Netflix – Resident Evil Live Action Series coming

Netflix – Resident Evil Live Action Series coming

It was officially confirmed that a live action series based on Resident Evil will be coming soon to Netflix!

Unfortunately, a release date or time frame wasn’t provided with this announcement but its still nice to see that the show will eventually be coming.

Table of Contents (TOC)

Short Plot

When the Wesker kids move to New Raccoon City, the secrets they uncover might just be the end of everything. Resident Evil, a new live action series based on Capcom’s legendary survival horror franchise, is coming to Netflix.

Full Synopsis / story

The series follows two sisters (or should I say half-sisters), Jade and Billie Wesker. Yes, you fans read that right- Wesker. Both biological daughters of Albert Wesker but born to different surrogate mothers, these ‘twins’ are two original characters created specifically for the series and aren’t mentioned at all in the video games (to my knowledge).

They explain Their births with certainty, but knowing Wesker from the games, I find their origin suspicious, to say the least. I have to say, however, that I find them significantly compelling characters to lead a series. Jade is a wise-cracking, vulgar girl who is simultaneously charming and annoying to people around her. She seems to make friends rather quickly and is incredibly friendly. In direct contrast with her sister, Billie, who is antisocial and shy- she also has a crippling anger management problem. The dynamic between these two is central to the series, bouncing between love and hate- classic sibling rivalry. And their differing perspectives on their father create some interesting conflict for the show to explore.

In the pilot, it jumps between two points in time, using flashbacks to give context to the events of the future. The timeline in 2036 (14 years after the end of the world) follows an older, battle-hardened Jade as she collects information on the zombies (called “Zeroes”) in a decimated London for her work at Madrid University. The world at this time, well, has all but ended. Only approximately 3 million humans live, while 6 BILLION zeroes roam the earth. There a few pockets of civilization scattered around but nothing sustainable. The most famed is Umbrella Territory, a supposed paradise town that is untouched from the chaos- yeah, I’m SURE that’s what it is. Most of the western United States is now a new country called Umbrella, while Central America is the Amazonia. Fortress Scandinavia is the latest nation formed from, well, Scandinavia. India is now The Faith, China, and Siberia are now Sihai. A few smaller states called Freeholds are scattered around like in Boston, Capetown, Mumbai, and Paris. The rest of the world is a DEAD ZONE, the territory of the Zeroes.

In this future timeline, Jade studies a group of Zeroes in correspondence with her Spanish coworker, Arjun, in an attempt to see if the zombies are evolving at all. Interestingly, the zombies have no hearing or sight, but their sense of smell has only become more acute. In the summertime, they are more attracted to humans because of sweat and stink. As you might guess, this goes wrong one day when Jade accidentally alerts the horde and has to use her hideout’s security measures (a giant firewall trap) to kill them. Unfortunately, this informs a GIANT caterpillar zombie roaming below the Earth and causes more trouble for Jade, severely injuring her. At the last minute, she is saved by a group of scavengers who blast away the creature with an arsenal of weapons.

The past timeline takes place in 2022, the year of the outbreak, and follows the Wesker family as they move into a new, GET OUT-Esque utopian town. This town is ominously named Raccoon 2. It’s a small community run by Umbrella, filled with unusually happy families, incredibly over-the-top Umbrella merchandise, and of course, Umbrella HQ.

Why is it called Raccoon 2? Well, I’ll let you figure that out (hint: it has something to do with an incident in 1998 that nobody seems to know about…) Anyway, Billie, Jade, and Albert move here because of Albert’s work (Jade holds resentment against her father for this move, but Billie is more accepting). Albert’s a one-of-a-kind employee of Umbrella and is quite different in the show than in the games. His dynamic of ruthless businessman and ‘father trying to do his best but failing’ is very interesting and makes his character very engaging. He’s in his 60s, an older gentleman. He has a dark past with Umbrella that will be revealed in later episodes. He also strangely extracts his daughters’ blood every fortnight for ‘tests.’ God knows what that means in reality.

So this past timeline mainly centers on Jade and Billie getting used to life at a new school and town. Billie gets into tussles with another student, while Jade fits right in. Billie sees this as a fresh start, as she was almost expelled at her old school for breaking another student’s leg in the act of revenge, and bullied for being a “psycho.” Jade sees this as her unfairly being dragged from her old life and forced to start anew. This dynamic and their subsequent social interactions because of this motivation make for compelling stories. The pilot ends with them uncovering a conspiracy involving Umbrella, rabbits, and… dogs.

In 2022, Umbrella is trialing a lucrative new antidepressant called ‘Joy’ that is set to make them even richer. They have been testing the product on animals (despite them convincing the world that they DO NOT do animal testing). They have been working on this drug for more than two decades, with the first trial going dreadfully wrong (hmmm). Nevertheless, they are pushing for this to be released ASAP. Albert, in contrast to his video game self, is fighting the higher powers to get more time to perfect the drug-likee I said, a different Albert than you would expect.

We do see a minor character from the games make a small appearance in this episode, but they seem to have been altered quite a bit and only resemble the source material ostensibly.