Netflix Resident Evil season 1 recap guide: All 8 episodes explained

It’s here, it’s finally here! The live-action Netflix Resident Evil series has released on Netflix and you can now officially go watch all eight episodes!

Set in two separate timelines, the new series follows Albert Wesker and his two daughters in 2022 as they settle down in New Raccoon City. In 2022, the story takes place three months “before the end” while in 2036, a grown up Jade Wesker must contend with the outbreak.

Here’s the official logline:

"Year 2036 – 14 years after Joy caused so much pain, Jade Wesker fights for survival in a world overrun by the blood-thirsty infected and mind-shattering creatures. In this absolute carnage, Jade is haunted by her past in New Raccoon City, by her father’s chilling connections to the sinister Umbrella Corporation but mostly by what happened to her sister, Billie."

Below we’ll be recapping every episode of the season, so feel free to bookmark and follow along!

Netflix Resident Evil season 1 episode guide: Complete recaps for episodes 1-10

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The following article contains heavy SPOILERS, so keep that in mind while you’re looking through it. We’re breaking down each episode of the show’s first season, so if you have questions or want to learn more about the show, start reading!

Netflix Resident Evil episode 1 recap: Welcome to New Raccoon City

Netflix’s live-action Resident Evil series spins a story across two timelines, one in present-day 2022, three months before “the end,” and another in 2036, 14 years after the end. The 2022 timeline is the main storyline, for all intents and purposes, as it feels the most fleshed out and takes up a little more of the runtime than the 2036 timeline. However, the 2036 timeline is more action-packed and horrifying, with tons of mutant creatures and zombies running amok.

The first episode, aptly titled “Welcome to New Raccoon City,” introduces us to 14-year-old half-twins (they have different egg donors) Billie (Siena Agudong) and Jade (Tamara Smart) Wesker, daughters to Albert Wesker (Lance Reddick). Video game fans might be confused by this portrayal of Albert Wesker, as he’s a primary antagonist in the games, but stay tuned as the show dabbles into the character’s video game origins later in the season.

For now, all you need to know is that Albert is a top executive at Umbrella Corporation where he answers to his boss, Evelyn Marcus (Paola Núñez).  New Raccoon City is an Umbrella town complete with a high school and identical, symmetrical houses that are very white, pristine and picturesque. Neither Billie nor Jade is all that thrilled to be in this new town, despite Albert trying his best to get them excited. But of the two twins, Billie is more open to the idea than Jade, who is, well, jaded.

When we first meet the Wesker family, they seem, for all intents and purposes, relatively normal. Billie and Jade are typical teenage girls who just want to fit into their new world, particularly Billie, who got into some trouble at her old school. Kids started calling her a psycho because she had anger issues. Things don’t start to get weird until Albert collects their blood samples… and later injects himself with it. Not exactly your average dad behavior.

And things don’t get much better when they start school the next day. Almost immediately, Billie is targeted by an angsty outcast named Tammy Isaacs (Haseena Allie), who attacks Jade in the cafeteria. The two get into a physical fight and many of the students immediately whip out their cell phones to film the altercation and post it online. So much for a fresh start.

Meanwhile, we start to learn more about what exactly it is that Albert does for Umbrella. He’s the mastermind behind their new project, “Joy,” marketed as the ultimate antidepressant. Joy is essentially supposed to heal the world from things like anxiety and depression, eliminating suicide altogether.

But there have been problems with the drug, whisperings of an incident in Tijuana that ended badly. Albert tries to convince the board to postpone the drug’s release date and take a step back so he can work out the kinks, but they’re ready to move forward.

In the aftermath of the fight, Jade tries to convince Billie to stand up to her attacker and fight back. Don’t be a pushover. Having already been a declared a psycho at one school, Billie is hesitant to do that. She’d rather just let it go. Unfortunately, it won’t be that easy since Tammy is crazy and attacks Billie a second time when Billie tries to fix things—this time by slamming a lunch wrap in her face.

Since Billie doesn’t want to do anything, Jade takes the initiative. She disguises herself in a mascot suit and strikes Tammy with a rock while she’s on the toilet, stashing the mascot head in Billie’s locker afterward. The girls and their fathers are called into the principal’s office and we get to see Albert Wesker in action.

