RINGER Recap: ‘That’s What You Get for Trying to Kill Me’

Well, Tuesday’s RINGER was kind of boring, right?

Of course, if you saw the mid-season finale of RINGER, you know I’m joking (I hope). Although the episode wasn’t my favorite of the season, it was one of the best because (MAJOR SPOILER ALERT) not only was there a shocking death, but there were two shocking deaths!

And guess who was one of them? Gemma!

Now, I usually don’t root for a character to die. But you know how I feel (or felt) about Gemma…

If only Andrea had bitten the dust on THE WALKING DEAD, then my TV Christmas list would’ve been complete. Oh well, I’ll take what I can get.

The episode begins with Malcolm talking to Bridget on the phone about his adventure at Charlie’s mysterious house. He tells her he didn’t find her gun (Honestly, who cares about the gun? I forgot that’s why he even went to Charlie’s house in the first place), but he did find a cellphone. The phone is dead, but Malcolm tells Bridget he plans on getting a charger for it in the morning.

Bridget arrives home to find rose petals on the floor and Andrew waiting on the couch in some sexy suspenders. How can a girl resist?

It turns out it’s their six-year anniversary, and Andrew wants to celebrate a day early. Bridget tells him she loves him, and he says he loves her, too. The next thing you know, we see a fireplace and a sex montage. Finally!

As excited as I am for this to have finally happened, I have one minor issue with it: Really, on their anniversary? Isn’t this one out of a few times in the year most married couples have sex? We probably won’t see them “celebrating” again until Andrew’s birthday.

Anyway, the next day, Malcolm visits Bridget and reveals that the phone he got from Charlie’s house doesn’t belong to Charlie — it’s Gemma’s phone. (Ginger twins!)

Malcolm and Bridget realize Charlie is involved in Gemma’s disappearance, but they can’t figure out why or exactly how. Malcolm tells Bridget about Charlie’s padlocked basement, but she brushes it off, saying a lot of people lock their basements. I don’t have a basement, so if this is true, I think that’s just plain weird. They eventually decide to call the police and tip them off about Charlie, so the police will investigate him and hopefully find what Malcolm and Bridget didn’t.

In Paris, we see Siobhan in a humongous and hideous pair of sunglasses as she approaches the world’s largest doormat (aka Tyler) in the hotel. She tells Tyler the reason she was in New York is because Andrew asked her to come home to see if they could work things out. She then reveals a black eye, adding that it didn’t work out.

Tyler keeps playing hard to get, so Siobhan tells him that even though she initially used him to get information about Andrew, she started to have feelings for him. He tells her to ice her eye as he walks away, but we know he’s hooked.

The police arrive at Charlie’s house and reveal that Malcolm made some allegations about him, such as he used a fake name and had a fake apartment. Charlie has excuses for each accusation, and he bonds with the officers over the good old days down at the precinct (or something like that). They ask him if Gemma’s phone looks familiar, but he says no.

Charlie invites the cops in to look around, adding that he has nothing to hide. He even uses the old, “You would trust a drug addict over me?” trick to discredit Malcolm. What a bastard.

The cops then show up at Bridget’s apartment, where they tell her and Malcolm that Charlie’s place came up clean. They’re waiting for fingerprint results, but in the meantime, they ask Malcolm to come down to the station for questioning. Bridget doesn’t understand why they’re doing this, but after explaining that Malcolm is connected with Bridget (aka the #1 suspect in Gemma’s disappearance) and a neighbor saw Malcolm breaking in to Charlie’s house, it makes sense.

Angered that the cops showed up at his house, Charlie calls Siobhan and tells her Malcolm and Bridget know his name, where he lives and his involvement in Gemma’s disappearance. Needless to say, he’s not having a great day.

Charlie tells Siobhan he wants to get rid of Gemma because she knows too much. Siobhan begs him not to, saying it wasn’t part of the plan. He agrees to not kill Gemma if Siobhan doubles what she promised him, but when she says it will take a while to get to the money, he replies that she no longer gets a say.

