RINGER Pilot Recap: Will You Be Back for Buffy?

Buffy’s back!

It’s been about eight years since Sarah Michelle Gellar has regularly graced our TV screens, but she finally returned Tuesday night in the CW’s RINGER.

So how is her new show?

Complicated, to say the least. While entertaining, the premiere of RINGER made a VERONICA MARS finale look like an episode of COUGAR TOWN.

Gellar plays Bridget, a former stripper who witnessed a murder and is now on the run from the murderer. Gellar also plays Siobhan, Bridget’s twin sister who seemingly commits suicide by overdosing and falling off a boat. When Bridget realizes what Siobhan has done, she decides to take her identity.

Simple, right? Of course not – this is the CW, after all. Bridget soon realizes that Siobhan’s life is much more complicated than Bridget’s former life was.

RINGER begins the hour with Bridget (Or is it Siobhan? Or is it Bridget as Siobhan?) hiding out in a loft as she’s trying to escape a masked man with a crowbar. He eventually finds, tackles and begins to choke her while she yells, “You have the wrong girl!”

Don’t get too excited – we’re then taken back nine days earlier to Rock Springs, Wyo., where we’re introduced to Bridget as she attends an AA meeting. We also meet Bridget’s sponsor and former lover, Malcolm.

From there, Bridget is taken to a shady motel by Victor (make sure to check out our interview with Nestor Carbonell.) Get your minds out of the gutter, kids! Victor is a FBI agent who is protecting Bridget during the murder trial, and he takes her to the motel where she is staying and being guarded.

But Bridget knows she can’t be protected, and she manages to beat, tie up and take the gun from one of her protectors in order to escape (what kind of past does she have?). Bridget heads out to the Hamptons, where her twin sister, Siobhan, is waiting for her. Bridget is definitely the relaxed, salt-of-the-earth one (she’s the stripper with the heart of gold!) while Siobhan is uptight, reserved and rich (the all-white, weekend home in the Hamptons kind of rich.)

Bridget and Siobhan haven’t seen each other in six years, and while their relationship is mysteriously strained, they do seem to care for each other. Of course, Siobhan hasn’t even told her husband that Bridget exists, so things aren’t all peachy. Bridget is also remorseful for something she did regarding Sean, who we later discover is or was possibly Siobhan’s son. Siobhan doesn’t want to talk about Sean, but she tells Bridget that she has forgiven her for whatever Bridget did.

Bridget and Siobhan then decide to go for a boat ride that looks as though it were filmed in the 1950s. Seriously, CW? You can pay for designer clothes that the characters just remove within seconds on GOSSIP GIRL, but you can’t afford decent effects? Okay, I digress.

Everything seems to be getting better between Bridget and Siobhan until Bridget mysteriously wakes up and discovers that Siobhan is missing. All Bridget finds is a pill bottle with Siobhan’s wedding ring in it. Bridget eventually comes to the conclusion that Siobhan has committed suicide – giving Bridget the perfect chance to start over! All she has to do is pin her hair back, and no one will suspect a thing. At least, Siobhan’s husband, Andrew, doesn’t notice anything different except that Siobhan is nicer and skinnier. Who’s going to argue with that?

As to be expected, Siobhan and Andrew don’t exactly have a picture-perfect marriage. They are moving (again, apparently) and have to deal with Andrew’s daughter, Juliet, who just got kicked out of boarding school and pretty much hates life.

Gemma is Siobhan’s best friend and is overseeing the renovations to Siobhan’s new loft. Gemma tells Bridget that she thinks her husband, Henry, is having an affair. Hmm, I wonder whom he is having an affair with… Yes, our sweet, innocent Siobhan isn’t quite so sweet and innocent. Henry and Siobhan have been having an affair, and a blindsided Bridget tells Henry to leave her alone.

As if Bridget didn’t have enough to worry about, Victor shows up at her door (or Siobhan’s door.) I honestly fell for this and thought the charade was up, but of course he thinks that Bridget is Siobhan (even though he doesn’t find out until later that they are twins – yeah, a FBI agent thought that they were just sisters who look and act exactly alike.)

Victor tells Bridget (as Siobhan) that Bridget had been arrested for prostitution and possession, but in exchange for her testimony in the murder trial, her charges would be dropped. Now that she’s gone, though, the murderer is being let go and will probably come after her, and she is also being considered a fugitive. I warned you that this is complicated.

Bridget tells Victor that she and her sister are estranged, and while he doesn’t find out that who he thinks is Siobhan is actually Bridget, he does discover that Bridget has been writing letters to her “estranged” sister.

But the complications don’t stop there. Bridget gets a phone call from Siobhan’s doctor, telling her that she’s four weeks pregnant. Congratulations are in order, right? Not exactly. Of course, Andrew is in the room when she gets this news, so there’s no possibility of hiding it from him. When Henry finds out about the pregnancy, he tells Bridget that the baby has to be his and not Andrew’s. I’m guessing he’s right, but I’m not sure if we’ll ever find out. Of course, who knows who else Siobhan was sleeping with – she seems to be a pretty sneaky lady. Henry tells Bridget she has to choose between him and Andrew, and because she really has no idea who either of them are, she chooses the husband.

Gemma may have already discovered who Henry was sleeping with, though. Gemma calls Bridget and tells Bridget to meet her at the loft because she thinks she knows who Henry is having an affair with. Bridget arrives at the loft, but instead of finding Gemma, she finds a guy with a crowbar.

We’re back to the beginning of the episode, and after Bridget tells the masked man that he has the wrong girl, she is able to kick him off. Before she can get away, he tackles her through a wall (the perfect excuse for a miscarriage, no?). Luckily, Bridget had hid her gun in the loft, and she grabs it and shoots him. While she doesn’t seem recognize the intruder, she finds a picture with Siobhan’s name on the back. It turns out he did have the wrong girl, and now Bridget is possibly even more in danger than she already was.

In the final minute, we’re taken to Paris, where we see a living Siobhan receive a phone call informing her that there’s a problem. She hangs up, and the episode ends.

Whew. RINGER certainly has me hooked, even though I’m not sure how this premise can sustain an entire series. I suspect that Siobhan isn’t the evil twin she’s being made out to be, even though I kind of hope she is (wouldn’t that be a twist?). If she’s not, then I hope Gellar can soften her up a little. I also hope that we learn more about Bridget. It’s hard for me to sympathize when all I pretty much know about her is her name and former occupation.

A few other notable things…

For someone who has never been mentioned to the family, Bridget certainly seems to know a lot about them. How could she have known what Juliet looked like? Sure, Siobhan could’ve sent Bridget pictures, but it doesn’t seem as though they were exactly BFFs during their time apart.

I am so glad to see Kristoffer Polaha back on TV after the cancellation of LIFE UNEXPECTED, even if he is playing a sleaze.

What is Andrew up to? He seemed to be involved in something that he didn’t want Siobhan to know about. Could he have possibly hired someone to kill her?

I’m guessing we haven’t seen the last of Juliet, even though Bridget didn’t want her staying with them. I’m honestly hoping RINGER avoids the brat stepdaughter storyline by either getting rid of her or giving her something else to do. It seems as though they will doing the latter soon, so there’s hope.

The freed murderer who is now after Bridget certainly had his eye on Malcolm at the end of the episode, so I’m eager to see what will happen with that next week.

What did you think of RINGER? Will you be watching next week? Are you just counting down the weeks until Jason Dohring arrives (I’m not doing that AT ALL)?