Posted by The Crowded Room has been one of the most streamed TV series on Apple TV+ in the summer of 2023. Although the show is based on the true story of Billy Milligan (we discovered it here), there are many differences between Billy’s real life and Danny Sullivan’s adventure. One of the many questions that have arisen is: who is Adam in The Crowded Room? Is he real? And does he match a real twin brother Billy Milligan had? Here you’ll have all answers.
You can watch the official trailer for The Crowded Room here on Youtube.
Adam in The Crowded Room: did Billy Milligan have a twin brother?
Adam is one of the principal “presences” that come up while Rya talk to Danny Sullivan in The Crowded Room. Danny takes a while before he starts talking about him. When he does, Adam is described as Danny’s twin brother, who often “saved him” in childhood. However, we know that most of the people Danny talks about are actually his split personalities, so during the show, we doubt Adam is real.
We have an answer in episode 5 of The Crowded Room. We see Adam as the twin brother who gets to spend time with Danny’s father. Also, Adam appears out of the blue when Danny needs him, for example when his stepfather picks him up from school. And when the series shows us the abuses the stepfather perpetuates on Danny, we see Adam stepping in, taking Adam’s place. From all these elements, we understand that Adam is not real: he’s the parallel personality Danny needs in the extreme situations he finds himself in. When he needs a savior, when he needs to black out during a painful experience, Adam takes his place, saving Danny’s mental balance.
We know that Danny Sullivan is based on the true story of Billy Milligan, so the question is legit: did Billy Milligan have a twin brother too?
No, Billy Milligan didn’t have a twin brother. He had an older brother, Jim Morrison (Morrison is the surname of Billy’s biological father), and a younger sister, Kathy Jo Preston. In Billy Milligan true story, his father died by suicide a few years after Kathy Jo was born, and some years later, his mother married Chalmer Milligan, who became Billy’s stepfather. Billy will later accuse his stepfather of continuously abusing him, and his siblings testified in his favor. Chalmer Milligan always rejected all accuses as lies.
In The Crowded Room, Danny Sullivan doesn’t have any other siblings besides Adam, the twin brother he made up to replace himself during the abuses. It’s one of the many differences between The Crowded Room and the true story of Billy Milligan. We explained what really happened to Billy Milligan in the article below. For the rest, you can just enjoy The Crowded Room as a powerful, fictional story based on actual events, displayed in a different interpretation.
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