When RINGER went on winter hiatus last November, we were already pretty confused about what was really going on; and the intervening two month break has not done much to illuminate the overall mystery since the show has been notoriously close-lipped about spoilers. So here is what we have been able to piece together and what we hope to find out more about as the series picks up Tuesday night with Episode 11 of this increasingly murky, mystery story.
BRIDGET
When former bad-twin Brigit (Sarah Michelle Gellar) takes on the identity of her allegedly good-twin Siobhan, she did it with the best intentions: to hide in plain sight to cover up (1) Siobhan’s suicide and (2) to escape her own life where she is wanted by the FBI and a murderous mob-boss. But unbeknownst to her, Siobhan had faked her death in order to force her sister to take her place. However, like all best laid plans, Siobhan’s plan backfired when Bridget survived an assassination attempt as she was posing as her twin and today is still masquerading as Siobhan and living Siobhan’s life, which has complicated Siobhan’s carefully constructed plans.
Believing her sister is dead and slowly falling for her sister’s husband, Bridget is walking a fine line. When she quickly dispatched of Henry, Siobhan’s lover, and tried to make amends with Gemma, Siobhan’s best friend and Henry’s wife, Siobhan put a plan in motion to have Gemma kidnapped – her motivations were two-fold (a) to keep Gemma after she found out that Bridget was impersonating her sister, and (b) perhaps to prevent Gemma from making Henry’s life a living-hell after she found out about his affair with Siobhan.
So Bridget may have thought she was stepping into an easier life when she took over her sister’s identity, but it has only made her life much more entangled and thorny than ever before. Bridget is in love with a man who does not know who she really is; she’s become a surrogate mother to a very trouble teen; her old life is closing in as her sponsor and former-lover Malcolm is now hanging around (his own life hanging in the balance with Bodaway stalking him and Bridget); she told all her secrets to a fake-sponsor, who was a man hired by her sister to keep tabs on her and who kidnapped Gemma; and she sort of framed herself for murder by planting her own fingerprints on evidence from the crime scene of Gemma’s kidnapping.
Bridget’s initial instincts were to run, but the longer she stays, she finds herself stuck in this sticky web of deceit.
SIOBHAN
The puppet-master behind all the mysteries, Siobhan (also portrayed by Sarah Michelle Gellar) is pulling all the strings and had everyone fooled. For years, she held herself out to be the “good girl” and made Bridget feels like the bad sister. But with each revelation, we are starting to see a picture of a very mean, nasty, and diabolical woman – that’s who Siobhan really is. She tricked her own sister into thinking she had committed suicide and laid a trap so that Bridget leapt at the opportunity to take over Siobhan’s identity. But Siobhan only wanted her sister to take over her life so that she could have her spectacularly killed, thus completing her grand plan to fake her own death. Fortunately, Bridget’s strong survival instincts saved her. However, Siobhan is not very happy about her sister taking over her life and messing up her grand plans – particularly when Bridget found out about her secret bank account and cleaned it out, leaving Siobhan broke in Paris.
We really still have no idea why Siobhan wanted to fake her own death or what kind of financial shenanigans she is up to with her husband Andrew’s company. But we do know that Siobhan — not only wanted the world to think she was dead — she wanted her sister dead. She also did not really care about her husband or her stepdaughter who she abandoned without a look back, and she also did not care about Henry, her lover, and the father of her child. Siobhan has shown herself to be a classic sociopath, acting without remorse or regard for others. If you have any doubts, re-watch the final moments of the last episode in which she coldly killed Charlie and then planted the gun on him, right after he killed Gemma. Plus, she had no problem tricking Tyler into thinking he was the father of her child, not to mention the fact that she never even bothered to tell Henry (the man that she supposedly really loved) that he had a child.
We may not understand the “why” of what Siobhan is doing, but we certainly have a clear picture of who she really is – she is the true villain in the story.
ANDREW
As Siobhan’s hapless husband, Andrew (Ioan Gruffudd) had the great misfortune of marrying a woman he knew nothing about. He probably regretted it every day since – that is until Bridget came along and took over Siobhan’s life. Now poor Andrew is duped into believing his evil wife has turned a new leaf and is falling in love with her. If only he knew the truth!
While there have been small hints of business improprieties by Andrew and his business partner Olivia, and perhaps even a former dalliance, nothing concrete has been revealed yet. We just know that their investment company is on the verge of collapse and they are hoping for a big deal to bail them out. It can be speculated that Siobhan is either trying to expose Andrew for some shady business dealings, or to hasten along his financial ruin.
But since Andrew and Bridget’s love story seems to be the only beating heart in this story, we rooting for them to evade Siobhan’s evil plans and life happily ever after — if that’s even possible!
