One of the biggest reasons Damages was such a pleasure was that over its five season run, some of the biggest names in Hollywood as well as some of the greatest characters in the business would have roles and most of which showed them some of their best work. I’ve already hinted at it in the previous article, but here’s a sample of some of the actors who showed up over the next four seasons.
In Season 2, Oscar-winner Marcia Gay Harden was a series regular as Claire Maddox, an attorney only slightly younger than Patty but just as ruthless a lawyer. (She was also very sexual; there are scenes she did where she wore a garter belt that are more erotic than anything I saw in more explicit television.) Timothy Olyphant, two years out from Deadwood and just a year away from achieving superstardom in his own FX vehicle Justified, had a role as Wes Krulik, a member of a survivors group Ellen ends up attending after her fiancé’s murder with ulterior motives she doesn’t learn until it’s almost too late. And William Hurt in what would be his only regular role on a TV series, plays Daniel Purcell, an old friend of Patty’s who tells her in the season premiere he can bring down industry and then spends most of the season hiding it.
In Season 3, in addition to Martin Short Lily Tomlin had one of her greatest dramatic roles as Carol Tobin, the wife of a Bernie Madoff like investor whose billions Patty was trying to find. She too received an Emmy nomination for her work. Campbell Scott played Joe Tobin, the troubled alcoholic son torn by his parent’s actions who constantly makes the wrong choices time and again. He also gave an Emmy worthy performance. In Season 4 John Goodman did some of his most cutthroat work as Howard Erickson the head of a Blackwater type mercenary organization suspected of the killings of soldiers in Afghanistan. Dylan Baker, one of the greatest character actors in history gave perhaps his most terrifying performance as Jerry Boorman, a CIA operative willing to kill anyone who gets in his way, no matter what they once meant to him. And Chris Messina did brilliant work as one of the soldiers from that mission, whose relationship to Ellen makes him a pawn in a game he doesn’t understand. The final season featured great performances from Ryan Philippe as Channing MacLaren, the head of a Wiki leaks type organization accused of exposing the identity of a source. Jenna Elfman did superb work as that same source who ends up paying the ultimate price in the fifth season premiere. (This didn’t mean her work was over; much of Damages unfolded in flashback.)
Much of the greatness of Damages came in how it advertised the regulars each season as co-stars from former series and movies and then never had them interact. In Season 2 John Doman and Clarke Peters, who’d each had starring roles in The Wire played the head of an energy company and a powerbroker and they only appeared in one scene together. In Season 3, Keith Carradine and Tomlin, who’d played lovers in Nashville appeared and never interacted; neither did Reiko Aylesworth and Sarah Wynter, who’d appeared on 24. Then again, there were often connections to Close herself in so many of the castings: Hurt and Close had one of their earliest hits co-starring in The Big Chill and Janet McTeer who have a critical role in Season 5, which aired the year after both actresses played unlikely lovers in Albert Nobbs. And I haven’t hinted at some of the other brilliant character actors who had stints that would last a year or longer: Tom Noonan, Judd Hirsch, Len Cariou, M. Emmet Walsh…well, I think I’ve made my point. I don’t think there is any series between the conclusion of Deadwood and the premiere of The Americans that made better use of its casts, lead and supporting.
While all of this was awe-inspiring enough when it came to the cases that made up the spine of so much each season, Damages perhaps sung the most when it dealt with Patty herself and the collateral damage she caused in her actions. With the exception of 24, I don’t remember any other series to that point that really question whether Patty’s ends justified the means. Patty was a hero to the world for what she did, but as we saw pretty much from the beginning of the series it completely destroyed her life. This was never clearer than her relationship with her teenage son, Michael. Michael clearly had a deep-seated hatred of his mother – we first become aware of his behavior when he mails a grenade to her office – but it was equally clear that Norman Bates’ mother had more maternal instinct that Patty Hewes. Michael would have an affair with and eventually a child with a much older woman. Patty kicked him out of her home, bribed the mother in order to force her to leave him, and when she refused, had the woman arrested for statutory rape. Michael disappeared at the end of Season 3 (not before trying to kill her) and by the time he reappeared, Patty had assumed custody of her grandchild. Michael eventually sued for custody, and the first person on his witness list was Ellen.
