Note: The clone of Miles will be referred to as Clone Miles, while the original will just be referred to as Miles.

I stumbled into Netflix’s new original show “Living With Yourself” mostly out of a love of Paul Rudd. The synopsis of the show was vague describing Rudd being replaced by himself, but the title hinted to me that it would be an emotional, probably funny show at a time when I needed something new. I was not at all prepared for what was in store.

To briefly sum up the show, Rudd plays Miles, who works at an advertising agency and seems to have given up on trying in his life. His clothing and hair are often sloppy, and he has a greying five o’clock shadow that seems like the result of laziness more so than a style choice. One of his coworkers, Dan, comes into a pitch meeting energized and toting an Oculus fueled VR experience. He later explains to Miles that an exclusive, extremely expensive spa where only those recommended by clients may enter is to credit for his newfound confidence.

After debating with himself, Miles calls the number given by Dan and makes an appointment. Upon arriving he’s greeted by Tom Brady exiting the spa who claims to have gone 5 times before. Miles enters and is greeted by two Asian men who take him to the back and begin the treatment by taking a blood sample before putting him under.

Miles awakes buried underground in a plastic bag and claws his way to surface to find himself in the woods only wearing his underwear. He treks 6 hours back to his house to find that there’s another man in his home who looks exactly like him. He discovers that the spa took his DNA to clone him, and discarded his body because no client has yet to survive the process.

Clone Miles appears to be better than Miles in every way. He’s kind, positive and optimistic and when Real Miles asks him to go to work for him, he delivers a heartfelt pitch on building relationships for a big potential client. Miles’ bosses love the idea and he is given the reins to convince the client to sign on with their company.

The implications of this entire situation were incredible and posed some challenging questions for the audience. Although there is a lot one can pull from this blossoming show, I believe that the concepts it ponders can be narrowed down to two.

Is a clone of yourself a different person?

The most obvious question the show follows is if Clone Miles truly is just a better version of the original man or a unique being. He shares all of Miles’ memories, and genetics, but he makes healthier eating choices, dresses with more care, and seems to overall lack any of Miles’ crunchiness and despair. Since Clone Miles is the only patient of the spa to have had his original survive, his existence and personhood are a bit of a grey area, but the show ultimately answers this question.

Kate and Clone Miles both go to her work conference out of state after they find themselves to be matched on an online dating app. Kate seems to be exploring whether she can just replace Miles with Clone Miles because essentially, they’re the same person, but the clone is not a depressed, selfish version of her husband. This results in what is the most thoughtful statement of the show, but I’ll get to that in a bit.

Miles and his clone’s first interaction reveal that they do have one difference among them: Miles has a scar from an appendectomy when he was a child, but Clone Miles lacks this scar. This becomes highly important later when Miles is arrested by the FDA and has to prove his identity, but it’s even more important because of what it represents.

After Kate and Clone Miles make love for the first time, they eventually end up fighting and Kate says “I know you think that you were there all of those years and you feel that you lived through all of our crap, but you didn’t, you just didn’t and that’s got to make a difference.” This statement brings up an even more interesting debate on whether having a memory and experiencing a memory make a difference.

The show seems to suggest that these two things are not the same. The appendectomy scar that Miles has, but Clone Miles lacks, shows how the former experienced the memory, and thus has the literal and emotional scars to show from it, while the latter perhaps only has a caricature. So, maybe Clone Miles is not the same person because his memories haven’t truly affected him. They are simply pictures he can recall.

Either side of this could be debated intensely, but “Living With Yourself” at minimum seems to take the stance that experiencing memory and living with the consequences makes someone who they are, while just having a memory without the experience does not have the same effect. So, using this line of reasoning, a clone of one’s self could not be the same person.

How strongly should we cling to our ideal selves?

Beyond the obvious question posed by the show’s title, identity crisis seems to be the biggest driving force for everyone in this show. Miles seems to struggle with not providing his wife, Kate, children or a better life. He is so preoccupied with his failings that he becomes lackadaisical about his hygiene, his work, and his social life. Kate seems to struggle with her identity as a suburban wife and settling when she once was a “badass” according to her coworker. Kate also is having issues becoming pregnant, a fact that is heightened by the life she now has where children would be the norm.

Dan also struggles with his identity briefly as his few days of fame at his and Miles’ work slowly crashes and burns as Clone Miles becomes the new golden boy. When Clone Miles reveals that Dan is a clone, he seems to eventually accept that fact easily, not having the double to deal with. This brings us to Clone Miles who can’t seem to fathom the idea that Kate does not want to be with him when he is a better version of Miles. This begs the question of how much power should be given to our vision of our ideal selves.

Miles repeatedly acts jealous of his clone who seems to make Kate happier by his kind-hearted acts and general enthusiasm. It’s an odd situation because the clone is similar to him in nearly every way, so one can wonder if he’s frustrated at the clone or if the clone reminds him that he is not living up to the ideal life he envisioned.

Kate also demonstrates this struggle as she works for an extremely difficult client who is hellbent on having a house as glamorous as his CEO and loses his mind over the vein of some marble tiles not being exact replicas. Kate curses the man out and later in the show reminisces about a time when she was working architecture for the love of it and not because of the need for paying gigs. There’s also the symbol of Kate’s credenza which when she first acquires, she carves her and Miles’ name into the drawer because that’s what her mother had done; another ideal self.

Clone Miles is even more interesting because he is the ideal self of Miles, but even he doesn’t live up to the life he desires. He has the memories and genes of Miles but is seemingly better, and yet Kate rejects him because as previously mentioned, he doesn’t have the experience of Miles. He’s more like a walking home video of Miles than he is Kate’s husband, and therefore is flawed even being the “improved” Miles.

All of these characters do damage things to themselves, each other, and a credenza because of this inability to reconcile with the lives they planned. To avoid major spoilers, I won’t go into detail, but this conflict does not resolve itself until the end of the season where all are a bit more accepting of each other.

The ending of the show would suggest another season on the horizon. Hopefully, with more material and further dramatic situations, the show will be able to explore its deep questions even more and perhaps a few new ones. One thing is for sure, “Living With Yourself” should place itself on the shelf among other fascinating philosophical television programs and has lots of potential.