Echoes Episode 1 review: Who is the real Gina? (Spoilers)

Netflix's latest miniseries, Echoes, opened with a premiere full of twists and turns, causing viewers to binge on it from the first minute.

Created by Vanessa Gazy, the series follows identical twins Leni and Gina and their dangerous secret. The two have secretly swapped lives since they were kids and were living a double life as adults where they shared two homes, two husbands and a child. However, their world is thrown into disarray when one of them goes missing.

Note: This article reflects the writer's opinions and contains spoilers.

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Echoes Episode 1 recap and review: A strange tale about twins

Episode 1 of Netflix's Echoes, titled Home, opened with Gina McCleary, a writer who gets the news that her identical twin sister has gone missing. She returns to her childhood home, unaware that an entire scandal awaits her.

Viewers were also introduced to an online journal the twins kept as a way to communicate with one another on a daily basis, sometimes through videos as well. However, her sister Leni had not posted in a while, which unnerved Gina.

Gina returns to town and witnesses her fear come to life when she drives through town to see missing person posters of her sister. After reaching her old home, she approached a search party that was just returning from its first day of exploring.

Police cars, ambulances and several people were on site. She also learned that Leni's best friend Meg had not participated in the search, which she found odd.

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Troubled pasts

Soon after in Echoes, Gina noticed that Leni's husband, Jack, seemed to be hiding something and had hired a babysitter for their daughter, Mattie. What added more to the identical twin element was when Mattie mistook Gina as her own mother.

Gina then met Sheriff Floss, who was leading the investigation, and shared that there was an intruder who released the horses, soon after which Leni went missing.Gina believed that Leni had been kidnapped.

Viewers were then greeted with a series of flashbacks which offered glimpses of the troubled past the twin sisters had had. At night, Gina was greeted warmly by her family, however she later found a vandalized doll in her old bedroom.

Upon questioning the same, her wheelchair-bound sister Claudia gets into an argument with her. So, Gina decided to stay at a local hotel instead and called her husband to update him about the situation.

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Traumas and conflicts

However, when Gina was about to leave, she discovered a severed doll's arm in a tree outside their home and a charm from her childhood bracelet tied to her. This specific bracelet was a significant one for the twins as it was a gift from their dying mother.

However, the beautiful memory of that night was cut off by a bathtub-related trauma along with a brewing conflict between Claudia and the twins.

On the second day of the search, Leni's horse Prince was found after he returned to the ranch covered in blood. This was then followed by a fallen horse that was shot in the head and when Jack was questioned about it, he had a guarded response.

Gina then decided to begin her own investigation in Echoes, where she uncovered some provocative red lingerie and another doll's arm in a jewelry box at Leni's house.

However, a drunk and tired Jack mistook her for his wife and got intimate. When he finally realized it was not his wife, he backed away and Gina left. This specific moment was not just shocking but also hinted at a saucy past between the twins and Jack.

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Swapping lives

In the final moments of Echoes' premiere, all the twists came pouring out. Gina inspected a cave behind a waterfall, which was apparently Leni's hideout spot. This is where she found Leni's clothes and the missing doll's head along with Gina's book with notes inside.

The message read: "Happy birthday, you got both lives, choose." This was followed by flashbacks of the twins switching lives for a year before they swapped again.

Gina did not even hesitate and donned Leni's clothes before heading back to the ranch. To make it even more believable, she dirtied her clothes and cracked a rock against her head. When she reached her house, she cooked up a story about saving the horses and getting lost in the woods, giving Echoes an interesting start.

The first episode was full of mystery and intrigue as Echoes unearthed past trauma, a web of lies, and a seedy criminal underbelly.

Echoes is now streaming on Netflix.