What I’m Watching: Ringer

Ringer: Season 1, Episode 5 “A Whole New Kind of Bitch” (C+)

At least we have some productive developments in this hour, but it’s still a bit too messy to be overly coherent. The defamation of Siobhan’s apartment sets a tone of uneasiness for the duration of the episode, even if Bridget seems generally more composed than usual, aside from her near-regression to drug usage. Gemma’s clever homework deducing Bridget’s identity was somewhat far-fetched, and her demand that she sleep with Henry to ensure a clean divorce was rather bold and excessive. Bridget did a good job convincing her to back off, but Henry had to go and mess it all up by responding in just the wrong fashion. Seeing Kristoffer Polaha try hard to act is not something this show needs more of, and I would hope that his role might be greatly reduced now that Gemma seems to be out of the picture. I suspect that he didn’t kill her, as it appears, but rather that she committed suicide, purposely or accidentally, and left some note for Andrew to find that Henry has presumably confiscated. There were a whole bunch of near-revelations in this hour, such as Juliet saying that Siobhan slept with a married man, which turned out to be Andrew when he was still with her mother, and Gemma announcing that she could no longer work on the loft. Bridget also managed to easily explain away her presence at NA after Juliet stalked her there. Sending Juliet to public school is unlikely to solve anything, and with the threat of Gemma reduced, Juliet is likely going to be her number one problem. Malcolm has been getting drugged up for the past episode and a half, while the rest of the show has nearly forgotten about Macawi’s existence!