Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City Ending & Sequel Setup Explained
Johannes Robert's Resident Evil reboot sets up a number of unresolved narratives with Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City's climactic ending.
Warning: Contains SPOILERS for Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City.
The Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City ending contains several twists and turns en-route to setting up a tantalizing franchise sequel. Serving as a hard reboot for the Resident Evil movie franchise, Welcome To Raccoon City is designed as a love letter to fans of the original Resident Evil videogames, containing ample Easter eggs and callbacks to the classic Playstation titles. While Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City is largely faithful to its source material, its surprising ending allows ample room for other Resident Evil narratives to unfold.
Aligning primarily with the events of the first Resident Evil game, Welcome To Raccoon City centers on Claire (Kaya Scoledario) and Chris Redfield (Robbie Amell), two estranged siblings who are pulled back to the city they were orphaned in. Claire investigates the shady Umbrella corporation and their heinous experiments on children, while Chris is part of the STARS Alpha team dispatched to investigate a mysterious murder inside Spencer Mansion. However, little do the pair realize that they are quickly being pulled into a battle against the T-Virus-infected undead as the corrupt Umbrella company who caused the outbreak conspires against them.
Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City's ending is a shocking one that deviates from the original videogame narrative, taking many audiences by surprise. New Resident Evil director Johannes Roberts instead orchestrates a new ending for many of his key characters, and in the process, creates a tantalizing sequel opportunity for his rebooted Resident Evil movie franchise. Here's Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City's ending explained, as well as how it sets up a potential sequel.
After the surviving STARS team members discover the secret Umbrella lab below the Spencer Mansion, the bloody, climactic scenes of Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City play out. Albert Wesker (Tom Hopper) is the first to arrive in the hidden laboratory and is immediately shot in the chest by the leading Umbrella scientist William Birkin (Red Stone's Neal McDonough). Wesker returns fire, mortally wounding Birkin, who in a final desperate act injects himself with copious amounts of the genetically enhanced "G-Virus." Wesker subsequently reveals himself to be a spy by killing several of the STARS team before being shot dead by Jill Valentine (Hannah John-Kamen).
The remaining trio of Chris, Birkin's daughter Sherry (Holly De Barros), and Jill flee the now mutated version of Birkin through the tunnels of the Mansion. As they reach the underground train designed to aid Umbrella scientists fleeing the mansion, they are reunited with the surviving classic Resident Evil characters Leon (Avan Jogia) and Claire, who are able to obliterate the Birkin-zombie with a well-timed rocket launcher hit before the group flees the city. As the pre-planned Umbrella tactical strike destroys Raccoon City forever, an Umbrella report then flashes on the screen, confirming the Racoon City project a "success" before the credits roll. This twist not only marks a departure from the established videogame storyline, but also implies that Umbrella believes that it has successfully eradicated all traces of its illegal experiments, leaving plenty of room for a sequel.
One of the most bizarre elements of Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City's plot is the immunization the Raccoon City police department are provided by the Umbrella corporation. Welcome To Raccoon City's residents are quickly overrun by the T-Virus, an outbreak owed in no small part to the contaminated drinking water running through the city. Yet the RPD chief of police Brian Irons (Donal Logue) explains to Leon that he and his men were all given an antiviral shot by Umbrella representatives prior to the gore-filled events of Welcome To Raccoon City, which is seemingly at odds with the tactical strike planned by Umbrella that eventually obliterates Raccoon City from the face of the map.
While Umbrella's wider goals in Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City remain unexposed, it is inferred that William Birkin's wife, Annette (Janet Porter), immunized the Raccoon City PD without the authorization of the Umbrella company as she leaves her daughter there under chief Irons' protection. This would be a precarious move without the prior knowledge that the police are exempt from becoming undead, which in turn explains why The Licker eventually targets Irons and his fellow police after the shambling hordes fail to kill them. This series of events also mirrors the first two Resident Evil games, where Annette leaves her daughter with Leon and Irons at the station as she works (unsuccessfully) to stop the Umbrella experiment outbreak from spreading further into Raccoon City.
Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City's mid-credits scene offers one of the movie's biggest surprises and Easter eggs simultaneously as the camera pans in to reveal Wesker reawaken in a body bag. Wesker, unable to see, writhes inside the bag before an unknown figure aids him. The figure then hands Wesker a pair of sunglasses before revealing herself to be Ada Wong, the Resident Evil game series' mysterious antihero.
Originally released as a supporting character in Resident Evil 2 that works for the Umbrella company, Ada has since gone on to become a mainstay in the Resident Evil game series. Over the years, she develops a penchant for acting as Leon's guardian angel, saving him from increasingly dire situations despite her usually nefarious motives. In the context of Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City, Ada's appearance signals the Umbrella company's continued agency across the world, although her plans regarding bringing Wesker back to life are initially unclear.
The differences in narrative between the original Resident Evil games and Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City set up ample opportunities for a Johannes Roberts-led sequel. After a look at Raccoon City’s destruction, the movie's final scene shows an Umbrella report that defines the operation as successful. It infers Umbrella believes they were able to destroy all evidence of their work in Raccoon City when in reality, this is not the case. The survival of the primary Resident Evil characters Claire, Leon, Chris, Sherry, and Jill ensure there are still people aware of Umbrella's horrifying experiments, with the team's showdown against the wider Umbrella corporation an entirely possible thread for a Resident Evil sequel to follow.
This idea is backed up by Ada bringing Wesker back to life, with her ties to the Umbrella company likely influencing her decision to revive the double agent. While Wesker's employer was not overtly revealed during Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City's monster-filled runtime, Ada may well have revived him to access the information he gathered on Umbrella before his death. Ada's motivations and allies are also never revealed in her brief cameo, setting up an intriguing subplot for the next Resident Evil installment.
As the tactical strike that successfully destroys Raccoon City is a plot device introduced by Roberts' film, a future Resident Evil sequel will also need to expand on the Umbrella company's wider influence in the world. In the Resident Evil games, Raccoon City’s outbreak attracts the attention of the U.S. government, but in the movie, Umbrella destroys all evidence of their heinous bioweapons. This ensures any version of Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City 2 needs to explain Umbrella's goals in more detail, and subsequently show how the surviving Resident Evil characters can take down the evil corporation.