Evil is the name of the game. And it wouldn’t be much of a show if “nothing eventful ever happens in the peaceful New Raccoon City.” Netflix’s first teaser trailer for its upcoming Resident Evil series promises this next addition to the franchise will be an eventful one. And it also finally gives us the release date for the series.
As we already know, Netflix’s Resident Evil is a new story, not one that comes directly from any of the franchise’s iconic games. Instead, the series will focus on Jade, Albert Wesker’s daughter.
A release for the show shares more about what we can look forward to:
Year 2036 – 14 years after Joy caused so much pain, Jade Wesker fights for survival in a world overrun by the blood-thirsty infected and mind-shattering creatures. In this absolute carnage, Jade is haunted by her past in New Raccoon City, by her father’s chilling connections to the sinister Umbrella Corporation but mostly by what happened to her sister, Billie.
It sounds like we’re looking at a story where false utopia meets major dystopia. New Raccoon City may look idyllic, but the marks of the Umbrella Corporation are all over it. And what happens there, we’re sure will have dire consequences. Not to mention, the survival of humanity, of course, is once again on the table… As are more zombies than ever before. But there will be more personal mysteries to unravel as well.
Additionally, a recent article from Entertainment Weekly sheds some more light on the series. In it Resident Evil‘s showrunner Andrew Dabb sheds some light on our story.
He notes about Jade, “What popped into my head really early on was she’s like Jane Goodall for zombies. She’s studying them. She’s trying to learn how they operate. This is a new organism. Our zombies are not the risen dead. They’re infected by a virus. All of us have had a crash course in viruses the last few years. This virus changes. It evolves and it has its own agenda.”
The article notes that one timeline revolves around the year 2036, 14 years after the breakout of the T-virus which turns people into zombies. And Jade is consumed with fixing the catastrophe. Meanwhile, the other takes place in 2022 in New Raccoon city.
Dabb notes, “We are now essentially 20-plus years from the first Raccoon City. Everyone knows it was destroyed in a very tragic incident, but very few people know exactly what happened, which makes sense, given that it was a bit of a cover-up in the U.S. government.”
At the helm of the Umbrella Corporation’s new home base is Evelyn Marcus (Paola Nuñez). Entertainment Weekly explains that she is the “daughter of Umbrella founder and virologist James Marcus.” Although she does not exist in the games, Dabb thinks, “There are some hints that she could, if you dig deep enough.” In Netflix’s Resident Evil, the Umbrella Corporation has moved from bioweapons to consumer products. Including a drug called Joy, which has side-effects that include the T-virus.
A second teaser trailer for the show sheds light on Joy and how the catastrophe we see began. But Joy may just be one part of the puzzle that leads to global catastrophe.
Lance Reddick stars as Albert Wesker in the series, a virologist and major character from the Resident Evil franchise. Maybe not the one we’d have pegged to have a child. But that’s the beauty of the show. Ella Balinska will play Wesker’s daughter Jade. And we speculate their relationship will live at the heart of the show, which according to Gizmodo, will be “told both in the past and the future simultaneously.”
Count us very much in. Netflix’s Resident Evil premieres on July 14th. It will run for eight episodes.