Ringer 1.10: "That's What You Get For Trying To Kill Me"

“Besides, you said so yourself. You need me.”
“I don’t. You’re a glorified babysitter who got way too expensive.”
- John and Siobhan

Welcome to the mid-season finale and the episode of 4 storylines. It felt a little cluttered but for the most part everything worked really well and we leave with a really intense bow out until January. We pick pretty much right where we left off. Bridget calls Malcolm to make sure he’s okay. He’s fine and he grabbed Charlie’s cell phone but it’s dead. He’ll pick up a charger in the morning and they can meet to talk about it. When Bridget gets home, she finds white rose pedals strewn all over the floor and dozens more in vases surrounding Andrew in the living room. It is a really sweet gesture for their sixth anniversary the next day. They exchange “I love you”s for the first time in probably forever and proceed to have sex. I gotta say I was not complaining there at all. Ioan Gruffudd is a very beautiful man. The next morning Malcolm drops by for that previously mentioned visit and reveals the phone is not Charlie’s. It’s Gemma’s.

We hop over to Paris where the real Siobhan has tracked down Tyler at a bar. She tries to explain things to him (in an obvious lie). She says Andrew found her and so she went back to try and work things out. She claims she had no idea Tyler would be there. Then she pulls off her sunglasses to reveal a rather painful looking black eye (which she did with a bathroom mirror) and says things didn’t exactly work out between her and Andrew. She paints him as a really powerful and not nice man and says she used Tyler at first because he had insider information.

Back in New York, Bridget and Malcolm are trying to figure out why Charlie would take Gemma. They ultimately decide to call the police and tell them just enough of the truth to make them suspicious enough to check out Charlie’s place. The cops do show up but Charlie’s not stupid. He sweet talks them with being a former cop and casts doubt on Malcolm (being a drug addict who has only been clean 6 days). He lets them search the place and obviously Gemma’s not there. Malcolm is not happy when the cops relay this information. They’re still checking prints on Gemma’s phone but at the moment they have no real proof. They take Malcolm down to the station for some questions, leaving “Siobhan” scrambling.

Meanwhile, Charlie is on the phone with the real Siobhan and he is flipping out. He wants to kill Gemma because she knows too much. Siobhan says no and offers to pay him (he wants double) but he decides since she can’t come up with the money right away, he’s doing it his way and she no longer has a say in what happens. He’s going off the rails and that is not going to end well (or pretty). In the third storyline of the episode, we’re back in Wyoming with Victor and he’s found a dead stripper, Mary Curtis (played by Buffy alum Amber Benson). We get some flashback of her and Victor talking about Botaway and his dirty cop. He’s called Matador but that’s all Mary knows. She always is worried about Bridget. Our pal Jimmy is at the crime scene and is not happy to find out just now that Mary was Victor’s CI. Victor wants Jimmy to look into “the Matador:” That won’t be hard. Just look in a mirror!

And we’re back in New York and Henry is spiraling out of control a bit. He doesn’t understand why everyone around “Siobhan” keeps turning up missing or becomes a bad guy. He wants “Siobhan” to back off and let the police handle things. But I can’t see her doing that. For one thing the show would be really boring if she did. We now have the worst storyline in the entire episode so I’m going to cover it in as little space as possible. Juliet is helping Mr. Carpenter out after school clean up trash with a bunch of other kids. She tries to put the moves on him once they’re done and he shuts her down (with good reason). His good judgment ends there when he tells Juliet’s friend to leave the room so he can talk to Juliet. The next morning she’s talking to her friend and Juliet cries rape.

Back in the land of not-awful plots, “Siobhan” comes home to find Charlie and Andrew talking. Not a good sign. Andrew leaves to run some errands and Charlie blackmails her into agreeing to pay $250,000 to let Gemma go. I guess if he can’t squeeze the cash out of one sister, eh might as well try the other one. Despicable human being! He leaves the building just as Henry walks in and as soon as Henry realizes Charlie just left the Martins he chases after him but loses him in the crowd.

In Wyoming, Victor gets a call from Jimmy about a lead he has on “Matador”. He wants to meet with Victor that night. Thankfully Victor isn’t as clueless as he looks. He has two uniforms tail her the entire day, including when he meets up with Jimmy. They get to a very isolated part of the shipping yard when Victor recalls a story about this big guy Jimmy took down called “The Bull”. So at least Victor’s got his dirty cop and escaped unscathed.

Things aren’t going well in New York. Andrew finds “Siobhan” scrambling to count cash and when she finally fills him in on what’s happening, he shows her the real present he got her: a really beautiful diamond ring. He was going to propose again (can this guy be any sweeter? I swear if Siobhan doesn’t want him, I’ll take him!). More importantly, the ring is worth over $200,000 so they can pawn it for the rest of the ransom money. They get to Penn Station and wait for nearly half an hour before Charlie calls. He thinks “Siobhan” called the cops because one of the detectives is sitting outside so he’s not going to show. He’s in what looks like a parking garage or something and he shoots Gemma. The detective and Henry show up inside and things just start moving really fast. Bridget hands over the bill for a storage unit that Malcolm found in John’s mailbox as a place he could have taken Gemma. It also turns out John’s prints were on Gemma’s phone (duh). We hop over to the storage unit and John goes to get Gemma’s body out of the trunk but it’s gone. He’s apparently a bad shot. She almost reaches the keys in the car when he rounds on her and kills her. He’s got her body halfway into the unit when Siobhan shows up. She is furious that John killed Gemma and shoots him in the head with the same gun he used to kill Gemma to make it look like a murder-suicide. Malcolm, Andrew and “Siobhan” are all together at the loft when Andrew gets the call. And thus ends the first portion of Ringer’s freshman run.