Ringer
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this is the story of two Sisters... who share the same Face.
—Opening caption on every episode other than the pilot. (And yes, "Sisters" and "Face" are capitalised and "this" isn't.)
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Sarah Michelle Gellar is back on the small screen!
This series aired during the 2011-2012 season, and features a twisting film noir story in which pretty much everyone has something to hide. Gellar plays Bridget Kelly, a prostitute who witnesses a mob hit and is the case's only lead. Terrified of being murdered before she can testify, she escapes police custody and meets up with her identical twin sister Siobhan (also Gellar, naturally). They take a boat trip, and Bridget wakes up from a nap to discover Siobhan has vanished. She has no idea what's going on, but knows an opportunity when she sees it and takes over her sister's identity when she returns to shore, helped by the fact that Siobhan never told anyone she had a twin sister.
Bridget soon discovers that Siobhan had some pretty big skeletons in her own closet, being stuck in a loveless marriage and having an affair with the husband of her best friend, just for starters. She's forced to muddle her way through a life she knows nothing about, always in fear that her own past will catch up to her, with the only person she can lean on being her drug sponsor Malcolm, the only person who knows who she really is.
The series never saw big success and was cancelled in May of 2012.
Tropes used in Ringer include:
- Accidental Murder: Henry's killing of Tyler.
- Acting for Two
- Actor Allusion: In "Let's Kill Bridget," Juliet tells Andrew not to be "so Welsh." Guess where Ioan Gruffudd (Andrew) comes from.
- Affectionate Nickname: Andrew calls Siobhan 'Shiv'.
- Also a Meaningful Name, given that a shiv is an improvised knife common to prisons, and Siobhan exhibits Chronic Backstabbing Disorder.
- And This Is For: When Gemma finds out about Henry and Siobhan.
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Gemma: That's for sleeping with my husband, you whore! |
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- She gets another one when Charlie shoots her but non-fatally and she later gets the drop on him. Very shortly afterwards, Charlie tries again and succeeds - not long before Siobhan kills him.
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- Batman Gambit: Siobhan getting Bridget to take her place relied on her knowing what Bridget would do after her "suicide".
- Becoming the Mask: Bridget doesn't take long to decide to try her best to fix Siobhan's relationships with her friends and family, and is startled to realize that she's actually falling in love with Andrew.
- Bed Trick: Bridget's romance with Andrew qualifies as this.
- Blackmail: Gemma attempts to blackmail Bridget into sleeping with Henry in order to get leverage against him in a divorce, but Bridget refuses to go through with it.
- Catherine later does this to Mr. Carpenter.
- Bribe Backfire: Siobhan's attempt to pay off the only witness, a hotel maid, to Henry going to Tyler's room just before he was killed ends with the witness going right back to the police. Implicating Henry and herself further.
- Buffy-Speak: Occasionally, from Bridget. It's quite appropriate, considering who plays her.
- Cain and Abel: Albeit with the Abel (Bridget) currently being oblivious to the fact that the Cain (Siobhan) is a Cain.
- Cool and Unusual Punishment: Instead of sending her to rehab or bribing someone to get Juliet into private school, Andrew sends her to public school.
- Dead Little Sister: Siobhan's son Sean
- Dead Man's Chest: Bridget's self defense victim is stuffed into a red chest.
- Death by Secret Identity: Gemma learns that Bridget is pretending to be Siobhan, and seemingly gets murdered. She's Killed Off for Real later on.
- Depraved Bisexual: Catherine.
- Devil in Plain Sight: Olivia and Catherine.
- Diabolus Ex Machina: As the result of an unspecified incident, the NYPD somehow seizes the contents of the locker Bridget stashed her old possessions into, granting Agent Machado a break into the connection between her and Siobhan.
- Emergency Impersonation with a Twin Switch
- Evil Brit: Andrew's partner Olivia. Zigzagged with Andrew himself.
