Evil twin

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Captain Kirk with Spock's evil twin
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Captain Kirk with Spock's evil twin

An evil twin is the concept in fiction (especially soap operas, science fiction and fantasy) of someone equal to a character in all respects, except for a radically inverted morality (and often some changes in appearance, stereotypically a goatee for men and a different hair color for women, for the audience's convenience).

This can be sophisticated or simple. Most often, it is the latter, with the evil twin being a stereotypical villain. A closely related concept is that of an entire mirror universe, containing only evil twins of the characters in the regular universe (and "good twins" of evil people).

The exotic plot devices inherent in science fiction or fantasy allow the introduction of evil twins much more readily. Such ideas as cloning, parallel universes, and time travel offer more opportunities for the twin to arise and their tendency to become exact polar opposites is magnified, rather than just slightly different characters.

Evil twins allow writers to compare the beliefs and opinions of their characters not with other characters, but effectively with the same character. The basis of a character's beliefs and morality can then be explored through the distorted mirror image of their twin. In film and television, the evil twin usually offers an actor the chance to play the same part but with an entirely different approach.

A related concept (originating in Superman comics) is the Bizarro, an imperfect or inexact (rather than evil) duplicate of a character. The term "Bizarro" has also been used to refer to actual evil twins.

Contents

[edit] Origins

The similarities and differences of twins has long held a fascination for writers. Perhaps the oldest depiction of this idea is the biblical story of Cain and Abel (although they were not twins) in which one brother is the jealous counterpart of the other. Dualism and the conflict between good and evil is an important element in religion and mythology.

The concept also has its roots in the notion of a doppelgänger, a ghostly double whose appearance is an ill omen. The evil twin expands on this by being concrete and interacting physically with the world.

[edit] Fictional evil twins

Evil twins have found their niche in a large number of comic books and television shows.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details about various works follow.

[edit] Literature

  • In the gamebooks series Lone Wolf, the nineteenth book "Wolf's Bane" pits the hero Lone Wolf against a demonic being made at his image, Wolf's Bane.
  • The short story "Shatterday" by Harlan Ellison is a doppelgänger story.
  • The Jane Austen takeoff mystery Suspense and Sensibility by Carrie Bebris may be considered an evil twin story.

