RINGER Recap: ‘It’s Gonna Kill Me, But I’ll Do It’

It’s official: RINGER has me hooked.

This week’s episode picked up where last week’s left off, both in plot and quality, and I loved it. There was even a dramatic slap of betrayal. What more could a TV-loving girl ask for? Not much (except for Jason Dohring to show up…have I mentioned this?)

The episode begins with Bridget returning from an apparently very successful shopping trip. Not only is she settling into her new life, but she’s doing it with style! All of Bridget’s worries about murder attempts, fake pregnancies and annoying FBI agents have disappeared with Siobhan’s money. Way to go, Bridget!

Not so fast. Andrew has to put a damper on Bridget’s shopping success by revealing that he knows who Bridget really is. He’s understandably upset and wants to know what Bridget did with Siobhan. When Bridget tells him that Siobhan drowned, he asks why Bridget didn’t save her and tells her to apologize. Bridget turns around to see Siobhan, who looks like she had a nasty run-in with Samara from THE RING.

Of course, this is a dream. Bridget wakes up to see Andrew, who tells her she hasn’t slept well for weeks now. This is not good for the baby Bridget doesn’t have, so Bridget suggests she go to the Hamptons to get away for a while. Andrew doesn’t want Siobhan to be alone on her birthday, though, so he suggests he join her in the Hamptons for a birthday weekend like they used to do.

Bridget’s dream leaves her a little paranoid, so she goes back to the bus station to get her bag, which she left there in the first episode, so as to leave no trace of her former identity behind. But she ends up shooting herself in the foot because Victor had already found Bridget’s bag and left it at the station, hoping Siobhan would eventually come and get it. He now has video footage of Siobhan getting the bag, which he thinks means Siobhan knows where Bridget is and is in contact with her.

Bridget arrives at the Hamptons house, and since no one’s around, she calls Malcolm. As expected, he doesn’t answer, but she leaves a message, telling him that she hopes he’s not mad at her and she misses him. I’m personally not missing Malcolm that much, but to each his own.

Andrew gets to the house shortly after Bridget does, and he tells her he wants to make this her best birthday ever. (Between the accent, the looks and the sweetness, I can really see why Siobhan had to get away from him.) He gets a text from his office, but he says he’s not going to let work interfere with her big day like he did last year. They share a sweet moment, which again makes me wonder why these two lovebirds aren’t actually doing anything more physical besides smiling at each other.

This nice moment is interrupted by a noise in the house, which just turns out to be Gemma and Henry fighting. Those two! They’ve come up to celebrate Siobhan’s birthday like they used to do, and Gemma is the only person who isn’t getting the clue that they should leave. She and Victor would make perfect, dumb little babies, wouldn’t they? Bridget and Andrew reluctantly invite them to stay and ruin Bridget’s birthday.

Gemma tells Bridget that (what else?) she and Henry were fighting the whole way up to the Hamptons, and she still can’t shake the feeling that he’s cheating on her. She actually thought the Hamptons would bring them closer, but little does she know that definitely won’t be happening. To make Bridget feel even guiltier, Gemma tells her that she’s an amazing friend and like a sister. Yeah, you knew it was only a matter of time before Gemma found out about the affair.

Speaking of sister, we’re taken back to Siobhan and Bridget’s birthday when they were young. Their mother has given them $20 to by themselves a present, so they decide to buy a necklace that they will trade off wearing each year. I see a successful book series in their future. Anyway, this scene was a sweet way of showing that Siobhan and Bridget did love each other at some point in their lives, and it also showed why Siobhan seems to be so preoccupied with money. They grew up in a poor home, and young Siobhan resents that they don’t have much. Scenes like this actually make me care about Siobhan and Bridget, and they provide the much-needed back story I complained was lacking a couple of weeks ago.

Back to Gemma, who’s shopping for the twins and is approached by Victor. Is this the meet cute I’ve been waiting for? Not exactly. Victor wants to talk to Gemma about Bridget Kelly, who Gemma didn’t even know existed. He invites her out to dinner, where they bond over Siobhan’s secret sister and their mutual love of garlic bread and foreign films.

