Original Air Date: 11 October 2011
Andrew: Stop blaming Siobhan. She has nothing to do with this, other than trying to help.
Juliet: She's not helping. She's rummaging through my stuff, going to druggie meetings, narc-ing me out. It's like she's a whole new kind of bitch.
Review: It's the aftermath of Bridget's confession to Gemma about who she really is and let me tell you, things did not go like I thought they would. Were they better, or were they worse? It's hard to decide, but I welcomed the surprise; if it's one thing I don't like from my TV shows is for them to get predictable.
Last week I said I would like for Gemma - obviously upset by her best friend's betrayal - to get on team Bridget and help her fit in her sister's shoes better. Nevertheless, it seems like the showrunners are not willing to let Bridget have any allies for long: Malcolm is still help up and tortured by Bodaway and she doesn't really have any other friends. Not only does Gemma react badly to the discovery, by calling Bridget not different from her sister in that she only thinks about herself, but she blackmails her with telling Andrew everything if she didn't help her with her own pesky little problem: Henry. Gemma wants Bridget to sleep with her husband so that she could have irrefutable proof to divorce him and take away the children. Bridget's move is equally bold: she decides to maintain her dignity and try to save Siobhan's family by telling Henry what his wife had planned. The problem with this plan is that Henry is not as harmless as he may seem.
So, the question for next week is, did Henry really kill Gemma? If his behavior when Andrew showed up to his apartment was not suspicious enough, the blood smeared all over the walls definitely was. This is one of the things I love about this show: the characters are not all good or all bad, it keeps me on edge. Was this turn of events taking things a bit to far when it comes to making the story believable? I would really hate for an important character, such as Gemma, to be out of the show so early on (by the way, as I'm writing this review, I just got news of Ringer being picked up for a full season, so congratulations for that!).
The other problem on Bridget's hands is Juliet; the episode reveals why Juliet hates her step-mother so much, and it's because Siobhan and Andrew had an affair while he was still married to her mother. Juliet is a loose cannon but nothing I wouldn't expect from a teenager if you also add up the drug use. Hell, I was rebellious and angry with my parents, and I was considered to be a good kid. The way Bridget handled her - by apologizing for what Siobhan had done and trying her best to make up for things - was amazing and definitely not selfish, as Gemma tried to portray her. Bridget may be staying to protect herself, but that doesn't mean she's not trying to fix what her sister had broken. I don't expect things to improve much though, despite a final scene that shows Bridget and Juliet burying the hatchet, but it was a first step into establishing a relationship between the two.
Now, I'm told that the next episode will be the debut of Jason Dohring as one of Juliet's public school teachers and I must admit, I'm actually more excited for that than I am to find out if Gemma really is dead. He's was the bad boy prototype for a long time and if it's one thing I love more than anything, it's bad boys. I'm still pissed about how things ended in Veronica Mars so seeing him back on my TV will be a real treat.
But now, seriously, is Gemma dead? What do you think?
Ringer 1x04: It's Gonna Kill Me, but I'll Do It
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