The television series EVIL is a delicious smorgasbord of Gothic imagery and tropes. Season 4, Episode 12 (Fear of the Other) serves up a unique approach to the doppelganger trope. Note that mild spoilers are in this post, but they are hidden behind an expandable “details” section.
What Is the Doppelganger Trope?
Atlas Obscura gives a pithy definition of “doppelganger:”
“The German word translates to “double-goer,” a name given to the specter of a human being seen while the one it resembles still lives.
The existence of Doppelgangers is a scientific fact. Out there, right now, is a person that looks identical to you but is not related to you. Twin-from-another-mother encounters are much more common in the digital era, and you can find a plethora of examples of celebrity doppelgangers with a simple search.
The doppelganger trope is (unsurprisingly) based on the true phenomenon of a physical double. The usage of the trope is varied and often surprising. Here are a few examples of books and the mechanisms employed to bring the doubles together:
- Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer: Time-traveling twin swap
- The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain: Switching clothes to swap lives
- The Scapegoat by Daphne du Maurier: Retelling of “switch clothes, switch life”
- Portrait of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde: Double trapped in a painting
- Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson: Psychological double
Of that list, Charlotte Sometimes may be the least known. I first read it when I was eight or nine. That it has stuck with me for over three decades and hundreds of books later is testament to the eerie and frightening staying power of the novel.
Why Is the Doppelganger Trope Considered Gothic?
Gothic fiction is the genre of creeping dread. To encounter a person who is you, without actually being you is uncanny. Given that the uncanny elicits dread, it makes sense that Gothic fiction leverages the doppelganger trope as often as it does.
The dark, thematic heart of Gothic fiction is the psychological tension induced by duality: flesh/spirit; good/evil; sane/insane; rationality/spirituality; me/not-me. A skilled author brings together the disparate halves in ways that decrease the characters’ and the readers’ sense of certainty. You don’t need a jump scare or blood to be creeped out by “the other,” and you cannot get much more unsettling than discovering “the other” is really “me.”
Turning the concept on its head, you can consider the Gothic mood as the trope. From this vantage, the doppelganger is a foundation or structure of the Gothic genre. Either way, Gothic fiction and the doppelganger are a symbiotic entanglement.
How Did EVIL S4:E12 Use the Doppelganger Trope?
Here Be Spoilers
EVIL, created by Michelle and Robert King, is a television series steeped in Gothic mood and tropes. For those who are unaware of the show, the three main characters are a Catholic priest, a psychologist, and a rational scientist. The duality of religion and science is bridged by the psychological, which partakes of both sides to create a sort of fuzzy center to the Venn diagram of religion/psyche/reason. Supernatural elements, an architecturally Gothic church, and the identity struggles of the characters makes EVIL the posterchild (or Milk Carton Kid) for contemporary Gothic television.
Episode Twelve of Season Four is titled, Fear of the Other. The premise is based on the scientific fact of doppelgangers. The show deftly portrays the Gothic understanding of doubles as harbingers of uncertainty, dread, and dissolution of self. What makes this episode remarkable, though, is the handling of the doppelganger trope. The writers amplify the trope by having the characters actively seek out doubles, not of themselves, but of other people. Locating the doppelgangers is an attempt to fulfill the fantasy of “what if we were ourselves, but different.” Whereas du Maurier’s Scapegoat finds out what it means to be a different version of himself, the EVIL characters find out what it means to hold yourself idempotent while treating the other person as a variable. This allows the characters to remain themselves, while remaking the other person different way that is advantageous to the seeker.
The concept of “other,” in this episode is doubled, if not tripled. In the doubling situation:
- Character A is the “other” to Character B.
- Doppel-A is an alternate or other-“other” to Character B.
- Other + Other, or double-Doppel effect
The doubling increases again by half if the Character B decides to not only seek a Doppel-A but also a self-Doppel (Doppel-B).
Disoriented yet? Good! That is an excellent indication that this episode lies within the borders of the Gothic literary tradition.
Additional Reading
The linked article to The Cinemaholic is where I took the detail screenshot used at the top of this post. Be warned that there are spoilers in this article, although they are clearly demarcated.
https://thecinemaholic.com/evil-season-4-find-my-doppel-website/
A BBC article that delves into the enduring appeal of Gothic literature.
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20210311-the-books-that-are-channelling-our-fears
A post from The Gothic Library about the doppelganger trope. I strongly recommend this blog as an awesome resource for all things Gothic.
Erzsebet Carmean 