Ringer: Oh Gawd, There's Two of Them? (1.7)

The twists are fun, but that nagging problem I was talking about last episode continued to obscure my enjoyment of the show. Bridget is still an enigma, and it feels like the writers are bending her character in strange directions depending on the scene that she's in. She opens the hour being all conniving by spinning more lies in the direction of Andrew and Henry, to throw off the feds. Soon after she pines for Malcolm and their brief fling. Then she turns to shady NA sponsor Charlie, telling him he's the only person she can trust. Then she has an intimate moment with Andrew, and they share their first romantic kiss since the twin switcheroo. I'm struggling to understand anything of her motivation. And while the crazy soap opera cliffhangers prove momentarily distracting, the characterization will eventually be the death of this show if the writers don't shape up.

Of everything that occurred here, it was probably Bridget's scene with Andrew that was most affecting. It's in these moments that both characters (who can be pretty terrible elsewhere) seem to come alive and behave like actual people. Bridget-as-Siobhan explaining how shameful Bridget is works almost like therapy for her, and it's interesting on a psychological level to see her talking about herself in such a way. Similarly, you feel for Andrew as he and 'Siobhan' have recently been so strong together, only to discover that she's still harboring secrets. They have a strong dynamic, and the writers would be smart to run with that.

I wrote last review that Henry is a question mark, and that problem continued here. Why is he at a party so soon after his wife was apparently murdered? Even if he never cared about her, it's bad PR. Then there's his poor presumably-locked-in-the-basement children. I can try and contrive that the writers are intentionally making Henry sociopathic and cold, but something tells me that isn't the case.

On a surface level, Ringer is operating as an entertaining soap. But when you try and understand these characters as actual people, there's little there that makes sense. And there are other night-time soaps on TV right now that have achieved a far greater handle on characters and motivation in the same amount of time as Ringer has been on the air, all the while simultaneously engineering melodramatic nuttiness. I'm not considering dropping this show, but Ringer is crying out for some depth at this point. C

Credits
Guest stars Zoey Deutch (Juliet Martin); Billy Miler (Charlie Young); Jason Dohring (Mr. Carpenter); Emily Swallow (Detective Elizabeth Saldana); Nicole Gale Anderson (Monica Reynolds); Noah Watts (Daniel Eknath); Maximiliano Hernandez (Detective Towers)
Writer Pam Veasey Director Eriq LaSalle