Ringer continues its "not pissing us off" streak

Ringer - "The Poor Kids Do It Every Day"

Bridget and Andrew try to get Gemma on the phone, but they keep getting her demanding voicemail. When Juliet hands Bridget her stash of drugs, Bridget had to get rid of it. She nearly jizzed in her addict pants just holding the drugs. She called her Narcotics Anonymous friend, Charlie, and he met her at a restaurant. She gave him the drugs and he threw them in the garbage for her. He later agrees to be her sponsor if Bridget agrees to meet him regularly. Man, all of Bridget’s NA sponsors are hella-cute. We’re not fooled into going to a meeting though. This is the CW, where everyone is pretty. And we’ve seen Faces of Meth.

Henry takes Bridget into his home and tells her that Gemma is missing and he found blood! And he freaked out and cleaned it up! Bridget tells him that was a terrible idea that would make him look guilty. Henry accuses Bridget of killing his wife, and Bridget, in turn, is pretty convinced that Henry did it. We’re pretty sure Henry did it, at this point in the episode. Henry tells Bridget about an incident where Siobhan suggested getting rid of both Gemma and Andrew. When Henry wasn’t into that. Siobhan acted like she was joking. Finally, Henry decides that Siobhan wasn’t capable of murdering her best friend, so he tells Bridget that he threw the cleaning supplies, broken pot, and bloody rags in a dumpster.

Bridget goes dumpster diving. Then she calls the police, anonymously, and says that Gemma was probably a victim of foul play. She offers up the location of the evidence as proof of her claims. The cops investigate and question Henry. They stop when they find Bridget Kelly’s fingerprints on the pot. No, Bridget isn’t that dumb. In fact, she’s thinking way more than she usually does. She left the fingerprint on purpose in order to get the cops’ scent off of herself and Henry. Agent Machado received a call from the cops investigating the Gemma Butler matter, and they give him the information about Bridget’s fingerprint.

Agent Machado almost finds Malcolm, but like a STUPID DUMBASS goes to the strip club without a warrant and asks to look around. This gives the gangsters plenty of time to clean up their basement and move Malcolm. By the time Agent Machado returns with his warrant, it's too late. Malcolm, meanwhile, is close to breaking and telling the gangsters where Bridget Kelly is. The last part of the episode blew our minds (well, as much as this show can blow our minds). Siobhan takes a phone call from someone who lets her know that “the Gemma problem has been taken care of.” Siobhan replies, “I didn’t want it to have come to this.” We can’t believe it wasn’t Henry!

In subplot, Juliet has her first day of public school, and she’s decided that since the poor kids don’t have enough clothes, she shouldn’t wear too many. It’s more likely that she wore a short skirt was in order to get a rise out of her dad, whom she is clearly seeking attention from. Bridget reminded her that this is a fresh start, and who in the world doesn’t want a fresh start? So Juliet changed clothes. She should have taken off one of her 50 pieces of jewelry. Too much bling is tacky, distracting, and, in Juliet’s case, it screamed, “I’m a rich girl.”

When Juliet gets to her first class, a mean girl demands five dollars. Juliet gives the girl a 20 and makes a crack about it being enough to feed her family for a week. Oh, Juliet. The best tactic would have been to refuse her any money, give her some intense eye contact while doing so, and then to turn around and ignore her. But teens on The CW never make the best choices, do they? Juliet’s teacher is Logan Echolls from Veronica Mars (YAY!), and we saw sparks between him and Juliet in their second scene together. Oh dear. Another teacher/student thing. But we actually think this might be healthy for a girl as messed up as Juliet, so you won’t see us whining like we do with Pretty Little Liars. Also, one of us will always love Logan Echolls.

The mean girl shoves Juliet in the hallway, and Juliet retaliates. The girls are pulled apart mid-fight, and the students tell the principal that Juliet started it, because they are all on the mean girls’ side. Andrew is called to the school, and Juliet is scandalized when he doesn’t believe that she didn’t start the fight. We are a little sick of how devastated Juliet is when her father doesn’t trust her. When your permanent record “reads like a rap sheet” (thank you, clichéd dialogue writers) and you keep hard drugs in your room, you have lost the right to have your word taken at face value. The teacher, Mr. Carpenter, backs Juliet’s story up, even though he didn’t actually see how the fight started. He just felt bad because Juliet cried to him about being the new kid who couldn’t ditch her sordid past.

This was one of the best (if not THE best) episode of Ringer yet. We like that Gemma is gone, because we never really liked that character. Our main complaint at this point is that they are wasting LOST’s Nestor Carbonell on a character who is not very savvy and is given very little to do. Agent Machado needs to step it up. They need to involve his character in the doings of the others on an emotional level. Also, Henry needs to die.

Episode grade: A-