Dead Ringers – Season 1 Episode 2 Recap & Review

A Dinner to Remember

Episode 2 of Dead Ringers begins with Elliot conducting the embryo transfer to Beverly. We then cut to Rebecca, sitting on a table across from the twins. Elliot is in a bathrobe with wet hair while Beverly is in a t-shirt, looking haggard. Rebecca asks Beverly if she really wants this. Reluctantly, Beverly admits she does.

17 hours and 37 minutes earlier, the FDA is all over Tom’s lab as Elliot and Tom watch. He says they’re here because of a 16-day embryo in an incubator, which is very illegal. Elliot promises to get him a job. He admits the embryo was beautiful.

At home, Elliot listens to moans coming from Beverly’s room and slurps on a lime, moving in rhythm with them.

Later, Greta sees the twins off as they go to meet the Parkers. In the car, Elliot taunts Beverly about Genevieve. Joseph calls them but any conversation with him is lost in Elliot’s remarks about Beverly. She even throws Beverly’s neatly compiled notes out the window.

We then see Elliot and Beverly meet a host of people at Rebecca’s place, accompanied by the information Joseph gave them earlier. There’s Gwen Anderson, who runs a wellness empire and used to date Rebecca. When Gwen asks Beverly about children, she claims she doesn’t want them anymore.

Joseph claims her husband is just a husband and not much more. There’s also Ju-won, a Korean man who is a board member. He works in robots and AR and VR and is accompanied by his translator. When Elliot makes a joke about gaming, Rebecca and some others remark that the twins’ proposal is boring. Behind Rebecca, is a giant painting of a vagina that belongs to one of her exes (and mother of one of her many children). There’s also an older woman, who’s Rebecca’s lawyer and has heavy sway over Rebecca’s decisions.

At home, Greta steals tampons and blood soaked tissues from the bin. She then takes samples of hair and skin from all around the house.

The dinner party also includes McKenzie, Rebecca’s niece, whose side of the family was involved in the opioid scandal. She invented one product and earned a lot of money for it. When Beverly tries to make small talk, McKenzie calls her out for pretending to not know about the opioid crisis.

When Beverly is taken aback by a display of meat, including horse, Ju-won calls her a hypocrite for enjoying the chicken well enough. Elliot then gets handed a card with game rules on it, saying she has to kidnap Beverly at some point in the night. When Susan asks Beverly to treat one of their pregnant maids, Beverly’s pleasant exchange with the maid leaves everyone disappointed.

While Rebecca’s children sing a song for the crowd, one of the men tells Beverly she has a period stain and even offers her a tampon. In the bathroom, Beverly tells Elliot she wants to go home. Elliot says they all hate Beverly but they love Elliot and so she can get the funding for them.

Susan speaks to Beverly about how Rebecca has enough children but opening the birthing centre will make her feel like a mother. Later, Beverly and Elliot together pitch their centre to the board members. They are bored by Beverly’s desire of making it accessible for everyone and are instead intrigued by Elliot’s penchant for innovation — delaying menopause, making test tube babies and more. Rebecca accuses Beverly’s desire to help people as simply a way to make her feel good about herself.

At home, Greta is gathering up all the collected samples when the twins’ mother phones and leaves a message on the recorder. Greta switches out the tapes.

At Rebecca’s house, an alarm rings four kidnappers kidnap four people as part of the game. Elliot kidnaps Beverly.

Rebecca takes her lawyer’s opinion. She says the Mantle twins could be a liability but it could also be quite fun.

Elliot dumps Beverly, whose hands are tied, into the cellar and tells her to make it back to the bonfire. She then proceeds to watch Ju-won and his translator as they fight (the translator was to kidnap Ju-won). She tells Ju-won to take off his pants. They have sex and Beverly looks straight at the translator the entire time.

Inside the cellar, Beverly screams. She climbs into the vents and finds her way back to the bonfire. Everybody cheers but Beverly goes off on all of them for being terrible humans and claims she doesn’t want any money. She then pushes Elliot into the pool.

This takes us back to the present, where Beverly reluctantly admits she does want the money. Rebecca agrees to give them more than the money they were offered for a flagship birthing centre that would then lead to a chain of centres across the country. She makes it clear that this is only for the money.

In the morning, Greta picks the twins up. The silence in the car is tense. Beverly doesn’t want it, but Elliot does. Elliot asks Beverly about her comment on children again and asks if things with Genevieve are serious. Beverly calls Rebecca and accepts the offer.

The twins get off by their apartment and Greta takes the car to her house. An old lady sleeps on a chair inside. Greta takes her bag of collections to a room downstairs, where she pulls out a tampon and puts it in a larger jar. She then listens to the tape recording of the twins’ mum’s message.

At the support group, Beverly talks about being with a new woman who Elliot, her late sister, wouldn’t have liked. She asks if it’s awful to feel relieved her sister isn’t around. The guide tells her it’s okay to remember loved ones as flawed people and she doesn’t have to miss every aspect of them.

The Episode Review

Episode 2 takes the plot further by offering a group of what seem like literal sociopaths. Each one of these rich and accomplished people have their own idiosyncrasies and as a viewer, you are likely to be as repulsed as Beverly, and as fascinated as Elliot. What’s really interesting is the mishmash of dialogue from so many different people and how it still is coherent, and gripping, for the viewer.

Beverly and Elliot seem more different than ever in this episode, which is not what I was expecting. Going by the source material, the 1988 film, I’d assume Beverly is as eccentric as her sister. It’s intriguing to see her play the goody two shoes in this episode but I’m hoping her character is more fleshed out in the coming episodes.

The editing continues to ensure the show has a high-speed feel to it although, a few jump cuts do leave one a bit confused and needing to fill the gap on their own.