Ringer 1.13: "It's Easy to Cry, When This Much Cash is Involved"

“I took this ride to get answers, but all I got was more questions.”
-Bridget

“It’s Easy to Cry, When This Much Cash is Involved” was certainly full of twists and turns, although I suppose that could be said for most episodes of “Ringer.” Although the biggest surprise to me didn’t come from the main Bridget/Siobhan conspiracy plot. It was the side plot involving Juliet. That little story had quite a payoff, although I’m not really sure how it’s tied into everything else the show is trying to do. Just more soapy drama, I suppose. It was a little frustrating watching Bridget go on a long Town Car ride in this episode just to really discover nothing other than the connection between Siobhan and John/Charlie. We’ve known about that connection for so long, even if Bridget didn’t, that it feels like old news. It was interesting, however, to watch Siobhan effortlessly play both Henry and Tyler. I’m not quite sure why they both so easily believe every lie she concocts. Overall, this is definitely one of the more engaging episodes “Ringer” has aired thus far, mostly because of the twists.

The episode opens with Bridget in the hired town car again. She starts asking the driver all sorts of questions, and when he thinks that’s strange, considering “Siobhan” should remember things that only happened a few months ago, Bridget says she’s newly sober and doesn’t remember much of her life from when she was using. She offers the driver double his going rate to help her find answers, and that’s good enough for him. Bridget has the driver retrace the route from the last time he drove Siobhan (the day before Siobhan faked her death), and the first stop is an office building in Harlem. It turns out Siobhan has a secret, fancy office there, and Bridget gets the security guard to let her in. Bridget starts snooping around, and she finds a post-it with an address and a mysterious key. Unbeknownst to Bridget, Siobhan is hiding in the office closet, and she has a gun. On her way out of the office, Bridget just misses seeing Siobhan in the closet (which was kind of stupid, really), and she goes back out to the Town Car. She and the driver are going to continue the route.

Meanwhile, we also see the fall-out of Henry discovering that Bridget is actually the person living with Andrew at the moment. The ever-poisonous Siobhan tries to make it sound like the identity switch was Bridget’s idea, using the excuse that she needed to hide from Bodaway. Even worse, Siobhan also tries to make it sound like Charlie/John conspired with Bridget to kidnap Gemma. This was just a step way too far for me and has cemented the idea that there is nothing to Siobhan at all redeeming. The upshot of this conversation is that Siobhan claims to have a way that she and Henry can be together with Andrew’s money despite Siobhan and Andrew’s pre-nup. She just needs the key that Bridget took to make this happen. Siobhan isn’t the only one demanding things from Henry. Olivia shows up at his house, too. Of course she wants a meet with Mr. Arbogast, his father-in-law. Henry refuses, as he should, since Olivia is a snake, but then Olivia plays the blackmail card. She has a photo on her cell phone of Henry and Siobhan in bed. Henry swallows his pride and meets Mr. Arbogast at a bar to talk about the future of his finances. It’s hella awkward. Mr. Arbogast does end up investing some money with Martin/Charles, only asking Henry to assure him multiple times that the firm is legit.

The third storyline at play in this episode is the Juliette/Mr. Carpenter possible statutory rape situation. Juliet, Andrew, and Catherine are all at the lawyer’s office practicing Juliet’s testimony for Mr. Carpenter’s trial. And all I could think was that was one damn speedy trial date. How much time has passed between this episode and the last? Catherine, naturally, is being an uber-critical bitch and setting Juliet up to fail. Andrew threatens to fly Catherine back to Mimi, which Catherine says is fine as long as it’s first class. Juliet yells at both of them to stop fighting, which quells things temporarily. Catherine continues to be bitchy to Juliet for the rest of the day, assuring Juliet that she’s going to screw up at the trial, and it takes a pep talk from Bridget (which was really rather sweet) to get Juliet’s head back in the game.