- Evil Stepmother: Siobhan
- Evil Twin: Siobhan
- Fake American: Gemma, played by British actress Tara Summers (Boston Legal, What a Girl Wants).[1]
- Fan Nickname: "Shivet" for Bridget when she's impersonating Siobhan.
- First Episode Spoiler: Siobhan is still alive, and has people trying to kill her, too.
- Gambit Pileup: There's Siobhan's plan, Olivia's plan, Catherine's plan, Bodaway's plan, and the plan of whoever put a hit on Siobhan/Bridget, assuming it's not one of the aforementioned.
- Genre Savvy: Henry requests a paternity test when Sibohan's twins are born and gets the results by phone anticipating that Siobhan would intercept the mailed results.
- Gold Digger: Siobhan.
- Has Two Mommies: Siobhan's son is raised by her and Bridget. Actually, Bridget does the mommying while Siobhan is at work.
- Hey, Wait!: A police officer stops Siobhan in a diner in episode one and she freezes at the forceful tone of his voice, but it turns out he was just telling her she forgot her wallet.
- Hollywood Law: Following an unspecified scuffle at the train station, the NYPD not only seizes the contents of Bridget's locker, but turns it over to Agent Machado, despite the fact that Bridget's possessions may have been unrelated to the case.
- Hollywood Thin: Invoked, Bridget is repeatedly told that she is unhealthy because of how thin she is.
- How We Got Here: 9 days ago
- I Did What I Had to Do: No one in Siobhan's immediate circle knows that she is dead. Bridget is running for her life. After Siobhan fake commits suicide, Bridget realizes that she can not only save herself, but cover up for Siobhan.
- Identical Twin ID Tag: Siobhan has a burn scar on her wrist.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Like several other shows (Damages, Two and A Half Men, Deadwood), every episode is named after a line of dialogue ("She's Ruining Everything," "If You Ever Want A French Lesson...", "A Whole New Kind Of Bitch," "That's What You Get For Trying To Kill Me," and so on).
- Although in the episode "It's Easy To Cry When This Much Cash Is Involved," the actual spoken dialogue (delivered by Juliet's friend Tessa after the two of them and their teacher Mr. Carpenter have succeeded in getting a huge cash settlement from Andrew - who, like everyone (including Bridget), is convinced that a) Carpenter raped Juliet, b) that Tessa lied about Carpenter raping her as well and c) that Carpenter wants to sue as a result) is "Well, it's easy to cry when there's this much cash involved."
- And "P.S. You're An Idiot" is never actually spoken; it's written in a note from Juliet's mother (and the Chess Master behind this scheme) Catherine to Mr. Carpenter when she takes his share of the money and blackmails him into leaving Juliet alone.
- Although in the episode "It's Easy To Cry When This Much Cash Is Involved," the actual spoken dialogue (delivered by Juliet's friend Tessa after the two of them and their teacher Mr. Carpenter have succeeded in getting a huge cash settlement from Andrew - who, like everyone (including Bridget), is convinced that a) Carpenter raped Juliet, b) that Tessa lied about Carpenter raping her as well and c) that Carpenter wants to sue as a result) is "Well, it's easy to cry when there's this much cash involved."
- Irish Names: Siobhan (usually pronounced "Sheh-von"), the less dauntingly spelled and pronounced Bridget Kelly, Sean, and Siobhan's alias, Cora Farrell. Also Sean's father, Dylan Morrison.
- It's All My Fault: Bridget.
- Mama Bear: Bridget towards Juliet.
- Manipulative Bitch: Siobhan
- Kick the Dog: Double whammy in one episode for Siobhan. In a flashback, Siobhan seriously (or maybe not?) suggests taking out Gemma and Andrew so that she and Henry can be together. In that same episode, it's revealed at the end that Gemma's disappearance was ordered by Siobhan.
- Mistaken for Pregnant: Bridget receives a phone call from Siobhan's doctor saying that she (Siobhan) is pregnant. Andrew overhears Bridget saying "I'm pregnant" and makes the obvious (and wrong) conclusion.