[edit] Cartoons/Comics

  • In Darkwing Duck, Darkwing Duck has an evil twin called Negaduck who comes from a "mirror universe" where the heroic characters of the main show are evil, and the main show's villains are (rather ineffective) superheroes.
  • In the animated "reality" program Drawn Together, Captain Hero has an alternate version of himself known as Bizarro Captain Hero. It is implied that he was later killed by Captain Hero.
  • In an episode of the animated television series Family Guy, a cutaway scene that parodies a climactic action movie scene shows a gun-wielding Lois aimed at two Peters, all on top of a tall building. One is the real Peter, and the other is an evil twin, both denying that they are the evil one, and Lois much choose which one to shoot. She shoots one, and the remaining Peter comes over to hug her, as it is shown briefly that he is in fact the evil, robotic Peter when his "face" falls off.
  • In Flash comics, Professor Zoom wears a reversed-color version of the Flash costume, and, according to later accounts, had plastic surgery to resemble Barry Allen. After Allen's death, it is revealed that Zoom was descended from Cobalt Blue, who was truly Barry's evil twin.
  • In the animated television series Futurama:
    • The show spoofs the concept of evil twins (as well as the concept of the DC Comic Multiverse) when the Professor creates a box with a mirror universe in it. When the crew goes into it, they meet their counterparts, each of whom have different colored hair, skin, or other superficial characteristics. They all argue over which universe — Universe 1 or Universe A — is the "evil" one.
    • In another episode, Bender discovers another bending unit named Flexo, nearly identical except for a magnetic goatee. It is later revealed that Bender himself was the evil one of the two.
  • In the animated series Gargoyles, main character Goliath has an evil clone, Thailog, looking like a photo-negative Goliath (with dark skin and white hair) and having a completely opposite morality from his "father". Thailog later creates a whole clan of clones opposing the Manhattan Clan.
  • In the Judge Dredd comic book series, Joe Dredd has encountered several evil twins:
    • His twin brother Rico Dredd broke the law and Dredd arrested him. After serving a twenty year sentence, Rico tries to kill his brother in revenge and Joe is forced to kill him in self-defense.
    • Years later, Dredd faces a small army of his "brothers," a batch of clones made from the same source DNA as Dredd and Rico. They were created by Morton Judd, the same genetic scientist who had cloned Dredd. Dredd kills all but one of them with a nuclear bomb. After efforts to rehabilitate the lone survivor Kraken failed, Dredd kills him too.
    • Dredd has faced two versions of himself from parallel universes. In "City of the Damned", he faces a zombie which had once been himself before he was killed. In the novel Dread Dominion by Stephen Marley, he faces a living alter ego who renamed himself Judge Dread and seized control of Dredd's city, turning the entire population into slaves.
    • Dredd also killed a deluded psychopath who thought that he was the real Judge Dredd and that Dredd was an imposter. They did not look the same, however, since the insane Dredd was a hideously deformed mutant.
    • Judge Death is Dredd's arch-enemy from a parallel universe. Although he is not strictly another version of Dredd from that universe, nevertheless he can still be seen as an extreme version of the same character.
  • In one of the earliest albums of Lucky Luke, "La Mine d'or de Dick Digger" ("Dick Digger's Gold Mine", 1949), Lucky Luke is confronted with a lookalike cowboy, Mad Jim, who is impersonating him and sullying his name. Mad Jim is finally gunned down by Luke in a duel; Mad Jim is the only man Lucky Luke is ever shown to kill.
  • Marvel Comics has a long list of characters that are not actually evil twins, but have similar looks and powers. The most famous is Venom, who like Carnage is a violent alien symbiote who merged with and consequently resemble Spider-Man.
  • In the two-part finale of Megas XLR, Coop accidentally transported him and his enemy Gorath to an evil twin universe, were Coop was thin instead of fat, and ruled the world (and probably other planets as well) with an iron grip. However, not everyone that was good in the normal universe, became bad in the other. Only Coop and Kiva were evil.
  • In the ¡Mucha Lucha! episode "Shamrock and Roll", Rikochet faces off with a nasty leprechaun named Rick o'Shea who is out to frame him for various mean pranks.
  • In the long-running webcomic The Order of the Stick, one of the opponents of the Order is the Linear Guild, led by Elan's evil twin (who has the stereotypical goatee) and made up entirely of evil opposites.
  • In Adult Swim series Sealab 2021, the entire main crew of Sealab is revealed to have evil twins known as the "Bizarros". In a departure from the usual indication of being an evil twin through a goatee, each of the Bizarros has an outlandish physical deformity ranging from a claw for a hand (Bizarro Debbie) to simply existing as a head floating in a tank (Bizarro Sparks). Oddly, the Bizarros themselves seem to have their own set of evil twins, known as the Groovies. Where the Bizarros demand a Destructo Beam, the Groovies demand a Patchouli Beam.
  • In the "Treehouse of Horror VII" episode of the long running show The Simpsons, Bart is trapped in his house with a suspected "monster" in the attic. After calling Dr. Hibbert, it is revealed that the suspected monster is actually Hugo Simpson, an "evil" identical twin of Bart. However, the family discovers that Bart is the real evil twin, who is then locked in the attic.
  • In South Park, Eric Cartman's evil twin from another dimension has a goatee (despite his age), but since Cartman is already cruel and evil, the "twin" is kind and much preferred by the inhabitants of this universe. Everyone else from "good Cartman"'s universe is evil and also sports a goatee, spoofing the "Evil Spock" from Star Trek.
  • In another Adult Swim series, Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Space Ghost has an evil twin brother, "Swingin'" Chad Ghostal. Chad is distinguishable mainly by the presence of a goatee and frequent use of hipster slang.
  • In Alan Moore's comic Supreme, the hero has an evil twin called the Shadow Supreme, with a similar origin to Superman's Bizarro. As the name suggests, the Shadow Supreme appears as a shadow.
  • In both the Where's Waldo? book and cartoon series, Waldo has an arch-nemesis named Odlaw, who looks similar to Waldo except that that his clothes are yellow and black striped instead of red and white, his glasses have a blue tint to them, and he has a moustache. (Odlaw is Waldo spelled backwards.)

