Ringer 1.14 'Whores Don't Make That Much'

Now that, ratings wise, Ringer is essentially the living dead, I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that it may never reach the standard of storytelling that I’ve wanted it to since the pilot. There have been so many missed opportunities, and more than one convoluted plot making it a little difficult to see the good. ‘Whores....’ was an episode that essentially fixed one of the series most glaring mistakes. It rectified the absence of any twin drama, and made sense of each sister’s motivations and character traits, however inconsistent they may be.

Bridget runs into Dylan (Misha Collins) someone from her and her sister’s past in ‘Whores Don’t Make That Much’. Malcolm discovers something about Henry. Juliet gets in over her head when she tries to stop Tessa from ruining their plan.

It’s something that I’ve mentioned as recently as last week, the idea that Bridget and Siobhan’s dark history has never really been explored. Since Bridget has taken over her sisters life, her guilt and devastation at not only what she’s done to Siobhan in the past, but the sense of loss that she must so obviously be feeling since she lost the one person that meant most to her, hasn’t been explored half as well as it should have been. This episode took that challenge on, and for the first time we finally see in some way what changed to make Bridget and Siobhan the women they were when the series first started.

There was an interesting part of this episode when Bridget expressed, for the first time since she arrived in New York, her desire to return to her old self. In some way, her easing not just Dylan’s guilt, but her own at the role they both played in Sean’s death, made her feel like her old persona was worth something. Secondary to this, Bridget’s ability to change Siobhan’s relationships with those around her seems to be what’s keeping her part of this masquerade, and now that the biggest obstacle has been overcome, she finally feels like she can take the risk of returning to her old life.

I’ve been against Juliet’s big rape subplot since the beginning. The whole thing has been a mess of character contrivance, inconsistent motivations and over bearing twists that I’ve basically seen it as a lost cause, quality wise. The reveal of Catherine’s role in it wasn’t a huge revelation, she’s pretty much the only character who could be a part of it at this stage, but in a small way it, I dunno, made sense? She’s clearly the most volatile of the Martin clan, and has gone to great lengths to mess things up for Andrew, so her being the brains behind this whole operation makes sense to me, in some ways and certainly more so than the other three coming up with it. I just wish Jason Dohring was being wasted on such a second rate plot.

Juliet plot aside, this was the first solid episode in ages. Whether or not Ringer can maintain this standard next week remains to be seen, but now that the writers have cleared up one of the biggest mysteries of the series, it’s given things a bit more clarity. In a show where we’re slapped with neck breaking twists and turns, and messy characterisation, it’s nice to know at least one thing that’s concrete.

8/10