Warning: SPOILERS for Warrior Nun Season 1.
Warrior Nun has a lot of similarities to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but the supernatural Netflix series' smartest move is how truly different its heroine, Ava Silva (Alba Baptista), is from Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar). Both shows center on a beautiul teenager who is gifted with magical powers to fight demons, and they're backed up by a gang of loyal comrades-in-arms. But the most fascinating thing about Warrior Nun is how it subverts Buffy-derived expectations of Ava's slow-burn heroic journey, making Warrior Nun a stronger show in the process.
Like Buffy, who was the Chosen One and the latest in a millennia-old line of vampire slayers, Ava received magical powers in the form of the Halo, which originally belonged to the so-called angel, Adriel (William Miller). As the Halo Bearer, Ava was chosen to become the new Warrior Nun. Just as Buffy's exploits were overseen by Rupert Giles (Anthony Stewart Head) of the Watchers, the Warrior Nun is the greatest hero of the Order of the Cruciform Sword, a Catholic sect of Sister Warriors founded during the Crusades. Ava is also very witty and quick with a quip, just like Buffy. But beyond these surface-level similarities, Warrior Nun intriguingly takes the classic Buffy formula, liberally mixes it with The Da Vinci Code-style mythology, and does something wildly different with Ava, which turns Warrior Nun into an endlessly surprising pleasure to watch.
The first ingenious swerve about Ava is that she is dead when Warrior Nun begins. Even when she was alive, Ava's life was miserable; she became a quadriplegic after she was injured in a car accident when she was 7, which took her mother's life. Worse, Ava was murdered by the very nun who cared for her until she was 19. So, when the Halo is placed in her back and resurrects her, it's completely natural and understandable that all Ava wants to do is live the life she never got to have (albeit with superpowers). Ava was not at all interested in being the Warrior Nun the OCS demanded her to be, and it made perfect sense that for nearly all of season 1, Ava rejected the destiny thrust upon her.
Unlike Buffy, who quickly assumed her superhero role as the Slayer, Ava instead fights incredibly hard to stay as far from the OCS as she can. All Ava wants is to see the world with her boyfriend JC (Emilio Sakraya). While fans wanted to see her become a badass Warrior Nun, it was also hard to not root for Ava to have the freedom to live her life that she deserved. When Ava finally joins the OCS, her chosen mission is to put an end to the legacy of the Warrior Nuns so that no more women have to die for the cause, and this is a unique twist that really sets Ava apart. Ava also bravely chooses to sacrifice herself to Adriel, which proves the true heroic steel inside her doesn't come from the Halo.
Along with her magical abilities, Buffy was expertly trained as a vampire slayer. In contrast, despite the Halo's powers, Ava is mostly untrained in combat, and by the end of Warrior Nun season 1 she is still barely competent in a fight. In fact, Ava hardly fights at all. While this might seem frustrating to some fans, Warrior Nun not immediately making Ava its centerpiece action heroine allows the other Sister Nuns to shine in that spotlight. The OCS is no Scooby Gang support group who let the Chosen One handle the dirty work; instead, Sister Beatrice (Kristina Tonteri-Young), Shotgun Mary (Toya Turner), Sister Lilith (Lorena Andrea), and Sister Camila (Olivia Delcan) all get to showcase their amazing and varied combat skills so that their ensemble emerged as beloved characters who were equally as important as Ava.
To her credit, Ava's instincts to stay away from the OCS were ultimately correct. As per the revelations that Adriel is evil and the OCS' mentor, Father Vincent (Tristan Ulloa), was a traitor, everything the Sister Warriors believed in turned out to be lies. This shocker completely upends the Buffy paradigm and opens up compelling possibilities for what happens next in Warrior Nun season 2 that fans can only imagine. By the end of season 1, Warrior Nun rivetingly raised its own deadly stakes. It definitively proved that Ava is no Buffy - and she's better off for it.