The defeat of a self-proclaimed god, the imminent death of the Warrior Nun, and an approaching
holy war.
The ending of "Warrior Nun" Season 2 is filled with unexpected revelations.
Sleazy demon Adriel is the big bad of Season 2.
And he makes for an incredibly vivid villain.
His syrupy tone is perfectly emblematic of his charming, manipulative, and fundamentally
deceitful ways.
Adriel is a thief who steals the Halo from Reya, a being who rules the realm on the other
side of the portal.
Disguising himself as a human, he's well on his way to establishing his own powerful cult
when the first Warrior Nun, Areala, skillfully tricks him.
He is subsequently entombed for a thousand years.
When he's freed by Ava and the Order, he immediately becomes the leader of a brand new cult.
Adriel is the one responsible for encouraging Dr. Jillian Salvius to create a dimensional portal.
He lures her top assistant Kristian into his cult, and uses technology from ARQ-Tech to
focus the prayers of his followers, making him invincible.
He proceeds to use that tech to perform apparent miracles, like healing boils, stopping a plague
of locusts, and dispelling a fear-causing fog.
Of course, he's also the source of these ills, which he creates using his cutting-edge gadgets.
Just when it seems like he's powerful enough to trap Reya and kill Ava, the Warrior Nun
summons the monstrous Tarasks from the Other Side.
They tear him limb from limb.
It's a perfect end.
Adriel brags that nothing in the human realm can kill him, so Ava simply brings over the
thing he's been fleeing.
It remains to be seen if he'll actually stay dead, but it's obvious that his death unclouds
the minds of his followers.
Throughout Season 2, Ava is in training to defeat Adriel.
While she gains more control over her powers, which include energy blasts and the ability
to phase through objects, they suddenly fail her at random times.
"The Halo just sort of gave out.
It's not like it was running out of power, it's just like someone flipped off a switch."
This is all thanks to Adriel's gigantic cross, which acts as a siphon for mystical energy,
even prayers.
The uncertainty and rebelliousness Ava demonstrates in Season 1 are gone, as her sisters in the
Order of the Cruciform Sword become her priority.
She accepts them, and they accept her.
Ava resigns herself to the idea of having to sacrifice her own life to defeat Adriel.
Miguel, who has returned from the Other Side to kill Adriel, tells Ava that he's a bomb
and she's the fuse that will set him off.
Ava manages to survive that eventual detonation, but she's mortally wounded in her fight with
Adriel and Lilith.
After Adriel's destruction, she's content to die and give the Halo to Beatrice, but
Lilith suggests putting her through the gate to the Other Side.
No one knows how this will affect her, but it will save her life.
Miguel and Lilith both came back from the Other Side and were greatly changed, but neither
carried the Halo.
What will Ava be like when she returns?
We don't yet know.
No character on "Warrior Nun" has enjoyed crazier swerves than Sister Lilith.
Her main ambition in Season 1 is to be the one who receives the Halo after Sister Shannon
is killed.
When Ava gets it instead, she's furious and sets out on a mission to kill her.
But instead, a monstrous Tarask kills her while she hunts down Ava.
Surprisingly, Lilith not only returns from the dead but comes back with terrifying new powers.
Her demonic claws and quantum teleportation make her a powerful ally for the Order when
she returns.
However, Lilith finds her skin becoming scaly in Season 2 and turns to Dr. Jillian Salvius
for help.
Jillian examines the scales and suspects a mutation of some kind, but is unable to provide
her with any real answers.
When Lilith goes to Adriel, the slippery manipulator unlocks her potential.
This includes giving her sight that allows her to see demons, as well as huge, bat-like wings.
In other words, she's a demon nun.
Adriel's sweet-talking preys on Lilith's jealousy of Ava.
Moreover, there's a kernel of truth in Adriel's arguments about seeking freedom from a capricious
God who doesn't answer prayers.
He uses this to manipulate her with dreadful skill.
In time, she becomes more than a match for the Warrior Nun.
In the end, Lilith sees Adriel as the monster he truly is and develops her own agenda.
