What are you people?
It's us...
I'm Jordan Peele, and this is How to Kill Doppelgangers.
﻿Hi everyone, I’m Andrew,
And today on How to Kill...
Jeez louise!
That was close!
I’m Andrew, and that was my evil twin,
my dark mirror, the polar opposite of everything I hold dear.
Dubious doubles and deadly doppelgangers are a staple of horror fiction,
from ancient folklore,
all the way up to the terrifying Tethered from Jordan Peele’s ‘Us.’
So when you finally come face to face with your sinister side,
don’t despair,
just groom your goatee,
get untethered and watch yourself,
because this is
How to Kill Doppelgangers
Now, before we start, I want to clarify that we’re not talking about clones here,
that would just be ridiculous,
and besides, the concept of evil twins goes back far beyond Dolly the sheep and Barbra Streisand’s dogs,
because different cultures throughout history developed their own take on the evil alter ego.
In ancient Egypt, they were known as Ka,
in Norse mythology, they’re called Vardoger,
ghostly duplicates who live out your future actions in the present.
And in Ireland, well,
they made Fetch happen thousands of years ago.
Because there, they're called "Fetches."
The term ‘Doppelganger’ comes from Germany, duh,
derived from ‘doppel,’ or double, and ‘ganger,’ goer or walker.
But no matter what you call them,
an unexplained, identical apparition is extremely bad news,
and if you want to fend them off, you’ll have to look within,
because to know thy enemy is to
Know Thyself
After all, if your opponent is identical to you in every respect,
that holds true for weaknesses too.
Doppelgangers and evil twins have long been a staple of thrillers, noir, and cerebral cinema,
and usually, they die in the same mundane fashion as any mortal,
like the horrific car accident in ‘Enemy,’
the dozens of drownings in ‘The Prestige,’
and the gruesome gynecologists in David Cronenberg’s ‘Dead Ringers.’
Yuck!
In some cases, they literally exist just to die,
like in the ‘Vampire Diaries.’
When two ancient lovers drink an immortality potion,
nature spawns a series of mortal Doppelgangers to perish in their place,
A version of me that could die... A shadow self...
in order to maintain the balance of the universe.
But if you’re a tougher cookie than most,
you’ll need to take extreme measures to destroy your dupe,
like in ‘Army of Darkness.’
After smashing a magic mirror in medieval times,
Ash Williams is attacked by teeny tiny duplicates of himself,
The lilliputian pests torment our time-tossed hero,
and while he makes a valiant effort to stomp out his smaller selves,
he pretty much knocks himself out in the process.
He’s forced to ingest one of the tiny terrors,
and despite his best, brutal efforts to flush it out,
it quickly splits off into a fully-grown duplicate.
That is one thing Pepto-Bismol does not help with.
But while the two twins are arguing over their moral alignments,
Ash blows it away with his boomstick.
The dismembered corpse soon resurfaces as the disfigured despot leading the Army of Darkness,
until Good Ash burns his brother to the bone,
and catapults him back to hell with a big sack of gunpowder.
Now, things are always a little extra when it comes to Ash,
this wouldn’t even be the last time he had to deal with an evil double,
but as awesome as he is, he doesn’t always approach a situation with grace and subtlety.
In ‘The Double,’ Jesse Eisenberg comes up with a far more clever solution to kill his impostor,
What is it?
He realizes that any damage he endures is simultaneously suffered by his cooler, more confident copy, James.
So, while he’s sleeping, he handcuffs his duplicate to a bed and throws himself off a building.
He’ll be fine, thanks to quick intervention from our heroic first responders,
but his locked-up lookalike is left to die alone.
I like to think I'm pretty unique...
Still, it sucks to see yourself suffer,
even when you’re your own worst enemy,
so if you don’t want to destroy your doppelganger,
the next best thing is to
Banish Them
Jordan Peele’s inspiration for ‘Us’ is a 1960 ‘Twilight Zone’ episode called ‘Mirror Image,’
where a woman waiting for a bus encounters her exact double.
She realizes that her duplicate is from a parallel dimension,
And that her imposter’s only hope of surviving in ours,
is killing the original.
Replace us... Move us out so it can live...
That's a little metaphysical for me...
Unfortunately for poor Millicent, the cops drag her away before she can take action.
Sometimes, killing your doppelganger just isn’t an option,
like in Jet Li’s ‘The One,’
where copies of yourself exist across the multiverse,
and each one you destroy makes you that much more powerful.
Unfortunately, there can’t be only one,
because the last man standing would basically become god and destroy the fabric of reality,
so you’re better off zapping him to an interdimensional jail,
where your evil twin can work off his rage with a pile of prisoners and some Papa Roach.
'Cause gosh darn, that sounds like a good Saturday night.
