Lance Reddick in Resident Evil May Get Me to Watch Resident Evil

The new Resident Evil sequence on Netflix dropped earlier this week. The conceit of the present, primarily based on Capcom’s long-running survival horror franchise, is the franchise’s lengthy working baddies, the Umbrella Corporation, have established a utopia haven referred to as New Raccoon City within the yr 2022. But in 2036, the place the present’s different timeline is about, every part in New Raccoon’s gone to hell, and it’s infested with zombies once more. Linking the 2 timelines collectively are the Wesker household; daughters Jade (Ella Balinska in 2036, Tamara Smart in 2022) and Billie (Adeline Rudolph/Siena Agudong) and their father Albert Wesker, one of many large gamers within the RE franchise and right here performed by beloved character actor Lance Reddick.

Full disclosure, I haven’t seen the present but, however I do have myself a comfortable spot for Reddick, who I do suppose is considered one of our greatest character actors round. Ever since I first noticed him on Fringe as Agent Philip Broyles all these years in the past, his voice and presence have caught with me. I haven’t seen every part he’s in, however within the issues that I’ve seen to characteristic him—such because the John Wick movies, the Horizon video games, and Destiny—he’s nice. Every phrase out of his mouth has the gravitas of a Final Fantasy villain about to wreck your shit, and I can’t assist however love him. And if there have been any character he’d be match to play, it will be Wesker, a person who seems like an anime villain did a fusion dance with a character from The Matrix.

Netflix’s Resident Evil appears to agree, as Reddick performs a number of Albert Weskers all through the primary season. As proven within the penultimate episode “Parasite,” the household man Wesker is a clone named Albert, who has a pair of fellow clones within the type of Bert and Alby. The present’s canon makes use of the video games as a basis for all its sci-fi nonsense, and in 2009’s Resident Evil 5, Wesker died after Chris Redfield and Sheva Alomar blew him up with rocket launchers inside a volcano. (Yes, for real.) But earlier than he died, he managed to create the clones in an effort to make sure his villainous legacy would dwell on.

All of this could be an honest sufficient extension of the totally nonsense mythology of Resident Evil, and permits for a short little bit of levity because the episode opens. When Alby and Bert are launched, it’s primarily performed for laughs, to indicate how even a traditional human Wesker is so unbearable that he wouldn’t be capable to get together with two different variations of himself. The sight of watching gravely severe Lance Reddick bicker along with his fellow clones, with considered one of them having a really foolish beard to assist inform them aside, can be sufficient to pique my curiosity.

But then they needed to go and present Reddick as the unique, superhuman badass Wesker who terrorized many a Resident Evil sport, and he simply seems to be nice. With these shades, and that ridiculous wig and trenchcoat, Reddick seems to be like he’s auditioning to steal Mahershala Ali’s spot as Blade for the MCU, and I’ll be damned if he doesn’t look nice doing it. He manages to offer the character a real sense of dread as he lumbers from clone to clone, staring them down and silently bullying them into complying along with his calls for.

Why is he black? According to showrunner Andrew Dabb when talking to TheGamer, Wesker isn’t so dedicated to the thought of a race of good people that he would let himself be a single race. “We should probably not assume all eugenics equal Ubermensch,” he argued, “because I think that’s a very specific reading of history.” Were somebody a “true eugenicist,” Dabb continued, they’d perceive that it is smart for good people to be extra various slightly than a coalition of white individuals with Aryan blood. “I don’t think the character, the OG character Wesker in our show is eugenicist, but he wants to create the perfect human.”

Eugenics was a time period coined in 1883 by Sir Francis Galton, and is an idea that argues human with “superior genes” would create a brand new and improved human race. Often backed with scientific language as a way to legitimize it, it’s rooted in racism and classism, and has been used all through historical past by the Nazis, Ancient Greece, and the United States. It’s been on the core of Resident Evil because the starting, moreso than the zombies, and the white, blond Wesker is clearly made with the Ubermensch best in thoughts. The thought of him cloning himself to be extra various very a lot seems like the need to solid Reddick got here first, then the justification got here second. But it’s simply bizarre and silly sufficient to catch my consideration.

So sure, I’ll watch you, Resident Evil. You’re in all probability not nice, as a result of the franchise is lovably inconsistent and the earlier forays into dwell motion have been hit and miss, however I’ll tune in for this. Everybody’s bought at the least one actor who they’ll mark out for, and Lance Reddick simply occurs to be mine. And in the event that they get to do extra seasons and really play with the importance of a black Wesker, it’ll make the present much more attention-grabbing.

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