'Ringer' Season 1, Episode 17 Recap - 'What We Have Is Worth The Pain'

A lot of secrets were revealed and a lot of truth bombs were dropped in this week’s episode of “Ringer”. We finally have the background on why Siobhan went to all this trouble to disappear. Like any good “Bond” movie villain, Siobhan finally described her dastardly plan to her main minion squeeze Henry.

The mystery of what happened to Tyler, where the flash drive went and what happened to Malcolm still loom large however. This week also gave Agent Pretty Eyes something to do other than fall in love with clichés in sepia-toned flashbacks, and for that I’m glad. When Malcolm goes missing he freaks out, as once again his only witness has vanished into thin air. Agent Pretty Eyes has some pretty rank luck. Soon he’s realizing that all is not right at Martin Charles, where Andrew and Olivia are giving off a particularly strong whiff of serial killer today. By episode’s end, Malcolm is still in the wind after his cell phone is discovered on a homeless person and a text purporting to be from him lures Bridget to her near-death.

Meanwhile Malcolm actor Mike Colter gets his agent on the phone to yell about how he’s only ever kidnapped or missing on this show. I can’t imagine that’s the way his part was originally pitched to him. What would that pitch be like do you think? “You’re going to spend the first part of the season tied to a chair and then the next part missing! It’s a very meaty role of sitting and not being on screen!” SOLD!

Now that we finally know of Siobhan’s evil plan, I will give the show props for at least having it make sense. You see, after Siobhan threatened Andrew with her knowledge of the Ponzi scheme six months ago he threatened to kill her. So Siobhan was instrumental in setting Bridget up to take her place, even going so far as paying off the police officer that got Bridget to run in the first place.

Her thought process was that Andrew would kill Bridget and Siobhan would get time to gather evidence and then go to the police. With Bridget’s death proving that Andrew was willing (and able) to kill her, Siobhan would manage to have an iron-clad defense against Andrew’s money, power and lawyers. Also Bridget would be dead because of that time she agreed to go to a carnival and indirectly--yet not at all-- killed Siobhan’s son.

Again, I’m disappointed they made Bridget’s role in the death of Siobhan’s son such a non-entity. This would be a much more compelling story if Bridget was indeed more directly responsible. It would make the story less of a black-and-white, good-and-evil tale and move it more into ambiguous shades of grey. Siobhan’s actions still wouldn’t be justified, but they would at the very least be more understandable. Right now she comes off like a cartoon villain, cackling with Henry about killing her sister and finally having her perfect twin family.

During all this plotting Andrew spends the episode finding every shady, scary looking corner in every room that he inhabits. Anywhere Bridget’s at, there’s Andrew lurking in a shadow somewhere about to say ambiguously evil sounding things. So we’ve officially found out, it seems, that Andrew is not a good dude. Watching British television has sort of primed me to hear a British accent and imagine that I will be suddenly transported through time like on “Doctor Who” or someone will be talking about dinner jackets like on “Downton Abbey” so this was slightly shocking for me. Yet there’s still some hope for him.

On the evil side he’s running a Ponzi scheme and he threatened to kill Siobhan six months ago. On the good side, he still loves his daughter and even when Siobhan-pretending-to-be-not-pregnant-Bridget-pretending-to-be-Siobhan (got that?) told him she didn’t love him and she was turning him in, he still wanted to fight for their relationship. On the minus side…what was he doing with Malcolm before he disappeared? Was he or Olivia responsible for Tyler’s death? They had the flash drive, after all, just not the correct one. Also there’s that Ponzi scheme and those death threats and all those mysterious shadows he keeps skulking into. Consider me on the fence in regards to Andrew’s evil.

At episode’s end Andrew takes a bullet intended for Bridget while Olivia hightails it out of town and Malcolm is still missing. Who tried to kill Bridget? It could be anyone or everyone on this show; she’s a popular person to want dead.

Other important things we learned this episode of “Ringer”:

- Juliet finally figured out that her mother was behind Tessa’s attack and also that her mother is a horrible person. It took her a really, really long time to come to this conclusion. Now Mommy Dearest’s hired thug is after Juliet for more money. You know what they say, mo’ money, mo’ problems. (And by they I clearly meant 90s rappers.)

- Siobhan/Bridget’s driver Solomon is now officially the smartest person on this show. He immediately realized that Bridget wasn’t Siobhan because of how her behavior was all weird and then he fingerprinted the glass to confirm his suspicions. A random driver managed to figure this out but Andrew is still totally in the dark. I really hope at some point we find out that Andrew has known all along. I’m not sure someone can be a criminal mastermind and a straight-up idiot at the same time.

- Distracting coats hide GIANT pregnancy bellies. The more you know!

What did you think of this week’s episode of “Ringer”? Do you think Siobhan was telling the truth about Andrew’s attempt on her life? Do you think Andrew is evil or just misunderstood? Sound off in the comments!