Logline An avenging Japanese daughter plots with her circle of girlfriends a hostile takeover of her heartless father's corporation by murdering her twin brother and living a double life as both twins to obtain absolute power.
The Vanishing Twin is a periodic series that combines the ruthlessness and business espionage of HBO’s Succession with the eroticism and female empowerment of the Korean movie The Handmaiden. Each episode is one hour in length, and I have completed the full scripts for the entire first season. The setting is in Tokyo, but I can adjust the location to anywhere worldwide. The series has a unique hook with a dynamic female, Maegami Takeda, who kills her twin brother and lives a dual life as both twins to get control of her family’s corporation. Maegami’s circle of friends, an ensemble group, assists Maegami with the hostile takeover without knowledge of the murder part of the plan. Each episode ends with a cliffhanger and questions leading to the following chapter.
First Season Summary This synopsis is for the entire first season of The Vanishing Twin. A snapshot summary for each of the seven completed episodes are available at your request. I can send you the completed one-hour episodes as well. The format lends for a season two, but I can easily add the eighth episode to wrap it up as a limited series instead. The setting of this series is Tokyo, but it is an easy rewrite for me to put the show in any city in the world.
The Vanishing Twin is a psychological thriller in modern-day Tokyo about an alpha lesbian, Maegami Takeda, who is a twin to her brother Ichiro. She is a dynamic, alluring, but womanizing leader who is the chief legal counsel for Takeda Shipping. She is the natural choice for the new CEO, but her twin brother, Ichiro, an inept logistics manager, is next in line only because he's male. Their ultra-conservative Father, Eizo Takeda, follows antiquated Japanese mores and announces the promotion of Ichiro to CEO, which triggers Maegami's ruthless quest to avenge a lifetime of abuse by taking over Takeda Shipping at any cost to her or anyone else. Eizo is an abusive father and husband, and Maegami seeks revenge for her mother's death.
Maegami starts to implement a sordid plan for a hostile company takeover. The goal was to bring down her Father's company and start the first female-controlled shipping corporation. Her takeover team, nicknamed the "Girls Club," is Maegami's circle of LGBTQ-friendly women that meets for coffee breaks in Maegami's office. The group leader is Hana, her assistant and right-hand girl. Maegami's lover, Reiko, gives on-site executive massages and teaches Maegami an ice-pick murder technique from a movie they enjoyed. Ami is Ichiro's secretary and works with Maegami's nemesis. Jenny is a young receptionist who Maegami enchants. Kai, a TV news personality who became a Maegami love interest, is rounding out the group. This "girls' club" challenges the "old boys' club," but the group's secrets and intimate liaisons cause tensions that eat away at the girl's confidence in the plan.
Maegami manipulates the group and does not share her plan's essential and heinous part with anyone and deceives the group by faking cancer so she can change her body shape to double as her brother Ichiro physically. Maegami has her head shaved and a butt and hip augmentation. Maegami then uses the ice-pick method to murder her brother and dumps the body off her boat as it seems like she is helping a person scuba dive.
The murder of Ichiro allows Maegami to play both roles as her and as her brother. She then has the power of the CEO while impersonating Ichiro to transfer enough stocks to allow the hostile takeover to happen. The acquisition gives her Father a terminal stroke that Maegami evilly enjoys.
Maegami has many unseen issues while being Ichiro, complicating her plans to complete the deal and let Ichiro disappear. As events get entangled, Maegami shows her psychotic side by eliminating anyone who is a threat to her success. She murders sweet Jenny to silence her and blackmails Kai to implicate Ami in a bogus illegal drug scheme to remove both of them. Maegami also has to deal with the Yakuza, who had their criminal claws into Ichiro, unknown to anyone. Maegami's actions cause others to see her and Ichiro differently, even though everyone does not know the scope of her schemes. Family secrets and lover's revenge complicate the scheme.
Reiko has a hunch that Ichiro and Maegami are the same person through her massage sessions with each of them. It is difficult as Ichiro insists on leaving all clothes on and massaging only the neck and shoulder areas. When she is sure, Reiko kills Maegami when she is Ichiro with the same ice-pick move that Maegami used to kill the actual Ichiro.
Hana and Reiko, whose love relationship and partnership to work against Maegami were unknown to anyone, leave the country as the clear winners in this story as Maegami, Ichiro, and Eizo are all gone. OR ARE THEY?