Bridget continues her “Siobhan’s Memory” tour at a combo book store/coffee shop, where apparently Siobhan liked to play chess. The chess tables all have slots in them, and one of the baristas tells Bridget that it’s an establishment tradition to write a wish and put it in the slot. Bridget tries to use the key on the lock of her chess table, and when that fails, she picks the lock. Inside, she finds a wish from Siobhan that says “I wish I could forgive my sister.” Since this was written on the same day Siobhan told Bridget she was forgiven for whatever happened between them, this is devastating to Bridget. It means Siobhan lied. The next stop on the tour is a shooting range. She finds out that Siobhan used to be a regular there, and she starts trying the key in all the lockers. Then Bridget looks up and sees Charlie/John’s picture up on the wall as “Marksman of the Month.” I had completely forgotten that Bridget didn’t know that Siobhan knew him, because Victor definitely knew. The Town Car driver confirms that Siobhan and Charlie/John were friends. This leads Bridget to think that someone else was trying to kill her, and she ends up hiring her driver as her bodyguard.

When we next see Henry and Siobhan, they’re post-coital at Siobhan’s Harlem office. Siobhan gets up to get a shower, and once she has left the room, Tyler starts trying to Skype Siobhan’s computer. Once it rings a second time, Henry decides to answer. Needless to say, both Tyler and Henry are rather surprised to see each other. Awkward! After Tyler hangs up and Siobhan returns to the room, Siobhan assures Henry that she’s just keeping Tyler around to get incriminating information about Martin/Charles. Later, Siobhan Skypes Tyler and tells him that Henry is her brother. The ease with which she comes up with these lies astounds me. Tyler’s getting jumpy about continuing to access information for Siobhan, because one of the IT guys has noticed and is starting to ask questions. By the end of the episode, Tyler ends up calling the SEC to report what he has found, which I’m sure will make Bridget very unhappy. If it’s already reported, it loses is blackmail potential, after all.

Mr. Carpenter’s trial is one of the other major centerpieces of the episode. Juliet’s testimony goes okay, but then while they’re in the ladies’ room, Tessa (Juliet’s frienmy) tells Juliet that she wasn’t actually assaulted by Mr. Carpenter. Tessa claims that she just made up her story that corroborated Juliet’s because she wanted to get back at Mr. Carpenter. She feels like she used to be Mr. Carpenter’s favorite and was usurped by Juliet. Another friend of Juliet’s hears this conversation from a bathroom stall, and she clearly runs and squeals right away. Next thing we know, the lawyer is telling the Martins that the charges are going to have to be dropped. To make matters worse, Mr. Carpenter is suing the Martins for defamation. Catherine wants to settle the defamation case and just make it all go away for Juliet. Later, Bridget tells Andrew she agrees with this. Juliet comes home after this conversation super happy, and she says it’s because she actually had a nice day out with Catherine (which was Bridget’s suggestion).

At the Martin house, we see one of the twins rooting around in a desk. It turns out to be Siobhan, of course. Andrew comes home and catches her, but he doesn’t know who she actually is. He’s surprised when she’s a cold bitch to him and seems to recoil when kissing. Then to seem even more shady, Siobhan runs out. Later, Bridget is searching for the key in her desk, and she obviously can’t find it. Andrew asks if she’s okay, because obviously Siobhan wasn’t acting like Bridget. Bridget says it’s been a long day, but she’s okay now. She doesn’t quite figure out that Siobhan has been in the house. Later she and her new bodyguard comb through Siobhan’s office some more, and the bodyguard notices Siobhan’s footprints in the closet. Meanwhile, Siobhan gets a safe deposit box that goes with the key, and she and Henry are going to open it together. She says that after they open the box, she needs to go back to Paris for a little while. Inside the box is an audio recording. We don’t know what’s on it yet, but when Henry hears it, he’s pretty shocked.

The biggest shocker of the episode, to me at least, involved Juliet. We see Juliet and Tessa in a hotel room, pouring some celebratory drinks. Presumably, they’re celebrating being past the trial. Then there’s a knock on the door, and it’s none other than Mr. Carpenter with a big sleazy smile on his face. It turns out that the whole sequence of events beginning with Juliet telling her friend she was raped was orchestrated by Juliet, Tessa, and Mr. Carpenter to get money out of Andrew. The justification was that it would be getting Juliet her trust fund back (and Mr. Carpenter and Tessa would make some coin as well). This turn of events was just beyond shocking and horrible, really. I have issues with false rape claim storylines in general (they make it more difficult for actually raped women to feel they can come forward), and less seriously, it completely destroyed all of Juliet’s character development from the last few episodes. I have no clue where they’re going to take this particular storyline next, but it can’t be anywhere good.