Ringer, which aired for one season on The CW in 2011-12, was a thrilling adventure of intrigue, mystery, and complex relationships, which was not the type of content that The CW was focused on about a decade ago now. It aired alongside the 90210 reboot, the original Gossip Girl, and other teen dramas like The Vampire Diaries, so it definitely didn’t fit in… and had it aired just a couple of years later, there’s no doubt it would’ve been far more successful given the excellent premise of the series.
Starring Buffy the Vampire Slayer‘s Sarah Michelle Gellar as twins Bridget Kelly and Siobhan Martin, we’re thrust into the lives of these women and how complicated things have gotten for them. Bridget is recently sober and in witness protection, set to testify against her boss from the Wyoming strip club she was working at who murdered her closest friend in front of her. However, due to some incredibly complicated circumstances, Bridget flees witness protection days before the trial to reunite with her sister Siobhan in the Hamptons. While Bridget is more of an open book, given that she’s the protagonist of the show, Siobhan is a woman full of secrets. After reuniting with Bridget following years spent apart for devastating reasons, Siobhan leads Bridget to believe she killed herself. (Spoiler alert: She didn’t, but revealing the reasons for doing so would suck much of the fun out of watching the series yourself.) Because of the increasingly dangerous situation Bridget finds herself in, with her boss Bodaway (Zahn McClarnon) actively trying to kill her, Bridget makes the desperate decision to pretend to be Siobhan after her “death,” heading to New York City to step into a life that was not as simple or uncomplicated as she expected it to be.
Bridget (as Siobhan) meets Siobhan’s estranged husband, Andrew (Ioan Gruffudd), a man that loves his wife far more than she has ever loved him. She also meets Siobhan’s best friend Gemma (Tara Summers)... only to learn that Siobhan has been having an affair with Gemma’s husband, Henry (Kristoffer Polaha). Sounds pretty complicated, right? Well, it comes as quite a shock to Bridget, too, especially when someone tries to kill her as Siobhan. So, not only is Bridget’s life in danger as herself, someone wants Siobhan dead too. When we meet the twins, we’re led to believe that Bridget is the bad one and Siobhan is the good one. Obviously, the viewers’ opinion of Siobhan shifts pretty quickly with the reveals in the pilot episode, though it takes a little bit of time to really connect with Bridget and fully understand her deeply unsettling decision to live her sister’s life. But, over the course of the show, Bridget easily becomes the favorite of the viewer, though neither twin is completely depicted as either good or bad. Gellar gives possibly the best performance of her career as Bridget and Siobhan because of how deeply complex and sophisticated these women and the circumstances they have fallen into are.
While posing as Siobhan, viewers come to see how big Bridget’s heart is. From the very start, she tries to heal the damage that Siobhan has inflicted upon the people in her life. She ends the affair with Henry, tries to be a real friend to Gemma, while stepping up as Andrew’s wife and his daughter Juliet’s (Zoey Deutch) step-mother. Given that Siobhan basically took a wrecking ball to everything and everyone in her life, leaving behind no good relationships except with Henry, there’s also the mystery of who tried to kill Bridget thinking she was Siobhan. (And, when we learn who, the answer is incredibly satisfying.) Even though Bridget is the “good twin” shortly after the series premiere, we see that it’s far more complicated than just good vs. bad. Both women have made such difficult and disastrous decisions during their lives, and their estrangement is not hard to understand.
Bridget is the twin that viewers are following full-time, which gives her the advantage. But, as we learn more about Siobhan, we see she’s not just a clear-cut villain. She has her reasons to do almost everything she does, and she’s been blinded by her strong feelings for those her actions have harmed… particularly Bridget. In Siobhan’s eyes, Bridget has truly wronged her, and the viewers come to see exactly why she feels that way. In only one season, Ringer does an excellent job at humanizing and defining both of the twins — individually, through their relationships with others, and by their actions. Even a decade later, there haven’t been other characters quite like Bridget and Siobhan. What Ringer does is put the twins in such unique positions and test them — physically, mentally, and emotionally. Pretending to be dead takes a toll on Siobhan, though not nearly the toll that Bridget’s new life puts on her. Even other shows that have one twin pretend to be the other, like ABC Family’s ill-fated The Lying Game, don’t hold a candle to Ringer.
Above all, it comes down to the relationship between the sisters. It’s far more complex than meets the eye. Digging into the bond between twins and what could truly cause one to turn their back on the other is devastating. But, what’s surprising is the viewer is consistently left empathizing with both of them, another aspect that is exceptionally rare. No words can truly do this complex sisterhood justice.
Because she is playing two characters with the same face, Gellar had quite the challenging task of portraying these women quite differently, and she definitely succeeds. There are such little changes in her mannerisms that, rather quickly, it’s easy to tell which twin we’re following on-screen. (Plus, the consistent switch of the hair part to tell them apart doesn’t hurt either, but that’s mostly in the latter half of Season 1.) But, as if that wasn’t difficult enough, Gellar also had to differentiate the women when they were themselves and when they were pretending to be the other. On her own, Bridget herself is much different than Bridget posing as Siobhan. And, Siobhan is absolutely terrible at pretending to be Bridget, which is another difficult thing to pull off.
Over the course of the season, Bridget is put through the wringer, no pun intended. There’s so much going on that she has to somehow manage while keeping her true identity a secret, which isn’t easy as Bridget’s own life starts to interfere with Siobhan’s already incredibly messy life. And, she has multiple people trying to kill her, someone important to Siobhan has their own life put at risk rather early on, and Siobhan is actively working against Bridget. In 22 episodes, so much content is explored, and the relationships for both twins are developed quite well and, in some cases, beautifully. For example, Bridget’s connections with Andrew and Juliet are absolutely a highlight of the show, and it’s unbelievable how she was able to improve their lives while Siobhan actively sought to tear them apart.
It’s truly a shame that the show didn’t come just a few short years later on The CW. With the 2011-12 lineup on The CW, Ringer was the outlier. But, given the premieres of shows like Arrow, Reign, and the Dynasty reboot over the few years after it was cancelled, it’s clear it could and would have been far more successful with the new direction the network decided to take. Ringer is sexy, full of mystery and heartbreak, and has a roster of characters where practically nobody, except Bodaway, is fully good or evil. Everyone in the ensemble is complicated and has made some dark mistakes at some point, so it’s impossible to truly be actively rooting against anyone in the long run. Plus, mysteries have become the bread-and-butter of TV now, and Ringer has so many throughout the first season, all of which have satisfying answers and lead to incredible payoff… not many shows can deliver satisfaction with their mysteries, successful or not. Just look at Pretty Little Liars.
Ringer is currently streaming on The CW’s website.