Damages TV

Episode 4: It Tastes Like A Ho Ho

Episode 4 starts with some flashbacks to the weekend in Florida which is crucial to Patty Hewes case against Frobisher. We see the club where Katie Connor meets Gregory. She takes some cocaine and leaves the club with him. Five years later and Katie is recounting what happened that weekend, but the flashbacks show she’s not being completely honest.

Patty tries to call her son, who is still in a corrective academy after she had him kidnapped. The academy refuses to her put her through, saying her son doesn’t have phone privilleges, and once the phone call is over, Patty loses her cool and throws everything from her desk. This reminds us that whilst Patty is a very cool operator, her son is usually the chink in her armour.

Tom meet us with Patty and she asks him to do some digging. He is obviously frustrated at being a gopher when he is an experienced lawyer, and asks a favour from Patty and she snaps at him. He wanted her to use her influence on a local music school board to get his daughter admitted. Coincidentally, he is then approached by the boss from a rival law firm. Tom is initially loyal to Patty, but the boss reveals he is in a position to get Tom’s daughter admitted to a music school.

Greg, under orders from Frobisher’s people it seems, tells Katie he remembers who he saw at the crucial Florida weekend and names him as Luke Richards. He refuses to get involved, but Katie takes the information and then positively identifies Luke Richards as being the man she saw with Frobisher. Her testimony completely unravels when Frobisher’s attorney reveals evidence to suggest it cannot have been Luke Richards. Fiske is delighted, telling Patty he can hear “the sound of the zeroes dropping off” Frobishers revised offer. Patty is secretly happy because she has other evidence she can use, but she has now ensured the settlement offer will be withdrawn so the Frobisher Employee Group will not be able to accept the offer and prevent her getting the case to court.

We’re seeing the first signs of strains between David and Ellen because of her work commitments, and he is angry with her after his sister Katie’s humilation when found to have lied over Luke Richards. David is at work, when the attractive family member of one of his patient’s starts flirting with him. He tells her he is engaged, and she is quite forward, telling him “We can play this anyway you want to”.

Episode Title: “And My Paralysing Fear Of Death”

Patty Hewes, Frobisher’s lawyer, and the judge in the case which the show centers around are meeting up. The judge takes the two lawyers to task, saying that Frobisher lawyer  and that from what he can see Patty doesn’t have much of a case. He sets a deadline of Friday for Patty to get a convincing brief to him else he will dismiss the law suit.

“Oh god, it’s gonna be a shitty week”
Back at the Hewes Associates office, Patty is talking to Ellen whilst she opens a parcel - it turns out to be a grenade. Taking one look at the device, Patty says “Oh god, it’s gonna be a shitty week” and the office is evacuated, with employees having to relocate to Patty’s apartment to carry on working on the case, to meet the judge’s deadline. Ellen asks, “who would want to do this to you?” to which Patty replies, “how much time do you have?”

Meanwhile, Katie Connor is sleeping with Greg - the one night stand from Florida - who we learn is married.  She tells him that she will be a witness against Frobisher. He wishes her luck but declines to get involved himself.

Patty’s husband hires a former secret service man to guard Patty following the grenade scare. Patty and her husband visit their son’s school where he has hacked into computers and behaved badly enough that he is near to the point of expulsion. The head explains he is is troubled by a dream Michael has claimed to have had where he is assassinated - we later learn in a family counselling session that this is actually Patty’s dream, and Michael is for some reason claiming it as his own.

Frobisher is visited by the FBI over the grenade. He promises them full co-operation and and then instructs his lawyer, “don’t give them a dog damn thing”. In conversation, Frobisher gives Fiske the impression that it was indeed him  responsible for sending the grenade.

Following the long days work that resulted from the office move, Patty sacks 6 employees for calling in sick the following day.

Patty comes to Ellen’s office and is being creepily nice, asking to see family photos. Ellen wonders if Patty was angling for an invite to her engagement party, so she invites her but is sternly rebuked: “it’s a lovely thought.  Now close the door, I’ve got work to do”. Ellen is tasked with writing a draft for part of the case against Frobisher. Obviously not expecting much, she asks Tom to re-do it but he says it was perfect, save for a few formatting errors. Patty stitches up Ellen by telling her to personally deliver it to the judge, knowing she will miss her family party, although this does result in Ellen spending valuable time with the judge.

We learn how much Patty’s son hates her as he says everything he does, he does it to show how he can control her. She takes action in to her own hands by having him kidnapped and forcibly taken to a reform academy. It turns out that it was actually Michael that was responsible for sending the grenade.

At the end, we flashback to Ellen in the police station, now talking to Mr Nye who was called on her behalf, and she tells him that she didn’t David - someone was actually trying to kill her.

