THE BAD TWIN: DTMWaGL #10
THE BAD TWIN: DTMWaGL #10
Hello friends! So we can't “go to work” or “have parties” or “take vacations that we were really looking forward to." We’ve got time. We've got each other. We’ve got Lifetime movies! We’ve got Haylie Duff, and Casper van Dien’s daughter Grace, starring as THE BAD TWIN, and also the less bad one. (This one’s pretty light on content warnings! Mental hospitals? Social services? Allergies?)
Why don’t they ever make movies about the GOOD twin, and why is the news always bad,
After a montage of some old-timey pictures of identical twins, which we can all agree are a little creepy, we meet our protagonist, Dr. Jen. She’s got a radio call-in show, which is like a podcast but live. She gives all kinds of relationship advice, but someone calling herself Lilith dials in and yells at Dr. Jen for having the balls to talk about family when her own family life is GARBAGE and she’s a FRAUD. Calling her Lilith is a “Frasier” joke, right? It’s fine. The producer cuts Lilith off and that’s the end of the show. Dr. Jen’s signature signoff is, “Remember, you create the love that you deserve.” That’s some The Secret bullshit right there. After the show, Jen goes outside to sign books for some adoring fans, because she really is an extremely successful radio talk show host, but she’s interrupted by that caller Lilith, who would like to scream abuse at her in person, and also she would like to hit Jen in the face, please. The woman is restrained by some cop who showed up from somewhere, but Jen says she doesn’t need to be locked up, she needs care, and she would know, because “Lilith” is actually her sister Cassie. Cassie isn’t the bad twin though, just a regular sister. Jen tells the cop she’ll arrange to take in Cassie’s twin daughters, and to get psychiatric care for Cassie. Jen’s assistant Gail thinks this is a bad idea, because she’s being introduced in this scene and she has to say something.
Jen drives to Cassie’s house, which is in a beautiful, leafy neighborhood, and is met by a social worker. Cassie’s house is lovely but it’s like, sloppy? The blinds are askew. I adore set decoration by people who have no idea what actual poverty or mental illness might look like, a woman in a messy bun and an artfully arranged scarf squinting at a pile of clothes on a living room floor and thinking, “yes, this will show that this woman deserves to have her children taken away.” Cassie’s identical twin daughters, beautiful thin blonde girls named Quinn and Olivia, come down the stairs to tell Jen they don’t need her, they can take care of themselves. They are wearing identical short dresses with peter pan collars. They are always wearing identical clothing. It’s very normal. Anyway, no, they can’t take care of themselves, and they go to Jen’s house.
Jen’s house is, well, I’m not totally sure it isn’t the house from PARTY MOM? It has the same silly turrets and a fountain in the driveway. Is it the party mom's house. I don’t want to look it up, I want to wonder. You can look it up if you want though! So obviously, it’s tacky and unnecessary, but Olivia and Quinn are impressed. Jen shows the girls their bedrooms and they are horrified that they won’t be sharing a room. Olivia demands to know why Jen keeps trying to split up their family. Jen asks them to consider separate bedrooms for a little while, they might like it. Yeah well Jen, you might like being stung by bees (this is foreshadowing, it’s a literary technique I’m trying out).
It just really seems like this is the house of a mom who parties
After they’ve settled in, the girls join Jen in the pointlessly gigantic kitchen. One of them points out a bag of potato chips on a very high shelf and asks if she can have some. Jen says sure, and she keeps them up there because they’re so addicting, ha ha ha! She pulls out the stepladder that rich people have to keep in their kitchens, because otherwise how would you reach the top shelves, god I hate ten-foot ceilings so much, and climbs it on her five-inch heels that she’s wearing even though she’s been home for hours, nothing about this makes sense to me, a person who never wears shoes in her house and also has eight-foot ceilings like a normal person, but the stepladder breaks and Jen nearly falls. The girls barely react, but Olivia does pick up the bolt that fell out of it and hands it to Jen. Then they look at some family photos, including one from when Cassie and Jen went to horse camp. Horse camp! Jen tells the girls her mom was always a lot harder on Cassie than on Jen, and Cassie resented her for it. Families are complicated and all, but horse camp.
In the morning, Jen goes to wake the girls and finds them sitting on the floor of one of their walk-in closets. Olivia tells her this is where they go to shut people like her out, and when Jen tells her that she knows they’re having a hard time but she loves them, Olivia sneers that this is “psycho talk.” Guys I think Olivia might be the bad twin. Also I am doing you a favor by telling you this now, I didn’t figure out which of them was supposed to be which until well over halfway through this movie.