That’s a pretty rare case, however,
most of the time, there’s nothing stopping you from whacking your evil twin except yourself.
And hey, I get it,
it’s not easy to kill a carbon copy of your favorite person in the universe,
but odds are, your double won’t have the same compunction,
so whatever you do, don’t hesitate like Willow Rosenberg.
In the ‘Buffy’ episode ‘Doppelgangland,’
a alternate-reality vampire version of Willow surfaces in Sunnydale,
thanks to Anya’s screwed-up spell.
[SIGH] Anya...
Barabara, himble gemination!
No!!!
The real Willow, after walking a mile in her leather-clad counterpart’s shoes,
can’t bear to see her killed,
so she convinces the Scoobies to send her back to her home reality,
seconds before being staked to death by Oz.
Oh fu--
In Stephen King’s the ‘Dark Half,’
author Thad Beaumont used the pen name George Stark to write dark and violent crime novels,
much like King himself and his old alter ego Richard Bachman,
Unlike King, It turns out Thad was a twin,
who absorbed his younger brother in the womb,
leaving fetal fragments in his brain that manifests into a murderous double when the world gets wise to the pseudonym.
I hate when that happens.
Stark wreaks havoc on Thad’s life,
until a flock of birds appear out of nowhere and tears the evil twin to shreds.
It’s not really explained too well in George Romero’s film,
but according to the book, the sparrows are "psychopomps,"
supernatural chaperones who escort the dead to their final destination.
Pretty weird, right?l
Well hold onto your butts, because we have to talk about ‘Twin Peaks.’
DOPPELGANGER!
David Lynch is a big fan of eerie alternates,
they pop up in a lot of his films, like ‘Lost Highway’ and ‘Mulholland Drive,’
but none of them come close to Mr. C.,
or as our editor and resident Lynch-lover Will calls him,
Creepy Coop.
I've never really left home, Gordon.
Since we don’t have three hours, just know that Cooper runs afoul of a malevolent entity called BOB,
who traps the real Coop in the mysterious Black Lodge for decades,
while his damn near unkillable doppelganger manifests in the real world.
His head is highly resistant to mirrors,
if you pump him full of lead, and a bunch of creepy ghosts will show up and pull the bullets out of his bowels,
and don’t even think about testing him in an arm-wrestling contest.
The only way to be rid of him for good is to excise BOB’s presence,
have your secretary shoot him,
and use a magic jade ring to banish him back to the Lodge,
where he’ll promptly burst into flames.
Of course, there won’t always be an alternate dimension to dump all your problems on,
so if you can’t beat your doppelganger,
and you can’t get rid of them,
the only option left on the table is to
Be Nice to Them
After all, you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar,
so instead of trying to destroy your doppelganger,
you might have better luck killing them with kindness.
Snips… Snails… Puppy dog tails…
These were the ingredients chosen to create the ultimate antagonists for the Powerpuff Girls:
Brick… Boomer… and Butch…
The Rowdyruff Boys!
After exploding out of Mojojojo’s prison toilet,
these badass brats lay waste to the City of Townsville,
and actually manage to murder the Powerpuff Girls,
[EVIL MOJOJOJO LAUGH]
at least until a ton of Townsvillian tears resurrect them Pikachu-style.
Still, all hope seems lost,
and the girls are about to go into exile when the wise Ms. Bellum offers some sage advice:
Instead of fighting... Try being nice! You know... nice....
I get it!
Ew, gross!
Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup track down the boys and unleash all of their charms,
culminating in the ultimate doomsday weapon:
Now, I know not everyone will have access to Chemical X-enhanced cooties,
you can only get then on the dark net,
and it’s kind of a bummer to blow up your evil duplicates,
so why not try to bury the hatchet and be friends with them instead?
In ‘Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,’
Nega-Scott comes from the grand tradition that gave us Shadow Link, Dark Samus, Dark Pit, Dark Mario,
a lot of "Dark Insert Character Name Here,"
and a ton of other digital doppelgangers that make for badass boss battles.
So, when Scott encounters his grey-skinned, red-eyed rival,
we obviously expect a no-holds barred brawl to ensue.
SOLO ROUND!
But, it turns out, the two are able to overcome their differences and just… talk it out.
What happened?
Oh, nothing, we just shot the breeze. He's a really nice guy, we're gonna get brunch next week.
We actually have a lot in common!
I mean, why wouldn’t you want to hang out with your doppelganger?
They’re just you!
Twisted, sadistic versions of you that reject everything you hold dear,
but hey, meeting new people is hard,
especially in New York,
and as long as they don’t show up to your beach-house with a bloody pair of scissors like in ‘Us,’
it could be the start of a beautiful friendship.
It’s like the old saying goes,
"Loving yourself isn't vanity... It's sanity."