[edit] Anime/Manga

  • In the last volumes of the manga Battle Angel Alita, the heroine Alita has several robotic clones of herself created by the city of Tiphares. While Alita is a cyborg with human brain and feelings, the clones are killing machines devoid of emotions. Alita is pitched against clone number 2 in a deadly fight, the latter knowing all of her fighting techniques. In the follow-up Battle Angel Alita: Last Order, some of the clones develop distinct personalities, taking the names Elf, Zwölf and Sechs.
  • In the anime series The Big O, it is revealed that R. Dorothy Wayneright has an evil twin named Red Destiny, more commonly known as R.D. R.D. shares the same height, weight and facial features as her more civilized counterpart, but the similarities end there. Her voice is colder and more metallic sounding than Dorothy's, and where Dorothy is calm and peaceful, R.D. is violent and confrontational.
  • In the Dragonball Z movie The Tree of Might, there is an evil version of Goku named Tullece who planted the tree that sucked the life out of the Earth. He ate the fruit, causing him to become more powerful.
  • In the anime series Elfen Lied, Nyu is the "good twin" of Lucy, although they have the same body and Lucy is the original, with Nyu being an alternate personality originating from head trauma and allowing Lucy to resurface only intermittently throughout the series. Nyu is a sweet-natured girl who almost completely lacks language skills and shares none of Lucy's memories, whereas Lucy is coldly intelligent and prone to ripping people to shreds as a result of assorted disturbing childhood experiences.
  • In Miyuki-chan in Mirrorland, second episode of Miyuki-chan in Wonderland, the heroine is pulled through the mirror by her own double. Said double is shamelessly willing to strip naked, to the extreme embarrassment of the timid Miyuki.
  • In the manga Ranma ½, Ranma Saotome is confronted with a clone of his female side emerging from a magic mirror. This twin is not so much evil, though, as determined to flirt with men, to Ranma's great embarrassment.
  • In the anime Ranma ½ Nettō-hen, there are two more classical "evil twin" storylines. In both episodes, a doppelgänger of Ranma appears when he breathe some magical incense. One, "Evil Ranma", looks like his female side and is a seductive, vampiric ghost. The other, "Shadow Ranma", is a dark and mute double of his male side, and expresses Ranma's hidden desires.
  • In the anime Saint Seiya, the "Black Saints Saga" story arc introduces evil twins for each of the heroes from the beginning. Though it is never really explained why, the Black Saints not only wear black copies of the sacred armors of their respective opponents, but have the same voices and faces, with just different hair colors. They also use "evil" versions of the Bronze Saints' special attacks.
  • In the anime and manga Shaman King, the protagonist Asakura Yoh is revealed midway in the series to have an evil twin called Asakura Hao. Hao is the main antagonist of the show, sporting longer hair. He can reincarnate himself at will and bring back the dead if he wants to.
  • In the second half of the anime Superior Defender Gundam Force, the characters face a new villain called Professor Gerbera. Gerbera is ultimately revealed to be an alias for Madnug, a near perfect copy of the hero Captain Gundam who was created in the future and captured and brainwashed by the evil Dark Axis due to an accident with time/space travel technology.
  • In the anime series Zatch Bell! (known as Konjiki no Gash Bell!! in Japan), the main character Zatch (Gash) has an evil twin by the name of Zeno (Zeon), identical in every way to Zatch except that his appearance in general is lighter, his eyes are purple instead of orange and his teeth are fanged. He also has the same spells as Zatch Bell, except unlike Zatch he retains consciousness while using the spells, and uses his arms instead of his mouth.