Patty also had a horrible relationship with almost every man in her life. Hurt played Daniel Purcell, a man she’d had an affair with. 10 years prior to Season 2, she convinced Purcell to throw a case she was trying and used her son as leverage. Once she won, she refused to let him see her. When he returned to her life – again only as part of a case- she let him finally meet Michael, and this time he betrayed her by refusing to testify in this same case. While this was going on, she eventually learned that her husband (Michael Nouri) who was about to be named Secretary of Energy, was having an affair with a younger woman. This angered her, but the straw that broke up their marriage was when she learned he was investing in the company that she was suing. Such was always the way with Patty: her work mattered more than her personal life. In the Season 2 finale in one of the greatest images of the entire series, we see all of the men who Patty thinks have betrayed her (some have, some haven’t) drinking and carousing and when she enters the room they all start laughing at her. It is, of course, a dream (two of those men are dead) but it is one of the clearest signs the show will give us of Patty’s demons.
And those demons are passed down even to those who are loyal to her no matter what. Patty’s greatest ally on the show is Tom Shayes (Tate Donovan, like everyone else doing his best work). At the start of the series, he has spent a decade working for Patty but when he seems to be betraying her, she fires him. Its part of an act, we learn by the end of the pilot, but its part of a pattern she seems to have with all of her most loyal employees. She lets Tom twist in the wind for half the season before bringing him back (while telling him he will never be a name partner). In the second season, he sticks with her throughout the ups and downs of the show, but eventually becomes a pawn between the game Patty and Ellen are playing. When he defies Patty, he is fired again and seems to have sided with Ellen but in the finale of the season, we learn there was yet another behind the scenes game he was unaware of. In the third season, he finally gets his name put on the letterhead, and in true Damages fashion, we learn that by the end of it he will be killed. (The how and why I’ll leave for you to find out.) He has more of a stake in Patty’s latest case than she knows and he would rather find the money the Tobins have stolen than ask for Patty for help. In the finale to Season 3, he goes against her wishes one last time, and he finally pays the ultimate price. Patty tells the detectives who find Tom’s body that he was like family to her. Considering how she treats family, his fate was inevitable.
But of course the critical relationship in the series is that of Patty and Ellen. The two constantly bring out the worst in each other, but neither is ever willing to deny the true potential the other has and that they each need the others approval. At the end of Season 1, Ellen reveals that because of a secret she shared with Patty, Patty felt exposed enough to try to kill her. She then agrees to help the FBI bring Patty Hewes down, which she spend all of Season 2. By the end of the season, she eventually comes to learn that the investigation has nothing to do with the corrupt practices Patty has been engaging in for decades – instead the powers that be find her too much of a threat and want to get her out of the way. This leads to a confrontation which we knew was coming since the beginning of the season, but it doesn’t end the way we think. Ellen doesn’t want to kill Patty; she just wants her to admit her sins. Because Patty is wounded from a different attack (it makes sense if you’ve seen Season 2, trust me) she feels compelled to engage in honesty with Ellen. This leads to a détente of sorts between the two and through much of the next two seasons, the two are allies in their investigation even though Ellen is working for places with different aims (the DA’s office in Season 3; a separate law firm in Season 4.)
Damages never goes so far as to say that the two women admire each other, and the two characters refuse to ever say the same to each other. They constantly speak in back-handed compliments. In Season 3, when Ellen meets the attorney Patty has finally hired to take Ellen’s office, Patty says that she was her replacement. Ellen just says: “You didn’t replace me.” In Season 4, while in the middle court appointed anger management therapy, Patty admits that even though Ellen’s original use was that of a pawn, she admits that she’s become more than that to her. At the end of Season 4, she offers to name Ellen as her successor, but because of another betrayal in the investigation that season, Ellen refuses to do so and says she feels lonely. Patty takes this as an even worse betrayal: “Failure is Lonely!” she shouts at Ellen as she walks away.