Okay, I’m getting ahead of myself. But just because we didn’t see it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen (BONES, anyone?)…Just wait and see. After her awesome date, Gemma confronts Bridget about her sister. Bridget says that her sister hasn’t been in her life for a long time because she kept making one bad choice after another. Bridget asks Gemma to keep the knowledge of her sister a secret from Andrew. So much for Bridget and Andrew’s honesty pledge!

We then see another flashback, but this time, it’s just more of the same. Six years ago, Bridget visits Siobhan to give her their birthday necklace, but Siobhan doesn’t want to see her. Bridget sees packing boxes in Siobhan’s apartment, and Siobhan tells her that she’s moving to New York because she met someone named Andrew. Bridget tells her that she doesn’t have to run away, but Siobhan insists that she isn’t running, it’s just a chance for her to start over. When Bridget tries to give Siobhan the necklace, Siobhan throws it on the floor as a 2-year-old would and says, “I never want it back.” Poor Bridget picks up the necklace and leaves.

In Paris, Siobhan is waiting for Tyler in the restaurant of the hotel. When he arrives, with another woman, Siobhan tries to get him to talk to her, but he’s a little upset about the way she brushed him off last week. He’s actually pretty upset about it, even when she tells him she kicked him out of her room because she was sick. He doesn’t care, so he goes back to Simone, who doesn’t speak much English but doesn’t have to, as Tyler so classily puts it. Siobhan gets a phone call after their brief encounter, and she tells her phone buddy that she hit a snag.

In the Hamptons, Bridget wakes up in the middle of the night and is going somewhere with the bag. She runs into Henry, who’s waiting for her, so they can have a midnight rendezvous like they did last year. When she resists his advances, Henry tells her it’s like she’s forgotten the last year. Ding! Ding! Ding! Bridget tells him she is ashamed of what they did, which confuses Henry because, as he tells her, she never cared about Gemma or Andrew. Siobhan’s such a lovely girl.

We then see a flashback to Siobhan’s birthday last year, which I at first thought was just a needless yet entertaining excuse to show them having sex. But then we actually see them talking to one another. Apparently, Siobhan is Henry’s muse, and they are going to run away together once his book is published. He mentions that she received a letter from someone, which turns out to be from Bridget. The letter simply says, “I miss you,” and the necklace is included. Siobhan is touched by this, and when Henry asks whom the letter is from, she tells him it’s from an old friend.

After such a crazy night of confrontations and memories, there’s only one thing to do: have a bonfire! Okay, so it’s not exactly a fun type of bonfire. Bridget melodramatically burns the things she stored at the bus station, including her license and even her bag, but she keeps a letter someone sent her.

As Bridget’s past is going up in smoke, Siobhan is again stalking trying to get Tyler’s attention. As she approaches him in the hotel lobby, the manager says he needs to speak with her about payment. Tyler sees this and saves the day, which leads to them talking, her telling him about her awful week (She has no money, and it’s her birthday! This episode is all about the good ‘ol days,) and their first/second date. I honestly thought this was the first sincere moment we have seen from French Siobhan, but I was definitely wrong.

At the station, Victor finally makes a huge break in the case when he obtains an audio recording of Bridget calling the Coast Guard after Siobhan went missing. The tape doesn’t reveal that it was Siobhan who “died,” but it does give Victor the evidence he needs to prove that Siobhan and Bridget have been in direct contact recently. With this, he says he can get search warrants to Siobhan’s apartments and possibly charge her with obstruction of justice. The crimes just keep racking up.

Bridget’s birthday night has arrived, and in her room, she takes out the letter she didn’t burn. It’s from Siobhan, who sent the necklace back to Bridget and told her she hoped Bridget visits soon. Bridget’s emotional moment is interrupted by Henry, who’s lurking in the dark. He’s getting to be a bit creepy, no? He somewhat apologizes for the way he acted the night before, and he says that if Bridget wants him to walk away, he will — even though he still loves her. She says she does want that, and when he asks her about the baby, she just tells him they will figure it out. Yeah, actually, Bridget needs to first figure out how to fake a miscarriage or, you know, actually get pregnant. But this seems to be the last of her worries.