[edit] Games

  • In one level of the video game Blasto, you must face Captain Blasto's evil twin, Evil Blasto.
  • In the Castlevania games, doppelgangers of the hero or hero's affiliates are often encountered as bosses.
  • In the video game series Devil May Cry, Dante must defeat his dark twin (he isn't actually evil), Vergil. In addition to Vergil, the player also must fight a shadow form of himself known as Doppleganger.
  • In the Dungeons & Dragons RPG:
    • A magical item, the mirror of opposition, can create a double of anybody reflected into it. The copy is invariably hostile to the original. Many gamebooks and fantasy books include a similar encounter (sometimes through other magical means than a mirror, but a reflecting surface is the most common). There, the interaction between the twins is most often limited to a difficult fight.
    • The clone spell (in AD&D 2nd edition) can create a duplicate for any character, with the same memories and abilities. The clone and the original can't tolerate each other's existence. The clone will try to destroy the original, and most likely will develop madness if prevented to do so.
  • In EarthBound, the boss Ness's Nightmare is often interpreted as a manifestation of Ness's dark side, though this has never been confirmed.
  • In "Soul of Rebirth" extra dungeon of Final Fantasy II, in the "Dawn of Souls" remake, the last boss is the Emperor's light side, who wished to give the ghost main characters an eternal life for thanks. They didn't trust him (rightly), and defeated him, freeing themselves.
  • Final Fantasy IV features a dark form of Cecil who must be defeated in order to redeem Cecil and make him a Paladin. In the Game Boy Advance version's Lunar Ruins, Kain, alone in his trial, investigates a series of murders perpetrated by someone who is later revealed to be his dark side. Kain confronts "Dark Kain" which eventually reveals itself as Dark Bahamut, and must be defeated to gain Kain's ultimate weapon, Abel's Lance, and the tome to summon Dark Bahamut.
  • Another Final Fantasy contains a character who resembles an evil twin. Final Fantasy X-2 has Shuyin, a character who resembled main character Tidus from Final Fantasy X.
  • In the video game Grandia II, the kind and altruistic Elena has an evil twin personality called Millenia, who co-exists within her body, and is actually a manifestation of a demonic energy that exists within her. Millenia is egocentric, manipulative, and short-tempered, but not directly evil — even when Elena turns into Millennium, she continues to aid the game's hero, mainly due to the fact that she is competing with Elena for his affection. In addition, while Elena, due to her religious upbringing, is shy and reserved, Millenia is very openly flirtatious. At the very end of the game, Millenia succeeds in manifesting herself in a separate body to fight side-by-side with Elena in the final battle.
  • In the original Mega Man series, Bass serves as Mega Man's evil twin; he emulates Mega Man's abilities perfectly (up to and including having a robotic dog, Treble, who acts as a counterpart to Rush). In the Battle Network series, however, Bass has no particular connection to MegaMan.EXE. In the Ruby-Spears Mega Man cartoon, Proto Man similarly acts as an evil counterpart to Mega Man.
  • In the Mortal Kombat series, Kitana and Mileena are thought to be twin sisters, Mileena being Kitana's opposite — but the truth being she is a clone.
  • Three of Secret of Mana's many bosses are evil twins of the playable characters. They are all fought in a group, consisting of Shadow X1 (Copying the fighter) Shadow X2 (Copying the heroine) and Shadow X3 (Copying the sprite).
  • In the Sonic the Hedgehog series of games:
    • The character of Metal Sonic is the original evil twin of Sonic.
    • The character of Shadow the Hedgehog in the more recent games is also considered an evil twin, not only storyline-wise but also gameplay-wise (that is, both he and Sonic are played the same way). Shadow, however, quickly becomes an antihero.
    • The Archie Sonic the Hedgehog comic book series also introduced "Scourge": a green, evil hedgehog from the alternate universe, Anti-Mobius.
    • The British Fleetway comic series included Sonic's evil persona, Super Sonic, as a separate character after the 100th issue.
  • In Soul Calibur III's "Tale of Souls" mode, Zasalamel faces off with an identical doppelgänger of himself that represents the side of his personality that fears death. Other characters will also sometimes encounter doppelgängers during their Tales of Souls, but these doppelgängers are shadowy facsimiles, rather than exact copies.
  • Terranigma features both a light and a dark world (under world & surface world) in which every living being has both a light and a dark version inhabiting their respective worlds. Dark not being all evil and light not being all good, each has a twin in the other world. Some of the characters cross over into the other world and encounter their light/dark twins.