Okay so Olivia is the one on the left, you can tell she’s evil because her eye contact is too direct, also that's the back of Haylie Duff's head, sorry
Later, Jen’s boyfriend Kevin comes over for dinner on the patio. Kevin is a teacher at a private high school, and he has no personality of his own, which is fine. The girls ask about seeing their mom, and Jen tells them that she’ll have to be in inpatient treatment for three months, but they can visit her tomorrow. Quinn and Olivia don’t take the whole “three months” thing super well, and Quinn knocks over and breaks a glass in her haste to run inside. After dinner, Jen and Kevin drink wine and smooch on the patio sofa (you know, the patio sofa we all have), but Jen cuts her hand on some broken glass that was placed on the edge of the couch cushion. Olivia is watching from the window, which is how we know for sure she’s evil.
To the hospital! Jen reads Cassie’s file while Olivia and Quinn visit with their mom. The file says Cassie is a risk for both suicide and homicide, and also it clearly says “Cynthia” on it, but I'm sure nobody will notice. When Cassie’s doctor introduces himself to Jen, Cassie gets up and yells about how these are her babies, does Jen think she can just steal them from her? It would be neat if it turned out Jen was actually evil the whole time, but that’s not the kind of movie this is. A couple orderlies restrain Cassie, and Jen leads the girls out, with Olivia turning around to flash Cassie a big conspiratorial grin. Oh no, I think Olivia could be up to something!
That night, while Jen sleeps, the girls dig a hole in the backyard and bury a bundle of silver in it, while wearing white nightgowns. It’s a perfect crime!
Kevin comes over to watch a movie and be bland, and Jen pulls out a tub of lotion and applies some to her arms. Almost immediately, she has an itching, burning reaction to the lotion, and Kevin grabs her Epipen and helps her rinse her arms in her gigantic free-standing bathtub. Quinn and Olivia watch this from the hallway. There’s a lot of watching in this movie, a lot of scenes where it seems like something is about to happen and it doesn’t quite.
After Jen recovers, she calls her assistant Gail to tell her she won’t be hosting the show this week, because she needs to spend time with the girls, and asks her to send “Dr. Frank” over so she can figure out the allergic reaction she had to the lotion. I have to assume Dr. Frank hosts the show after hers. Allergy Time with Dr. Frank.
Dr. Frank shows up, tells Jen that it isn’t an allergic reaction but a pretty nasty chemical burn, and then he leaves. Dr. Frank, everybody! Jen takes out the garbage and then notices a cupboard door ajar in her enormous outdoor kitchen. Why, that’s where she keeps the pool acid, which has recently been opened. Jen pulls out the pH test strips she uses in the pool and tests the pool acid, and then her tub of lotion, and yep there’s pool acid in there. Gail sneaks up on her while she’s peering at the test strips, and Jen fills her in, from the acid lotion to the missing silver. Gail basically says, “hey this is pretty fucked up,” and suggests getting some nanny cams to keep an eye on them. So Jen does that, putting them in the study and the living room and also an enormous pot of orchids in the kitchen. I have never related to any house less than I relate to Jen’s house, which I honestly liked more when it was the Party Mom house.
In the morning, Jen asks to speak to Olivia (the bad twin) alone, so Quinn stops brushing her sister’s hair (they’re so normal!) and leaves the room. Jen tells Olivia that she’s always admired how Olivia speaks her mind, but that she has a harder time knowing how Quinn is feeling. Olivia assures her that Quinn always agrees with her, and she doesn’t need to talk, because Olivia speaks for both of them, premium answer question hundred percent! They’re just unhappy because their mom is locked up. God, Jen, don’t you know anything.
Gail shows up for some reason and suggests a beach day for the four of them. The twins look uncomfortable or maybe horrified by the prospect of a beach day, but they all go anyway. Jen goes for a jog while the girls dig a hole. These twins just love digging holes, and Gail is in luck, because she loves sitting in holes! This is a real conversation in this movie. Quinn calls to Jen to look at the hole, but Gail points out Jen is too far to hear her. Olivia takes this information in, and this is another scene where it seems like something will happen but it doesn’t.
There are basically thought bubbles above their heads reading “beach???? day?????????”
Then it’s nighttime and Jen and the twins are in the kitchen, preparing for a Facetime visit with Cassie. The in-person visit was too hard on their mom, Jen tells them, so Facetime it is. A nurse tells them she’ll be listening to the call, and then the girls chat with their mom while Jen busies herself doing dishes. Cassie unfurls a little piece of paper with “you took stuff?” written on it while telling her daughters she misses them. Olivia says yes, they’re being careful and good, and they wish she was here. Cassie writes “new plan” and “find her WILL” on her scrap of paper, and the girls tell her they miss her and then the call is over. That night, the girls rummage through the study and find Jen’s will. Olivia snaps a picture of it with the iPad Jen gave them, because Olivia is secretly a boomer.
