Netflix's Warrior Nun Features a Hell-Raising Ending

You'd be surprised at how complicated a show with a two-word premise can get.

warrior nun l to r olivia delcÁn as sister camila, toya turner as shotgun mary, alba baptista as ava, lorena andrea as sister lilith, kristina tonteri young as sister beatrice in episode 10 of warrior nun cr courtesy of netflixnetflix © 2020
Courtesy of NETFLIX

Warrior Nun. It's a show about warriors who are also nuns. Pretty simple stuff, right? But for a show with a two-word premise, things get pretty complicated over the course of the Netflix series' 10-episode first season.

The show tells the story of Ava, a 19-year-old ward of a Catholic orphanage who is implanted with the angel Adriel's halo and finds herself imbued with mystical powers. It turns out that she's the latest in a 1,000-year-old line of women who've borne the halo, women who have all been nuns of the Order of Cruciform sword. Here's how the story shakes out in the end.

What happens at the end of Warrior Nun?

Throughout the first half of the season, Ava grapples with her newfound powers and debates whether or not she wants to align herself with the OCS. But by the end of the season, she's decided to team up with Father Vincent, Shotgun Mary, Sister Beatrice, and the rest of the warrior sisters. Inventor Jillian Salvius, who has built a portal to other realms called the Ark with the help of the mystical element divinium, initially seemed to be the Big Bad, but was revealed to be doing her research to help her ailing son Michael, and she too teams up with the OCS.

Instead, the real problem player is Cardinal Duretti. The OCS pieces together that he was behind the killing of prior halo bearer Sister Shannon. He wants the halo to pass to someone loyal to him, as he needs to use its power to allow its bearer to pass through walls to enter the tomb of Adriel. The angel gave up his divine immortality when he gave his halo to Areala, the original warrior nun, and now his bones lie in the catacombs of the Vatican, behind a stone wall that's 20 feet deep. His remains are said to have the power to make whoever controls them the "lord of demon kind," and Duretti, who's elected to Pope near the end of the season, seems to like the sound of that. So the OCS heads off to Adriel's tomb to foil Duretti's evil plan.

the warrior nun l to r olivia delcÁn as sister camila, lorena andrea as sister lilith, kristina tonteri young as sister beatrice in episode 2 of the warrior nun cr courtesy of netflixnetflix © 2020
They’re warriors—but they’re nuns.
Courtesy of NETFLIX

What does Ava find in Adriel's tomb?

Ava, Father Vincent, and the sisters locate the tomb, and, pumped up from a phasing workout regimen, Ava successfully travels through the stone. Inside, she finds not Adriel's bones, but Adriel himself. As it turns out, he never lost his immortality, and has been trapped there for centuries.

At first, Ava and Adriel are pretty chummy—he's an angel, she's pretty much a novitiate, it's a match made in heaven. But when Adriel touches her, Ava receives flashes from Areala's memories that make her suspicious. When Adriel tries to take the halo from her, she blasts him with its power, just as the OCS dynamites its way in and saves her.


Meanwhile, Mother Superion confronts now-Pope Duretti, only to find out that he has no clue about the killing of Sister Shannon or the underground tomb. He's not the bad guy—and Adriel's no angel. Ava reveals to the team that Adriel is in fact a devil. Father Vincent calls the newly-freed Adriel his master and tells him that his machine—presumably the Ark, which Michael has just leapt into, bound for dimensions unknown—is waiting for him. Vincent killed Shannon, and he's been the baddie all along.

The sisters fight Adriel while Ava waits for her halo to recharge its mystical batteries, but Adriel summons an army of demons who posses the bystanders and swarm the women. And that's where the season ends! The fate of the OCS, the duplicitous Father Vincent, and little Michael, wherever he is, will have to wait for season two.

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