Thus, she warns Beatrice that a holy war is coming, and hopes they're on the same side.
The betrayal of Father Vincent at the end of Season 1 is a truly wild moment.
His story as a former hitman and alcoholic who redeems himself in the priesthood is touching
until it's revealed that he's Adriel's biggest accomplice.
He betrays the trust of everyone in the Order of the Cruciform Sword and continues to act
as Adriel's right-hand man in Season 2.
Vincent buys into Adriel's rhetoric about freedom and fighting the oppression of the church.
However, the more that Adriel grandstands, the more Vincent starts to have doubts.
This comes to a head when Adriel kills the Pope.
Father Vincent grabs the Crown of Thorns, which can render supernatural beings powerless,
and gives it to Ava instead of returning it to Adriel.
Ava sees his doubts and approaches him.
Mother Superion spares Vincent's life earlier in the season.
This act of mercy winds up helping everyone, as Father Vincent aids the Order in the final
battle against Adriel.
Where the disillusioned priest will go next is unclear, especially since he takes off
his collar in the finale.
One of the central plots of Season 1 is Dr. Jillian Salvius' attempts to save the life
of her son, Michael, who has a rare blood disease.
Notably, Michael has visions of Adriel's tomb, the Warrior Nun, and other supernatural phenomena.
Jillian creates a mystical gate to send him to a heaven-like place where he can be healthy.
When she finally makes the gate work, young Michael runs through it and disappears.
Jillian has no idea how to get him back.
At the beginning of Season 2, Ava befriends a young man named Miguel, who opposes Adriel.
He soon invites Ava to help him and his organization.
Very quickly, Ava learns there's much more to Miguel than meets the eye.
This becomes especially obvious when he helps her defeat several demon-possessed people.
When he tells them they're going to go to his home, which is a safe place for them to
stay, they find themselves at Jillian's house.
It's here that Miguel reveals that he's her son.
The tragedy of the situation is that while Jillian is overjoyed to see him alive, she's
also still in mourning about the time she lost with him.
Unbeknownst to her, his situation is even more tragic than it appears to be.
His only purpose in returning is to carry out a suicide mission.
Once again, a character who tries to play God, Jillian in this case, is punished for
her hubris.
One of the most slow-burn character developments in "Warrior Nun" is the friendship that eventually
turns into love between Ava and Sister Beatrice.
Beatrice struggles with feelings of worthlessness and fears of rejection because she is a lesbian.
She responds to these thorny emotions with obsessive overachieving.
When Beatrice tells a story about a Warrior Nun who was gay, Ava immediately understands
that this is Beatrice's way of coming out to her.
Their friendship deepens in Season 2, as they both take jobs at a local bar in Switzerland
in an attempt to lay low.
Beatrice is trying to train Ava, but Ava has her eye on having fun.
When Beatrice tells Ava that she's never had a drink, Ava is determined to get her drunk.
They have a great time and dance with each other at a bar.
Their budding love comes into sharper focus when it appears that Ava is dead from a fall.
Before Ava revives, Beatrice cradles her and pours out her heart.
As the season continues, Ava knows that their time together is limited and kisses a shocked Beatrice.
Before sending Ava to the Other Side, they have another tender moment, but Beatrice doesn't
tell Ava she loves her until after she crosses over.
"I love you."
It's clear that this will be something that propels the action as the series moves forward,
as their love story is an excellent anchor amidst all the weirdness of "Warrior Nun."
Mother Superion has her own journey in Season 2.
She's a stodgy enforcer in Season 1, disapproving of everything that Ava does, and works closely
with Cardinal Duretti to keep the Order of the Cruciform Sword viable.
However, she comes around and helps the sisters invade the Vatican at the end of Season 1.
Season 2 sees her truly come to grips with her past.
She reveals the full story of how she held and was rejected by the Halo.
While on a mission, her insistence on working alone wound up getting the previous Mother
Superion killed.
Her arrogance made the Halo drop out of her body, and Sister Shannon became her replacement.
