Dead Ringers ending explained: Does Elliot die?

Amazon Prime Video's latest mini-series, Dead Ringers, based on the David Cronenberg body horror of the same name, premiered on April 21, 2023.

Helmed by star Rachel Weisz in two superb roles, the film follows two sisters, a gender-reversed version of the original film, who work as gynecologists with very different visions from each other.

The entire series followed their dynamic and their actions as Elliot and Beverly Mantle pushed for their dream in an increasingly hostile environment, trying to change things in one way or another.

The series cleverly portrayed the intricacies of the birthing process and the stigma of childbirth from a feminist perspective by cleverly removing the voyeurism from the original series.

The synopsis for the series reads:

"Twin gynaecologists, Elliot and Beverly Mantle, perform ethically questionable procedures on infertile women."

However, as Dead Ringers moves further into its story, things start to muddle up quite a bit for the sisters, especially Elliot, whose questionable procedures and negligence with medicine become a hot topic ahead of the finale.

Warning: Major spoilers ahead.

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Dead Ringers ending explained: What is the ultimate twin swap?

There were various themes that were prevalent in the finale, but the most important one was that of the "twin swap," something that the sisters did very often to have shared romantic adventures or otherwise.

Before the finale, things with Elliot went down quite hastily, with journalist Silas Jordan (Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine) threatening to leak the secrets of Elliot's malpractices and Rebecca (Jennifer Ehle) ready to force Beverly to cut ties with her sister.

The penultimate episode, which could be considered the best episode of the series, already saw the sisters split up, but the finale made sure that they did not have many options left.

The beginning of the finale saw Beverly relishing Mantle enterprise's success and publicly announcing the split with her sister, whom she called unwell, abusive, and destructive. This came almost simultaneously with Beverly's lover, Genevieve (Britne Oldford), moving away for a job.

This led to Beverly falling into depression without her sister's domineering presence. It was also aggravated by Tom (Michael Chernus), who accused her of selling out her talented sister and riding on her success.

All this prompted Beverly to contact her sister again, who called her into her lab. She found out that Elliot was growing embryos out of Beverly and Tom’s DNA.

Beverly told her sister that she was incapable of being happy without her. She also revealed that she thought there should have been only one of them in the first place, and Elliot was always the better version of Beverly.

Together, they devised a plan to make the ultimate twin swap. Elliot cut a C-section-shaped hole in her body and did the same to Beverly after tying her hair up.

She delivered the twins and left the hospital in a medical gown, leaving Beverly to bleed out on the operating table. Thus, Elliot took on the identity of Beverly and continued to live her life while Beverly died with Elliot's dark past, clearing her name of repercussions.

Silas did publish his piece, and Tom left town, but Elliot started a new life as Beverly with Genevieve and the twins.

The final scene of Dead Ringers revealed that Beverly had been going to grief therapy sessions to discuss her "sister's death" for quite some time. This opened up a lot of questions about Beverly and what she had in mind. But Dead Ringers concluded with no further explanations.

Dead Ringers is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.