Netflix’s Resident Evil series could have been about superdad Albert Wesker. Instead it’s just boring
Resident Evil can be just about anything. The long-running series, which started as a video game in 1996, has an elastic world that has successfully hosted everything from zombies and sea monsters to secret agents and powerful psychics without ever worrying too much about complex explanations. However, the biggest surprise about Netflix’s new Resident Evil series from creator Andrew Dabb (Supernatural) is its careful devotion to the series’ weird, and often tampered with, canon — and just how boring the show is as a result.
Netflix’s Resident Evil series follows Jade Wesker (Ella Balinska) across two different time periods. The first is in 2022, when, at 14 (this version played by Tamara Smart), she and her twin sister, Billie (Siena Agudong), and their dad, Albert Wesker (Lance Reddick), one of the most important antagonists in the Resident Evil franchise, move to New Raccoon City for his continued work with the shady Umbrella Corporation. The show’s second time period takes place in 2036, after the world has become overrun with zombies that first appeared in New Raccoon City… in 2022.
The earlier timeline is what works best for Resident Evil. In its most entertaining moments, it’s a straightforward Netflix teen series — some of the platform’s most reliably enjoyable content, though never its best — with some light horror elements thrown on top. Reddick is great as an overworked-genius father who can’t pull himself away from work long enough to be a parent, and teens Jade and Billie are fun as sisters with very different personalities trying to fit in at a new school.
One of the series’ best scenes comes early on when Albert has to bail Billie out after some trouble at school. Reddick’s Wesker shows up, flexes his
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