Dead Ringers Review

It took me a grand total of one episode of Dead Ringers to determine that this is not a show for me. But, like a good critic, I kept watching, wanted to make sure I provided the best breakdown of what worked on the series and what didn’t – and trying to keep my own issues with the basic premise of the show away from that analysis. And, despite being a series about a host of despicable characters with few, if any, redeemable characteristics, there are some positives to be had here. Unfortunately, unless you enjoy delving into a story about people you almost certainly wouldn’t want to spend 15 minutes with in real life – and whose motivations are either murky at best or wholly illegal and unethical at worst – well, I’m not sure this one is going to be worth your time.

I feel that I should preface this review by saying that I don’t mind watching despicable people do despicable things – HBO’s Succession is, for my money, the best series currently airing on television right now and you’d be hard pressed to find a character on that series you could trust any further than you could throw them. However, the characters on Dead Ringers are style over substance – they do or say something troubling and then there’s little to no consequence for the statement or moment. It’s hollow in a way that the storytelling shouldn’t allow it to be. Because this series – which pulls key elements of its characters and plot from the Jeremy Irons film of the same name – has the ability to be something more than shock value with awful people. The cast is stellar, with Rachel Weisz taking on the lead roles of identical twin gynecologists Elliot and Beverly Mantle, Poppy Lieu playing the mysterious Greta, Britne Oldford as Genevieve, a popular actress who catches the eye of both twins for different reasons, and the great Jennifer Ehle as Rebecca, a businesswoman the twins are trying to woo to help them with their dream of opening a birthing clinic. But the execution of the story is a mess.

You see, like many a story dealing with identical twins, there’s a creepy element to the existence of the Mantles. Eliott is the Id of the pair, manically reacting to the world around her with little to no regard for how her actions impact anyone else, save for occasionally cloaking her wants and needs as a means to “help” her sister. Moreover, she has a need to maintain control over her sister and is threatened by anyone or anything that appears to come between them (and yes, that includes Genevieve). As for Beverly, she’s the Ego of the pair, more measured, more reasoned, and the one you likely would want to hang out with in a bar. Unfortunately for Beverly, a lifetime living alongside her hellion of a twin has turned her painfully inward, wherein she doubts herself at times and is all too happy to cede control over elements of her life to her sister. It’s a toxic as hell relationship and one that plays out precisely how you would expect it to on screen. Now, if you’re someone who can watch these various manipulations occur and find entertainment in going down that particular narrative path, this might be a show for you. Personally, it all felt rather repetitive to me after only a short time and I had a hard time finding the energy to continue watching Eliott’s actions without desperately wishing I could punch her – which, isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as we aren’t meant to think Eliott is in the right as she essentially abuses her sister and those around her for her own glee – so I had a hard time getting into a story that saw her as a central element.

Lest you think my only issues was with the Mantle twins (and, it should be said, Weisz is great in the dual role – something that is still not an easy thing to pull off even with our current technology), the story is littered with awful people. Ehle, who is great in the role, plays a truly odious venture capitalist who feels like she was meant to be cut from the same cloth as the Succession crew, but who would even be a bridge too far for those jerks. See, the key to creating nasty rich people we want to watch is to make sure there’s always a kernel of humanity lurking under the surface. Even Logan Roy had moments where the audience could stop and empathize with something he said or did. But here, Rebecca is just horrible. Her friends and board members, who we meet at a weird dinner party, are horrible. This isn’t laughing at the out of touch rich, it’s watching aliens in a zoo who lack an internal filter and any sense of self. It’s not fun, it’s grating. And that’s the general feel throughout the series when it comes to character development and narrative flow – it feels grating to watch what could be a strong series.

Because the bones of an interesting show are there, just bogged down by the errors in pitch when it comes to the characters that inhabit this world. Eliott’s goal – outside of her control issues – in medicine is an interesting one, and I was intrigued to see her embark on her quest. And Beverly’s hope to create an environment where women are treated as human beings whilst giving birth is a noble one – and it’s a conversation that should be happening in our real world. There was enough there to have our leads bump heads, perhaps sabotage each other, be catty – all of the things siblings engage in – without needing to turn the characters into such soulless voids with next to no redeemable qualities. When you have a story to adapt from and additional time to craft within, as is the case here, you get to use that time to mold your characters into more complex forms than they existed in the previous medium. I just wish the writers took that time to give us more compelling characters who weren’t such horrific individuals with little to no redemptive value going in. I don’t need to root for good guys, but I do need to know that there’s something more than just anger, betrayal, and nastiness lurking underneath most of the characters in the shows I watch.

Dead Ringers premieres on April 21 on Prime Video. All six episodes were provided for review.