Episode Report Card Cindy McLennan: A | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT I Knew It!
By Cindy McLennan | Season 1 | Episode 21 | Aired on 04.10.2012
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.We pick up right where we left off last week -- right after Catherine drugged Bridget. Bridget collapses and drops the hitman's cell phone under a chair. Catherine puts an unconscious Bridget in the tub, turns the water on and leaves -- leaving behind a suicide note from Shiv, and a note that she (Catherine) has gone to therapy. Too little too late, Crazy Cattie. She has to return to the scene of the crime, though, because she realizes she no longer has the hitman's cell in her purse. Andrew comes home while Cattie is still searching for it. She does her best to keep him out of his bedroom and bath, but he finally rescues Bridget-as-Shiv.
Catherine holds the couple at gunpoint, but never fear! Agent Victor "Guyliner" Machado is riding to the rescue. Sadly, he's intercepted by his fellow Feds, who haul him into the field office just to tell him how much all the Feds think he sucks. They're sending him back to Why-Oh-Why-Wyoming, where storylines go to die. Guyliner manages to convince Chief Fed In Charge to send someone by the Martin's place, but while two inept agents visit, they only speak with Andrew in the living room, while Cattie is holding Bridget hostage in another room. Since the characters on this show all lack peripheral vision, they never catch on to the fact that something is up. Of course, that doesn't excuse the fact that the Feds never even look around the place. It does explain why it took them so long to find Whitey Bulger, though.
Soon, Juliet arrives home and learns the extent of her mother's psychopathy or sociopathy, or possibly both. Then, it happens. Catherine gets a phone call from someone she calls, "Baby," and I shout out, "I KNEW IT," which is one of the pure joys of watching a crazy show like Ringer. It's Olivia on the other end of the line! She and Cattie have been in (partial) cahoots. Olivia's more greedy than crazy though, so after failing to talk Catherine down, she writes her off.
Hell knows no fury like a newly-turned lesbian scorned, or at least that's what decades of cliché would tell us, so Catherine goes even crazier. Somewhere in there though, Bridget gets Juliet to grab the hitman's cellphone. Bridget dials Machado's number then hides the phone behind her on the couch. Machado hears the crazy conversation, that includes info that Olivia has been hiding out at Cattie's sister's place.
Guyliner gets to Olivia. He has her call Cattie back, apologize and ask her to come to her. Bridget offers herself up as a hostage and goes with Cattie. Guyliner saves Bridget, foils Olivia, and Nestor Carbonell finally gets to play a character who isn't too dumb to live. Richard Alpert fans weep with joy.
Meanwhile, Henry has ordered Siobhan to stay out of his case, and she's promised she will, so what does she do? She has her passbook forger make some inferior passports for Oksana -- the maid who let Henry into Tyler's hotel room. Shiv goes to Oksana's house, which is way too ritzy for an immigrant maid, and quickly twigs to the fact that Oksana is turning tricks on the side. Shiv tells Oksana if she doesn't recant her statement about Henry being at the hotel, Shiv will make sure the passports screw up Oksana's attempts to get a green card, or citizenship or whatever. I can't even remember because just then, one of Oksana's tricks comes a calling. Oksana stashes Shiv in a closet. Shiv opens the louvers and then regrets it, because Mr. Trick wants to have his way with Oksana, right in that very same room. But first, he breaks out some cocaine. He and Oksana snort it up. SHIV GOES INTO LABOR! Oksana has a coke-induced heart attack and dies.
Shiv escapes and gets to the hospital. Henry is with her, but he can't go in the delivery room because she's having an emergency C-section. Henry visits her after the delivery. There's some indication that Shiv's twin girls are in danger (which makes sense, since they must be at least somewhat premature). Henry reassures her they'll be fine. Later, out in the hall, he asks the doctor to perform a paternity test! He was hardly a Tool Belt at all this week, and I'm not sure how I feel about this.
I'll be back tomorrow with the full weecap of "It's Called Improvising, Bitch!" In the meantime, please grade the episode at the top of the page and then join us in the show thread, where we've got Guyliner on speed dial.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Hey my bouncy little Ringlets, this penultimate episode of Ringer flies fast and furious, so buckle up. Mama's putting the hammer down. Previously, on Buffy the Undercover Vampire Slayer: This is the story of two sisters who share the same face. Bridget Kelly witnesses a murder. Agent Victor "Guyliner" Machado wants her to testify. He'll protect her. Bridget tells Guyliner he doesn't get it. "If Bodaway wants me dead, I'm dead." Bridget runs to her twin sister, Siobhan Martin, for help. Bridget voices-over that Shiv killed herself, but we all know she very much did not. Bridget assumes Shiv's identity. Henry "Tool Belt" Butler kills Tyler. Oksana, the maid who let him into Tyler's room, is willing to testify. Shiv tries to bribe Oksana. That fails. Guyliner figures out that Catherine Martin is behind the attempts on Bridget-as-Shiv's life. Catherine dopes Bridget's tea. Bridget stumbles off into the other room.
Now we get a repeat of last week's final scene. Bridget stumbles into the other room. She's looking for her phone or something, but she accidentally looks in Catherine's purse. When she sees a big C keyring, she realizes her mistake, but then finds the dead hitman's cellphone. She flashes back to shooting the hitman, stowing his corpse in a foot locker, finding the phone and threatening the guy who wants phone back. She tells him that if anything happens to her, that phone will go straight to the Feds.
Back in the present, Catherine finds Bridget in mid-collapse. Catherine asks, "Find what you're looking for?" Now on her hands and knees, a clearly addled Bridget whispers, "It is you?" She falls all the way to the floor. The cell phone lands beneath a chair. Catherine stands over Bridget and spills out the spent sleeping pill capsule shells. Bridget struggles to keep her eyes open. Catherine crouches beside her. She grabs Bridget's hair and lifts her head up. "Why so down, Siobhan?" Done with her taunts for the nonce, Cattie lets Bridget's head slam to the floor.
Using a computer, Catherine types out a suicide note from Siobhan then goes in the bathroom and practices being shocked that Siobhan would kill herself when she and Andrew seemed so happy. Buffy fans flash back to when Faith assumed Buffy's body and practiced her, "That would be wrong," line.
With her rehearsal over, Catherine saunters over to the tub, where fully-dressed Bridget is lying unconscious. Catherine then has a flashback to explain why she so hates Siobhan. This whole season has been a primer on reasons to hate Siobhan, so this is overkill, but what can you do. Flashback to a cocktail party, eight months ago. Shiv announces to Cattie that the Martins are putting the Miami house (in which Catherine lives) on the market. Shiv enjoys rubbing it in Catherine's face.