Season 5 (which like Season 4 aired on DIRECTV after FX dropped the series in 2010 due to low ratings) shapes up to be an epic battle between Ellen and Patty at last. Ellen is just about to testify in Michael’s favor at the custody hearing when Patty almost casually mentions that she’s about to represent the defendant in the trial involving Channing MacLaren. The two spend the last season trying to maneuver each other, dealing with the issues involving family (we finally meet Patty’s dying father, which explains a lot) the attempt on Ellen’s life and what appears to be the final reckoning for the two. We think we see the end coming in the season premiere, but as we learn in the finale we’ve been misled yet again.
In Entertainment Weekly in 2013, I read a long article written to coincide with the final episodes of Dexter and Breaking Bad. It had to do with the fact of the lack of female anti-heroes throughout television. Damages was mentioned, but according to that critic the final episodes revealed that rather than having two antiheroines, Patty was the villain of the series and Ellen was the heroine. This is a conclusion I’ve never been able to get behind. For five seasons we have seen the story of two ruthless women who are willing to do anything to destroy the other, but can’t live without each other. Without giving anything away, the series ends with both women having completed actions that have each led to the taking of an innocent life. Ellen’s reaction to this is to choose a different path than the one that Patty has lived her entire life taking but it doesn’t necessarily make her a better person than her. Both women have to live with their actions, and while both have found different ways, we will never know what either has thought about what they’ve done. One of the earliest questions asked in the series is Ellen to Patty: “Do you think what we did was wrong?” And that question is that the core of almost everything either does the rest of the way. Both have come to different answers by the end of Damages, but that doesn’t make one better than the other.
So why isn’t Damages more highly regarded as the same kind of revolutionary series that The Shield and Mad Men and Breaking Bad and all the rest were? Was it because the protagonists were females behaving ruthlessly? That is part of it – even well after the series ended, critics and audiences alike just don’t cotton to shows to the Claire Underwoods and Wendy Byrdes the same way they’re willing to tolerate their husbands, and while Homeland lasted for eight seasons, Carrie Matheson was at the very least on the side of good. Part of it no doubt had to do with the fact that the series never fit comfortably into any genre. It was a courtroom drama where we never saw a single witness called; it was a mystery where we knew the identity of the victim by the end of the first season; it played with the continuity of time far more than Lost ever would (and that series was clearly in the science fiction camp at the time).
And it was, perhaps more than any other series that doesn’t involve terrorism, a show that had us look at the humanity of some of the most ruthless captains of industry and consider just what the forces of good think they have to do in order to take them down. There’s no question that Patty Hewes and her firm are doing the right thing for the right reason, but is this the right way? Is there a right way? Patty Hewes does not do what she does for money or glory or power; that is true with every case she takes on. Does that make her methods any more excusable? The show asked these questions with every episode but never tried to form an answer; even at the end we still had none. And that’s not a comfortable area to be in for a television series; I don’t think the viewer could ever take the kind of pleasures in seeing Patty cutting down Arthur Frobisher the same way so many liked seeing Walter White go up against Gus Fring. And Patty never repented, not once. Not with a real epiphany like Walter White or Jack Bauer; not with a faux one like Don Draper had. She was who she was; you had to accept it. That’s not a pretty picture to look at.
Damages was a series you couldn’t find in its final seasons if you weren’t willing to look hard enough. Now a decade later, it’s far easier. It’s had a run on Netflix, the entire series is now on Amazon Prime, and if you have time at 11pm you can watch the entire show on Encore, a subsidiary of Starz. (That network seems willing to give to overlooked dramas; Friday Night Lights and Rescue Me also air daily.) If you love great TV, Glenn Close, or want to see a series that is unlike anything you’ve seen before, start watching it. Within the first five minutes, it will be impossible to look away.
No comments:
Post a Comment