Living With Yourself is an American Netflix original comedy series that premiered on October 18th, 2019.
The series follows Miles Elliot (Paul Rudd), an advertising copywriter stuck in a dead-end job, a failing marriage and consequently stricken with ennui about his life. On advice from a co-worker, he decides to undergo an experimental new treatment which promises to rejuvenate him to the point where he's practically a new person. Unfortunately, Miles only realises too late that they mean this literally — the process creates a clone of Miles (Paul Rudd) who, much to Miles's chagrin, appears to be better at living his life than Miles is. The two consequently have to figure out a way of existing with each other without completely destroying Miles Elliot's life in the process — or killing each other.
Living With Yourself contains examples of:
- The Ace: Clone Miles is genetically designed to be this, being athletic, charismatic, kindhearted, and intelligent. This is partially why Kate breaks up with him - he is too great, too perfect. As a regular, flawed human being, she finds trying to keep up with him exhausting.
- Always Someone Better:
- Both versions of Miles experience this towards the other. The original Miles hates that the clone is more positive, friendly and optimistic than he is, with a better work ethic and social skills than he possesses, to the point where he starts becoming more successful in Miles's life. The clone, however, is insecure because at the end of the day this is all the original's life; he has no past or lived experiences of his own and doesn't really know who he is, whereas Miles at least has all of this.
- Dan's popularity at work is what leads Miles to seek the spa treatment in the first place. After that, the role is flipped, with Clone Miles being the object of Dan's envy.
- Brilliant, but Lazy: Considering Clone Miles is exactly the same as Miles, only with a proper work ethic, the man could excel at his job if he could just get out of his rut. He does eventually save the Hillsman pitch after Clone Miles ditches his work responsibilities, but he does this in a much more manipulative way than his authentic clone counterpart.
- Cliffhanger: Typical to Netflix original binge content, most episodes end with one of these.
- Clone Angst: Clone Miles goes through a lot of this. He has all of the original Miles’ memories and emotional attachments, but none of it is actually his. Being unable to reconcile his beliefs with reality results in a lot of grief for him, the original Miles, and Miles’ wife Kate.
- Contrived Coincidence: When the FDA "arrested" Miles right before his clone can kidnap him.
- Deadpan Snarker: Kate has her moments.
- Death Seeker: In the season finale, when Clone Miles can't bring himself to suicide, he leaves it up to Miles to end his life. He ultimately can't go through with it, and instead gets into fist-fight with him.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: If you view the two Mileses as one character in two bodies, they are evocative of someone with bipolar disorder, with the extraverted and energetic clone Miles representing manic episodes and the lazy and cynical original Miles representing depressive episodes.
- Driven to Suicide: Clone Miles contemplates this, even holding a gun to his head, but ultimately does not go through with it.
- Genre-Busting: Asking fans of the show how they would describe it is bound to lead to some hesitation. Paul Rudd himself attempted in an interview:Rudd: I suppose [it's] an existential comedy with hints of drama, science-fiction, cinnamon, and a little bit of paprika.
- Happily Married: Miles and Kate were this initially, but things have slowly soured over the last five years. The biggest motivation for all three main characters seems to revolve around getting the relationship back to a healthy place.
- Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: A truly bizarre example occurs towards the end of the season, when Kate announces her pregnancy after having slept with both Mileses. As she says, the child could be either or both of theirs, and naturally, there's no way of ever finding out. Both Miles and the clone accept this and everyone agrees that they'll both be involved in raising the child.
- Manipulative Bastard: Miles wins the support of a group of farmers for his ad campaign when he reads a sympathetic story in a farming magazine and passes it off as his own. Only one of them learns the truth and calls him out on this.
- Pet the Dog: In a rare moment of empathy, Miles thanks his clone for helping him out with his life after dropping him off at his new apartment.
- Precision F-Strike: Kate gives one of these to her client in "Va Bene" when he complains about the marble in his house.
- Sexual Karma: Despite their failings, Kate and Miles are shown to genuinely connect in the bedroom. When Kate cheats on her husband with his clone, the experience is noticeably less enjoyable.
- Tomato in the Mirror: Clone Miles doesn’t realize he’s a clone until he confronts the spa workers and they reveal the truth. Dan, another clone, is also unaware of his true nature until Clone Miles drives him out to the woods and shows him the body of the original Dan.
- Took a Level in Cheerfulness: Miles' clone is the personification of this, which becomes the source of Miles' jealousy.
- Vorpal Pillow: In the final episode, Miles tries to kill his clone - and nearly succeeds - by smothering him with a pillow. He ends up having a My God, What Have I Done? moment and resuscitates the clone afterwards.
