Well, color me surprised. I had just about gotten to the point of “meh” with Ringer when it actually threw a couple of curve balls in there and things got interesting very quickly. Yay, show!
First, it turns out Bridget’s new NA sponsor, Charlie (Billy Miller), is actually Siobhan’s henchman. Did not see that coming. And it looks like he did actually have a hand in Gemma’s disappearance. In “Oh Gawd, There’s Two of Them”, things are told out of order when Machado decides to step up his investigation into Bridget and she surprisingly gives Andrew and Henry a heads up that Siobhan had a twin, so when they’re interrogated, they’re all “yeah, so?” about the big reveal.
Bridget asks Charlie to check out Gemma’s car and then we dial back to the flashback of him chasing her into the brownstone. In one of those tacky the “actress was fired” sort of things, we never see her face. BOO. (P.S. I don’t know if she actually was fired, that’s just how it plays since they didn’t use her). After wiping down the SUV of his own blood, he calls Siobhan in Paris to report they’re in the clear.
Malcolm gets away from Bodeway and turns up in NYC, newly re-hooked on smack (taking a page from Fastlane’s finale). Juliet gets into a car accident after she’s the semi-sober designated driver and hot teacher calls Andrew. Andrew hugs her, glad she’s OK, and then cuts off her money. Bridget goes to (yet another) gala with Andrew and spots Malcolm in the crowd and promptly passes out. Malcolm helps her to the hospital and then disappears.
In “Maybe We Should Get a Dog”, things pick up immediately with Bridget having an ultrasound, which reveals no baby, so they diagnose her with an ectopic pregnancy. Andrew takes it hard and takes Bridget’s distance harder. Juliet is genuinely sympathetic and when she asks whether they’ll try again, Bridget says no, which Andrew overhears. He immediately brats out in a behavioral reversal until Bridget tries to explain she does want the marriage to work.
In Paris, Siobhan’s getting the report from Charlie that Malcolm is in town (via Bridget, which seems really reckless for her to tell him as Siobhan that her sponsor was Malcolm, especially given how close attention she’s being paid by Machado and he could easily piece together she’s Bridget). Malcolm’s still on the spike and Bridget doesn’t figure that out until the second time she sees him, wearing a wire.
When she shakes Machado’s tail (after calling him on the carpet about not helping Malcolm), she confronts him about using again, but he runs away from her. We get a few flashbacks that backfill for us that Bridget’s been sober for six months, and three months into her recovery, she and Malcolm hooked up one time, and that was the same night she called Siobhan to make amends.
Also, Siobhan’s boytoy, Tyler, supposedly heads to Rome but gets called into NYC by Andrew for a promotion and then an awkward dinner with the Martins where Bridget genuinely has no idea who he is and he’s all flustered. And if the penny dropped for her that his behavior means Siobhan is alive, we didn’t actually see her process all that. Andrew and Bridget reconnect and the come home to find Malcolm downstairs needing help. Because Andrew is that guy, Malcolm is invited upstairs and then the next day Bridget hands him off to Charlie. BOO!
Juliet’s hot teacher realizes she’s inappropriately attached to him so he bounces her from his class and then she pops up in one of his clubs (“The Good Samaritan Club” = HAH!). Henry is relegated to one sad scene with Bridget where he finally accepts that they’re done because the baby is gone (which he learned from Juliet), while in Paris Siobhan sniffles at his photo. I hope they give Kristoffer Polaha more to do.
Finally, Tyler calls Siobhan all “what the hell, woman?” and bounces her from her hotel and she’s got a problem she wasn’t counting on. I’m guessing she’s heading home soon and we’re going to have the mother of all cliffhangers.
My only inkling that Charlie might be somebody more than he seemed is because the actor is a very big deal on The Young and the Restless, which I only know because I spent way too many hours on it this summer while Sean Patrick Flanery had an arc. But on the flip side of that, Michelle Stafford, also a very big deal on Y&R, did a one-episode-and-out spot, so maybe that wasn’t a clue. Either way, it was a good reveal, and in the nick of time to keep me watching.
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