Damages Season 1 Review

In my quest to become as educated in good TV as possible, I’m having to catch up on many shows that have already aired or are late into their runs. I’ve only seen 2 seasons of How I Met Your Mother, 0 of Chuck, 0 of Homicide: Life On The Streets just to name a few. This is what led me to Damages. It’s an FX drama with a tremendous cast. I admittedly was skeptical about Ted Danson, but his portrayal of Arthur Frobisher was one of the finest portrayals I’ve seen in a while. However, even with a great cast and a great network, Damages never quite lived up to my expectations as a great drama. It’s good, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not surprised by it fighting for its life on TV.

Damages at its simplest is the story of attorney Patty Hewes, played by Glenn Close, who handles large scale civil cases. Or case as it is with season one. Damages is a serialized drama that follows one case throughout the entire season. Along the way their are lots of elements that complicate the case, but for the most part each episode builds on the case. What sets Damages apart is that it follows two out of sequence story arcs that eventually join up. (There will be no spoilers other than what you would learn in the pilot.) One story arc is one that follows the Frobisher case. That’s actually in the past. The show leads off seeing one of the lead characters Ellen Parsons, played by the gorgeous Rose Byrne, covered in blood hovering over her dead fiance. We slowly learn information about each arc as the story progresses until they finally meet up in the second to last episode. Think of this tactic as Memento-esque. Though while it was very successful for the movie, I’m not so sure that it worked for Damages.

When investing the time to watch a long form drama like Damages is, I want to be kept guessing. I want to try and figure out the case as I go along. Part of why Lost was such a hit is that we never quite understood what everything was until the end. We were led to such wild prognostications, that you couldn’t help but talk to others about it. Whereas with Damages, I really think that the constant illuminating of details of the future arc was a real hinderance on the suspense of the show. I think it could have been more effective is we just saw one scene where Ellen is in jail, covered in blood, talking to Tom saying, “Find Patty Hewes.” That would lead us the whole time to think what could happen to get us there. We’d be forced to try and connect the dots and as plots points were revealed, we’d be genuinely shocked. Only a few times was a piece of dramatic evidence revealed to us in complete surprise. And because those were so few and far between you’d think they’d be huge elements, but they’re really not. Although one does set up the structure for season 2. But despite problems with the storytelling, I still found myself enjoying the show. How could that be? The answer is that the cast is dynamite.

Glenn Close gives an excellent portrayal of Patty Hewes. She’s a tough strong woman who’s mantra is to “trust no one.” Although, the performance is very strong, I’m troubled at Hollywood’s inability to write great women characters that aren’t over the top and almost caricatures. There aren’t a lot of solid understated performances that get critical recognition. I can think of Connie Britton in Friday Night Lights and Julianna Marguilies in The Good Wife. Regradless, the supporting cast is just as, if not stronger than Close. I happen to love Rose Byrne’s performance. Her transition from new budding young lawyer to certified hard ass is quite excellent. Ted Danson is giving perhaps the greatest performance of his career as Arthur Frobisher. Then two of my favorite character actors get a lot of screen time too in Zeljko Ivanek and Garret Dillahunt. Ivanek was most recently the magistrate on True Blood and Dillahunt was Wolcott on Deadwood and can currently be seen as the dad in Raising Hope. Through in Peter Facinelli and Tate Donovan and you’ve really got an all star cast.

I’ll continue watching Damages, but I have no sense of urgency to see how any of it plays out. I’m curious to see if they use the same story telling tactics for Season 2. Looking forward to it only getting better.