[edit] Movies

  • In Army of Darkness, an enchanted mirror and brutal dismemberment create a "Bad Ash", a disfigured evil counterpart to the hero of the Evil Dead series Ash Williams. Bad Ash steals good Ash's girl, but eventually gets blown to bits.
  • In John Woo's movie Face/Off, FBI agent Sean Archer and terrorist Castor Troy (played respectively, and then inversely, by John Travolta and Nicolas Cage) switch faces and identities, technically becoming each other's evil (or good) twin...
  • In the 1995 film Judge Dredd, Judge Joseph Dredd (played by Sylvester Stallone) has his (cloned) twin brother Rico Dredd (played by Armand Assante) as mortal enemy. Unlike in the comics, they are non-identical, because Rico's DNA was corrupt.
  • In The One, good cop Gabriel Law is confronted with interdimensionnal criminal Gabriel Yu-Law (both played by Jet Li), the latter having gone on a killing spree of all his Multiverse counterparts to benefit from their combined lifeforce and become "The One".
  • In the movie Replicant, Jean-Claude Van Damme plays both terrorist Edward "The Torch" Garrotte and his replicant — though in a twist of the evil twin concept, it is actually the clone who is the good guy.

[edit] TV shows

  • A stereotype of soap operas is the evil twin. One of the longest-running examples is David Canary's portrayal of stiff businessman Adam Chandler and his fun-loving brother Stuart on All My Children since 1983.
  • In Bewitched, Samantha Stephens has a cousin, Serena, who looks quite like her save for black hair and choice of dress. In opposition to Samantha's housewife style, Serena is sultry, sassy and mischievous. She often transforms into Samantha to play some tricks to the Stephens. Both were played by Elizabeth Montgomery, though credited as "Pandora Spocks" (a pun on Pandora's Box) for Serena.
  • On an episode of the TV series The Dukes of Hazzard, Jefferson Davis Hogg, who dresses in white, drives a white Cadillac convertible and is a stereotypical mean, corrupt Southern local-government "Boss", has a twin brother, Abraham Lincoln Hogg, who dresses in black, drives a black Cadillac convertible, and is kindly and benevolent. Boss Hogg calls his brother "the white sheep of the family". Both Hoggs were played by Sorrell Booke.
  • On Gilligan's Island, Gilligan, Mr. Howell, and Ginger all had evil twins who inexplicably at one time or another made their way to the island and caused no end of trouble.
  • In Good Eats, Alton Brown has an "evil twin" who is really played by himself. The evil twin can be either a USDA agent or a bad cook.
  • In the TV series I Dream of Jeannie, Jeannie has a twin sister who is obviously played by the same actress, Barbara Eden. Appearing as a brunette, her mischievous sister was always vying for Major Tony Nelson's attention, even long after Jeannie and Tony married and had their son. Jeannie's sister even had a different sound used, when she worked her "blink" magic.
  • In the Knight Rider television show:
    • David Hasselhoff's character, Michael Knight, has an evil twin named Garthe Knight. Although not actually twins — Garthe was the biological (though illegitimate) son of Wilton Knight, while Michael was Wilton's symbolic son (whose face had to be reconstructed and made to look like Garthe as a way for Wilton to redeem his evil son) — the resemblance was exact except for Garthe having (of course) a goatee.
    • In other episodes, Michael's car KITT has an evil twin called KARR. As with Star Trek's Data and Lore, KARR is a flawed prototype that preceded the heroic later model.
  • Herman Munster, from The Munsters, has an evil twin who appears and scams the family's neighbor with a machine that he invented to extract some sort of valuable mineral from seawater.
  • On Australian drama series Neighbours two of the Robinson family triplets are considered good and evil, the two males Robert and Cameron. Robert the evil twin causes a series of mishaps, including murder which land Cameron, the good twin, in trouble.
  • Notable instances of the "evil twin syndrome" in the various Power Rangers series include:
    • During season 2 of the original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, two of the Rangers end up having themselves cloned by the series' main villains, Lord Zedd and Rita Repulsa. In the episode "Blue Ranger Gone Bad", Zedd and Rita clone the Blue Ranger, Billy by animating a clay statue of him that was sculpted by Marge, a girl in one of his classes who has a crush on him.
    • This instance of cloning follows a three-part episode called "Return of the Green Ranger", in which Rita and Zedd call on one of Rita's old allies, the Wizard of Destruction, to magically create an evil clone of Tommy, the White Ranger. They give said clone Tommy's old Green Ranger powers, and send him to destroy Tommy and the other Rangers.
    • In the Power Rangers: Ninja Storm episode "Beauty and the Beach", villains Marah and Kapri clone the Blue Ranger, Tori Hanson.
    • And in "The Wild Wipeout", Tori ends up in an alternate universe where she and her fellow Rangers, Shane and Dustin, are the bad guys, while their nemesis Lothor and his associates are the good guys.
    • In the Power Rangers: Dino Thunder episode "Fighting Spirit", the Black Ranger, Tommy, comes face-to-face with three of his previous Ranger alter-egos — the Green, White, and Red Zeo Rangers while in a coma.
  • In the Red Dwarf episode "Demons And Angels", the Red Dwarf ship and crew were replicated twice over, with a "good" version and an "evil" version. The good Dwarfers led a blissfully peaceful monk-like existence, while the evil Dwarfers were homicidal, monstrous, depraved lunatics. When all three versions met on the evil ship, the evil Dwarfers quickly killed their naive good counter-counterparts, while the real Dwarfers had the good sense to run away from danger.
  • On comedy TV series Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, a secret of Sabrina's family of witches is that one of each set of witch twins is evil. Each evil twin is sent to prison after a series of tests determines which of each set of twins is evil. Sabrina's twin, Katrina, is shown to be evil and is imprisoned when, asked to push Sabrina into a volcano, she complies.
  • In a Saturday Night Live Digital Short, Will Forte, Seth Meyers, and Andy Samberg (playing themselves) are eating lunch in a public square. They begin looking around and find that they each have a doppelgänger nearby. Will and Seth claim that a large bum (played by Horatio Sanz) is Andy's doppelgänger; the only distinguishing feature is that the bum has red mittens on. After Andy removes the mittens, Seth and Will claim they cannot tell the two apart. Will shoots one of them... and afterwards they are eating lunch with the bum.
  • In the parallel-dimension-hopping sci-fi show Sliders, the protagonists frequently encountered their "doubles". Over the course of the show, the Sliders' doubles spanned the entire good/evil spectrum.
  • In the syndicated TV series Small Wonder, it was revealed that Vicki has an evil twin named Vanessa, which is Ted Lawson's prototype VICI robot. Unlike Vicki, Vanessa has a full range of emotions, dresses less conservatively, and is deceitful and conniving. The relationship between the two robots is similar to that of Data and Lore of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
  • In Smallville, Black Kryptonite can give Kryptonians a split personnality, but also separate humans in two beings. In season 4 episode "Onyx", Lex Luthor's "evil twin", Alexander, is created. Ironically, Alexander is acting much more like the classical Lex Luthor of the comics, up to using a Kryptonite ring to fight Clark. It is hinted he is mostly Lex's darker side gone free.
  • In the Star Trek universe:
    • There is an entire mirror universe, in which the people and political entities of the Star Trek shows are duplicated with reversed moralities and slight cosmetic differences. The "mirror Spock" from the mirror universe has a goatee, while the real Spock and nearly all other Vulcans are clean-shaven; as a result, many evil twins in satirical works have goatees.
    • "The Enemy Within" has good and evil Kirks, unrelated to the mirror universe.