After growing its audience over the first two weeks, Damages has now moved from Sunday night to Monday nights. Episode 3 is on Monday 21st January at 10.35pm.

Glenn Close won the Golden Globe for Best Actress on Sunday night, in an eerie, underattended Golden Globes ceremony. Because of the ongoing writers strike, the normal ceremony was shortened to a brief announcement of the winners.

Close beat off competition from Sally Field, Patricia Arquette, Holly Hunter and Minnie Driver to take the award.

Damages was nominated for best TV drama, but that award went to Mad Men.

Episode 2 takes off right where the pilot episode finished, with the discovery of David’s dead body in an empty bath, alongside a bloodied ornament, quickly identified by the police as a murder weapon.

Going back to 6 months earlier, Katie tells Ellen that Frobisher’s lawyer has been calling her three times a day, and she’s clearly stressed about her role as a prosecution witness. She has a moving in present for Ellen and David - some brass book ends, which are the same as the blood soaked item used to kill David six months later.

Patty meets up with Tom, who she “sacked” in episode 1, and tells him to work his relationship with Ellen as she seems to trust him.

Poolside at the Frobishers’, and Mrs Frobisher is complaining to her husband about the press intrusions - she only spent $2,000 on shoes, not the reported $20,000 - and tell him to “try harder” to settle the case. Frobisher demonstrates what a kind employer he is by turning his nose up at the cooked food served to him, telling his butler he can eat it - and then changing his mind and tell him to give it to the dogs instead.

At Hewes Associates, Patty is pressuring the Frobisher Employees Group to hold off from accepting their $100,000,000 offer whilst she tries to see what leverage the new witness - Ellen’s sister in law - can bring.

Frobisher pays a visit to his lawyer, but is more concerned with what the “bottom line” would be if his wife leaves him. His lawyer tells him they need her now more than ever, else Frobisher will take a beating in the press. He tells Frobisher that on paper their case is “tighter than a bull’s arse on fight night”, but all bets are off if Patty Hewes gets Katie Connor in front of a jury.

Katie turns up at Hewes Associates for a meeting with Patty and Ellen to go over her timeline from the day in Florida which is central to the case, but is left on her own when Ellen is dragged way to a meeting.

“Get the hell out of my office or tell me the truth”

Patty gets Katie on her own, and after some inane small talk about olive oil, shows her ruthlessness. She tells Katie she doesn’t buy her timeline and tells her to “get the hell out of my office” or tell her the truth, calling her a worthless witness, adding “I don’t give a shit about you”.

Katie goes out onto the street and is being watched by Frobisher’s man, who reports back and then suggests to his boss a “permanent solution”. Frobisher initially disgusted, pointing out that Katie is an innocent girl, and then curious before deciding its a road he doesn’t want to go down although his man seems to want to persuade him otherwise. Having thought about it some more, and after a bout of frantic, drug fuelled sex in a car, Frobisher tells him to “do it”.

Patty meets up with Tom. We learn that the reason for her mistrust of Katie was that she has evidence of a traffic ticket at a time when she was supposed to be at work on the day in question, which was left out of the timeline.

Meanwhile, Patty is going through her credit card bill and a chink in her armour - almost crying - is revealed when her husband tells her that their son has hired out strippers. Tom bumps into Ellen at the office, going through the motions of collecting his belongings as arranged with Patty, but she rebuffs his attempt to probe her.

Katie is followed on the  street by Frobisher’s assassin, armed with a knife, but he fails when she confronts him in front of people. She signs Frobisher’s non disclosure agreement and returns it to his lawyer, which leaves him frantically trying to call off the killing.

“Our fates are intertwined, Katie”

Frobisher pays Katie a visit at her restaurant, in which he is an investor. She’s nervous as he tells her “our fates are intertwined, Katie”. This has an effect on her, and she goes to Patty Hewes to admit she lied. She tells her that she lied about her traffic ticket, because she got it after running late following a one night stand, which subsequently led to her having to abort the resulting pregnancy. She tells Patty she never saw the guy, called Greg, again and doesn’t know his surname, although she seems to have lied again as she soon meets up with Greg again, but it observed by Tom.

Episode 2 ends with Ellen and David checking out a new apartment arranged for them by Patty. They go into the bathroom, the room in which David will die six months later, and we get a flashback of Ellen dropping the murder weapon… apparently having killed him.

 What did you think of this episode of Damages? Please leave a comment…

Media Guardian has reported that the BBC has agreed a deal with Sony to show Damages on the catch up service iPlayer after all.

I just checked and can’t see episode 1 back up yet but maybe it will turn up later or they’ll restart after episode 2.

After a fleeting appearance on the BBC’s iPlayer, Damages disappeared without trace. No explanation seems to have been given but it will probably be a rights issue. Meanwhile, Damages has cropped up on iTunes courtesy of Sony, seemingly cutting the Beeb out of the loop, with the first episode being available for free and subsequent episodes to be priced at £1.89 each.

