Ringer recap – 1×13: ‘It’s Easy To Cry, When This Much Cash Is Involved’

After a lacklustre Winter premiere, Ringer picked up the pace last week: Henry (Kristoffer Polaha) discovered Bridget (Sarah Michelle Gellar) was posing as Siobhan (also SMG) and Bridget began to put the pieces together. Does this week’s episode continue to show improvement? In a word: yes.

Let’s bitch it out…

So last week we pondered what would become of poor Henry now that he finally knows the truth about the game of adult Parent Trap our twins are playing. The answer is a bit more mundane than I would have hoped: he gets played! In fact, if this episode has a theme, it would that men are significantly more prone to deception than women, and really drives home the idea that these Manhattan men are stupid.

Henry: Hook. Line. Sinker. Henry completely believes the web of lies Siobhan spins about how Bridget convinced her to take time away when Siobhan discovered she was pregnant. Interestingly, instead of simply suggesting that Bridget is messing up her life because she is a drug addict and former stripper (both true), Siobhan goes all in and lays the blame for Big Red’s murder squarely on her sister. I mean sure Bridget’s fingerprints were on Gemma’s belongings at the dumpster, but Siobhan doesn’t know all these details (since it was Bridget who planted evidence against herself).

Anyways…before you know it, Henry and Siobhan are back in the sack in matching robes at an expensive hotel. Awww…remember just two episodes ago when Henry tried to guilt trip her that he was still grieving for his dead wife? I guess warm body adulteress trumps dead wife grief.

Tyler (Justin Bruening): Small-head-big-body is still in Paris doing Siobhan’s dirty work digging up confidential records on Andrew’s (Ioan Gruffudd) company, Martin/Charles. It almost goes down the crapper when he calls Siobhan and catches Henry in the hotel bed instead (Side Note: Just because someone’s phone rings twice does not mean you should just answer it. And Siobhan clearly agrees with me considering the bitch death ray glare she gives Henry afterwards).

Tyler gets pouty thinking that Shiv is cheating on him, so she 1) lies and says Henry is her brother (yeah right) and 2) tells him to keep up his illegal activities to give their baby a future (pretty skeazy there, blondie). Tyler – lacking a human sized brain – relents and by episode’s end, he’s called in an auditor to look into Martin/Charles’ records.

Andrew: The trophy husband isn’t given much to do this episode besides listen to his wives – current and ex – regarding Juliet’s (Zoey Deutsch) sexual assault case. He does, however, finally meet up with Siobhan for the first time in the series: he catches her in the apartment while she’s stealing back a safety deposit key from Bridget. How uncomfortable is it watching them kiss and then her leave without saying a word afterwards? Painfully…but it’s also kinda delicious.

More disappointing is the lack of payoff when Andrew confronts Bridget about it (since he thinks it was her, or rather her-posing-as-Siobhan). She simply apologizes for acting cold and distant, despite the fact that she hasn’t acted that way. Who just accepts blame like that?! Wouldn’t you ask for context if your spouse accused you of being frigid, at which point you would explain you weren’t home then and ohmygawd-my-twin-didn’t-drown-in-a-terrible-CGI-lake-accident-12-episodes-ago?

Special Mention: This episode marks the introduction of Tim Arbogast (Gregory Harrison), Big Red’s father, who we’ve previously discussed as being filthy rich and thisclose to dying. A randomly reintroduced Forever Lila (Jaime Murray), absent for several episodes, pops up to blackmail Henry into a meeting with Big Red Senior in an effort to get him to invest in Martin/Charles. The plan works, but only because Arboghast believes Henry is telling him his money is secure. Are we all in agreement that someone that rich would never be so quick to part with their money (especially on the word of the guy with the haircut from the seventies who had a cold-at-best relationship with your dead daughter)? Just spitballing…

Other Considerations:

• At long last, the payoff to the Juliet cries rape storyline arrives and it’s…the Wild Things variation I literally called last week. In a “best case” scenario for this crap storyline, Juliet and Mr. Carpenter (Jason Dohring) and schoolchum Tessa are all in on the scam, which Juliet organized to get millions from her father. All that was missing were Denise Richards’ boobs, a bottle a champagne and a threesome. Fingers crossed for next week.
• Side Note 2: Does the show a) believe that it’s so uninteresting to see Juliet’s testimony that it doesn’t need to be shown at all and b) think we’re too stupid to realize that the three of them pulled a con and need to flashback to Juliet’s stupid friend, Ashley, inadvertently confessing that they have no case (leading the lawyer to drop it like a hot potato)? It wasn’t rocket-science!
• Catherine (Andrea Roth) is still kicking around, generally being a crap mom unless she’s provided with direction and activities by Bridget on how not to suck as a mom (apparently taking your child skating and grabbing ice cream at Serendipity is also rocket-science). It’s fun how the writers manage to find a way for Catherine to say bitch, such as the backhanded compliment she gives Bridget for “not being a bitch.” Lovely…back to the Miami trailer park with you, wench!
• Bridget, in between counseling Andrew to settle the Carpenter suit and dealing with crap from Catherine, spends the episode hanging out with hired-driver, Solomon (Sean Patrick Thomas). She’s still firmly in P.I. mode as she discovers Siobhan’s secret office, coffee house and gun range. In each of these locations, she finds clues: the safety deposit boat key chain and a post-it with a Main Street address in the office, a note from Siobhan about not forgiving Bridget in a table at the coffee shop, and a picture of former AA sponsor and murderer of Big Red, Charlie/John at the gun range. The picture of Charlie is the closest she’s come to figuring out that her sister isn’t dead, but alas, she only deduces that her twin and the killer knew each other and that he may not have been the only one after her. In the end she hires Solomon to protect her.
• No Malcolm (Mike Colter) or Agent Machado (Nestor Carbonnell) this week…and the episode is better for it. Let’s re-examine who is dead weight, shall we? Obviously these two, plus Juliet (whom we can now definitely get rid of: either at a UK boarding school for delinquent girls, or juvie). Cut the fat, Ringer!

What did you think of ‘It’s Easy To Cry…’ readers? Did you see the Juliet ‘twist’ coming or were you surprised? How far away is Bridget from figuring out that Siobhan is still alive…or will the more-interesting twin sneak back to Paris before she can be discovered? And what, pray tell, is on the tape that Siobhan has Henry listen to that will destroy Martin/Charles?