There seem to be two schools of thoughts on twins...one the "Hollywood" type (the Discovery Channel, I think, had a special on twins talking about how alike they were, and in the promo spot for it they had two men saying something like

TWIN 1: "We're so alike that we..."

TWIN 2: "...often finish each other's sentences."

And then there's reality. For instance, to dredge up one last "Dorian Gray" reference, there've been several studies done of identical twins where at least one is gay. Well, back in Year 2 K there was a fellow named Dr. Kenneth Kendler who conducted what he seemed to say was the uber study on twins of this type. His results? He found if one twin was gay, the other had less than 1/3 of a chance to have same-sex attraction as well. If that doesn't tell us something about the psyche of identical twins, nothing will.

Now as these facts relate to the story...

Ian Martin uses both elements...that the twins are alike (indistinguishable to the naked eye/ear), yet they're quite different (one's quite successful, the other a loser), yet at the core, they're alike (they're murderers).

What I loved about this was what Matthew Modine's character (who wore the hat with "Born to kill" written on it, alongside a peace sign) in the movie "Full metal jacket" seemed to call the "duality of man".

These characters were flawed, and they gave into evil choices. Yet they were all humanized.

1. The father (whom we never met)...described as "a crook" by the twin "Simon". E.G. said he plotted to control his sons lives from "beyond the grave" through his will. (Hope none of you has seen a family where one child is favored over another...unfortunately, I've seen it happen with a close relative, and the results are rarely if ever pleasant.)

Yet the "Dad" was obviously heartbroken about his wife's death in childbirth.

2. Simon...an abusive (often to women) man, callous, unscrupulous enough to commit murder of his own twin brother, yet who served our country in Viet Nam ending up as a POW there. (What other episode mentioned the Viet Nam war? I know "The wheel of life" did, and I'm pretty sure "The bullet" did as well.)

Must show how easily I'm manipulated, but I actually felt sorry for him, even a little bit after his brother's ghost showed up. (What was it he said to Steven? "Let me have my innings now?" He seemed quite eloquent for the ne'er-do-well he was, but probably others in his position are good with words, too.)

3. Steven, who seem to try to be "the good son" (and I'm guessing he got his share of guff from their father...I think he even said as much) and who seemed to feel for his brother somewhat.

...yet proved to be just as conniving, a drug runner (and God Himself only knows what else) to boot, and just as fratricidal as Simon.

I thought it was a great mark of casting to use two of the RMT's then "young studs" (Michael Tolin and Paul Hecht) as the voices of the twins. (If Joan Lovejoy had been able to hear their voices as we did, she'd have no difference telling them apart.) I honestly thought they brought these characters to life in a rich way making what could have been an otherwise formulaic RMT show come alive quite well.

(BTW, I also love the music bed (which sounds like something I used to hear on the original "Jonny Quest" TV show from the 60s) used immediately after the car crash and during the ensuing "murder of Steven" segment.)

Bottom line: in retrospect, this may not have been so much of a "twins" story as it was a story of family members who, for lack of wisdom to stop making bad choices in their lives, end up destroying one another.