'Ringer' Season 1, Episode 16 Recap - 'You're Way Too Pretty to Go to Jail'

The stakes have never felt higher than they have on this week’s episode of “Ringer”. Sure, the show started with Bridget realizing that twin sister Siobhan’s life wasn’t as charmed as she had once thought after a murder attempt. Since the comedy of errors with the body of the would-be assassin in the trunk, however, the show has stuck mostly to its mistaken identity trappings. This episode of “Ringer” returns to the two central driving mysteries of the show, with both involving murder. It made this episode a twisty, wild ride.

“Ringer” might never be great television or even as deliciously campy as fellow pretty-people-and-murder sudser “Revenge” but it certainly knows how to dole out surprises. Never let it be said that the endings to “Ringer” are boring, even if the episode preceding it was. This week, however, there was enough murder and mayhem to earn the show’s “OMG” closer.

The two main murder-rific plots revolved around the origins of the Macawi investigation and Andrew’s Ponzi scheme, revealed last episode. Let’s start off with the more straightforward of the two, shall we?

So Agent Pretty Eyes is back. Remember him? No, me neither. Nestor Carbonell is basically such a nonentity on this show that I’m continually surprised when he pops up. It’s like he’s a special guest star that keeps returning, except he’s a main cast member. What’s Pretty Eyes been up to? Well, you know the usual: trying to track down Bridget and having sepia-toned flashbacks about strippers. Some other FBI detective tries to hone in on his case on Macawi all “drop the strippers I’ve got this whole cigarette angle that sounds like it would make for a very boring TV show!” The starved for hits CW, meanwhile, starts trying to think up marketing campaigns for ‘Law and Order: Cigarette Unit’.

We finally find out more about the dead stripper that lead to this whole mess in the first place. It turns out that Agent Pretty Eyes recruited her into the Macawi mess. But then he broke the cardinal rule:  don’t fall in love with your criminal informant (or at the “Jersey Shore”). He fell hard for his stripper with heart of gold and planned to run away with her. She had one last stripping gig to do at Macawi’s party with Bridget and then he was going to pull her out for good. Of course, she didn’t make it out alive and he later learned she was four months pregnant.

Props need to be given to the actress playing murder victim zero here, who made a minor guest role sweetly likable. She and Machado had such nice, flirtatious chemistry; a rarity on this show. Seeing her ultimate fate drives home how much danger Bridget (and now Malcolm) are in from the often-mentioned Macawi. As far as boogeymen go Macawi has gotten less and less effective as the season has progressed, so it’s nice that the show is re-emphasizing how dangerous he truly is.

As for Andrew’s Ponzi scheme, we learn just how culpable he is this week. Verdict: guilty! Bridget has a hard time believing that Andrew is capable of murder, even though she now knows he’s shady as anything. Malcolm is like “girl, you are too dumb to live” and Bridget banishes him from self-portrait-ville. When she talks to Andrew though, she starts to pick up on the murdering vibe. Mostly because he’s subtly going “shut up or I’ll murder you” in every scene. This is Bridget though, so it takes until the end of the episode, seeing a dead body and a threatening voice message for her to come around to realizing she may be fake-married to  “The Talented Mr. Ripley”.

Siobhan and Henry continue working together, with Siobhan playing poor Tyler like a fiddle. We barely knew you Tyler! If there’s one thing that can be said for “Ringer” it’s that the show isn’t afraid to kill off characters. Henry, meanwhile, continues to be the best version of himself as long as he works as Siobhan’s minion. Like seriously, in every scene that he’s double-crossing someone he looks as giddy as a schoolgirl hanging up Justin Bieber posters. The best moment this episode was after he smooched Bridget and played it off like this random hotel was their “special spot”. Having Henry use his knowledge of the double-identity against Bridget is hilarious, because it allows the show to make fun of its own misunderstanding trappings.

Finally, the revelation that Andrew might be a cold-hearted murderer under his polite British demeanor really feels like it gives new life to the show. I know I get excited every time it seems like someone on this show is about to turn out to be a serial killer, but what else can you really expect from “Ringer” at this point? The problem with this show is that all the characters are extremely flat, making it nearly impossible to care about any of them. So instead the show has to rely on extreme twists and turns in the narrative to keep up audience interest. Thankfully for “Ringer”, big twists are what the show is good at.

Next week Andrew murders Malcolm and then comically drags around his body all episode before dumping him in a giant Titanic trunk, only to find that Malcolm is still alive. Then he shoots Malcolm fifty more times in the face, has a cup of tea and sets off to murder Bridget.

What did you think of this week’s episode of “Ringer”? Do you care more about Agent Machado now? Do you think that Andrew is a killer? Sound off in the comments!