The Resident Evil franchise on the visual medium is like the undead. It keeps coming back, mutated, transformed and rebooted.
Off the trail of an ill-fated movie reboot, it was rebirthed as a TV series.
The eight-part TV series now haunts the corridors (or the user interface) of Netflix, and would it die or would it keep coming back?
Let’s put it to the test.
First impression was that the series was truly an attempt to reboot the franchise into a brand-new story with a Resident Evil flavour. They did try to do something different as compared to its predecessors.
To start with, the story was told on two timelines simultaneously. In this way, we got to see the events before and after, without dwelling on the good old way of a pure origin story. That’s an innovative way to move the story forward and engage the audience – if – and only if – they did it right. I am not saying that the overarching story was bad, in fact, it was interesting in some areas. It feels like it was a hybrid of Resident Evil and The Last of Us. So, I don’t have much issues about it. But, the characterisation of the show was just, how could I put it delicately? Was just, hm, bad.
For this, I am not talking about the background and the motivation of each character, but about the lead character, who seemed to have learnt nothing, over that span of the whole period the show covered. Jade, who was supposed to be a genius in her own right, according to her father, seemed to have learnt nothing over the years about her actions, without learning anything about the blood trail she left behind because of her actions, and without learning anything about the stupidity of all the decisions she made throughout all these years. What I want from her is not an ‘I am sorry’ plus ‘cry cry’ scene in nearly every episode, but wanted to see her learnt and grew from all those actions, especially if she was supposed to be a real genius. That was nothing ingenious in all the actions she carried out, and all the decisions she made. She was still that stupid, impulsive, narcissistic teenager we saw her in the opening scene. In fact, if she learnt anything after the first stupid action she took, we might not have the series, which for a lot of audience, could be a blessing in disguise.
I can go on and on about how badly the Jade character was written, especially as the supposedly lead of the whole series. I just could not see how and why so many people were willing to put their lives on the line for her, friends or foes alike, to keep her alive. That illogical foundation just completely ate the good bits of the show inside out, turning it into a senseless indifferent horror show, like the T-virus turning the infected into zombies. And I apologise in advance for insulting the zombies as such.
In fact, it was a pity that Jade was set up as the lead, because all the other characters were so much more interesting. Billie, her sister, was a lot more understandable for her actions, although she was also stupid at the beginning. But as I said, when you were at your early teens, you do stupid things. That was forgivable, but she learnt. And that is the most important part. She was dragged along for the freak show, when she had again and again, asked for normality and not to carry on. But she went along because her narcissistic sister wanted her to come along for the ride. She became who she was because she thought her sister would be there for her whenever she needs her. And what about Jade? Did she really care about the sisterhood in then end? Jade took a side and a stance, but could not live with the consequence, so she blame-shifted to Billie, and thought why Billie became who she is now. Sounds bad to say this, but I thought Billie had every right to be angry.
Albert Wesker was one of the more interesting takes on this classic Resident Evil character. Although in one of the flashbacks, he just gave me a strong Blade vibe. However, Lance Reddick, in my opinion, did a very good original take of this character, making the character his own. He displayed his versatility with a more complex character, more complex than any other of the characters in the show, and made him interesting to watch when he is on the screen.
There are lots of other characters too, but with the emphasis being on the ill-created Jade, they all rendered quite inconsequential to the story in the end, which was a pity, because some of them were very likeable and I did want to see them more, any time over Jade, to be honest with you.
This is a Resident Evil show, so one thing I did appreciate was the Easter Egg heavy bits in every single episode. Be it being mentioned in the dialogues, or the actualisation of them on the screen, making an impact. Although some of them might not make sense as Easter Eggs on the show’s narrative, after watching Jade on screen for nearly 8 hours, everything other nonsensical bits become a joy of distraction to pull you back in the Resident Evil world.
Resident Evil is now streaming on Netflix.
