Dead Ringers

In the blood-red-tinged world of Dead Ringers, there are few things as terrifying as being an expectant mother. The anxieties that come with delivering a child within a healthcare system that dismisses women’s pain and does little to alleviate the very real fears surrounding every step of the process play backdrop to this latest adaptation of the 1977 novel Twins by Bari Wood and Jack Geasland and the 1988 David Cronenberg film of the same name. Here, though, the encroaching sense of doom that rankles the Mantle twins (both played with gusto by Rachel Weisz) comes just as much from their commitment to improving women’s care (a scary, uphill battle as it is) as from the predatory ways in which venture capitalists cannot comprehend why there may be a worthy business model in valuing women’s sense of bodily autonomy. Even at its goriest—and the show never shies away from the bloodied reality of childbirth—this sly, satirical series is an engrossing, urgent call to action. For aptly packaging a bold adaptation of this twinned-body horror classic within the continued nightmarish world of women’s reproductive health care in the United States, Dead Ringers wins a Peabody Award.