Resident Evil season 1, episode 7 recap: Parasite

The seventh episode of Resident Evil starts with a flashback for the flashback storyline. We move all the way back to 2005 where we see Albert in some kind of Umbrella lab.

Albert is also there, as well as another Albert. And a fourth Albert.

It seems that Albert and his clones have been working on something top secret for Umbrella but are doing so in secret. Also, despite being clones, each Albert has developed his own personality.

For example, one Albert, referred to as Bert, seems to be looked down upon by the others. They suggest that he’s something of a mess and is unable to keep up with the other Alberts on an intellectual level.

There’s also a Blade Albert, meaning that one of the Alberts dresses up like Wesley Snipes as Blade. (For those at home who are still trying desperately to connect this show to the rest of the Resident Evil franchise, this guy is probably the Albert Wesker from the video games.)

Umbrella foot soldiers break into the lab saying that the research is unauthorized. Blade Albert kills a few of the Umbrella soldiers, but he also kills some of the Alberts saying that he’s getting rid of the evidence.

Evelyn shows up, and the gunfire ceases. She takes stock of the unusual number of Alberts in the room, which brings us to the present day.

Resident Evil Season 1 Episode 7 recap – 2022

The clone that we met at the end of the last episode was Bert. We learn that the Albert we’ve been following the whole series is a clone as well.

Albert and Bert talk for a few minutes, but Evelyn shows up to continue Albert’s interrogation, having confirmed that the journalist was killed by his injection. As Albert is pulled from the room, he mentions his daughters which seems to spark an idea in Bert.

Bert shaves off his beard to look even more like his identical clone, Albert, and escapes from the lab killing a guard in the process. Meanwhile Jade and Billie have gone to school trying to pretend everything is normal but are worried about Albert.

They haven’t heard from him since he went to Umbrella. At the end of the school day, it seems that Albert has arrived to pick them up as if everything is normal.

This is obviously Bert, but the girls don’t know that, leading to a classic case of dramatic irony as they can’t seem to understand why their father is suddenly so interested in Olive Garden. At the restaurant, Bert tells the girls that he is not their father but a clone of the same person that their father is a clone of.

Billie and Jade are understandably stressed out by this information and are not even sure whether or not to believe it. But the revelations are interrupted by Umbrella tracking down Bert and the girls.

He puts on quite a display killing, or at least severely injuring, a few of the guards, but is eventually taken down. The girls are taken to Umbrella where Evelyn is waiting for them.

She info dumps on the girls, confirming that their father is, in fact, a clone, and that he is also falling apart due to some unstable cells as a result of the cloning process. She reveals to them that he needs their blood to survive.

She proves it by giving an almost dead Albert a syringe of Jade’s blood, forcing him to inject himself in front of his daughters. Billie yells at Albert for having lied to them their entire life.

The two sisters leave to contemplate the massive amounts of world-shattering information they’ve just been given. Meanwhile, back in the future…

Resident Evil Season 1 Episode 7 recap – The Big Showdown

Adult Jade investigates the head of the Mother Zero, and finds a tracking chip, meaning that she was responsible for Umbrella locating the University. The head of the organization meets with Evelyn who has come all this way to negotiate.

She asks for Jade in exchange for letting the rest of the University go. It’s a deal that’s hard to argue with when Umbrella is holding all the cards.

Jade is brought to shore to meet with Evelyn. Once she is alone with her sister, it’s revealed that Evelyn is completely under the control of Billie.

It seems that Billie’s final moments of tender, sisterly love from the last time we saw her, were not as sincere as we’ve been led to believe. She’s been in control of Umbrella, using Evelyn like a puppet to run the organization from the shadows.

With her reveal to be the mastermind of the main bad guys, Billie also reveals her plans to undo everything that the University has been working on. She explains that their plan to preserve the past is a bad one since bad things happened in the past.

And at of the end of the episode, she’s given no further motivation for her actions. So that’s it.

Jade, in an effort to stop Billie, pulls out her big move, smashing a vial of the pheromone she managed to extract from the Mother Zero. The one that attracts other Zeroes.

In a manner of minutes an overwhelming swarm is attacking the Umbrella base. The two sisters stand side by side, as they watch the horde tear down the defenses between them, waiting for what seems like their final demise as the episode comes to a close.

Resident Evil Season 1 Episode 7 review

An overwhelming horde of zombies feels like this is what the show has been waiting for. It’s a Resident Evil show after all.

Other than the sequence in the tunnels way back in episode three, not much of the show has felt very Resident Evil. Sure, there have been some things that have tied into the greater mythology for those who really know their Resident Evil.

But for the most part, you could rename a few characters, set it in a different city, and give the evil cooperation a new name, and you’d be free and clear. You may not even really consider it a zombie story at that point.

There have been zombies in the show, but for a series that’s relying so much on a franchise that’s famous for its zombies, they’ve been frustratingly sparse throughout the show. So, it feels like maybe this overwhelming mass was supposed to be the payoff.

This was supposed to be the scene that we’ve been waiting for this whole time while watching a zombie show. But it feels too little, too late.

The onslaught of hundreds of zombies feels muted and small here. There is a large number of zombies yes, but they don’t create the overwhelming presence that the scene seemed to be going for.

Maybe it’s in the way that the sequence was shot. There’s no memorable moment that stands out from the zombie onslaught, leaving the whole thing to feel repetitive and generic.

Maybe it’s in the time dedicated to the attack. Within a matter of seconds, Umbrella is overrun, with the zombies tearing down the fence and coming after the two main characters.

This scene was meant to be a showdown of the two greatest forces in the Resident Evil universe. The never-ending horde of zombies against the infinite resources of the Umbrella cooperation, and it takes up only a few minutes of screen time.

Of course, there is still one episode to go. It’s not like the zombie issue is fixed by the end of this episode, so maybe were still building to a payoff that will make all of this feel like the building of anticipation in retrospect.

But we’ve got less than an hour of Resident Evil left, and there’s a whole lot of things that need to be done if that final episode is hoping to right this ship.

How do you think season 1 will conclude? Are Jade and Billie going to get killed by zombies?

Let us know your thoughts of Resident Evil season 1 episode 7 in the comments below!

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