JULIET
Andrew also has a daughter Juliet (Zoey Deutch) from a former marriage, and she makings his life a living hell with her wild partying and penchance for trouble. Just when Andrew thinks he has gotten Juliet back on the path of the straight and narrow, she finds another way to circumvent the road to rehabilitation. Since Juliet keeps coming home to Andrew, we can only imagine that life with Andrew’s ex-wife Caroline is not very pleasant and that may be one of the reasons Juliet is so self-destructive.
Juliet’s latest attempt to sabotage her own life and take down another in the process is by making the allegation that her teacher raped her. While it is not yet known if she made it up to punish Mr. Carpenter for rejecting her advances, whether it is true or not, just the allegation is going to act like a bomb in blowing up Juliet, Mr. Carpenter and everyone else’s lives as the truth is sorted out.
HENRY
As Gemma’s husband and Siobhan’s former lover, Henry (Kristofer Polaha) is a man on the verge of a nervous breakdown. When Bridget came along and unceremoniously dumped him and became infatuated with Andrew, Henry was heart-broken. Believing her to be Siobhan, the world no longer made sense to Andrew. Bridget was not acting anything like Siobhan, but he never suspected that she had replaced Siobhan. Instead, Henry is like a lost-puppy wondering what happened to his perfect life.
As if being rejected by “Siobhan” was not enough, Henry also had to deal with the horror of having his wife Gemma kidnapped from their home. While Bridget was quick to figure out a way to turn the spotlight off of Henry as the prime suspect in Gemma’s disappearance, it did nothing to repair the increasingly terrifying world of Henry. Plus, once Henry finds out that his wife is now dead, he is not likely to handle that well either. With two young boys to take care of, Henry needs to find a source of strength in his life or he will completely fall apart.
The only silver-lining is that Henry is now a very wealthy man. He did one smart thing and married a rich woman. That should ease his financial worries for awhile. But it may also make him the perfect “mark” for Andrew and Olivia’s schemes to save their company.
GEMMA
The minute Gemma (Tara Summers) found out that Bridget was impersonating her sister; we just knew her days were numbered. Thus, it was no surprise that in the last episode “That’s What You Get For Trying to Kill Me,” that Gemma was caught in the crossfire of the brewing war between Charlie and Siobhan.
Gemma was another poor soul who got caught up in Siobhan’s web. She thought Siobhan was her best friend. But she had no idea that Siobhan was her husband’s lover and that they were laughing at her behind her back. Siobhan may have thrown Gemma a bone and allowed her to oversee the remodel on the new penthouse, but that was just a ruse to keep Gemma distracted and out of Siobhan and Henry’s hair as they continued their illicit affair.
So while Gemma survived the kidnapping and was about to make her great escape, fate had other plans and Gemma took a bullet to the head in the fall finale. The first confirmed casualty in RINGER and probably not the last, we will remember Gemma as being the woman who simply got in the way.
CHARLIE
Another character marked for death almost as soon as we met him, Charlie (Billy Miller) was an ex-cop turned gun-for-hire who fell into cahoots with Siobhan. It was Charlie’s job to get close to Bridget, gain her trust and pump her for information so that Siobhan could modifying her plans accordingly. Charlie was also entrusted with kidnapping Gemma and baby-sitting Malcolm. But tracking Bridget while watching over Gemma and Malcolm stretched Charlie beyond his capabilities and he tripped himself up.
Once Malcolm and Bridget figured out that Charlie was a fraud and involved with Gemma’s disappearance, the whole world began to collapse around him. In order to keep up that mess, Siobhan hurried back to New York and quickly dispatched Charlie after he killed Gemma. In her mind, that was the perfect solution. No loose-ends that could point back to her. But now that Siobhan has actual blood on her hands, both the death of Gemma and Charlie, what is to stop her from taking out everyone in her path?
MALCOLM
Another loose-end is Bridget’s sponsor and former lover, Malcolm (Mike Colter). Bridget had initially thought to run away with Malcolm, but every day she stayed living her sister’s life the more she succumbed to the lure of it, and before she knew it, Bridget had fallen in love with her sister’s husband. This left Malcolm in a bad spot. Especially as Bodaway had captured and tortured Malcolm in attempt to track down Bridget and kill her before she could testify against Bodaway.
