Remember that Resident Evil Netflix series that was announced a year ago? After nothing in the way of updates, some details have finally emerged about what we can expect via a leaked pilot script written by Andrew Dabb, principally known for scripting several dozen episodes of Supernatural that widely vary in quality and include a number of the more comedic entries, and to be directed by Euros Lyn, helmer of a number of episodes of Doctor Who, the Torchwood miniseries “Children of Earth” and wonderfully creepy Welsh horror The Library Suicides.
The series is partially set in 2022 and follows half-sisters Jade and Billie Wesker, daughters of recurring villain Albert Wesker. In the best tradition of contrasting personalities of teenage siblings on ‘90s TV shows, Jade is charming, outgoing and friendly, while Billie is shy, withdrawn and antisocial, and also suffers from anger management issues. The family relocate to an apparently utopian town tellingly named Raccoon 2, the headquarters of Umbrella. The settlement seems a little too perfect and its populace ostentatiously happy in a way that seems suspect, and the plot sees the sisters uncover a conspiracy involving their father’s work, along with hints that there’s more to their origins than simply having different mothers.
The story also periodically jumps to the post-apocalyptic future of 2036, where an older and battle-hardened Jade searches for information to fight the zombies (“zeroes,” perhaps in reference to the inexorable fate of a person’s declining heartbeat as the virus takes them over). Only three million humans worldwide are left alive, largely in isolated new nations of the Umbrella Territory (the western US), Fortress Scandinavia, Amazonia (Central America), Sihai (China and Siberia), the Faith (India) and various Freehold city-states such as Boston, Paris and Cape Town.
This will doubtless come as a disappointment to many fans who were hoping for something closer to the games that the movie series has been routinely criticized for lacking. The possibilities are numerous, such as Jill attempting to escape Raccoon City while being hunted by the unstoppable Nemesis (and possibly explain what she’s doing attempting to survive an undead-infested metropolis wearing skimpy party gear); the manipulation, espionage and badassery of Ada Wong as she navigates a litany of enigmatic alliances; or even the creeping dread of the original game, seeing Jill and Chris search an abandoned mansion, attempting to puzzle out what’s going on.
For now though, it’s probably best to take all this with a grain of salt, as there’ve been no official updates on the series, with this information coming courtesy of a rundown from an anonymous source claiming to have read the script for the pilot episode. Still, it was originally promised that this Resident Evil series would expand the universe and deepen its mythology, but it’s debatable if this is the right way of going about doing so.
