Episode Report Card Cindy McLennan: D | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT I'm Taking A Bullet For You...
By Cindy McLennan | Season 1 | Episode 17 | Aired on 03.13.2012
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Ringlets, I'm sorry, but what was that mess? I feel like I watched 40 minutes of exposition and two minutes of new story. The show is being miserly with revelations. I wish every show runner in the world would sit down and watch the first season of The Vampire Diaries to learn how to build suspense and keep the plot twisting, while still rewarding the audience for tuning in. I hope I feel differently when I watch this week's Ringer again (and again) while writing up the full weecap, but right now, I am not a happy Scooby. Here, have some "high" lights.
Malcolm is missing. Agent Victor "Guyliner" Machado looks for him. Bridget and Solomon look for him. Andrew looks for him, or at least tries to cover his tracks and swipe the security footage from Malcolm's hotel, but Bridget and Solomon get to it first. Guyliner is a distant third, but he does at least learn that Andrew was looking for the footage, too. Guyliner also discovers that the late Tyler Boytoy was going to blow the whistle on Martin/Charles Financial's Ponzi scheme.
By the way, Malcolm seems to have been staying at some "affordable" Manhattan hotel, but last week, we saw Andrew outside the ritzy Soho Diamond (which is where Tyler was staying when he was killed). The next time we saw Andrew I think was when he showed up at Malcolm's room which, granted, looked like budget accommodations. So while I'm not surprised Malcolm wasn't staying at the Diamond, I'm starting to feel like the show is messing with us too much -- not in a clever way, but in a way that makes me want to disengage. If what I'm seeing on my screen doesn't matter -- why bother watching at all?
Anyhow, Siobhan returns to New York, and comes clean-ish with Henry. He's ready to toss her to the curb when she confesses to her affair with Tyler Boytoy. Henry is appalled by her admission that she faked her own death and set up her desperate twin to assume her life just so said desperate twin would die in her place. Then Shiv tells him about her motive. Shiv thinks Bridget deserves to die because she "killed" Sean, which hey, she so did not. Sure, Bridget shouldn't have crossed her sister and taken Sean out with his daddy, but Sean's death was a tragic accident. I mean, the accident wasn't even Misha Collins's fault. I'm so disappointed that there's not more to Shiv's insanity. Shiv continues to perpetrate the lie that Bridget is responsible for Gemma's murder, too. She's evil -- crazy evil, but evil.
Anyhow, remember a couple of episodes ago when Shiv let Henry listen to that recording she kept in the safety deposit box? It was audio of Andrew threatening to kill Siobhan. We're treated to a flashback scene in which the threat is made, but we get it during Shiv's lie-packed confession to Henry, so I'm disinclined to believe my own two eyes, and wonder if there wasn't another context for the threat -- entirely. Then I start wondering, again, if there's any reason to care about what I'm seeing on my screen.
By episode's end, someone claiming to be Malcolm (with a new phone) texts Bridget and asks her to meet him at the loft. Would Malcolm even know where the loft is? Bridget goes, but she takes Solomon with her. Solomon, by the way, admits to Bridget that he knows she's Bridget. While Sol is scoping out the roof access to the loft, Andrew shows up. Bridget thinks he's going to kill her, but he claims he's just there because Juliet told him she was going there, and he wants to confess his love. We cut to the outside. Guyliner is just arriving. Shots are fired up on the roof. Guyliner rushes to the loft. Solomon explains that someone hit him over the head, then took a shot at Bridget-as-Shiv. The camera pans to the floor where Andrew lies, bleeding and unconscious. Bridget says Andrew took a bullet for her. I'd be more upset by this if I thought there was a chance in hell that they'd kill him off, and if I weren't already so ticked off.
The weird thing (ha, I say that like there's just one weird thing) is that the real Siobhan was just at Andrew's office a little while before this loft scene, pretending to be Bridget-as-Shiv. While there, Shiv-as-Bridget-as-Shiv called Andrew out on being a crook and said she does not love him. This makes me wonder if Andrew has known for a while that he's been living with and falling in love with Bridget. Similarly, when Guyliner watches Bridget-as-Shiv cry over Andrew, it seems he might recognize her for who she truly is, but that's probably just wishful thinking on my part.
I haven't even hit Juliet's ridiculous accidental meet-up with the guy who beat Tessa, nor her realization that Catherine was behind the beating. I'll be back with the full weecap, tomorrow. In the meantime, please grade the episode at the top of the page and then join us in the show thread, where we'd take a bullet for ya.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Buffy: Cindy. Cindy! What are you doing in bed? You've got a deadline.
Recapper: My back's bothering me, B.
Buffy: Your back has been bothering you for months. Get up and get cracking. The hardest thing in this world is to live in it.
Recapper: The hardest thing with this episode is to rewatch it in order to write about it. Please don't make me, Buffy. I can't.
Buffy: Of course you can. There are two of me in it. Doesn't that mean double the fun?
Recapper: Well, I thought it would, but this week, not so much.
Buffy: Come on. Your kids only have a half day today. If you don't write it now, you'll never get it done. I'll help you. You start. I'll get you a cup of coffee and a pill.
Recapper: I wish I had your supernaturally fast healing ability, but that'll do for now. Thanks. Okay, so, Siobhan stands in front of an obvious green screen which is standing in for Paris at night. She calls Henry "Tool Belt" Butler, back in NYC. When she tells him she got Tyler to change his mind and return to Paris, instead of going to the SEC, Tool Belt informs Shiv that Tyler is dead, and the flash drive is gone. Shiv, loves a good I told you so moment, so she reminds Henry that she said Andrew and Olivia would kill to protect their dirty secrets. We flash back to...
Six months ago in Manhattan. Andrew yells at Siobhan that she has no proof Martin/Charles is dealing dirty. She mentions Wesson Accounting. Andrew calls her a conniving bitch and gets vaguely threatening, so Shiv ups the stakes and asks Andrew what he'll do to her. Andrew says, "I'll kill you. I mean it, Siobhan. I'll see you dead." This is the first flashback I don't believe, and when I don't believe flashbacks, I feel like my time is wasted. Maybe this all went down, but right now I feel like it's just another lie Shiv is selling to Henry.
Henry's still on the phone with her when the flashback ends and she reminds him what she showed him in the safe deposit box. We flashback two weeks. Henry and Siobhan are at the bank. He's listening to the recording, but this time, we get to hear it, too. Andrew's voice says, "I'll kill you. I mean it, Siobhan. I'll see you dead." If it seems like I'm repeating myself, it's only because I am. Buffy, save me. I can't...
Buffy: Okay, I've got this. So we're still in that two week flashback. Mean Me takes out an envelope that contains photos of ourself, because Mean Me loves nothing better than pictures of ourself.