- The Mole: as of episode 7 in season one: Bridget's new sponsor Charlie.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Henry deciding to follow Bridget and Andrew to the train station, getting his wife killed for his efforts.
- Oh Crap: See Mistaken for Pregnant above. Bridget: "Siobhan, what did you do?" Pretending to be her sister just got harder.
- Bridget gets another when she's in the hospital and the doctors want to "check on the baby as a precaution" after a concussion.
- Reality Ensues: Both Andrew and Juliet feel hurt and betrayed by Bridget's revelation that she had been impersonating Siobhan this whole time and want nothing to do with her.
- Rich Bitch: Siobhan while married to Andrew, judging by everything Bridget (as Siobhan) and we the audience have seen since the pilot.
- Shoot the Shaggy Dog: Gemma
- Shout-Out: Andrew has a surprise for Bridget/Siobhan in Horatio Street.
- Something They Would Never Say: Subverted. Andrew figures out that Siobhan is really Bridget when she invites him to a Chinese restaurant that he knows Siobhan hates, but it turns out it's All Just a Dream.
- Also subverted when Bridget takes a bite of a meat hors d'oeuvres , and everyone notices because Siobhan hasn't eaten meat in years. Bridget says the baby that she's not pregnant with made her crave it. She thinks quick.
- Spoiled Brat: Juliet.
- Stalker with a Crush: Juliet seems to be this toward Mr. Carpenter.
- Start of Darkness: Sean's death caused Bridget to turn to drugs and eventually addiction and prostitution. It might also explain Siobhan's calculating and manipulative nature. It definitely serves as Siobhan's Freudian Excuse for setting up Bridget to die.
- Stop Helping Me!: Henry to Siobhan in "If You're Just an Evil Bitch, Then Get Over It".
- Suddenly Sexuality: "It's Called Improvising, Bitch!" reveals that Catherine is Olivia's "girlfriend girlfriend" (as Juliet puts it).
- Survival Mantra: "Mistakes aren't tragedies. But please, higher power, help me learn from them."
- Take a Third Option: After Gemma is seemingly murdered, it seems either Bridget or Henry will have to take the fall, as each suspects the other. Bridget gets around it by planting her own fingerprints on the evidence, which gets the police looking for her true identity while she's safely ensconced as Siobhan.
- That One Case: Catching the guy who's trying to kill Bridget seems to be this for Agent Machado. (He's been at it for ten years.)
- In "You're Way Too Pretty to Go to Jail", we find out why it's so personal for him: the stripper that Bodaway killed was Machado's (pregnant) lover as well as informant.
- Viewers Are Goldfish: The show can get pretty gratuitous with using flashbacks to remind of things that happened as little as ten minutes ago.
- What the Hell, Hero?: An in-universe example when Machado gets "Siobhan" to meet Malcolm in an attempt to find Bridget. "Siobhan" calls Machado out on using an obviously suffering addict to find his witness instead of getting him help.
- Wicked Stepmother: Siobhan did not seem to get along with her stepdaughter Juliet. Bridget can relate to her much better and treats her with kindness.
- Woman Scorned: Gemma.
- Catherine in SPADES
- Wham! Episode: Oh. Crap. The season finale has: Bodaway Macawi trying to kill Siobhan (thinking she's Bridget) and Bridget killing Bodaway, Andrew finding out that Henry and Siobhan were having an affair, Andrew confronting "Siobhan" only for her to finally reveal that she is really Bridget. On top of that, Henry steals Siobhan's money and kicks her out, leaving her broke and homeless.
- Wham! Line: "The Ponzi Scheme wasn't Olivia's idea; it was mine."
- Whole-Plot Reference: The rape accusation shares the superficial plot of Wild Things.
- Your Cheating Heart: The affair between Siobhan and Henry eventually culminates in a possible Murder the Hypotenuse situation after Henry discovers Gemma's plans to blackmail him into losing everything in a divorce. Apparently this isn't the only instance of Your Cheating Heart: Siobhan and Andrew were dating when Andrew was still legally married to his first wife.