REVIEW: ‘Warrior Nun,’ Season 2 Delivers Great Action And Strong Emotions

Warrior Nun is an action drama series streaming on Netflix. With Adriel released from his thousand-year imprisonment beneath the Vatican, the Order of the Cruciform Sword finds itself scrambling to confront the onrushing storm. While the rest of the order plans, Beatrice and Ava have gone to ground to prepare Ava for her inevitable confrontation with the would-be angel in Warrior Nun Season 2.

Viewers who recall last season’s cliffhanger ending will come into this season with some frustration. How the confrontation with Adriel plays out or how the sisters managed to escape is never explained. It’s never even alluded to. This gets the story for this season off to an awkward start that doesn’t do the rest of the narrative justice. Once it gets past its initial connections to that unserved moment, Warrior Nun Season 2 only grows in strength.

At the heart of this season’s narrative are the sisters and their ongoing struggle to save the world from this newly released false messiah. Their struggles form the core grounding element that keeps the viewer engaged with each episode, no matter how wild the science fiction becomes.

While each of the main returning characters has their arcs through the season’s eight episodes, it is Beatrice and Ava where the show’s character narrative shines the brightest. The two women’s relationship evolves from a teacher/student to something more, the show does a great job of exploring the nuanced character dynamic between the two without dragging it out or riddling it with unnecessary drama.

While Warrior Nun Season 2 spends plenty of time exploring its characters, it also spends a significant amount of energy exploring the true nature of Adriel, the world beyond the Ark, and the nature of the divine. The revelations of this world-building are solidly delivered and spaced out well, keeping the series from ever getting bogged down in exposition.

While character and world-building drive the narrative, its action drives the tension. This series is littered with fantastically tense, choreographed moments that left me wincing on more than one occasion. And despite the show’s focus on Ava as the powerful badass that will save the world, the best combat moments throughout Warrior Nun Season 2 all belong to Beatrice. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone’s body language in the middle of the fight project such a dismissive energy before, but that is the only way I can describe the feeling I get every time actress Kristina Tonteri-Young methodically dispatches an entire room of opponents. It is as if every move she makes is screaming “I have no time to waste on you.”

The only significant place where this series fails is in the delivery of its scope. While it continuously emphasizes how the entire world hangs in the balance, it never truly feels that way. We see very little of any sort of conflict outside of the small clashes the show depicts, leaving the viewer with little feeling for the level of peril the show insists is there.

Warrior Nun Season 2 builds upon the first season with great characters and wonderfully orchestrated action sequences. Despite some stumbles with the delivery of its larger threats, the viewer has little trouble investing in the danger faced by the characters they will inevitably come to root for.

Warrior Nun Season 2 is streaming now on Netflix.