He’s chilling and threatening without raising his voice a single octave, effortlessly putting Tammy’s father in his place and forcing him to back down from his claims of pressing charges, lest he forget that Tammy attacked Billie first. Albert reminds Tammy’s dad that his job is easily replaceable, while Albert’s job makes him a far more important asset to Umbrella. Albert even manages to get Tammy to apologize to Billie.

Jade and Billie are suitably impressed, and a little freaked, by their dad’s demeanor. Later, Billie goes to Umbrella to visit him for lunch and while there, she notices a bunch of rabbits in cages.

She convinces Jade to sneak into Umbrella that night to release them (Billie is a vegan and fierce animal rights advocate, she previously freed a bunch of frogs at their old school). It’s the least Jade can do after the whole mascot-suit kerfuffle. Jade reluctantly agrees and they steal their dad’s card key to get into the building.

As you might expect, Billie and Jade sneaking around the Umbrella Corp. labs at night is a recipe for disaster. It doesn’t take long for things to awry. Jade logs onto her dad’s computer (he uses the same password for everything, Spock22, because all dads love Star Trek don’t they?), and ends up seeing the terrifying video footage from the Tijuana incident, though she doesn’t understand it yet.

And in the process of releasing rabbits, Billie also unleashes an infected Doberman, part of the Joy test trial. The dog charges the girls and despite trying to outrun it, the Doberman eventually gets its teeth into Billie in a vicious attack. It looks like it might kill her until Jade finds a fire extinguisher and bludgeons it death, but Billie’s fate is left up in the air.

Jumping forward to 2036, we pick up with Jade in London on her own. Fourteen years after whatever happens in 2022, Jade is now working for a secretive group called The University. The University’s mission is to preserve the old world, saving music, books, technology and whatever else they can get their hands on. They also conduct research on the zeroes, especially Jade.

When we catch up with her in 2036, Jade is on a solo mission testing zeroes for higher brain functioning. She wants to see if the virus is evolving and one way to do that is to see if they strategize while hunting or have a leader who can control them. This version of Jade also has a partner named Arjun (Ahad Raza Mir), who looks after her daughter, Bea (Ella Zieglmeir), while she’s gone.

Jade’s latest project involves using rabbits to lure out the zeros and test their hunting patterns. If they show higher brain functioning, it would mean that the virus is evolving, but nothing out of the ordinary happens, at least, not until Jade accidentally cuts herself. The zeros might not have a great sense of sight or hearing, but their sense of smell is keen and grows stronger over time. They immediately give chase to Jade who lures them into a ring of fire, courtesy of a back-up weapon she’s created.

Except, as things often do in these situations, everything goes from bad to worse when Jade’s weapon and the zombie massacre attracts something far more dangerous. A giant mutant caterpillar wakes up beneath the surface and rises to attack Jade, nabbing her leg and slamming her down onto a car where she falls unconscious. Where did the caterpillar come from? Well, when the T-virus infects animals,  it doesn’t necessarily kill them. Instead, it causes them to mutant and turn big and vicious.

Luckily for Jade, a passing group of scavengers find her and manage to kill the creature. They notice Jade sports a tattoo on her wrist indicating she’s a survivor from the first viral wave. They take her to the Brighton Freehold, which happens to be completely surrounded by zombies on all sides. Jade has no way out, which is intentional since the scavengers intend to turn her over to Umbrella. It turns out Jade has a big bounty on her head. Jade tries to make the scavengers leader, Tate, realize that Umbrella doesn’t make deals.

He’s signing his own death warrant by summoning them, but he ignores her. And when Umbrella does arrive, Jade is proven right as they don’t care about the scavengers and kill anyone in their way to get to Jade. A man named Baxter (Turlough Convery) arrive to take Jade with him. “Hi Jade. Your sister’s been looking for you.” Talk about a wham line.

It looks like between 2022 and 2036, Billie has gone over to the dark side. But Jade won’t go easily. Rather than become Umbrella’s prisoner, she opts to take her chance with the zombies, leaping over the side of the building into a pool of waiting zeroes. Fittingly, both timelines end with one sister’s life hanging in the balance.