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Well, I saw the poster on Netflix over and over and assumed it would be a flop, like "oh wow, Ironman but from the back" But hey, it's actually pretty cool. It's like Bayonetta but with the sides switched. The warrior nun club has cool armor and guns, they fight demons, and there's a magic material called "divinium." The protag, Ava(ngelion), isn't a warrior or a nun (at first), she's a dead orphan who gets a red-hot metal halo put in her back, which brings her back to life and gives her powers. They have a scene where an angel in the past gives the halo to the first warrior nun. The angel has Thor energy, and indeed the series is based on a comic book, but it feels like the show has enough of its own identity to not feel like a comic book show. It's neither DC nor Marvel, so that is probably why.  Anyway, I made the thread because there are horrible flaws in the writing that I had to get off my chest. So Ava didn't know her father (maybe it will come up later) and her mother died in a car accident which left her paralyzed in all her limbs at age 7, and she was taken in by a Catholic orphanage. In the third episode, she's with the warrior nun club and they test her resolve or trust or something by playing monster sounds on a bluetooth speaker, and throwing her a sword which she doesn't catch but instead runs away through a wall. The dour head nun says "What's the deal, running away from death is uncharacteristic for you. I read your file from the orphanage, you were a quadriplegic and you killed yourself by using your [paralyzed] hands to overdose on painkillers because you hated the orphanage, as shown by how your file says you made rude gestures, and you were about to age out of it so you couldn't bear to live outside of the orphanage." She also said "facts don't lie," which is either the writers not understanding that facts are different from claims, or the writers characterizing her as extremely gullible (message about Biblical literalism? who knows, this is a world with literal demons that kill people). Just an absolute mess of contradictions. But then Ava starts crying and flusters for a response, and the show is clearly communicating that she's in denial about what must be her very real suicide, and what, she was faking being quadriplegic for 12 years so she actually could have overdosed herself? Except the show also clearly communicates that being able to move is genuinely new to her. I checked the wiki and indeed she didn't do it, the nun who ran the orphanage and clearly hated her gave her the overdose. So if the head of the warrior nuns just believes the file, she should have at least made a bigger deal out of saying "you weren't really paralyzed" (including in other moments when Ava was talking about not being used to moving her limbs), and Ava should have been indignant and explained how abusive the author of the file was. Maybe it's trying to make a point about institutional trust that resolves later, which does fit structurally with their character development, but the execution is all wrong, it's just not believable. Regardless, the show is pretty consistently entertaining and I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of the plot unfold.  While researching this post I learned that it was not renewed for a third season. Why not? Probably because Netflix promoted it with images like this, guaranteeing that it would come off as boring semi-historical fiction, and the main preview clip is diegetic amateur footage of Jesus walking through a plaza.  I get that it's hard to characterize a show in a still and a short clip, but they had so much more to choose from.   
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Jul 12, 2023 07:00
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I enjoyed the first season a lot but never got around to the second season because I am ever so predictably easily distracted. Around the same time I watched the first two seasons of Umbrella Academy, which was also a delight. I hear there's been a hell of a fan campaign to get this picked back up for that third season, at least. The writing definitely leans into the campy side, but the action is pretty far above average.
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Jul 12, 2023 18:33
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Toadsmash posted:The writing definitely leans into the campy side, but the action is pretty far above average. Yeah, the fight choreography when one of them took out like 6 guards in a hallway was fantastic. It's kind of cheesy how they just lay down writhing the rest of the time "ohh my thigh owie," but then she hits the final guard's gun in 4 directions so he fires at each point of the cross sign, which was hilarious and puts the rest of the cheese in proper context. It does seem to have a hard time reconciling the sillier parts with the more grim drama parts, but I suppose that echoes the theme of Ava's relationship with the Order, as far as I've seen
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Jul 13, 2023 03:53
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According to the showrunner there is something coming Soon: https://screenrant.com/warrior-nun-saved-return-creator-response/?newsletter_popup=1 So we'll see. The show's okay, certainly better than a lot of Netflix fair, but not super good when it comes to its ableism issues. (Writers, don't have your disabled POV character call herself a 'freak.' It's no good.)
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Jul 13, 2023 11:47
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