Contributor: Henry T.
Written by Eric Charmelo and Nicole Snyder
Directed by Rob Bailey
I asked for “Ringer” to move towards a campy, noir-ish tone in order to make itself better than what was presented in the pilot. This wasn’t the right direction. As with the pilot episode, this one minimized Siobhan’s big picture manipulation in favor of whatever is happening with Bridget in Manhattan. Siobhan’s phone call at the end that awkwardly and vaguely gives context to the episode’s title indicates that the sisters’ perspective stories will dovetail at some point this season, but that seems so far off right now. Things have to get more interesting on Bridget’s end, I think, ultimately for this series to survive. If they are going with the piecemeal approach to Siobhan’s plan, Bridget’s portion of the plot has to make up for it.
The recap for this episode is rather easy: Bridget spends the bulk of the episode trying to hide the dead body of the hitman from the pilot. It would have been an easy task if it weren’t for the fact that Andrew decides to hold a cocktail party in the same place the body is in. That is really all there is to it. The easiest thing for Bridget to do would be to run. Yet, there are things in Siobhan’s lifestyle that compel her somehow to stay. There’s Juliet, the snotty stepdaughter who comes into drugs because, well, that’s what snotty Manhattan teenagers with no purpose or social life do these days. We’re supposed to buy that one tender moment in the bathroom keeps Bridget from running away from a crime.
There is the icky, though very soap opera-like notion that she’s pregnant with the child from Henry, who is constantly denying that he’s having an affair with someone other than his wife. That promises not to end well, but the scene Henry’s wife makes at the party and the ease by which it was resolved made the whole situation feel dull. Agent Machado currently has no leads on what happened to Bridget so he shows up to impart some of the history of the building being used for the party. It seems like the Native American crimelord wants to kill Malcolm just for having contact with Bridget, but nothing goes beyond that. If he really was so dangerous and menacing, he should have done more than just driving his giant SUV behind Malcolm, then backing off a murder because a student suddenly popped up. There is setup for future storylines just for the sake of setting things up and there is interesting setup for future storylines. All of this had the feel of the former, less of the latter.
Aside from the concerns about the rather sleep-inducing plot in a series that still hasn’t established much of anything in two episodes, I had issues with the show’s style. The first 20 minutes of this episode strangely had three musical montages. Montages with no dialog can prove effective in some cases, but this was overload. It only stuck out to me because much of the episode was moving like molasses. The revelation of a pregnancy in the pilot was one thing, doing something this noticeable, this early is not a sign that builds confidence in the series.
I should hope that this won’t become a trend, though there were some montages in the pilot as well so I’m uncertain whether it will overwhelm or reduce to a tolerable amount. The musical score outside of the bad pop songs was non-descript. At least they got rid of the mirror motif and the horrible green-screen work from the pilot. That’s a good start, however small it may be at this point.
Grade: 5/10
