Ringer: What Are You Doing Here, Ho-Bag? (1.12)

It's become routine in recent years for writers to present networks with a multi-season plan when it comes to serialized dramas. In light of high-profile failures like Heroes, it makes sense for networks to request some kind of long-term agenda, preventing a series from sputtering along with writers making things up as they go. Ringer is an example of a series that clearly has one of those long-term plans (it's something the EPs have mentioned a lot in interviews), but is struggling to execute it very well. This episode was of course better than last week's flat series return, but the overriding problems lie in the little things -- it's all good providing shock twists and interesting plot developments, but the journey getting there needs to be interesting, too.

Unfortunately, Ringer's obvious mode of getting information across is with 'the phone call'. It's become kind of ridiculous at this point. Bridget spends most of this episode wandering around her penthouse on the phone, calling up various people and various locations, chasing up leads in her quest to discover more about Siobhan. Most of the answers she gets are fine, and at least forward things a little, but surely the writers could think up more interesting ways of putting this detective mystery across to the audience? If it's not phone calls, it's horrible plot devices like Siobhan's fondness for word jumbles. I think what Ringer needs is a little more scope as Bridget literally pursues leads on foot, instead of calling folks up and backing out of going all the way when it comes to mysterious new avenues of investigation. It may stagger the plot (which is great for the writers), but isn't all that fun for those of us at home.

Before I'm jumped on, I did enjoy this episode. I'm even less clear of Siobhan's real agenda, but having her orchestrate Henry's discovery of her twin sister is a major step in the right direction for this show. Ringer lost a lot of momentum with the abduction and subsequent demise of Gemma, immediately halting any fun interaction between characters that are aware of the full story (or at least certain parts of it), so I'm hoping Henry's knowledge will play out in engaging new ways.

Elsewhere, soap opera histrionics arrived in the form of Andrew's ker-ay-zee ex wife Catherine, a monstrous hell-bitch caricature in a puffy fur coat. Andrea Roth gave the show some necessary spark, coldly trashing her daughter, burning baby photographs in the middle of the apartment and mouthing off against Bridget. The whole thing was so overblown, but at least created some momentary entertainment.

The less could be said for Juliet's rape subplot, becoming uglier by the week, first with that horrible scene with the surveillance camera footage being screened in front of the entire family, the subsequent implication that her cry of rape is void because she at one point came onto the guy, then in the supposedly shocking coda with Tessa. Either they're gonna fly down the Wild Things route with multiple duplicities and CW-level orgies, or this will continue to be a tacky mess where rape is depicted as some sort of sexy soap mystery rather than something horrifyingly abhorrent. Regardless, it's still all pretty cheap.

The mechanics of What Are You Doing Here, Ho-Bag? prove a huge problem, but the vacuous part of me was pretty satisfied with most of the twists and turns. If only the writers were confident enough to have Mr. Carpenter, Machado, Macawi and the rest of the Wyoming sleeping pill collective all die in a terrible fire, Ringer could actually prove to be an absorbing little distraction. B-

Credits
Guest stars Zoey Deutch (Juliet Martin); Justin Bruening (Tyler Barrett); Darren Pettie (Jimmy Kemper); Gage Golightly (Tessa Banner); Jason Dohring (Mr. Carpenter); Brian Hallisay (Agent Pettibone); Adina Porter (Principal Caruso); Sean Patrick Thomas (Solomon Visseda); Zahn McClarnon (Bodaway Macawi); Brad Greenquist (Pawn Broker); James Madio (Sketch); Andrea Roth (Catherine Martin)
Writer Hank Chilton Director Jerry Levine