Warrior Nun (Netflix, 2020)

[shevek]

Remember the 90s "bad girl" era in comics, where sexy nuns in tight costumes fought evil demons?

There was The Magdalena...and then there was Warrior Nun Areala, created by Ben Dunn (now of long-running indie publisher Antarctic Press).

In the 2010s there were aborted attempts to turn it into both a movie and animated series but neither got off the ground.

Dunn sold the Warrior Nun rights to Avatar Press several years ago.
Avatar put out a new comic series (Warrior Nun: Dora) last year, and now it's become a TV show from Netflix.

The debut episode drops on July 2, 2020. Looks like it's a mostly European cast with actors nobody's heard of. The star is 23-year-old Portuguese actress Alba Baptista as Ava (for some reason they're not calling her Shannon Masters like in the comic) who is mostly only known in her home country, so this is a breakout role. She's beautiful enough..has a bit of that Ellen Page quality (although you might disagree). The one lone American is black actress Toya Turner who plays Shotgun Mary..it's her breakout role as well.

Lots of great superheroine content coming out this year on TV! Trailer, Wikipedia page, and comic book page below.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrior_Nun_(TV_series)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrior_Nun_Areala (comic book)



P.S. In case you're wondering about the song from the trailer, it's "A Pale" by Catalonian pop star Rosalia. She's the first female since Shakira to win a Latin Grammy for best pop album.

[tallyho]

Looks fun thanks for the heads up

[Dogfish]

Cool we've been due a Buffy reboot for ages.

[Maskripper]

Yeah, that looks like it could be interesting! ;-)
A very....."snotty" ...trailer. Looks like they wanna build in a lot of comedy elements into it.
Hopefully it will result in a fine mixture between action, comedy and....some sexy scenes as well.
Off course the aspect that they sometime wear some kind of hoods/masks is also very interesting for me.

[shevek]

I watched this entire 10-episode first season so that you don't have to. It's Buffy meets Indiana Jones meets the Da Vinci Code meets Supernatural. In fact, the name of the Warrior Nun group, Order of the Cruciform Sword, is the same as the Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Not sure if that was intentional on the part of creator Ben Dunn (owner of Antarctic Press Comics).

Basically, the premise is sound but the execution is off. The whole story with the Warrior Nuns could have been told in about four
episodes total. The rest of the series is sidetracked threads which don't have enough to do with the main plot to hold your attention.
There is an incredible amount of decompression. For example, in Episode 6, almost the entire thing involves Ava and Shotgun Mary wandering around in the incredibly beautiful Andalusian countryside. And in another early episode, she spend lots of screen time with some layabout friends in very fancy houses. If this were a travel documentary and you wanted lots of touristy shots of Malaga and Antequera, and fabulous Costa Del Sol vacation homes owned by super-rich Saudi Arabians, that would work fine. Except this is supposed to be an action show.

Another execrable device you'll be sitting through is lots of "inner dialogue" by the main character, who talks to herself incessantly.
This is a lazy way for the writer to move the story along, or to emphasize something to the viewer which would be better accomplished by showing rather than telling. For example, she keeps saying to herself that a boy is cute and his lips are kissable, rather than displaying her affection through her acting skills. It's not until a couple episodes later that they actually have sex in a closet (which is the only time we really see any significant portion of Alba Baptista's body).

Maskripper is probably wondering about the costumes. Sorry, there are no masks. The warrior nuns wear hoods and are clad in drab black ninja-like outfits with draped fabric over the legs. You just don't see much; it's like one step below fighting in a hijab. The fighting choreography is impressive when it happens - you just have to wait for it between the long stretches of no action, or glances at the nuns' coordinated training sessions. And sometimes their prowess seems inconsistent - for example, it takes five of them to knock out one security guard when invading a high-tech lab, but then a bit later on, one of the nuns battles a half-dozen of the guards all by herself and takes them all out. Sometimes it's hard to draw the line between the Collective Power of Sisterhood and Displays of Mary Sue-dom.

Here's what I suggest to save you lots of time and trouble: watch Episode 1 to get a handle on the Warrior Nun's origin and how she gets her powers. Then skip all the way through the season and watch Episodes 9 and 10, because those are the only two episodes where Alba Baptista actually wears her tight leather costume and actually does a fair amount of fighting. I know that sounds like a "blasphemous" way to watch the kind of series that is otherwise designed for binging, but I hereby forgive your sins and offer you complete absolution.

[Maskripper]

^ That doesn't sound too promising shevek!
Actually I did watch the first two episodes just yesterday, it thought it was ok for a start and I was hoping that now the action would kick in, but that doesn't really seem to happen when I read your post.
On a german site I read that yoo would need a lot of patience until episode 7 or so, but then it would be a really good show (the last 4 episodes).

There are no masks?
But I spotted ....something....in the trailer that looked like a mask (around 1:30) ...ok, perhaps more like a metal veil(?) of some sort.

[shevek]

You are correct, Maskripper! For a short time, the most skilled fighter - Warrior Nun Beatrix - puts on a chain-mail veil while battling a half-dozen security guards at once, as I mentioned above. This only lasts for about a minute, and to my recollection, it's the only time any of the nuns' faces are covered, which seems weird given that they are supposed to be a secret order not known to the general public, and there are surveillance cameras all over. But since it doesn't really show any of her face, I didn't think of it as a "mask" per se.

If you want to spend a bit more with the show, sure, you can jump from Episode 2 to Episode 7 ("the last 4 episodes") without missing very much. Episodes 9 and 10 very much act like a two-parter, though, so you could just watch those and be done with it for the season.

[Dogfish]

Damnit. I'd hoped Netflix had gotten over their problems with having too many filler episodes.

[brdiy]

Yup, it's good, but also about 3-4 episodes too long.

[Maskripper]

Yup, it's good, but also about 3-4 episodes too long.

Which is pretty bad for a season with just 10 episodes
Guess I will do something I normally don't do....skip through episodes (3-6) and continue with episode 7.

[Dogfish]

This sort of format for Netflix shows is annoying. The first season is always the set up, then if they get a second season something good might happen if they have any ideas, then usually it gets cancelled. I wish they'd either shoot for shorter seasons and be more willing to pick up more seasons down the line, or do longer runs with a compressed introduction. They had this problem with all of their Marvel shows, and those were not cheap, they had no reason to be so mediocre. And yet really the only one I rewatch is Punisher season one, and that's because the introduction is non existent.

[Mr. X]

That's why making each season a mini story kind of works, like Stranger Things. At least season one was a mini story. Walking dead did the short season 1.

[TIEnTEEZ]

I thought about watching this. I like attractive warrior women.
But the whole "nun" thing is a huge turn-off for me. :-P

[Femina]

I'm sorry but this was sooo Bad! The main character is TERRIBLE, and every single time they interrupt the flow for her to mutter a soulless line that she's supposed to be thinking it's just the WORST... and don't even get me started on shipping your "Warrior Nun" Show with the tagline "She's not a Warrior, or a Nun but...."
-You ashamed of your premise? Than don't f'king do it.

Show should have been about Beatrice, you know, the only actual Warrior Nun of the main characters and by far the most interesting character in the show.

[sneakly]

I made it to episode six. I thought it was off to a good start, but then it turned into a mediocre fish out of water story. The amazing thing is they have this really cute, well endowed actress in a sunny vacation destination and they keep her entirely covered up. Where is is the Spanish Inquisition? No body expects the Spanish Inquisition. This this show really could have used the 15 century dungeon... The demons were also pretty dull because they were not really doing anything interesting beyond hanging around in coffee shops, waiting patiently for their turn (I shit you not).