This makes her resentful of Shannon and even more resentful of Ava.
Later, when Superion is gunned down, she confesses her jealousy to Ava and the others.
Ava forgives her and lies down with her.
Ava's unconscious use of the Halo to heal brings Superion back to life and makes her
feel healthier than she has in years.
She also feels closer to the sisters than ever before, having finally admitted to her
festering feelings and personal flaws.
One of the most entertaining relationships in "Warrior Nun" is between Sister Yasmine
and Sister Camila.
Both of them start Season 2 as secondary characters who need to prove themselves and eventually
emerge as legitimate butt-kickers in their own ways.
Camila is the youngest member of the Order of the Cruciform Sword, but she's a brilliant
woman whose understanding of technology makes her a crucial team member.
Even when Adriel implants her with a device that allows him to read her thoughts and speak
to her, Camila manages to turn the tables on him by getting in his head at just the
right time.
Yasmine is part of an order dedicated to protecting the Crown of Thorns, the weapon that temporarily
deprogrammed Adriel and allowed Areala to imprison him.
When Adriel is let loose upon the world, Yasmine tracks down the Order to inform the Warrior
Nun about the Crown's existence.
While guiding them to the Crown in a museum heist, Yasmine quickly has to figure out how
to navigate the violent and dangerous world of the Order.
Yasmine and Camila are key players in the final battle against Adriel.
Camila takes out a whole gang of thugs, while Yasmine manages to stab one of the leaders
who bleeds out.
Both will likely have even more significant roles in the future.
There are times when it's hard to tell the difference between the heroes and villains
of "Warrior Nun."
This is especially true of authority figures, and the show's Pope is no exception.
In Season 1, he's Cardinal Francesco Duretti, a man obsessed with appearances, who clamps
down on the activities of the Order of the Cruciform Sword because he doesn't want them
making the church look bad.
But his manipulations and schemes make it a little too easy for the order to suspect
that he killed Sister Shannon and tried to get Adriel's bones to consolidate power.
This suspicion turns out to be wrong.
However, just because he didn't do those things doesn't mean he's not a power-hungry and ruthless man.
He tortures one of Adriel's spies to get information, grandstands at a meeting of clergy to browbeat
them into working against Adriel, and is part of an institution that has, Adriel asserts,
killed millions of people throughout its history.
The Pope is fighting against Adriel not because it's a righteous cause, but because he's worried
about someone stepping on his turf.
"Next to Adriel, you are as ants.
You will kneel before him."
If there's a God on Earth, then what use will people have for the church?
Adriel is presented as a charlatan, but he cleverly co-opts all of the church's rhetoric.
When Duretti gets disintegrated by Adriel on live television, it's a declaration and
demonstration of power.
It's horrifying, yet it confirms Adriel's claims.
One of the last things Sister Lilith says to Sister Beatrice in the Season 2 finale
is that a dark future awaits them.
"There's a holy war coming.
I really hope we end up on the same side."
What exactly does this mean?
Hints are planted throughout the entire season.
The nature of the Other Side, the realm at the other end of the portal that Dr. Jillian
Salvius creates, is not exactly clear.
Its existence is first made known when Adriel arrives on Earth after ripping open a gateway
from his world using the Halo.
He's pursued by Tarasks, monstrous demons whose sole purpose is to regain the mystical object.
Lilith is dramatically changed by her time on the Other Side after she's killed, and
Jillian sends her over again through the gate.
What feels like seconds for Jillian is days for Lilith, who walks through a desert until
she's expelled by an entity that does not want her there.
Miguel wanders the same desert as a boy until he's rescued by wandering angels and taken
to the shining city.
He's raised in Reya's court and trained as a weapon to use against Adriel.
Reya later helps Ava defeat Adriel.
Is Reya a god, a demon, an angel, or something else entirely?
Is she going to start the holy war against Earth, or will someone bring the fight to her?
What are her motivations and intentions regarding Earth?
Like many of the most powerful figures on the show, her motivations are inscrutable
— and absolutely fascinating.