Resident Evil season 1, episode 1 recap: Welcome to New Raccoon City

While Resident Evil is a franchise that’s best known for its video games, there have been quite a few film and television properties to pop up over the years. The latest just released on Netflix, and it is titled simply Resident Evil.

It is a completely new story and doesn’t have anything to do with the film franchise that starred Milla Jovovich as Alice, or the upcoming reboot movie that’s supposed to be released later this year. It also doesn’t have anything to do with the anime that was released on Netflix last year that also explored the world of Resident Evil.

This one is telling its own story, but many of the familiar Resident Evil trappings are still there.

Resident Evil Season 1 Episode 1 recap – Zeroes

Episode 1 opens fourteen years in the future, after the world has already ended and the zombie apocalypses has already happened. (Like most zombie movies and TV shows, the zombies aren’t actually called zombies within the world of the show. This time they’re called zeroes.)

We meet our main character, a scientist named Jade who is studying the zeroes. The experiments don’t seem to be going well, as there is no sign of societal growth in the zeroes nor any other indication that she isn’t wasting her time.

To make matters worse, a small cut on her arm brings the attention of the zeroes, forcing Jade to flee back to the safety of her camp, and set off her defenses. This saves her life but torches the zeroes that she had spent the last six months of her life studying.

Then, on top of all that, a fifty foot caterpillar comes out of nowhere and attacks her. Technically it comes from underground, but it definitely feels very much out of nowhere.

Resident Evil Season 1 Episode 1 recap – Umbrella Company Secrets

The story then shifts to the present day, three months before the outbreak that is doomed to end the world. We meet a high school Jade along with her half-twin sister Billie, and her father Albert Wesker.

Albert is being brought aboard the Umbrella company, and is joining the board of executives, causing the whole family to move to New Racoon City. This is a city made up entirely by the families of employees of Umbrella.

Jade is not happy about the move, to put it mildly, while Billie has more of a “make the best of it” approach to the move. As for their father Albert, well he takes blood from both of his daughters every two weeks, studies it, and then, unbeknownst to the girls, injects it into himself.

Not really relevant to his personality, but defiantly the biggest thing worth talking about when it comes to Albert. Why he does this is a mystery that is hopefully addressed later in the series.

Despite everybody’s parents working for the same company, Raccoon High School isn’t free from standard High School tropes. Billie winds up on the wrong side of a bully, who mocked her for being a vegan, and ends the first day with your classic brawl in the cafeteria.

Then an attempt to repair relationships the next day ends up with a burrito shoved in Billie’s face. Jade had recommended that Billie solve her bullying issue with some violence of her own, but she refuses, leaving Jade to take matters into her own hands.

Jade steals the school’s raccoon mascot costume and attacks the bully in the bathroom, then hides the costume in Billie’s locker, helping to ensure that Billie’s tormenter’s back off. However, this also gets Billie in trouble with the school.

Albert is called in, along with the father of the other student. What starts with the other father threatening to press charges against Billie, quickly devolves once Albert arrives to defend his daughter.

Albert points out that he is the only person in the world who can do what he does. What he does for Umbrella isn’t a hundred percent clear, but he’s the only one who can do it.

This means that if he were to throw his weight around, the father of the bully would be out of a job and could even be blacklisted from the industry if Albert so wished it. Albert gets Billie an apology from her bully along with a day off of school for mental health reasons.

Billie goes to meet her father for lunch at the lab the next day where she notices several crates of rabbits, indicating that Umbrella is performing animal testing somewhere in the lab. This doesn’t sit well with Billie who is, as we remember a vegan, and opposed to any kind of animal testing.

Especially from Umbrella whose stance against using animals is one of the bragging points about the company. Billie decides to sneak back into the lab after hours to gather evidence of animal testing to upload to the internet, dragging Jade along to make up for her framing earlier.

In the lab, the two girls discover the animal testing lab along with a mysterious video file on their dad’s computer titled, “Tijuana Incident” that showed Umbrella security guards shooting at several people. The girls also find a very ominous box, which of course they have to open.

Inside is a mutant dog, a classic Resident Evil monster that attacks the girls. They try to escape upstairs but are chased all the way back to the entrance.

The dog’s enhanced strength allows it to knock down doors and any barriers the sisters try to put in it’s path. Once at the entrance, the girl’s find the doors locked and themselves trapped, with the dog catching up and biting Billie, dragging her to the floor.

Luckily Jade grabs a fire extinguisher and beats the dog to death with it, but Billie is lying unresponsive on the floor, ending the present day part of the episode.

Resident Evil Season 1 Episode 1 recap – Jade’s Fate

Back in 2036, the adult version of Jade is “rescued” by group of scavengers who kill the kaiju caterpillar and bring her back to safety. There we get more information about the world in its post apocalypse status.

There are around 300 million humans left and around six billion zeroes to compare. The stronghold they are in is one of a handful around the world, where humans can still exist, although they have to go in and out by helicopter since the entire makeshift fortress is surrounded by hundreds of zeroes.

Oh, and we also confirm that zeroes aren’t technically dead, but are infected by the T-virus. Jade believes that as the T-virus mutates, humans might be able to better combat the virus.

We know that the T-virus does mutate, because it can get into animals, causing them to grow abnormally large, explaining the giant caterpillar from earlier. Things however, take a turn for the worse, when Jade discovers that the scavengers intend to turn her over to Umbrella and collect the reward on her which is why the world rescued was in quotation marks earlier in the recap.

Jade tries to convince the scavengers that Umbrella will betray them, but they ignore her, and are promptly betrayed by Umbrella as soon as they arrive. Once it’s confirmed that Jade is present, the Umbrella guards shoot everyone in the camp, and trap Jade at the top of the wall separating safety from the hundreds of zeroes below.

The leader of the Umbrella force tell Jade that it’s time to go, and that her sister is waiting for her, but she instead turns and leaps into the hoard of zeroes, ending the episode.

Is Jade dead? Why would she rather die than go with the Umbrella company and see her sister?

Let us know you thought of Resident Evil season 1 episode 1 in the comments below!

You can watch Resident Evil season 1, only on Netflix!