Dead Ringers' graphic birth scene gives House of the Dragon a run for its money
Dead Ringers spoilers follow.
The opening credits of Dead Ringers quickly establishes the knotted show we're strapped in for. The manic synth bass of Eurythmics' Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) kicks in, as we weave through a plastic model of the birthing centre twin gynaecologists Elliot and Beverly Mantle (both Rachel Weisz) hope to set up.
The waxwork scenes start innocent enough, with miniature figurine women lying prone under white sheets, doctors stood nearby, as they placidly give birth.
Yet as the '80s pop continues to boom, the shots of the model centre speed up and the grisly reality of childbirth rears its head: a plasticine woman with a face moulded in agony as her baby crowns, another with blood gushing from between her legs as a couple – presumably surrogate parents – look on maniacally smiling.
The twisted wit of the Prime Video show breathes into its depiction of childbirth. Much in the same way House of the Dragon gave an unflinching look at motherhood in quasi-medieval times, Dead Ringers stresses that some of these maternal horrors are very much still a part of modern-day medicine.
The graphic C-section scene in House of the Dragon's first episode made waves after it aired. When King Visyerys (Paddy Considine) was told Queen Aemma's (Sian Brooke) baby was breech, he had to make a choice: save his wife or save the baby.
He chose the heir, and a screaming Queen Aemma was pinned down as the baby was cut from her. She died of blood loss and, hours later, her baby also died. The grim storyline turned out to be one of several violent childbirth scenes in the Game of Thrones spin-off, leading up to Rhaenyra's (Emma D'Arcy) agonising miscarriage in the season finale.
While there is debate over whether such distressing scenes were necessary in House of the Dragon, they graphically emphasised the brutality of childbirth in medieval times, the period that George R R Martin has said he drew inspiration from. It was a time when women regularly died in childbirth and C-sections were used as a last-ditch effort.
From its opening moments, Dead Ringers is dedicated to an authentic depiction of childbirth and it inadvertently lives up to body-horror maestro David Cronenberg's original film of the same name. This is most evident in the first episode's eye-popping montage of births every which way, for which the production team invited medical professionals on set to guarantee accuracy.
Elliot and Beverly arrive at the hospital for what we presume is just another day on the job. Then the day gets underway, at first in sterilised cuts: a close-up of women's faces contorted in pain, other women pushing as the business of their nether regions unfolds off camera.
"Why are you wearing my vagina like it's a f**king glove?" one distressed soon-to-be-mother demands. "I'm supporting the baby's head," Elliot serenely explains.
The montage continues amid calls to "Breathe in! Push!" Beverley tells one patient they need an emergency C-section ASAP. There's counting, more calls to "Push!" "I really don't want a C-section," one woman sobs as she's rolled down a stark white corridor.
Then things really ratchet up as the soundtrack hammers away, much like in the opening credits. We see blood gushing out from somewhere onto a white pair of Adidas shoes. Crimson-stained gloves manoeuvre a head out of a woman's vagina. Another head is pulled from another vagina with a pair of clamped silver forceps, a face grabbed by a hand when it appears.
More calls to "Push!", more blood. A belly is slit open with a scalpel and then pulled apart for tubes and hands to enter. Beverley and Elliot are yanking like they're rowing a boat. More babies emerge. More blood.
Beverley and Elliot pump the lifeless C-section baby with air. A moment of pause. The music stops. Then the baby starts to cry and the twins exhale a sigh of relief, ending the brief insight into their day in the life.
While House of the Dragon's scenes show graphic (spare a thought for how drained that word might be by now) births are not new to our screens, Dead Ringers presents a real and occasionally terrifying insight into maternity today. Later in that same first episode, the twins brush with tragedies of miscarriage, infertility and maternal mortality.
The Dead Ringers production was adamant about the show's authenticity and brought a range of medical consultants into the fold. "We spoke to people in bioengineering, genetics, embryology, to midwives, obstetricians, people who've sought medical funding from big philanthropic organisations," Weisz told Vogue.
Writer and showrunner Alice Birch previously said she wanted Dead Ringers to engage with the "horror of the medical system that many women and birth-givers find themselves in". She told Fangoria: "I haven't seen childbirth depicted on screen in a way that's not really sanitised."
This comes after a major study last year found maternal mortality rates have risen in the UK. Mothers are now three times more likely to die around the time of pregnancy compared to those in Norway and Denmark, the 2022 study from an international research team of academics revealed.
The risk is higher still for Black women, who are four times more likely to die in pregnancy and childbirth than white women, according to a 2021 report published by MBRRACE-UK.
The show's magnifying glass on the struggle of childbirth and the risks attached has additional resonance in the wake of the overturning of the US Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v Wade last year and the ongoing fight for women's autonomy over their own bodies.
The medieval scenes of childbirth in House of the Dragon elicited criticism for their violence, and these scenes can undoubtedly be triggering for those who have experienced child loss. Yet the war-zone depiction of a maternity ward in Dead Ringers crucially shows that despite our myriad of technological advances, giving birth is still a dangerous and bloody endeavour.
Dead Ringers is available to stream on Prime Video.
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