Ringer Episode 1-1 Review – Twin Sneaks

Reviews, Shows

Though I wasn’t a die-hard Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan back in the day (the show premiered when I was 11, so I was a little late to the party) I did watch it enough to become a pretty big Sarah Michelle Gellar fan. She kicked butt and married my childhood crush, Freddie Prinze Jr., so I pretty much wanted to be her. That’s why I decided to check out her new show, Ringer, last night – and you know what? It wasn’t half bad.

In Ringer, SMG plays two people – a set of estranged twins, Bridget and Siobhan. Bridget lives in Wyoming, is a former stripper and a recovering addict. She also witnessed a murder, and is meant to testify against a scary, scary gangster. Instead, Bridget attacks the cop protecting her, steals his gun and runs away. You know, like one does. Sh heads to the Hamptons, where estranged twin Siobhan lives.

Siobhan couldn’t be more different from Bridget. She’s rich, has a huge house and a giant glamor shot of herself in that house. That says a lot about a person, right there.

There are a lot of mysteries in Ringer, which is part of why I’ll keep watching for at least a few more episodes. I think it could strike the right balance of mysterious intrigue and campy soap opera that might not make it required Tuesday night viewing (after all, I have Glee, Raising Hope and Parenthood to consider) but could make for great Saturday morning DVR viewing.

One of the first mysteries is why the sisters are estranged. There’s mention of someone named Sean, who is later revealed to be a little boy. Siobhan’s son? Was there some kind of accident caused by Bridget’s addiction? We don’t know yet. Siobhan’s husband is out of town, but she reveals to Bridget that he doesn’t know about her…like, he doesn’t know Siobhan has a twin sister. So many secrets!

The girls go for a ride on Siobhan’s speedboat, because…well, I’m assuming that’s just what rich, uptight ladies do when they want to bond with their sassy, edgy twin sisters. And then something crazy happens! Twitter explodes with complaints of terrible green screen work. And yeah, it was pretty awful. You’d think they would have found a better way to kill off Siobhan if they couldn’t afford more than $20 for special effects.

Yeah, so Siobhan dies. (Or so we think! Duh-duh-duuuhhhhh….) Siobhan grabs a couple drinks for them, and next think Bridget knows, she wakes up on the boat alone. And Siobhan left her giant wedding ring in an empty pill bottle! Bridget saw something in the water and jumped in, but it was too late – Siobhan was gone. So Bridget puts on the sparkly ring and assumes her dead sister’s identity. You know, like one does.

I know we’re supposed to assume that Bridget assumes Siobhan’s identity because she knows a killer gangster is after her (and there’s that little issue with the police officer she attacked and robbed), but it’s pretty out-there. But from here the show got pretty good (in a kinda campy way, obvs.) so I decided to just go with it.

Now that Bridget is pretending to be Siobhan, she learns an awful lot about her sister. Siobhan’s marriage is terrible. She has a pretty horrific stepdaughter. She’s sleeping with her best friend’s husband. She’s four weeks pregnant. Oh, and she didn’t commit suicide!

Yeah. At the beginning of the pilot, we saw Bridget being attacked in Siobhan’s massive new apartment, which is undergoing renovations. She fought off the attacker and managed to shoot him dead with her stolen gun, and assumed her was the gangster stripper-killer she was supposed to testify against. Nope! He was actually after Siobhan. Man, these girls are caught up in some s**t.

And then the twist came, the twist that meant I was definitely going to watch a few more episodes of Ringer – Siobhan isn’t dead, she’s having a grand old time in Paris. And she ordered the hit on Bridget. So, what the hell? Did Siobhan want Bridget dead? Did she want to stage her own death and thought it would be easiest to sacrifice Bridget in the process? Was it a two birds with one stone situation? I can’t wait to find out.

So, did you guys catch Ringer? Are you going to keep watching? I can’t guarantee that I’ll be writing about it every Wednesday morning, but I’ll definitely be watching a few more episodes and will try to post about it when I can, so come on back as this thing progresses!


You can follow Jill at her blog, couchtimewithjill.com, or on Twitter @jillemader Jill has been an avid fan of TV since the age of two, when she was so obsessed with Zoobilee Zoo that her mother lied and told her it had been canceled. Despite that setback, she grew up to be a television aficionado and pop culture addict.