Gemma overhears all of this conversation and is speechless throughout Bridget’s beautiful birthday dinner on the beach. She can’t take Bridget’s birthday happiness for too long, especially when Henry tries to hold her hand, and she comically runs away. I won’t knock her too hard for how she runs, though — running in sand is really hard, despite what BAYWATCH has shown us.

In Paris, Siobhan wakes up to find Tyler bringing her breakfast. He even got her a croissant for her birthday! He tells her that he talked to the manager, and by pulling some strings, arranged for her to stay at the hotel indefinitely. All seems well and dandy until he goes into the bathroom, when Siobhan goes through his files and pulls out some financial records that are signed by none other than Andrew. After Tyler leaves, Siobhan makes a phone call and says, “This is going to be easier than we thought.” I should’ve known what she was up to, but I fell for her sob story like Gemma fell for Henry’s lies. And yes, I hate that I’ve just compared myself to Gemma.

Speaking of her, Bridget can’t find her in the house, but she does find Victor, who is also crashing Bridget’s celebration. He plays the tape and wants to know what happened on the boat. “Siobhan” says she and Bridget fought on the boat over Bridget’s situation, and she made the call because she thought Bridget was going to hurt her. That was the last time they saw each other, she says, and she went to the bus station in an attempt to see where she could have gone. Victor seems to believe this, but when he sees Bridget’s phone lying on a table, he picks it up and sees a call made to Malcolm. And she was so close to getting away with it.

Bridget finally finds Gemma, who gives Bridget a bitch slap for her birthday. I won’t lie: I cheered. I love that this show has embraced its soapiness, and honestly, I felt like it was my birthday when this confrontation happened. At least Gemma’s finally given something to do besides sulking. Gemma knows about the affair, Henry’s crazy love for Siobhan and the baby’s real father, and she’s about to tell Andrew before Bridget does the one thing that will possibly stop her: she reveals that she’s Bridget, not Siobhan.

I cannot wait for next week. I thought that Bridget’s reveal would lead to Bridget and Gemma growing closer, but it looks as though Gemma will actually tell – which gives me a valid reason not to like her! And when you think about it, this makes sense. Gemma loves Henry, and when he finds out that Siobhan is Bridget, he will no longer love her (Bridget, that is.) This won’t bring Henry and Gemma any closer, but at least it will get him to stop stalking lusting after Bridget.

A few other notable things…

• Siobhan has the best bed head (and not to mention sex hair!) ever.
• Bridget’s cake was awesome and truly was art. I love cake, but even I may not have been able to cut into it without shedding a few tears.
• Malcolm was not in this episode at all, which does not bode well for him, even though I’m not going to count him out of this series just yet.
• I do not like cheaters (even though I love THE BACHELOR and THE BACHELORETTE, which pretty much makes cheating excusable), but I may have felt a tinge of sympathy for Henry. But maybe that’s just because I like Kristoffer Polaha so much.
• Twins seems to be a bigger motif in RINGER than I thought. Not only are Bridget and Siobhan twins, but Gemma and Henry have twins.
• I find it really amusing that everyone is willing to recount events to “Siobhan” without getting suspicious of why she can’t remember them; case in point, Henry replaying the birthday night they spent together a year ago.
• Did you know that Angelina Jolie used to feed her kids crickets?

One of you mentioned last week that Olivia and Andrew could be running a Ponzi scheme. I think this is definitely possible because Andrew has got to be up to something. As Hank said a few weeks ago on BREAKING BAD, someone this clean has got to be dirty. Plus, Andrew mentioned that a year ago, the company was not doing so well. Things have certainly taken a turn for the better within the past year — but how?

What did you think of RINGER? Are you still enjoying it, or have you thrown it into the fire?