kiss - there are so many set up moments where they don’t quite. We've only seen Ava with boys before so it’s possible she just doesn’t recognise her bi feelings but it reads to me more like she knows but isn’t willing to act before Bea, she’s respecting Bea's vows as a nun. On the flip side, Bea knows she’s a lesbian, but she’s also a nun and is not going to act on her desire. But there are smouldering glances, jealous stares and more. And finally they act to express their feelings and it’s incredibly sweet - in part because it pays off all that teasing. It looks for a moment like it’s going to be another tease, then lips lock, eyes close, fingers touch faces and it’s glorious. That changes late in the season and they kiss (hooray) and declare their love for each other it’s should be more bittersweet in the context and for some it lands that way from what I’ve seen, but I was good with the tease, the resolution and the cliff-hanger. Netflix better give us a season three with the pair of them living their best life though!

Somewhat to my surprise, while the relationship between Ava and Beatrice is wonderful, to some extent we’ve seen it before and that one story lacked true novelty for all the fun. The relationship between Ava and Mother Superior is absolutely platonic. It’s not quite maternal, it’s the relationship between a former warrior nun and the current one. It most resembles a mentor-mentee relationship but it’s one that resembles a real life mentoring relationship in that they learn from each other, and it’s glorious to see. It’s really rare to see a female mentoring relationship and it’s rare to see one where they both learn from each other, regardless of the genders of the pair.

I really enjoyed this and the mix of kick-ass women, a fairly complex theology that is based around but undermines the Catholic Church and lesbian nuns. But there are also great other bits scattered all round those central points. What’s not to like?

Bechdel Test: Pass. There are male characters. You can easily find conversations that don’t pass any of the parts of the test in most, if not all of the episodes. However, the large majority of core cast are female. They mostly talk to each other. They rarely talk about men, they talk about their feelings, combat tactics and all kinds of other things though. Easy pass.

Ko Test: Pass. Honestly I had to stop and think about this. The show is set in Southern Europe (it’s filmed and set mostly in Spain) and the cast looks like it. In America they’d all get labelled as WOC, they’re mostly Latina by American definitions, but if you’re Iberian (Portuguese) in the Iberian Peninsula (Spain, obviously) does that count? However, a few still stand out as WOC in the environment (Beatrice is half-Maori for example), so it’s a pass.

Russo Test: Pass. Beatrice declared herself as lesbian last season and clearly loves Ava throughout this one, even though she’s in denial. Equally clearly, although we’ve only seen Ava with boys before, she’s into, and happily reciprocates, Bea's feelings. She doesn’t label herself as bi or pan, but some such queer label, or just staying as queer seems correct. Camilla replaces Ava (who now only really has eyes for Beatrice) as the main straight girl leching at the boys but the show comfortably passes.