Can Twins Speak Telepathically? Only In "Teenage Bounty Hunters" (and It’s Great)

Netflix’s hit new comedy uses a stereotype for good, not evil.

Full respect to twins, but they’ve been freaking the world out for centuries.

The incredible sight of fraternal and identical twins has fascinated people since there have been people to fascinate, even though it’s actually not all that uncommon. (In Australia, twins occur once in every 80 births, meaning one in 40 Australians is a twin, and about 30 per cent are identical.)

Those who have grown up as a twosome know there’s really nothing to be afraid of, though literature and cinema keeps trying to otherise them. In 1844, Alexandre Dumas wrote The Corsican Brothers, which told of formerly-conjoined twins who shared physical sensation after separation. Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige, David Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers and François Ozon’s Double Lover saw pairs of identical twins deceiving their nearest and dearest in extremely discomfiting ways. And don’t even get us started on The Shining.

Occasionally you’ll get some sympathetic twins: The Parent Trap, Adaptation, umm, Jack & Jill. Still, for the most part, they’re treated with suspicion if not downright terror, and perhaps that’s because of a little something called cryptophasia.

Cryptophasia is the name given to the development of a language shared only by twins. You may have seen (or even experienced) this phenomenon in your lifetime, though experts today suggest it’s not always evidence of an invented language between twins, but rather a shared delay in speech development (caused by the kids being able to non-verbally communicate with each other more easily than with their parents).

Nonetheless, it has earned a reputation due to some infamous historical cases, such as those of June and Jennifer Gibbons, a Welsh pair who earned the nickname "The Silent Twins" and turned to a life of crime; Grace and Virginia Kennedy, from Columbus, Georgia, who renamed themselves Poto and Cabengo; and Linda and Terry Jamison, Californians who claim to be psychic despite being heavily debunked.

The latter pair aren’t necessarily famous for their secret sisters' language, however, they've contributed to the false stereotype—strengthened by the concept of cryptophasia—that twins can speak telepathically, which, of course, is demonising and offensive. And yet, it’s been turned into a nifty device in Netflix’s spunky new series Teenage Bounty Hunters, in which Christian skip chasers Sterling (Maddie Phillips) and Blair (Anjelica Bette Fellini) Wesley have rapid psychic conversations in public.

It’s an ingenious narrative trick, allowing the (very funny!) Phillips and Fellini to quickly burn through exposition, for theirs and the audience’s sake, without having to slow down the story. When they have something they need to urgently communicate, they whip their heads at one another, and the shot switches to a gauzy, fish-eyed close up of each sister, volleying back and forth with increasing intensity.

It’s really good! (Until a clip or GIF is uploaded demonstrating this moment effectively, the below image will have to do.)

It’s not the only reason the show is good. Teenage Bounty Hunters has the spirit and sass of Veronica Mars and American Vandal, with the fast-moving cartoonish flair of Brooklyn Nine-Nine. (There are also a bunch of twists and turns that’ll certainly defy your expectations.)

But most importantly, twins can now be grateful that sibling telepathy is finally being used in cinema and television for non-evil purposes. If people are gonna believe the myth anyway, hey, make it work for you.

Teenage Bounty Hunters Season 1 is now available to stream on Netflix.