When I heard that Sarah Michelle Gellar was returning to television, I must admit I was overjoyed. It has been too long since she was on my television set Tuesday nights! I know the second episode has aired, and I will be writing another review for that one. I haven’t seen the second episode yet as I didn’t want it to color my review of this episode!
So much was going on here. The pilot starts with a technique I call the Hardy Boys style, since I first read an instance of this technique in a Hardy Boys novel. I found it over used by J. J. Abrams on Alias…but it is when we start with our hero in imminent danger, and just when all seems hopeless, we flash back, maybe a day or two, maybe 72 hours. In this case, we go back nine days to Rock Springs, Wyoming where Bridget is at a meeting to help get over her drug addiction. Bridget is being protected by the FBI—they will drop the prostitution and possession charges against her for her testimony against a big mobster. We know that her twin sister, Siobhan, has offered to have Bridget come to New York and stay with her for however long she needs. Bridget freaks about testifying, manages to tie up the FBI guard, steal his weapon, and get to her sister. Oddly enough, we find out that her sister hasn’t told her husband of five years about Bridget. But there is a lot that Siobhan hasn’t told her husband, as we are about to find out…
Siobhan gets Bridget to come out boating with her, and it would seem that Siobhan drugged her. When Bridget comes to, for all intents and purposes, it appears that Siobhan killed herself, leaving her rock of a diamond ring in a prescription pill bottle where Bridget can find it.
This seems like a way out for Bridget—here she is, on the run now not only from the mob, but from the FBI. She seems to have been given a second chance at life. She can take her sister’s life and have the perfect life she never was able to make for herself. It doesn’t take long for Bridget to realize that there was a lot more to Siobhan’s life than she could even have imagined: Siobhan has a horrible marriage, she is sleeping with her best friend’s husband, Siobhan was about to find out she was pregnant, and to top it all off, someone is trying to kill her! All of a sudden, Siobhan looks like she has messed up her life as badly as Bridget has, and now Bridget will have to deal with the fallout from her own life, as well as her sister’s …
And onto the analysis…Nicole Snyder and Eric Charmelo really wrote a show with several levels which in my opinion is very Whedonesque…and this slightly scares me. What I mean is that whenever Joss has been successful with a series, it has always been after a larger, unfolding of the basics of the story. To clarify—Buffy did well, but we didn’t get all of the foundation of Buffy’s life from the pilot episode…there was already a movie. Now Joss did change the tv show from the movie—most notably that Kristi Swanson Buffy was a Senior in high school, but SMG Buffy was a Sophomore…but for the most part Joss stuck with the mythology created by the movie. Angel had the lovely introduction of three seasons of Buffy to learn about his character. Fox denied Firefly a longer intro, and how lost were we with the show, if you are honest about it? The show of course has a wonderful cult following, but I will admit that after the first couple episodes aired I was pretty sure the show would not get a second season. Even Dollhouse I found lacking.
This show is its own animal, but I guess this is my roundabout way of saying that there was so much going on in the first episode, that it seemed like too much to cram into one episode. Many people at the end of the episode seemed to say “What. Just. Happened?” Or at least that was the reaction I saw on twitter from my timeline…
But I have watched it a couple times so the question that really got me interested was who tried to kill Siobhan? Or should I say Bridget? Which sister was the actual hit on? We could go cross eyed thinking about this one! So let’s take a second and digest…
1) Gemma did think that Siobhan was sleeping with her husband, because let’s face it, Bridget herself doesn’t seem to be a very good liar…But this seems way too easy. In my personal opinion, whoever did order the hit has no idea that Gemma suspects Henry of anything, and figures that Gemma, as Siobhan’s best friend would be trusted. So either Gemma did call Siobhan to meet her and then she was called away, or someone had Gemma’s voice on tape and was able to make a fake call to get Siobhan there.
2) Did Henry attempt to have Siobhan killed for rejecting him? This seems to be the most farfetched possibility. He seems to genuinely care about her, and he seems convinced that the baby is his…so I’m thinking no…he wouldn’t be the one.
3) The most likely suspect seems to be Andrew himself…after all, who was on the call? He sounded like he was trying to put a hold on something…since he found out about Siobhan’s pregnancy, and her “agreeableness” did he now want to make their marriage work? Was the attempt on her life like in Fargo when Jerry attempted to call off his wife’s kidnapping, but couldn’t get to them to stop it?
4) There is another possibility…that Siobhan herself ordered a “hit” on her sister. Is she really ready to forgive Bridget for what happened with Sean, or was that a ploy to get Bridget out there so that she could use her and have some revenge? And just what did happen with Sean? It appears he died, but we have no clue how it happened.
There was one plot point I felt was a bit overboard—and no, I’m not talking about the backdrop behind Bridget/Siobhan with the boat…I am talking about the pregnancy thing. It is going to be really hard for Bridget to fake a pregnancy…and even if she were to get pregnant now, the doctor would know…as a matter of fact, their blood work should be different…so how is that going to work? It just seemed to be added angst when there was already plenty there! But I guess we will have to wait and see how it works out…
So these are just some of my ponderings over this episode! I’m sure some of the questions will be answered in episode two which I plan to have reviewed before episode three. I will also do some more research on the writers, etc. with the next episode! In case you are interested, iTunes is offering the whole season pass right now for $9.99…
So let me know what you all think! My next review will be more in depth!
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