[EricMackay]

Еще один обзор сценария пилота. На аглицком языке. Спойлеры.


Pilot sсript Review - Ringer
RINGER
Network: CBS
Written By: Eric Charmelo & Nicole Snyder
Draft Date: undated
Pages: 61

This must be the annual "not a typical CBS drama" CBS sсript.

So... are you shocked that I really liked it? Even though the first thing it made me think of was "I Know Who Killed Me" (the title, anyway, I didn't see the movie, and one wikipedia page later I was assured that Ringer and the Razzie-fied Lindsay Lohan trainwreck had little in common).


Ringer is a combination of things. It's a "be careful what you wish for" story. It's a case of mistaken identities (damn identical twins). It's upstairs/downstairs. It's part crime mystery and part family drama. It's structured as a "how did we get here" piece, with an opening moment to tease you just enough to let the story build a background before the shit starts hitting the fan (and then not getting to that teased opening until almost the final moments). There's even some twisty, intriguing gaslighting going on.

And, for about 8 pages in the first act, it's going to be Sarah Michelle Gellar playing off of herself, which I cannot wait to see. I try to not think about casting when I read these scripts, but when you have 8 pages of identical twins talking with / doing things with each other and no one else... well, you need a capable actor to pull it off.

We meet Bridget Cafferty, an ex-stripper/prostitute turned waitress, in an NA meeting in Wyoming.

Okay, technically we meet her as she's having her head bashed into the wall of a swanky Manhattan penthouse, but that's chronologically later.

While Bridget was stripping in a club owned by a Native American crime boss, Bodaway Macawi, she witnessed a murder and his trial depends on her testimony.

So, when Bridget disappears from her motel room the morning of the trial, apparently having beaten up the police officer guarding her, handcuffing him to the shower, and stealing his gun... things aren't looking good and the FBI agent involved with the Macawi case has to track her down. Macawi goes free after the case is declared a mistrial... and he wants to stay a free man, so of course he's going to do everything he can to silence Bridget.

Bridget goes to the Hamptons to be with her identical twin sister, Siobhan Marx, married to a wealthy Manhattanite, Andrew, who is away in London on business. Things are awkward at first, as the twins have been estranged for years to the point that Siobhan hasn't even told her husband that she has a twin sister (this, admittedly, is quite convenient). Siobhan has everything money can buy (including antidepressants)... but wouldn't you know it, she's not happy. No one's life is perfect.

Bridget, for her part, is scared and confused. Especially when she finds a bloody gun in her bags. And again when she falls asleep on Siobhan's speedboat out in the ocean and Siobhan seems to have drowned, leaving only "her signature Hermes scarf" floating on the water.

Bridget returns to shore and is mistaken by several people in Siobhan's life to actually be her twin sister. And, after a couple stumbling blocks... she decides to become Siobhan. Presented with a Hermes scarf and a life of luxury or a bloody gun that appeared in your bag... which would you choose?

But, remember, no one's life is perfect. Bridget is about to find out just how fucked up Siobhan's life is and that her twin sister wasn't exactly the best person in the world, and tries to fix some of these (admittedly "rich person") problems. For instance, Siobhan was cheating on her husband with the husband of her best friend. And that's really only the tip of the iceberg.

So, when she tells the masked man bashing her skull in that he has the wrong girl, "I'm not Bridget, asshole," and he replies, "Who the hell is Bridget?"

It's painstakingly clear that Bridget stepping into the wrong life.

The man was sent to kill Siobhan.

But Bridget can't back out now. The FBI has been tracking her down and even came by the Manhattan apartment to interview "Siobhan." So Bridget knows that the old deal she made to testify against Macawi is now off the table. She'd be headed to prison if she came clean.

There's another twist at the end that I won't spoil (and I've skipped by a heckuva lot of detail in Siobhan's life).

I, personally, really want to know what happens next. But, as I said above... there's not much about this sсript that screams "typical CBS drama." Here's hoping there's room on the schedule for something a little more outside the box.
travisyanan.blogspot.com/2011/03/pilot-sсript-r...