Ringer, S1E1 — Pilot

Bridget takes the moment while her sister’s husband is occupied to go out on the balcony and call her sponsor, Malcolm. Uh, you don’t think his calls might be monitored? Anyway, she’s already looking upset. Without saying any words of greeting, she jumps right to, “I can’t believe what I’ve done.”

Hasn't she seen a crime show before? Doesn't she know about cell phone tracking?

Malcolm wants to know where she is, but she just says, “I– I didn’t feel like I had a choice.” Malcolm asks what she means, and in a flashback we see a bedraggled, wet-haired Bridget arriving back at the weekend place in the Hamptons, her mascara smudged and running as she collapses into tears. Meanwhile, Bridget is telling Malcolm that her sister killed herself and that no one else knows she’s dead. Back at the vacation place, Siobhan’s wallet has spilled out on the floor. Bridget says she saw a way out and she took it, as her past self reaches down to pick up Siobhan’s driver’s license. “I was so scared,” Bridget says, her voice shaking. “Bodaway was after me, the cops were after me…” Past Bridget is dropping off some of her stuff in a storage locker — but she takes Jimmy’s gun with her. “I felt like I didn’t have a choice.” Yeah, so you said already. I have to say, the writing here is stellar.

Past Bridget sits on the counter in the fancy walk-in closet in the weekend place, putting on Siobhan’s wedding ring and putting up her hair to look like Siobhan’s hair. During this whole time, an odd cover of Chicago’s “25 or 6 to 4” has been playing hauntingly. I guess it works with the mood, but I prefer the original. Bridget continues to talk to Malcolm, telling him that everyone thinks she’s her sister. Malcolm says “they” are looking for her, and that he could come and get her if she tells him where she is. Not surprisingly, Bridget refuses. It’s not safe for either of them, she says, and she shouldn’t even have called him. You got that right. Then she sees a mysterious man in a long black coat looking up at her from the street below, which freaks her out. She hangs up on Malcolm and hurries back inside. Don’t worry, Bridget, it’s just your friendly neighborhood stalker vampire! Or perhaps not.

Once inside, she quickly goes to a dresser and hides Jimmy’s gun under some scarves. No one would ever accidentally find it in there! She almost decides to take off her shirt but then decides not to. Andrew, after all, is not actually her husband; she doesn’t even know the man. Still upset, she slips off her shoes and curls up on top of the bedsheets, pulling a throw blanket over herself.

Next morning, the TV-remote-shaped phone on a stack of books next to the bed is ringing. Bridget doesn’t move to get it until Andrew, dressed for the day and walking into the room with a cup of coffee, wonders if she’s going to. Bridget answers the phone, looking bewildered at the woman on the other end who’s wondering why Siobhan is late for her meeting at the loft with her, half an hour ago. The woman helpfully directs Bridget’s attention to the “little orange book” that Siobhan uses for appointments and such. Bridget hurriedly goes to find it on the bedside table, while Andrew says that if Siobhan skipped her morning appointment with her trainer just because he said she was too thin, “that’s silly.” It still wasn’t a very nice thing to say, Andrew. Meanwhile, the woman who called is waiting for Bridget to say something. Bridget is relieved to find a notation in the little orange book that reads “Gemma” and an address, and tells Gemma that she’ll be there in twenty minutes.

“Make it thirty and you owe me a latte,” Gemma counters, and Bridget agrees.

I gather that Bridget knows her way around New York all right, since she successfully makes it to the loft where her sister was supposed to meet Gemma, holding two lattes. The place is under construction — and aha, it seems to be the place from the beginning of the episode, where Bridget was being attacked by the crowbar-wielding bad guy. Bridget walks past a mirror (sigh) to where a red-haired woman is talking to some dudes in hardhats. They leave, and she hurries over to ‘Siobhan’.

“You look absolutely anorexic!” Gemma greets her, taking the latte, and adds that Bridget has to share her secret. Well, Gemma, I’m pretty sure her secret is being a recovering narcotic addict and living in fear for her life. Gemma rattles off some construction related things that are happening that day, and then asks Bridget’s opinion of the “exposed brick”.

Bridget says it’s great, and then asks, “Why are we moving, again?”

“Ask your crazy husband!” Gemma answers. Apparently she took a year getting the place at Park Avenue ready, but this place is the penthouse. So the other place isn’t a penthouse? I guess I don’t know how to differentiate between types of expensive places to live in New York City. Sorry.

How is Bridget not impressed by that view?

Gemma takes Bridget out to look at the terrace, where we see the gargoyles from the episode’s opening shot, in daylight this time. She asks Bridget’s opinion, and Bridget says it’s “pretty.” This isn’t good enough for Gemma, who wants to know why her friend doesn’t seem all that excited. “I thought you lived for this stuff!”

“I do,” Bridget hurries to say. “It’s just– Andrew came home late last night.”

“You’re skinny and you’re having sex!” sighs Gemma wistfully. Over Bridget’s protests that she and Andrew did not have sex, Gemma says that she hasn’t seen her husband Henry naked since last year. Then she looks sad. “I think Henry’s having an affair.” Happy marriages abound on this show. But then, it’s rather soap opera-y, so that’s par for the course, I guess. And I have a shrewd idea that I know who Henry has been having that affair with. I wonder if we shall ever find out!

Gemma continues that she could really use some girl time with her friend tonight. Bridget is happy to say yes, but Gemma reminds Bridget that she has a fundraising thing. “I’ll be fine,” she says. “I’ll just hook up with one of the workmen. I’m sure contractors make more money than out-of-work novelists.” Bridget is now wondering just what kind of life her sister and her sister’s friends were living.