PaidContent UK has more on this story…

Did you miss Damages last night? Luckily you can watch it again on the BBC’s iPlayer service. They don’t always have import shows on iPlayer so it’s good to see Damages up there.

BBC iPlayer in it’s current form is really great - you can just watch shows from the last seven days in your browser. Channel 4 also have a TV catch up service called 4OD which is worth checking out.

UPDATE: DAMAGES HAS NOW DISAPPEARED FROM IPLAYER. ANYONE KNOW WHY?

Episode 1 of Damages opened with a bloodied, half naked girl emerging from an elevator and rushing out into the street. We flashback to six months earlier and the same girl, Ellen Parsons (played by the gorgeous Rose Byrne),  is being offered a job as a junior associate at a law firm. She mentions she’s also seeing “Hewes Associates” and her potential new employers can tell instantly that Ellen won’t be taking the job, wishing her “good luck”. The boss of the law firm later follows Ellen to a club and tells her that Patty Hewes will “own her”, and asks her to sign a card  saying “I was warned”. He tells her, “With Patty Hewes, there’s only Patty”.

“If you were a man, I’d be worried”

In the quarter of an hour, we start to get a picture of Patty Hewes, played by Glenn Close. She uses ruthless, dirty tactics to get the settlement figure she wants from the defense lawyer in a class action she’s prosecuting, prompting him to tell her, “If you were a man, I’d kick the living dog shit out of you”. Her reply cuts him down to size: “If you were a man, I’d be worried”.

Soon after, we see Patty going on a TV talk show to talk about her pursuit of Arthur Frobisher (Ted Danson). She displays to her interviewer her more charming self. Patty is clearly able to charm the birds from the trees when need be, and be viciously ruthless at other times. She outlines the case against Frobisher: he apparently convinced 5000 employees to invest in his company before selling his own stock, ruining the company and leaving the staff penniless.

“they put you on a pedestal, look up to you and then blame you for the crick in their neck” 

Ellen is brought in for a pre-interview interview with Patty’s most trusted and loyal aide, Tom, and warned that Patty has “the sharpest bullshit meter i’ve ever seen. If you’re phoney with her for one second, she’ll skewer you.”. When told Patty’s only window is sometime on Saturday - the day of Ellen’s sister’s wedding - Ellen has to turn the interview down. All looks doomed until Patty turns up at the wedding, appearing from nowhere in the ladies’ toilets bearing a bourbon. She is impressed Ellen had the nerve to turn the interview down, but says of family: “they put you on a pedestal, look up to you and then blame you for the crick in their neck” . Patty tells Ellen she can’t reschedule the interview because she’s hired. Later in the program, she gives a bit more advice on families: “Do yourself a favour: don’t have kids…. you call leave wives but you can’t leave kids”, with a hint of sorrow.

Frobisher is keen to get the case against him settled. He goes direct to one of the employee representatives to find out the amount they want. He makes the offer - $100,000,000 - and the employees are keen to accept. Patty is furious, coldly sacking Tom before turning to Ellen and asking if she fancies sushi. It should be no surprise that this coldest of fish likes sushi.

Meanwhile, an intriguing potential conflict of interest is revealed when it transpires Frobisher is an investor in a restaurant started up by the sister of Ellen’s fiance, and she was present as a caterer at a weekend which is crucial to the Frobisher case. It turns out that Hewes knew of the link and this starts Ellen wondering if that’s the reason she got the job. It visit to Tom, now freed from the shackles of employment, reassures her that this isn’t the case although it turns out Tom’s sacking was a charade and he’s still working for Hewes.

“Whatever it takes. Fix this”

When Frobisher learns of the connection, he tells his lawyer “Whatever it takes. Fix this”. Next thing, Katie’s slipping up in her dead dog’s blood with a note saying “Quiet” nailed to the wall.  Devastated by her pet’s death and thinking it was Frobisher responsible, Katie agrees to become a witness against Frobisher. When Hewes has the dog’s collar delivered to her, we learn it was her responsible bringing back pet killing memories of Glenn Close’s role as the famous “bunny boiler” in Fatal Attraction.

The program finishes back with a bloodied Ellen in a police station, with the police having discovered her fiance’s dead body, telling them “Get me a lawyer” .

A cracking start to this drama with Glenn Close as Patty Hewes owning every second of screentime she has. Damages returns next Sunday at 10.30pm on BBC One.

What did you think of the first episode?

As you ready yourself for the premiere of Damages this Sunday night on BBC One, content yourself in the knowledge that this classy drama is going to be with us for a while. FX Networks recently extended it for two more seasons, means another 26 episodes will be created beyond the 13 that make up the first series.