Once Malcolm was able to escape Bodaway and loose the tail he had put on him, Malcolm met up with Bridget in New York and, with Andrew’s unknowing blessing, stuck around to lie low until something could be figured out. Alas, out of the frying pan and into the fire for Malcolm as Bridget arranged for Malcolm to stay with Charlie. Fortunately, Malcolm wised up to Charlie’s lies and was able to alert Bridget and they began tracking him to find out if he had Gemma. If only they had acted sooner, they may have saved Gemma’s life. But as it is, Malcolm is very lucky to still have his given how trigger-happy Charlie turned out to be.
AGENT MACHADO
A constant thorn in Bridget’s side, Agent Machado (Nestor Carbonell) just won’t go away. Not sure what exactly is going on with the twins, Machado only knows that “Siobhan” will eventually lead him to Bridget. While he does not yet realize that they are one and the same, Machado’s instincts have kept him close. Realizing that he is not going away Bridget began to see the sense in having an FBI agent close by just in case she needed his help in dealing with Charlie and keeping him on track with Gemma’s kidnapping. But how much longer with Machado continue to be her pet-FBI agent? We’re betting not very long. Especially since Machado just found out that there’s a mole in the FBI who is selling information to Bodaway.
BODAWAY
As the murderous mob-boss hunting Bridget to keep her from testifying against him, Bodaway (Zahn McClarnon) is intent on only tracking her down and killing her too; and having seen first-hand how vicious and ruthless he can be during his interrogation of Malcolm, we shudder to imagine what he might do to Bridget if he does find her. Bodaway is the “boogieman” waiting to jump out of the shadows. He knows that Malcolm will lead him to Bridget and with Malcolm having gone straight to her, that surely bodes badly for the future.
MR. CARPENTER
Of all the characters on the show we feel bad for, we feel acutely sorry for Mr. Carpenter (Jason Dohring). He had the misfortune of catching Juliet’s eye and after trying to delicately rebuff her advances, he is about to find himself stuck in his worst nightmare: falsely accused of rape of a student. Whether true or not, the allegation alone is a career-killer. It could also lead to numerous problems in both his professional and personal life. Prayers were not enough to save Gemma, but we can only hope that Mr. Carpenter’s prayers are heard and that he escapes from this vicious lie soon.
OLIVIA
Andrew’s dubious and ethically-challenged business partner, Olivia (Jaime Murray) is another can-of-worms waiting to be unleashed. With Siobhan about ready to spring her plan of attack against the company into action, Olivia had better be a good spin-doctor and start making some strong alliances of her own. Her former reliance on Andrew to have her back is no longer an option now that Andrew has fallen for Bridget and that leaves Olivia vulnerable in Siobhan’s crosshairs.
TYLER
Another victim to Siobhan’s schemes, Tyler (Justin Bruening) met Siobhan in Paris, when she was calling herself Cora. After quickly seducing him and duping him into supporting her, Siobhan also managed to steal documents out of Tyler’s briefcase related to his job at Andrew’s company. Just who is Tyler and how does he fit into Siobhan’s plans, we still do no know. But things got very complicated when Tyler ended up having dinner with Andrew and Bridget (posing as Siobhan) and he thought it was the same woman he had just left in Paris.
Those are the players as we know them so far. Each has a very precious position on Siobhan’s chessboard and we have seen now quickly she will sacrifice one of her chess pieces to achieve her end-game.
So who’s upcoming that we, and Siobhan, should keep an eye on? Let’s meet the new players:
CATHERINE
Andrew’s ex-wife and Juliet’s mother, Catherine (Andrea Roth), has decided that her presence is desperately needed and will be moving back to New York. Her arrival will certainly spark some more fun and games and perhaps a wrinkle or two in Bridget and Andrew’s budding romance.
SHAYLENE
As the show looks back into Bridget’s past and the circumstances that sent her fleeing from her own life, we will also meet Shaylene (Nikki DeLoach), the stripper that Bodaway murdered – albeit via flashbacks.
GREER
Now that Gemma is out of the picture, Greer (Madchen Amick) a former mutual friend of Siobhan and Gemma’s resurfaces to express her condolences. Whether she has her sights on Henry or Andrew is anyone’s guess, but when old friends returns, nothing good comes of it.
That’s the players and what we know so far. To find out what is really going on and what kinds of trouble the new players stir up, tune in for the return of RINGER on Tuesday, January 31st at 9PM on The CW (Fridays at 10PM on Global TV in Canada). Catch up on past episodes you may have missed for free online at clicktowatch.tv
Tiffany Vogt is the Senior West Coast Editor, contributing as a columnist and entertainment reporter to TheTVaddict.com. She has a great love for television and firmly believes that entertainment is a world of wondrous adventures that deserves to be shared and explored – she invites you to join her. Please feel free to contact Tiffany at Tiffany_Vogt_2000@yahoo.com or follow her at on Twitter (@TVWatchtower).