Ringer 1.18: "That Woman's Never Been a Victim Her Entire Life"

“You know what, you’re right. They are in love. Because it seems like without you, your family is tighter than ever.”
-Henry

This particular episode of “Ringer” wasn’t really anything special. There was no major suspense, and what suspense there was resolved itself pretty quickly. This episode was more about characters reevaluating their priorities and alliances in the wake of Andrew’s shooting. We also learn the answers to some of the mysteries that were introduced in previous episodes, primarily how Tyler died and who was responsible (although that answer was rather disappointing). I also found it surprising how many people are missing or go missing in this episode. Malcolm’s been missing for a couple episodes now, and Olivia’s been missing ever since realizing that Martin/Charles was about to come crashing down. And now Juliet temporarily goes missing in this episode. At least Juliet had a really good reason to try to disappear. She was trying to get away from her horrible, horrible mother.

The episode begins where the last left off. It’s the aftermath of Andrew getting shot by the mysterious gunman because he jumped in front of a bullet meant for “Siobhan” (or possibly Bridget). Victor, who arrived on the scene just as the shooting was going down, runs after the shooter. The shooter is just a bit faster than Victor, though, and Victor is never quite able to catch up. The shooter is quite crafty, too. He or she manages to take advantage of a crowd of people leaving a nearby building to disappear and create an obstacle for Victor. The final blow to Victor, however, comes when the shooter kicks him as he’s trying to jump over a fence. Victor is completely knocked out. When he comes to, however, he picks up a tarot card that fell out of the shooter’s pocket during the escape.

We then switch over to the aftermath from other perspectives. We see a tender Juliet and Bridget moment as they wait at the hospital for news from the surgeon working on Andrew. We also see Henry and Siobhan, who are in bed at Henry’s house. Henry gets a phone call, and it’s from Juliet. She wants Henry to bring some things over to the hospital from the apartment. Siobhan seems extremely confused by the news that Andrew has been shot by a hit man intended for Bridget/ “Siobhan.” Henry quickly arrives at the hospital, and we learn that Andrew has been in surgery for two hours because a fragment of the bullet was close to his spine. The surgeon finally comes out to tell Bridget and Juliet that Andrew is fine, and they share a very tearful hug. Henry watches this with a very confused and impressed look on his face. Kristoffer Polaha does excellent work here as we can see Henry trying to reconciles what he thinks he knows about Bridget with what he’s seeing. He realizes that Bridget and Andrew are truly in love. When Henry tells Siobhan the latest scoop, she says Andrew must have changed his mind at the last minute and decided he didn’t want to kill “Siobhan” after all. Henry thinks that Siobhan is the one who ordered the hit, and he kicks her out of his house. I was very happy to see Henry finally start to see through all of Siobhan’s manipulation.

Victor is at the NYC FBI office talking over the case with his contact there. Apparently the SEC is backing off Martin/Charles because with Tyler dead, they don’t have the additional evidence they thought they would have. Victor gives his NYC contact the job of looking into the tarot card he found. Meanwhile, at the hospital, Andrew wakes up and he and Bridget have a long talk. They each come clean about (some of) their deceptions to each other. Andrew said he visited Malcolm to try and bribe him. Bridget, for her part, tells Andrew about the original attack she experienced and how she killed the hit man. She even throws in the fact that unfortunately, the body disappeared before she really had the chance to investigate. She leaves out one major, obvious deception, though. You know, the fact that she isn’t actually Siobhan. After this exchange of information, Andrew and Bridget come to the conclusion that Olivia is the mastermind behind the hits on “Siobhan.”

Victor also pays Andrew a visit at the hospital. He wants to know why Andrew said he never saw Malcolm after Malcolm was fired, yet Victor knows he asked Malcolm’s hotel about surveillance footage. For just regaining consciousness after major surgery, Andrew thinks pretty quickly and comes up with a plausible excuse that doesn’t involve him trying to destroy evidence of visiting Malcolm. Instead, he says he was conducting his own investigation into Malcolm’s disappearance. Victor insinuates that Olivia could be the next victim, but Andrew and Bridget think that’s ridiculous. Olivia is way too in control of everything in her life to ever be a victim. Bridget sends Solomon to Olivia’s apartment to investigate. The only useful thing Solomon is able to find is a series of letters and numbers that were written on a notepad. Solomon manages to escape the apartment just as Victor and his team arrives.