The next morning, Jen is back in the studio and she brought Quinn and Olivia with her. The girls sit in the control room and whisper about the will, and how ridiculous it is that Jen is leaving her money to charity instead of to her terrible family members who hate her, and then eavesdrop on Gail and Jen talking about them. Gail thinks it might be a good idea to put them back in the care of social services, and Olivia tells Quinn she’s going to shut Gail up and walks into the studio. She tells Jen that she’s just so sad, because she feels like she’s abandoning her mom, and suggests another beach day. Beach day!
At the beach, Jen goes for another run while Olivia leads Quinn and Gail to a somewhat secluded spot under some rocks. I mean, I say “somewhat secluded” but I can still see the parking lot from here, so. Olivia cheerfully suggests a pretend spa and sends Quinn to get sunblock while she starts to bury Gail in a hole, because remember: Gail loves sitting in holes. However, Gail doesn’t love being buried in the sand when the tide comes in, which is happening pretty rapidly. She asks Olivia to unbury her, telling her this isn’t funny, and Olivia says, “it kind of is,” and walks away. I am just so relieved that something is happening in this movie! When Quinn and Jen return and find Gail gone, Jen calls her phone and hears it ringing in her trunk. Jen calls the cops, and the cops call the coast guard because Jen tells them Gail isn’t a strong swimmer. It takes absolutely forever, it’s dark now, but they find Gail’s body washed up on the shore. This is the least ACAB movie I’ve done so far, because the cops are barely in it!
Gail died doing what she loved: sitting in a hole
Back at home, Quinn tries to tell Olivia that maybe murdering people isn’t the best idea, and Olivia yells at her that Gail was trying to break them up, and that her commitment is to her sister and her family, and then a bee lands on her finger. Olivia says, “See, I’m like this bee, one little sting won’t hurt, but a swarm…” and then she looks up into a tree and there’s a swarm of bees. Does… Olivia control the bees? Is that what this movie has become? Olivia controls the bees now, good luck everybody.
In the morning, we learn that Jen is an extraordinarily heavy sleeper, because when she goes to wake the twins, she sees that they somehow moved their queen-sized beds, with headboards and footboards, into the same room without waking her. Jen says this is probably fine, and the girls ask to visit their mom again. Jen agrees, so they all troop back over to the hospital so Quinn and Olivia can play Scrabble with their mom and also show her the will. Cassie notes that there’s a provision that if Jen had children, they would get the money instead it going to charity. But, Jen doesn’t have children! What a pickle -- oh I see that Cassie is spelling out “adoption” and “be needy” on the Scrabble board. So yeah, now the plan is for Jen to adopt the twins and then kill her. I don’t know why they stole the silver and buried it. That never comes back. How was that a plan.
That night, Olivia, next to a silent Quinn, lays it on real thick with Jen about how scared she is of her mom, and how often CPS would come visit, and what if they just stayed with Jen forever? Jen says that guardianship or adoption are options, and “what’s mine would be yours,” oof, come on movie, come on Jen. Have some self-awareness. Later, Kevin comes over and she tells him the adoption plan, adding that a family court judge would want to move quickly on this because the girls said they were scared of their mom. Kevin reminds her that they put acid in her lotion, hid glass in the couch, and stole her silver, and maybe this isn’t the best idea? But Jen insists that it’s a good idea, because they’re family. Olivia is listening to this conversation, obviously.
The next morning, the twins take their bikes out while Jen heads to the store. Olivia and Quinn will be making dinner tonight, and they probably won’t poison it or anything! Oh no, I spoke too soon, they ride their bikes to some place out in the country so Olivia can harvest a bunch of death cap mushrooms while pretending Quinn doesn’t realize they’re poisonous. Cassie told her where they were, which is a thing I wouldn’t have expected her to know, but anyone can be a mushroom hunter.
The girls cook dinner, and Olivia slices poisonous mushrooms and waves her knife at Quinn, telling her not to do anything stupid. When Olivia turns her back to drain pasta from the tiniest little pot, Quinn eyes the poisonous mushrooms, alongside the ones from the store, which I assume are not poisonous. The girls plate the pasta and serve Kevin the biggest portion, because he’s a big boy. Quinn looks at her plate and announces that gee, she didn’t get very many mushrooms, and Kevin offers her some of his, while Olivia looks on in horror and tells her “don’t eat that” in the impenetrable code of pig Latin. Pig Latin! Fucking amateurs. Quinn eats a mushroom with relish and Olivia pulls her into the next room to tell her she needs to throw up right now, then realizes that Quinn knew about the whole poison mushroom thing and switched them. She tells Quinn that she thinks she’s doing the right thing but she isn’t, Olivia is the one looking out for her and their mom, and Quinn walks out on her.