    • The android Data has an evil twin named Lore, who is emotional and mendacious in counterpart to Data's own rationality and morality.
    • "Second Chances" gave William Riker a "transporter duplicate", who took the name Thomas. Initially sporting a full beard like Will Riker, Thomas Riker later defected from the Federation to join the Maquis; after stealing a Federation ship whilst posing as his doppleganger, he dramatically removed his sideburns, revealing that he had the traditional goatee of the evil twin.
  • In long-standing series Stargate SG-1, alternate universe doubles, android replicants and clones are commonplace. Only a few occurrences fit within in the "evil twin" category, however:
    • In episode 6 of season 3, "Point of View", alternate versions of both Teal'c and Apophis, wearing goatees, appear in an alternate reality.
    • In episode 2 of season 8, "New Order Part 2", a Replicator version of Samantha Carter is created by Fifth (dubbed "RepliCarter" by fans). In episode 11 of season 8, "Gemini", Replicator Carter tricks her couterpart in thinking she had inherited her human emotions, while all she wants is to study the Replicator Disruptor and kill Fifth, proving she was even more evil than her creator. In episode 16 and 17 of season 8, "Reckoning", RepliCarter begins the conquest of the Milky Way as the head of the Replicators.
    • In episode 13 of season 9, "Ripple Effect", numerous alternate versions of the SG-1 team are featured. Among them, a black-garbed SG-1 that try to steal the Prometheus out of desperation. This spurs Cameron Mitchell to make the comment: "You don't have beards so you're not from the evil twin universe, right?"
  • In Sunset Beach, Ben has an evil twin, who becomes involved in a plotline where Ben is accused of murder.
  • In the TV Series Supernatural, from the episode "Simon Said", twin brothers Andrew "Andy" Gallagher and Anson "Webber" Williams both have mental powers. Andy uses them for good, while Webber uses them for evil.
  • In the season 1 finale of Third Rock from the Sun, a message from the Big Giant Head was received explaining the replacement of High Commander Dick. Dick's evil twin was identical in every way but with the opposite personality and took over Dick's life, whilst the original Dick was imprisoned in an invisible box in the basement. Later it was found out that the message was a fake and just a plot for evil Dick to take over the world.
  • In the TV series Twin Peaks, Sheryl Lee plays the dual roles of murdered teenager Laura Palmer (blonde) and her identical cousin, Madeleine (brunette, with glasses). Madeleine is generally deemed as being wholesome and good while over the course of the series Laura, despite being beloved by the majority of the town, is revealed to have been a heavy drug user, dabbling in prostitution and being somewhat manipulative, particularly towards males (though it is often noted that Laura was essentially a good person who was a victim of circumstance). Sometimes classified as a post-modern soap opera, the Laura/Maddy plotline was an effective homage to the "evil twin" plotlines of other soap operas, as well as the film Vertigo.
  • In the short-lived series Two, Booth Hubbard frames his twin Gus McClain for several murders, including his wife's.
  • In season 3 of the TV show Without a Trace, there is a storyline in which there are two twins, one of whom's wife is murdered. The FBI initially suspect her husband, but it is revealed that it is the other twin who committed the murder and several others. In the end, the innocent brother covers for him and is imprisoned. In a later episode, the imprisoned twin is freed and almost killed by his brother before being rescued by the FBI.

[edit] Songs

  • They Might Be Giants' album Apollo 18 includes the song "My Evil Twin". It describes the singer's evil twin, e.g. "doing doughnuts on the neighbor's lawn". The evil twin, though, is apparently just a psychological scapegoat of the singer.

[edit] References

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    [edit] See also

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