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?
October 13th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
[…] If you’re new to it and will be joining from episode three, check out our recaps of episode one and episode […]