As a culture, we are strangely obsessed with twins. Something about seeing an individual person in repeat strikes a chord with many people, a phenomenon fully on display in Dead Ringers, the new Amazon Prime series starring Rachel Weisz as a pair of identical twin sisters and acclaimed gynecologists. As a starring vehicle, no actor could hope for a better showcase for their ability to display tiny differences in performance, and Weisz does not disappoint in the slightest.Dead Ringers Season 1 Download
The premiere episode of Dead Ringers (of six, which all dropped to Amazon Prime Video at once) opens with a scene that is a pitch-perfect encapsulation of both the twins and the show as a whole. Beverly and Elliot Mantle first appear facing each other across a late-night diner booth, eating a post-surgery meal, when an oafish man interrupts to first ask if they are twins, and then, taking the boldest of bold shots, if they’re up for a threesome.Both twins respond in highly individual, equally eviscerating ways. Elliot first sarcastically plays into his incestual fantasy, before mockingly dubbing him “Larry” apropos of nothing, while Beverly dresses him down for assuming they exist for his masculine pleasure, especially after they literally just sliced open a woman’s stomach to deliver a child. It’s a clear, tidy display of how these ostensibly identical women both react to the word in very different ways.Moreover, the dark humor, queasy sexuality, and description of graphic, gory surgery are pretty good prep for the episode (and series) ahead. The majority of the first episode of Dead Ringers follows the two very codependent twins at their work, where they deliver babies, see women and newborns die, experiment on human cells in dubiously legal ways, and swap identities when convenient. It immediately plunges viewers into the constant, massive stress and the brutal nature of the American OB-GYN system, as well as the Mantle sisters’ tenuous grip on professionalism.