Ringer Is Back And Stupider Than Ever

Last night at about nine thirty, an alarm went off on my phone.

I didn’t hear it for a while because I was in a bar and it was loud and some guy was fighting with his lady and I was vociferously debating the veracity of dark beer containing valuable nutrients but eventually I was all “Waasss thah soun’?” (Because when I am deep in my cups I sound like a featured extra playing Drunk Number Seven in a 1940s comedy of chorus girls’ bottoms.  I fumbled into my pocket, took out my phone, and saw the following message:

by dvd I can only assume I meant dvr. my thumbs were terribly mangled in a tractor accident.

I stopped what I was doing, took a sip of beer, solely to do a spit-take and stood up, knocking over my stool. Then, grabbing my fedora, and plonking it in a haphazard way on my head before struggling back into my sports coat, I paused at the door where Jeremiah the affable barkeep slid a short pour of Dewar’s down the bar to my waiting hand and ready nod. I downed it in one and then clapped my hands together, “Good night kids – I got get back to Brooklyn. THERE’S CRAP THAT NEEDS WATCHING!”

Then, my theme music played.

This episode of Becca Stokes, Watcher of Crap was directed by Terry Gilliam. (I know, I know – it’s a pretty big deal. The episode took twenty three years to film. It was intense. I have a grandson now. It’s weird.)

Back at home, I turned on the T.V. and found that yes, the DVR had captured Ringer‘s Inglorious Return. As the adrenaline coursed through my body and the cats scampered about demanding dinner, I noticed that I was sober, and I knew that if I was going to have to sit through 42 minutes of Sarah Michelle Gellar sociopathically outwitting everyone including herself, I would need more alcohol.

I went to the kitchen, I poured a sipping glass of tequila, I fed the cats cod heads that Jeremiah’s brother Steven the fish monger had held for me at the docks along with some information regarding the illegal trafficking of human ladies.

I removed my hat, took a bracing gulp of Mr. Cuervo’s fear elixir and hunkered down for some of the most laughable television airing today. I think I’ve said this before, but in Ringer we have our generation’s truest form of camp, it’s not self-aware, it’s earnest, it’s insane, and it’s one Russell Meyer helmed episode away from soft core pornography and everything about this adds up to a volatile,  horrific, viewing treasure.

Since it has been roughly eighteen months since the last episode aired, I have compiled a brief list of facts that you need to know if last night’s return is to make any sense:

1. Siobhan and Bridget are twins.
2. Bridget is a reformed stripper and addict from Wisconsin who is being hunted by a murderous Native American.
3. Siobhan faked her death in the middle of the ocean and has been living in Paris.
4. Siobhan is very, very angry at her twin sister Bridget.
5. Bridget had taken over Siobhan’s life.
6. Bridget is  banging Siobhan’s husband, Andrew The Welshman, and wearing a giant ring he bought her.
7. Bridget has befriended Andrew’s daughter, The Troubled Teenager Who Should Be On Gossip Girl But Isn’t (TTTWSBOGGBI)
8. Bridget doesn’t know Siobhan is alive.
9. Siobhan keeps trying to steal Andrew’s money.
10. Siobhan keeps trying to kill Bridget.
11. Siobhan is pregnant with her dead best friend’s husband’s baby.
12. Siobhan’s best friend was shot by Billy Abbot from Young and the Restless.
13. Siobhan has secrets.
14. Bridget is a sociopath.

THIS IS HOW I FEEL RIGHT NOW. AND I  MEAN, I HAVE WATCHED AND ANALYZED THIS SHOW FROM ITS BEGINNING.

Last night was more of the same really. And while the entire show had you feeling like plot points developed and moved forward and things were scandalous and shocking, the truth of the matter is…NOTHING ACTUALLY HAPPENED.

Siobhan is back in New York, and because pregnancy makes woman wildly unpredictable, she divides her time between trying to steal valuable information from Andrew’s computer in order to ruin him and make a small fortune for herself, obsessively trying to make things right with Henry, and creep on her sister naked in the shower. It was pretty interesting to see Siobhan for the first time confronted with her old life and what’s she’s given up – even if SMG just sniffed a scarf by way of demonstrating this. It was kind of genius to have Henry be all “O MY GOD WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? WHO ARE YOU?” when Siobhan tries to make up with him but he hears something different from Bridget. It made me wish that this show was a badly adapted French farce, everybody all wearin’ wigs and slapping each other’s shoulders coyly with a folded fan. But it’s not. It’s just Ringer. Also worthy of note is Siobhan-land – she’s still got Andrew’s boy on the hook in Paris thinking he is the father of her child. That girl has got a way with balls. JUGGLING BALLS. HA. And also testes.

Siobhan guesses that the password is Siobhan.

Bridget stumbled through the episode, with a heavily lightened and attractive new fringe. She has gotten disturbingly used to meeting people, having them hate her, and then basically asking them why they hate her without anyone being any the wiser, and she did that again this week to great success. She’s trying to unravel what peonies have to do with Billy Abbot from Young and the Restless, and when she is forced to have dinner with an old enemy of Siobhan’s, she learned that said enemy caught Siobhan and Henry in the act and that there were peonies everywhere. Excuse me while I substitute the roses and Mena with peonies and Henry. With this bit of gross and useful information, she agrees to help her former enemy raise money for poverty stricken public schools by hosting an auction in her penthouse.

Bangs, like being a sociopath, so in right now.

And speaking of poverty – it just so happens that the school in question? Is the one poor unfortunate TTTWSBOGGBI attends. Poor, poor TTTWSBOGGBI – having made up a story that Logan Echols from Veronica Mars forced himself upon her (in an actually pretty well-managed storyline involving her being totally beyond unable to deal with the fact that he refuses to do her) and told said story to a friend, she’s forced to ignore him at school for fear of potential “YOU RAPED HER!” awkwardness (oh dear lord this show) AND THEN AGAIN at her parents’ penthouse auction! She is so embarrassed to be around him that she starts drinking, and then when she’s drunk she harrasses him, and it is in such a wronged woman way that I was actually like “Wait…did they bone? Did I miss it?” But they never did bone. She is just angry and nervous and wishes they had. (THIS SHOW. AH.) So, drunk on martini leavings, she confesses the fake rape to Bridget –

the face of a man who is about to be cold-cocked.

WHO COLD COCKS AMERICA’S SWEETHEART LOGAN ECHOLS!

Lesson I Learned From This Show Today: Strippers. Can. Fuck. You. Up. Yo.

I love how she's all "HOLD ME BACK, ANDREW!"

After the punching out of the teacher, the auction party breaks up, charges are going to filed, Siobhan is still creeping around promising to tell Henry everything, about EVERYTHING, Bridget realizes she has “lost” her diamond ring, agent Machado is all quietly murmuring “All roads lead back to Siobhan Martin,” and apparently the walking, talking music video for the Police’s Don’t Stand So Close To Me will be continuing next week and I am unfortunately rather seriously concerned that TTTWSBOGGBI’s rape accusation is going to turn into a romantic relationship and that is disgusting.

My thoughts exactly.

It was with a heavy heart that I clicked off the TV, dusted off my work trousers and stood up, knees creaking, the old wound – a bullet wound from my early bad days on the force – and headed back out to follow up on a lead I had on a missing baby who had last been seen setting sail for Belize wearing naught but a diaper, an eye-patch, and a smile. I paused at the door, considered the inch of tequila in the bottle, polished it off, and walked out into the void of the dark.