Dead Ringers (2023) is a modern take on David Cronenberg’s movie with the same title. The series is starring Rachel Weisz, Britne Oldford, Poppy Liu, Jennifer Ehle, and Michael Chernus. The series premiered on Amazon Prime Video on April 21, 2023.
This series explores the co-dependent relationship of Mantle twins where they usually switch position when Beverly feel too afraid to handle a patient. The twins are consider genius because of their exceptional skills and achievements in the field of gynecology. Beverly envisions a future where she can provide a truly comfortable childbirth experience for her patients, while Elliot is driven by her desire to extensively study and understand all aspects related to making babies out of the womb and infertility. They are highly regarded for their expertise and pioneering techniques in giving birth and because of that they are able to build birthing center, Mantle-Parker Center. The story starts its conflict when Genevieve appears. They are visited by popular actress Genevieve, and Beverly is a huge fan of hers. She’s too overwhelmed to examine her and ends up swapping with her sister Elliot. Genevieve and Beverly fall in love then decide to bring their relationship in more serious step. Elliot feels that she is somewhat abandoned because she thought that they are on the same team.
Elliot end up having a mental breakdown in her apartement, doing drugs, and accidentally killing a homeless lady by pushing her from balcony. Beverly realized that something was wrong with Elliot, so she decided to nurse Elliot back to health, and Elliot confesses to Bev about the homeless lady. Bev finds it difficult to accept that her sister could be capable of murder, especially since there is no evidence of a body. they consider it a hallucination. Genevieve leave Beverly since Beverly and Elliot close to each other again. The twins decided to be co-parent for the baby in Beverly’s womb.
The Mantle twins embark on a trip to open a new flagship center and deliver quadruplets. During the delivery at the birthing center, Elliot’s obsession with truth and accusation causes her to accidentally injure the mother’s bladder. The accident makes the twins divided. Bev struggles with the constant buzzing of a phone, uncertain about whether to answer Elliot’s calls and questioning their reality. She seeks comfort in her relationship with Genevieve, but their harmony is disrupted when Genevieve requests that Beverly abandon her job, reigniting past conflicts revolving around Elliot. During an awards ceremony, Genevieve’s probing prompts Beverly to distance herself publicly from Elliot. Eventually, Beverly leaves Genevieve and returns home to an atmosphere of disorder. In her sister’s bed, she finally decides to pick up the phone, symbolizing her return to her familial roots.
In the end, a heavily pregnant Beverly reconciles with Ellie and apologizes for distancing herself. Ellie praises Beverly’s beauty and perfection, but Bev recalls a recurring dream of losing Ellie in water, revealing her fear of losing her sister and fabricating stories about her absence. She is incapable of happiness and decided to “climb inside her”. The next scene, Beverly lay down on a surgery table while Elliot perform C-sention on her. She is also cut her stomach and make her appearance looks like Beverly. She is taking the babies out of her secret lab and leaving Beverly to die. Covered in blood, Ellie emerges with the newborns and is rescued. When she regains consciousness, Rebecca confronts her with a knowing expression, hinting at the possibility of the sisters swapping roles. Knowing about Beverly giving birth, Genevieve rush back from work as actress straight to birthing center. She doesn’t know if Beverly is gone and the person she meet is Elliot.
Here is my opinion about this series:
Personally and not trying to be biased, I like Dead Ringers (2023) because I get the same feeling as if I’m watching the original movie (1988). It is grotesquely beautiful! I enjoy the thrill, the blood-splashing scene, and the relationship between the Mantle twins. Rachel Weisz plays the character so well that I almost forgot that it was played by only one actress haha…
The positive things about this series are:
- Ethical and unethical
I admire the creator’s decision to include the scene that explains that today’s advanced health technology is obtained from many human surgical experiments, many of which violate ethics. I like how they capture it through Beverly’s dream of a pregnant black woman scene, where she feels doubt inside her and thinks that she participates in the brutal and unethical side of being a gynecologist and ob-gyn. In a different scene, we see that Elliot developing twin human-baby inside a test tube. It is something that can be considered unethical, but it can also be seen as a groundbreaking development in the field of medicine. - The birth scene
The twins are not wrong when they said that they are going to push the boundaries on medical ethics — in an effort to challenge antiquated practices and bring women’s healthcare to the forefront. They learn from the previous patients, evaluate, and improve it by opening a birthing center, Mantle-Parker Center. They create many kinds of approaches where women can feel safe while giving birth to their children. Just like what Bevely always said “radicalism always start with something small”. Everyone thought that birthing centers were a silly idea and didn’t make much money for investors, but they were wrong about it. - Blood splashing-scene
The blood splashing scene in Dead Ringers is a powerful and visually striking moment that serves multiple purposes in this series. It adds a shock factor and contributes to the series’ overall atmosphere of horror and unease. Spoiler alert! there is this scene where both Elliot and Beverly help someone to deliver 4 babies out. I still feel the gosebump and have take my eyes off the screen for several minutes because that scene is very graphic. Usually when movie or series shows birth scene, they would show the surgeon being busy with their surgeon tools while talking with each other and then the next scene they suddenly show that the baby already out of the womb. Dead ringers present this scene differently, they actually show the scene where the surgeon performs a C-section and vaginal section to take the baby from the uterus. I’m both glad and terrified that they chose this approach to show how childbirth happens. Glad that someone doesn’t think that giving birth is a taboo thing to show in the series. Also terrified because this is the first time I see it and try to stay brave to watch until the end of the show.
The negative things about this series are:
- Greta’s story.
Before anyone comes at me while holding a pitchfork, I going to remind you that I love Greta. Her character brings something new to the series. She is not in David Cronenberg’s original version. She looks amazing in all those outfits despite being the Mantle twins’ personal assistant (we all know the stereotype behind “personal assistant” including not dressing well in other series/movies, but in this series, she looks STUNNING!!!). I feel that Greta’s story is like a separate entity in this series. I wish that her story has something to do with the ending that related to Elliot and Beverly. - Genevie
I’m surprised that Genevieve didn’t notice Elliot right away and live together instead she just realized that it was Elliot and not Beverly after a woman from Beverly’s support group came to talk to Elliot about Beverly. It is just so odd for me because Genevieve is the first person to notice when the twins switch positions at a party. Another possibility is that Genevieve knew that Beverly already gone and decided play along with Elliot’s plan and forced to accept one of the twins to co-parent and raise their babyn with. - The ending scene
I hope that they would make clearer ending because turns out I’m not the only one who feel confuse about it. There a lot of people who feel confuse about it. Also, the ending is consider shocking because [SPOILER] Beverly reunited and asking Elliot to help her delivering her baby through C-section. It all because she is not capable of happiness and think that it will be better if only one of them live and both are agree. No one can’t understand their decision because their co-depent relationship is very fucked up. They can’t stand the separation anxiety and decided to become one through this process.
In the end, Dead Ringers is a creepy reminder that our minds can be fragile and hold dark secrets. It challenges us to face uncomfortable truths and think deeply about who we really are. With its disturbing exploration of psychological torment, Dead Ringers is a remarkable horror story that forces us to question our own perceptions and the reality we live in.
Hi, if you like this content you can tip me here. Thank you :)
