"My sister is no more. I was 14 when she passed away.
Around the halfway mark of the ominously titled fourth episode, "The Turn," Jade informs her Umbrella pursuer-turned-cellmate (Turlough Convery), what she has learned. Jade's comment, though, appears to call for an Obi-Wan Kenobi-style "...from a particular point of view" at the episode's conclusion. An issue from prior episodes is brought to the forefront in this one: Is Billie's T-virus infection intended to still be active in 2022?
Hell no, even if the program has already made references to Billie being alive in some capacity in 2036. In the days following being bitten by an undead-looking and diseased dog, the 2022 version of Billie has had violent outbursts, hallucinations, and sensitivity to both light and sound. She has a classic case of the T-virus, based on what we know about it. But even as she eagerly counts down the three days until the purported moment of her change, she demands to be transported to a high school party at the start of "The Turn." Despite obviously feeling that the party is a horrible idea, her sister Jade claims that she will be OK and is only recovering from a short-term sickness. Jade is the kind of girl who will openly despise a social event and have a lot better time there than her sister (sharp portrayal here). Billie, though, is certain, pointing out that their father allegedly said they didn't need to quarantine. It could also be a test for Jade, who can't really say she thinks her sister will endanger others while simultaneously maintaining that nothing strange will happen to her at the crucial three-day point.
Perhaps inadvertently, it is evocative of the COVID period tightrope walker who would convince a person with a cough to leave home and avoid quarantine by stating, "Well, I just tested negative. What further details do I have? Her father claims that Billie should be alright. According to Billie's sister, everything should be alright. Nobody warns her that she has to isolate herself or that she may mutate into a nasty zombie. She attends the party, is disappointed when Jade turns her attention to Simon, and ends up isolating herself nevertheless (after a sweet skateboard trick her sister fails to notice). The Wesker sisters are then found by the amateur reporter Jade had earlier called, who provides them with some unexpected information: His study indicates that Albert Wesker passed away in 2009. And, at least on paper, Jade and Billie Wesker don't exist.
This is most likely the greatest twist, or at least one that wasn't as obvious as the one shown in the last moments of the episode: When the timer goes off, Billie does not change. She survives. Despite the data, she hugs her sister while she is still alive. Previously, the program had Billie slated for death in 2022 and mentioned that she was still alive in 2036. Now, it shows Billie surviving in 2022 and mentions that she is dead in 2036. The more significant and as-yet-unknown twist is this: if Albert Wesker has been dead since 2009, what has kept him alive for the previous 13 years?
Despite being one of the longest thus far, the current Resident Evil episode is very tight and suspenseful. Jade avoids death in the future, whereas Billie does so in the past. The Brotherhood, who appear to dominate some regions, has caught Jade, and she is speaking with their commander, who is, well, maybe French? (All of their base's signage is in German.) From a fashion standpoint, what nationality "vaguely resembles Gary Oldman in True Romance"? He is that. While the details of this death cult are hazy and what is revealed is largely standard fare for a horror story (a group of individuals who think that a horrifying or supernatural incident was a work of God? You omit to say!), it does offer a wonderful chance for Jade and her flip Umbrella foe to sneak into some shadowy passageways and start shooting things. To put it another way, this is a rehash of Resident Evil Classic with the addition of the idea of a T-virus that has advanced to the point where it has produced a zombie queen, which Jade axes to pieces with a chainsaw.
In the previous episodes, Turlough Convery's character had a tendency to feel like an atonal effort at dark-comic relief; but, by removing him from Umbrella's pursuit of Jade and making him a sort of de facto friend, his chippiness is more easily tolerated. It also shows how brutal this business is, which makes it feel compared to its forebears: This Irish man transforms from a moderately unpleasant side character adversary to real comedic relief to a gun-toting badass mowing down zombies in a particularly blatantly fan-pleasing scenario in less than an hour. (I was really thrilled by this since I have no shame.) That isn't even his final appearance; at the end of the episode, Nearly as soon as the authors consumed character concepts for him, he was devoured by zombies. An oddly reassuring aspect of zombie television is this: While there are still some of the aforementioned fatal-injury-just-kidding-it's-a-flesh-wound shenanigans that have become endemic in genre films and TV (Convery's character getting shot and being more or less fine, for example), you can be certain that when a guy gets dogpiled by a group of hungry zombies, he is dead for real.
Billie, though, may live in a more liminal state. What's the difference between being alive and being dead (and undead)? is a subject that the series appears to be asking more Romero-like than the more action-oriented movies have bothered with, what with its dead-on-paper family, zombie-not-zombie sister, and developing zombies. What steps is mankind doing to nudge that line itself?
Resident Evil Afterlife
The fact that the episode's true finale, which includes another organization (Umbrella, probably?) capturing Jade in 2036, barely registers is a credit to the quality of what follows before it.
The reporter, who has Tijuana origins, is also abducted by Umbrella and appears prepared to strike a deal with Evelyn Marcus.
Although Jade and Bille's ages are given in a previous episode, they don't particularly read as 14-year-olds. This is presumably because both of them would have been approximately 16 at the time of filming. They are presumably being aged down more fairly compare to Ella Balinska, who is already 25 and acting 28. No one's age is being singled out here; I'm just perpetually intrigued by the strange young-adult nexus where performers and characters can be at least a decade apart.
A party on a building site that eerily resembles a Williamsburg Pool Party from the 2000s is attended by teenagers from New Raccoon City.
This episode also significantly strengthens the program's reputation for terror. Jade using a chainsaw in the same year as the most recent (and rather undervalued) Texas Chainsaw sequel/reboot strengthens Netflix's position as the go-to streaming service for bloody chainsaw action.
So in Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, one of the best of the Resident Evil movies, the endlessly cloned character Dr. Alexander Isaacs has one incarnation that has become convinced that the T-virus is the will of God and uses the resultant zombies to further his newfound religious fanaticism. I don’t think that’s what anyone had in mind with the Brotherhood here (I wouldn’t be surprised if the creators of this show were as attentive to the older movies as director/writer Paul W.S. Anderson was to the old videogames, which is to say: not especially), but it’s a cool parallel.
Click here for more trending news