Bridget goes to see Henry and tells him Charlie took Gemma. Understandably, Henry is not happy that someone who “Siobhan” said was trustworthy is now Gemma’s abductor. Although Bridget wants Henry’s help to get Gemma back, Henry tells her to stay out of it and let the police do their job. In the real world, a suggestion like this would be the best thing for a person to do, but on TV (except on LAW & ORDER), we all know it’s the worst thing to do…

Since Henry’s not being helpful at all, Bridget goes back to her apartment to do whatever she does when she’s not worrying about all of this. Sadly, though, she doesn’t get to eat a huge bowl of chocolate-covered strawberries while watching KEEPING UP WITH THE KARDASHIANS (I’m using my imagination, okay?) because she finds Charlie having a jolly good time with Andrew.

Andrew says Charlie came to give them an update on Malcolm, who I’m pretty sure they just saw a day or two ago. Anyway, Andrew leaves to go run errands, and Charlie tells Bridget he will give back Gemma if she pays him. She asks how she know he can trust her, and he tells her she can’t — but she doesn’t have much of a choice but to trust him.

Meanwhile, back in Rock Springs, Wyoming, Victor is investigating the murder of yet another stripper who was also one of his informants. Good job, Victor! At the crime scene, Victor is talking to Jimmy (the cop who let Bridget get away) about one of Macawi’s men who is “on the inside” in the department.

Although Jimmy initially pretends to not know about this, he later tells Victor he knows who the rat is. He subtly asks Victor to meet him at a warehouse, so he can let Victor know who the guy is. Seriously? A Warehouse?! You may have well just told him you’re the rat, Jimmy.

As Bridget’s counting money to give to Charlie, Andrew walks in and asks her what she’s doing. Bridget begins to cry, telling Andrew she knows where Gemma is.

Andrew appropriately freaks out over this news but not quite as much as I expected. Siobhan tells him she’s supposed to meet Charlie with $250,000 at Penn Station for Gemma’s release. Andrew tells Bridget he’s going to call the cops, but Bridget convinces him to not. He won’t let her go alone, though.

As all of this drama is going on, Juliet is creating her own drama. As Mr. C is recycling, Juliet awkwardly comes on to him despite his seeming disinterest. Her friend, who is apparently blind, doesn’t understand why Juliet is so crazy for him (because he’s, like, super old), but Juliet insists they have a connection. Gross.

After some school event, Juliet goes up to Mr. C and asks what he’s doing that night. He says she needs to stop flirting with him because her behavior is unacceptable and won’t be tolerated. Her friend is awkwardly sitting in the classroom as this is going on, so Mr. C asks if she can go in the hall as he finishes talking with Juliet.

Back in Wyoming, Victor meets with Jimmy at the scariest looking warehouse ever. Jimmy shows Victor the picture of an officer he says is working with Macawi and has met with Macawi at this warehouse, so they go inside to investigate. Once they’re in, Jimmy reveals that he’s Macawi’s guy, but Victor knew this all along and had two agents tailing him since they talked that morning. Yay! He can be smart! As the two agents appear and arrest Jimmy, Victor says he wants to know what really happened the night Bridget ran.

Andrew and Bridget arrive at Penn Station with Charlie’s money, and they wait well past the time he says he’ll pick it up. Bridget then gets a call from Charlie, and he says he told her she shouldn’t have called the cops. She replies that she didn’t, but then she looks outside to see the cops watching her.

Charlie’s not happy about this, so he tells Bridget it’s too late to save Gemma. He opens the trunk of his car, where we see Gemma, and he shoots her.

Bridget tells Andrew that Charlie’s not coming because someone called the cops. Henry then comes into the station with one of the cops and reveals they’ve been following her since Henry saw Charlie leave their apartment earlier in the day. Bridget tells Henry about the ransom, and the cop reveals that Charlie’s prints turned out to be all over Gemma’s phone. Bridget suggests they go to Charlie’s storage unit to continue to look for Gemma.