Andrew, Bridget, and Catherine decide that Juliet should go to Miami to live with Catherine for a little while until the random hit man (probably from Olivia) danger has passed. Juliet is not at all happy to hear this news. Since finding out that her mother was behind the attack on Tessa, Juliet wants absolutely nothing to do with Catherine. Catherine tells Juliet that she doesn’t have a choice. She says that after the scam they ran and its aftermath, they’re bonded for life. As she’s packing up and leaving for Miami, Juliet is extremely pissed at Bridget for allowing this to happen. She really, really does not want to go with Catherine. Juliet asks to stop by school before they leave, and Catherine agrees. As Juliet and Catherine get into an SUV to head over to Juliet’s school, we can see that someone is photographing them.

When we next see the real Siobhan, she’s in a taxi, and she’s on her phone leaving a voicemail for Henry. She’s going to the hospital to tell Andrew the truth about everything. Siobhan does make it all the way to Andrew’s hospital room, and Henry arrives and fights his way past the guards just in time to stop her from spilling everything. They leave the room just as Andrew takes a call. Bridget shows up at the hospital, so Henry and Siobhan skedaddle out of there as quickly as they can. Bridget enters the hospital room, and Andrew tells her that according to the phone call he just got, Juliet is missing. Bridget realizes that the letters and numbers Solomon found in Olivia’s apartment match the name and address of Juliet’s school. This, of course, leads them to believe that Olivia has taken Juliet.

Later, Siobhan and Henry are making out (guess he stupidly decided to start trusting her again thanks to her “I’ll tell Andrew everything if it means we can stay together” stunt), and Henry randomly says he has a confession to make. We get a flashback that explains what happened to Tyler. Tyler and Henry were in Tyler’s hotel room, fighting over both Siobhan and the infamous flash drive. This was a knock-down-drag-out fight. Tyler hits his head on a glass table and dies. I call this the typical television “we were fighting and he hit his head” cop-out death. It’s such a cliché. Who does Henry think he is? Desmond from “Lost?” Before he left the hotel room, Henry switched the flash drives (which explains why Olivia thought there was nothing useful on the flash drive she was examining in the last episode). Henry tells Siobhan that he gave his father-in-law the flash drive as proof that he should pull his investment from Martin/Charles. Tim Arbogast is still like family to Henry, and he suddenly thinks family is important.

Victor’s investigation takes him to a dry cleaner’s that bought tarot cards like the card he found while chasing down Andrew’s shooter. The clerk at the dry cleaner’s says the owner of the store isn’t around, but the tarot cards were part of an old promotion that has been discontinued. Victor doesn’t buy the story, but he leaves his business card with the clerk in case her boss wants to disclose more information. As soon as Victor leaves, the clerk calls someone mysterious (her boss, presumably) to let him or her know that the tarot card has been returned by an FBI agent. Later, Victor gets a call from local police. Malcolm’s ID and other belongings have been found near a shallow grave, although the grave has not been excavated yet.

Bridget remembers that when Juliet was packing for Miami, she packed some winter things like a hat and scarf an gloves. The scarf could be explained away as fashion, but there’s no way Juliet would have needed all that winter get-up in Miami. Bridget starts to think that Juliet actually ran away. Also remembering that Juliet had asked if they could take a little getaway to the beach house, Bridget finds Juliet out at the Hamptons. Juliet tells Bridget the whole truth about the scheme she and Catherine pulled on Andrew. Bridget drags Juliet back to Manhattan to tell Andrew the truth about the settlement he paid, but the big reveal is delayed by Victor showing up. The shallow grave turned out to belong to one of Bodaways lieutenants. Victor seems to think Malcolm is probably dead as well. He thinks the lieutenant is the hit man, though, and that he probably tried to kill “Siobhan” thinking she was Bridget.