Ringer recap – 1×18: ‘That Woman’s Never Been A Victim Her Entire Life’

Ringer continues to move towards its first season endgame. With ‘That Woman’s Never Been A Victim Her Entire Life’, the show delivers a surprisingly solid episode  – albeit slightly less exciting – episode that begins to tie events together. It’s still Ringer, though, so there remains some truly aggravating moments.

Let’s bitch it out…

Reflecting on the episode, it feels as though there are many balls in the air on Ringer right now. And while the show is slowly doling out answers, it’s seems to be focusing on the ones that aren’t that interesting (who has small-head, big-body’s flashdrive? Who killed Tyler [Justin Bruening]? Answer for both: Kristofer Polaha’s Henry.)

Other pertinent answers are clearly being kept for a bigger end-game, which we can hope will surprise and titillate, but there’s a danger in these “set -piece” episodes in which not that much seems to happen. When an entire subplot is dedicated to Machado’s (Nestor Carbonnell) pursuit of a Tarot card, you can almost feeeeeel the story being stretched out by the writers. Either that or this shit is about to go into crazy X-Files / Carnivale territory and I’ll eat my words. But that seems unlikely, no?

Much of the episode revolves around the aftermath of Andrew’s (Ioan Gruffudd) shooting at the end of last week’s episode. Who’s the shooter taking aim at Bridget (SMG)? Dunno, but Machado seems to think that this is the work of Bodaway after finding the body of a henchman in a shallow grave. He figures that the guy likely took aim at Bridget-as-Siobhan thinking she was Bridget (which, of course, she is). This could be interesting if it weren’t tied to the truly awful Bodaway storyline, which I keep hoping will turn out to be a Twin Peaks-esque bad dream. In my ideal world, Bridget and Andrew wake up, drink a cup of really nice coffee with a slice of pie and discuss the crazy dream they had of a homicidal, greasy, long-haired villain named Bodaway who attacks strippers. It’s almost the same thing, right?

But no, the show is determined to bring Bodaway back (at this point it’s becoming more clear that he’ll shoot the wrong twin by accident – ie: Siobhan – and that is how Bridget figures out she’s alive/everyone else discovers the switch). Somehow Malcolm (Mike Colter) is tied into the henchman’s death since his wallet is found in the shallow grave. Side Note: How come Machado doesn’t wonder who killed the henchman? It wasn’t Malcolm unless he left his wallet there to give Bridget a message and if it wasn’t Malcolm, then who did it?

Other missing folk (it’s a theme) include Forever Lila (an unseen Jaime Murray) who got the hell out of dodge last week. Since she’s not around to defend herself, everyone blames her for everything, including Bridget’s not-so-out-there accusation that Olivia stands to gain the most from getting rid of the three people who know of the Martin/Charles ponzi scheme (Tyler: Dead; Malcolm: Missing; Bridget: Almost shot). Of course, by the end of the episode two of the three have been disproved since Henry accidentally killed Tyler and Bodaway’s man nearly killed Bridget. So even though Forever Lila isn’t cleaning house and knocking off current and former Martin/Charles folks, there’s still the unanswered question of why she has Juliet’s (Zoey Deutch) school address written on a pad in her apartment. I swear: if she’s banging Mr. Carpenter, I may have to quit this show. Or pop some popcorn…

Other Observations:

• The height of ridiculousness occurs when Siobhan decides to tell Andrew the truth to prove how dedicated she is to starting fresh with Henry. I appreciate the sentiment, but a) I honestly don’t think she would have gone through with it, b) it’s only in response to Henry calling her a sociopath and once again threatening to boot her pregnant ass out  (before forgiving her…again). But seriously, the fact that she and Bridget are both conveniently wearing an identical looking black jacket and miss each other by seconds? This identity swap is like the freaking Polkaroo at this point! Or Clark Kent/Superman for non-Canadians.
• In the wake of the shooting, Bridget and Andrew decide to have Juliet temporarily move to Florida with her mother, Catherine (Andrea Roth). Naturally since she’s just found out that her mother paid a man to beat her classmate into a coma, she’s not super excited by this development. The only thing exciting about this storyline for viewers? The hope that now that Juliet has now told Bridget the truth we can put the whole false-rape-to-get-the-trust-fund-back storyline out of our minds. You know, bury it in a shallow grave, if you will.
• I love Catherine’s idea of comforting activities for her daughter: buying joint convertibles and going shopping. Ah yes, just what I do whenever I feel a little blue. A drink before take-off, though…that seems reasonable.
• I’ll say no more about the Tarot storyline until it proves worthy, but I did like it for one reason: when the counter chick tells him that they used to give out the cards as coupons, I fully expected Machado to go with it. Instead he completely dismissed it as a lie and discovered that the place was crawling in infractions. So…score one for pretty eyes.

And that’s our episode for the week. I find myself more pleased with the memories of watching it than trying to think about what to address in this recap, so perhaps it’s an episode best not considered too deeply. Anyone excited for the return of Bodaway? Anyone buying that Siobhan’s love for Henry is real? Anyone wanting to see more of those adorable ginger kids of his? Sound off below!

Ringer airs at 9 EST Tuesdays on The CW.