Netflix’s Resident Evil villains feel more monstrous than in the movies

The world of Resident Evil is largely a clear world: You have your good guys and your bad guys, the latter in the form of both horrifying creatures (zombie and spider and the like) and capitalist monsters at Umbrella Corporation.

[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for Resident Evil season 1.]

Although Netflix’s Resident Evil series takes all it can get from the Resident Evil universe – with everything and whatever considered typical gospel – the actresses who play two of the show’s most nefarious characters are happy that their roles feel mysterious in their villainous roles.

“I mean, ‘understood’ means complicated [for characters]right?” Adeline Rudolph, who plays the adult Billie Wesker, told Polygon, “If you ask Siena [Agudong]Young Billie […] That’s a completely different program, isn’t it? “

For her, older Billie captured the promise that a TV show could give the Resident Evil series decades of its life: How does a character live, or even development, in such a fierce world? In the end, she accepts that Billie is a nuanced but singular character of the world.

“I think for older Billie, it was absolutely a story of heartbreak, pain and trauma. Of survival. And then choose a path where she feels she can best survive in this future world,” said Rudolph. “She is very one-sided with [how she sees the future] Because she’s been through so much, she now believes she has the final answer to how we’re going to move forward. Because everything else has been destruction in her life. ”

Although she comes from a very different place in the story, Paola Núñez feels the same way about her character, Evelyn, the poreless, villainous face of the Group’s reckless greed. Umbrella in the 2022 timeline.

Photo: Marcos Cruz / Netflix

“I think Evelyn’s story is in the corporate world, and how to succeed in the corporate world and how to be the best – she wanted to be the best, and she wanted to be the best. known, she wants to be respected in the world, Núñez said.

While her plot speaks to the brutal irresponsibility of Umbrella’s entire goal, it also speaks to a world desperate for a cure before zombies become the biggest problem. The antidepressant Joy that Evelyn is trying to bring to market (too quickly) is her brainchild, a push to turn away from biotech and tap into some genius instead. evil to cure depression, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder. OCD is a especially hard to cure medical condition, but there is no cure for mental illness; Most use some combination of therapy and medication for control.

While Big Pharma has always been an important part of Umbrella Group’s overall operations, Netflix’s Resident Evil not approaching Umbrella is bad simply because they are engaged in shady activities; instead, the entire system behind the business seems to have rotted, even as they are trying to do the right thing. In their own way, Billie and Evelyn represent how that system can evangelize people to keep it going.

“[Evelyn] really thinks she can change the world for the better. Of course, she just didn’t think about the consequences,” Núñez said. “So her ego is too big that she’s forgetful or she distances herself from others in a way that makes her lose all empathy and she makes the wrong choices.”

Not everyone who made bad choices worked with the dreaded T virus that led to a rampant zombie outbreak that turned some six billion people into flesh-eating monsters. But with Resident Evil, There is room for the possibility that not all mistakes are born of the desire to do (wait for it) evil.

Additional reporting by Joshua Rivera.