Means to an End on ‘Damages’

By LillyKat
PTR Staff Writer

Okay, so let me just begin this week’s review of Damages with an ultimatum.

If you have not watched this genius show as yet, you must tune in this Saturday (October 20th) to FX (or clear out some space on your Tivo) for the Damages marathon. They will be airing all 12 episodes beginning at 8:00 a.m. and concluding at 8:00 p.m.. The first season finale is scheduled to air next Tuesday (October 23rd).

If you are still a newbie to the Damages phenomenon, tuning into the marathon will allow you to truly enjoy next week’s finale given there are no footnotes to this show (but there is the aforementioned marathon), and you’ll likely be a little lost if you tune in on a whim given they’ll wrap up a whole lotta stuff that won’t make much sense to you unless you’ve been watching since the beginning (note to self: I have been watching since the beginning and I still have to pay close attention – LOL!). Also, as Tate Donovan (who plays Tom Shayes) explained to us here at PTR this week, what happens in the finale will set the premise for the second season.

Brilliantly.

However, since the verdict is still out on whether Damages will get picked up for a second season (please, please, pretty please FX! Cripes, please don’t make me ask the question, “Why is there a second season of Saving Grace but Glenn Close is out of a job?!”), this might be one of your last chances to see the fabulous Glenn and Co. do what they’ve done all season long: thrill, captivate, intrigue, amaze and just plain deliver one of the best scripted, best acted and best produced shows currently on the tube (DVD release not withstanding).

Do we love this show, or do we love this show?

I think we love this show.

Catch up this Saturday (if you haven’t been watching; and even if you have, heck, watch it again!).

Now that that is out of the way, wow … so, it all came together last night didn’t it?

Patty finally gets her rear back into town (thanks to Ellen’s clever she-tried-to-kill-me routine she planted a couple episodes back with right-hand-man Tom), and she posts Ellen’s bail. They discuss just how in the heck all this craziness went down.

Patty: “Ellen, no matter what you think, I had nothing to do with any of this.”
Ellen: “I know.”
Patty: “You accused me of trying to kill you.”
Ellen: “How else was I supposed to get you back here?”

Score Ellen!

But not before we flashback once last time to Arthur Frobisher’s lawyer, Ray, and his brains splattered all over Patty’s office (the suicide shocker from last week, remember?), and Patty’s call to Ellen (before she calls the authorities) asking Ellen to help her: a) hide the file that she was blackmailing ol’ Ray with – the one showing him in cahoots with Gregory Malina and guilty of insider trading; and, b) swearing that no one can know that is why Ray was in her office at zero-dark-hundred hours.

Patty: “No one can ever know what he was doing here. Not even David.”

That can’t be good.

And it isn’t.

Poor Ellen was trying to be helpful to Patty (why, I don’t know, but alas, Ellen still rocks), so she lies to fiancé doc David about her late night dead man walking (er, sitting) rendezvous in Patty’s office.

Only to have David find out.

Game over. Engagement off. David is done playing second fiddle to Patty, even with Ellen’s rather valiant argument of wanting to take down the Frobies of the world.

Ellen: “David, this is the kind of work I want to do.”
David: “A man’s dead, now. Is that part of the plan?”

So as Ellen bails in a huff given she doesn’t choose David over her job, sister Katie reappears to deliver Gregory Malina’s last gasped video taped confession that explains how Frobie was in cahoots with the Securities and Exchange Commission investigator George Moore.

Gregory Malina: “If anything happens to me, Arthur Frobisher and George Moore are responsible.”

Ouch.

So it’s all about the tape. Frobie’s life depends on it. And as we know, desperate times call for desperate measures. So, he sends out the kill squad (the man will stop at nothing, eh?).

First to Ellen’s apartment, where David hid it and won’t give up the locale to the Frobie thugs.

Game over for David.

Then onto Patty’s apartment, where Ellen had gone in refuge after their break-up fight.

Almost game over for Ellen. But we know how that works out.

The good news, though, is now that we’re all caught up with past and present, and with Ellen now out on bail, she goes back to her apartment and does end up with the tape.

But not before she visualizes the final moments of David’s life.

This was a fabulous sequence. It was so powerful having Ellen standing alone in the still ransacked apartment – David’s blood still on the floor and in the bathtub – while the sounds of the struggle play out for us, the audience, as she goes from room to room envisioning David’s final moments. Even though we do get to see quick cuts of the struggle, it’s the sound of these moments against the isolation and helplessness of Ellen that makes this sequence so compelling.

But she isn’t helpless for long.

She has the all-important tape.

For which she now uses to blackmail Patty into being her lawyer to get her exonerated of the murder charge.

Ellen: “You did teach me one thing. Trust no one. And so I don’t anymore. Not even you. … Do this for me and then I’ll give you the tape.”

Ding.

What’s that sound?

We’ve arrived at the penthouse level of this elevator ride of suspense.

Next Tuesday at 10 p.m.

Be there or be square.

Tune into the Damages marathon this Saturday (October 20th) on FX beginning at 8:00 a.m. The first season finale will air next Tuesday (October 23rd) at 10:00 p.m.