We then see Juliet, who is talking to her friend over the computer. Juliet’s crying and tells her friend Mr. C raped her. This is the plot point of the night I have major issues with. My beautiful Jason can’t be a rapist!

OK, seriously, RINGER is setting this up as though Juliet is crying rape, so to speak. This bothers me because it undermines real rape victims’ testimonies and makes light of rape. Secondly, part of me thinks that she couldn’t have been raped because she was flirting with him all night. Obviously, just because a woman flirts with a man doesn’t mean she wants to have sex, but RINGER set this up to make it look that way.

I do think Juliet is making it up, but it makes me sad to think the show would do this. In a way, I hope she’s not — even though I would absolutely hate it if Mr. C were a rapist.

At the storage facility, Charlie opens the trunk of his car and sees it’s empty. Gemma (yes, Gemma) hits him on the back of the head with a pipe or something, and he gets knocked down. Before seemingly passing out, Charlie asks her how she’s alive. She says he has bad aim (Seriously? How did he miss when she was in the trunk of a car?!), and when he’s passed out, she tries to call 911. There’s no signal, so she begins to look for the car keys.

Gemma eventually finds them in the ignition, but Charlie surprises her and shoots her (for good this time) — but not before revealing Siobhan is alive and is behind everything.

As Charlie’s dragging the body to his unit, we see someone pointing a gun at Charlie. It’s Siobhan (not “Siobhan”)! Charlie says she’s not a killer or else she would’ve killed her sister instead of letting Bridget take the fall for her. I love this because it finally solidifies the idea that Siobhan really is bad — not just doing bad things for the good of her sister. It gives her a whole new level of power in the eyes of the audience.

Siobhan replies that Charlie’s only a glorified babysitter who has gotten to be too expensive, so she shoots and kills him. She puts the gun in his hand to make it look as though he shot Gemma or himself. Before leaving, she takes a long look at Gemma. She seems to be genuinely sorry her friend got mixed up in this, but I’m not really buying it. Siobhan never really seemed to like Gemma in the flashbacks we’ve seen — especially in the one when she “jokes” about killing Gemma.

Anyway, Malcolm has been let go from the station and is staying at Andrew and Bridget’s apartment. Andrew gets a phone call, telling him Charlie killed himself and Gemma’s dead. Andrew tells Bridget he’s so sorry, and he holds her as she cries.

The following day, Siobhan gets a call from Tyler and tells him she’s in New York. He says he settled her tab for her at the hotel and in the room, he found her positive pregnancy test. Siobhan tells him the baby is his, which kind of makes me sad because I don’t want to see Tyler keep falling for Siobhan’s tricks. It’s a little pathetic.

At Charlie’s apartment, Malcolm is collecting his things while Bridget is waiting for him. Bridget finds and envelope with Bridget’s name and what seems to be an address. Bridget says that this whole situation, whatever it is, isn’t just about the money — it has to be more than that.

And we’re done! No new episodes until January, but until then, read on for a few other things I noticed about this episode…

• Hopefully we soon learn exactly how Jimmy is involved in this situation. If he is working for Macawi, then why did he let Bridget go? If it’s because Charlie paid him more, then wouldn’t have Macawi offed Jimmy by now?
• Andrew got the sweetest anniversary gift for Bridget: Another engagement ring. He was going to propose again, but Charlie kind of ruined things for them. I just love that Andrew gets that she’s a different person without knowing she actually is a different person. So adorable.
• If anyone owns a storage facility, you know those places have cameras everywhere. This is a detail I can’t let go unless we had seen Charlie covering the camera or at least choosing that storage facility because the security is bad.
• As much as I liked Charlie, I applaud the show for taking a risk and killing him. Siobhan’s now going to have to do her own dirty work, unless that creepy guy from the party a million episodes ago also works for her.
• Siobhan’s in New York! I can’t wait to see how this plays out.

OK, RINGER fans. What did you think of Tuesday’s episode? Are you glad Gemma and Charlie are gone?