Then we’re back at the hospital! Jen needs to talk Cassie into giving up her parental rights to her daughters, and Cassie puts on a very convincing show with a lot of erratic yelling before admitting that she knows she’s done a bad job, and the girls would be better off with Jen. We’re definitely not planning on murdering you, so don’t even worry about that. Also, Jen calls Cassie “sis” in case you just showed up and didn’t realize they were sisters.
The whole crew heads to city hall to finalize Jen’s adoption of the twins, and it’s fucking Pasadena City Hall! The one they use for the exterior shots of Pawnee’s city hall in “Parks and Rec” and I swear to GOD if any of you makes fun of me for recognizing this I will throw you into a lake. Have we been in Pasadena this whole time, PASADENA, for god’s sake?? The family court judge asks Cassie if she’s sure, really really sure, she wants to give up her daughters to Jen, and Cassie yells at him that oh, sure, she can’t even give her babies up for adoption without being WRONG somehow, and then lunges at Jen for good measure. She’s very convincing! It’s almost like she’s mentally unstable! A bailiff drags her out of court, and then the social worker comes out to tell them that Cassie’s violent outburst convinced him that the girls belonged with Jen. “I love you, sis,” Jen tells Cassie (they’re sisters), as she’s led out of the courthouse and presumably back to the hospital. This is all taking place within Cassie’s three-month hospitalization! The court system is so fast and responsive, just like in real life.
I like a collar as much as the next girl, but if you wear it to family court you do deserve to have your kids taken away
At dinner that night, Jen tells the girls that the hospital approved Cassie for a free day tomorrow, so they’re going to go for a picnic at a nice little spot in the mountains that her grandfather used to take her and Cassie to when they were kids. Sounds like a fun, wholesome time!
The morning of the picnic, Quinn happens upon Olivia wrapping ribbon around a small wooden box in the backyard, and demands to know what’s in the box, because she knows Olivia and Cassie are up to something. Olivia tells her it’s a gift for their mom, and she can’t trust her anymore. Quinn looks up at that swarm of bees that’s still there, because Olivia controls the bees. On the way to the car, she grabs Jen’s Epipen from the kitchen and slips it into her sleeve.
On the way to the picnic, Jen and Cassie bicker about how bad their mom was, with Cassie proclaiming her “crazy as a jaybird,” which is not the saying but I guess it makes as much sense as anything else. Cassie just keeps yelling and yelling and it’s very annoying and not picnicky at all, and Jen finally declares that she’s going to turn this car around. Cassie says no, talking like this is therapeutic, and as a matter of fact, Olivia brought the perfect gift for the perfect family, and takes the wooden box from her. Guess what’s in the box! It’s bees! It’s so many bees, more bees than should be in one Mercedes sedan! I don’t think it was ever explicitly stated that Jen is allergic to bees, you can have a lot of severe allergies that would cause you to need an Epipen, but I guess Jen is allergic to bees, because she pulls the car over, stumbles out of it, and tells Cassie that she’s going to die. Cassie whoops that she finally wins, she gets to live in the Party Mom house with her babies, and she yells, “I won the big one!” many many times, like it’s a thing people say. Cassie and Olivia cheerily get back in the car, but Quinn hangs back and drops the Epipen out of her sleeve before reluctantly getting in the car. Jen waits for them to drive off and then stabs herself in the leg with it.
You’ll never believe how many bees can fit in this box!!
Somehow, murdering their aunt with bees did not heal the growing fissure between Quinn and Olivia, and they argue in the car, with their mom taking Olivia’s side and demanding to know why Quinn isn’t happy that they won. Olivia lunges at Quinn, and when Cassie tries to break them up, she loses control of the car and they crash into a tree. Apparently this happened truly immediately after they left Jen on the side of the road, because Jen quickly reaches them on foot. Quinn’s fine, Olivia is unconscious, and Cassie is dead.
Eight months later, Jen and her boyfriend visit Cassie’s grave, and Jen leaves the picture of them at horse camp on her headstone. Remember horse camp, Cassie? Sure you do. Then they go to a hospital somewhere, where the same social worker from before tells them that Quinn has made excellent progress, but Olivia, well, Olivia’s the bad twin and she always will be. We see both the twins, who are dressed in different outfits for the first time, chatting with their respective doctors, and then Olivia screams for her sister, who she can’t see. And that’s uh, that’s pretty much it, that’s the whole movie, Jen says her “Remember, you create the love that you deserve” signoff and it ends. Sorry!