Glenn Close But Yet So Far: Spooky Legal Thriller "Damages" (Rose Byrne Also Dwelleth Here)

Also: Ted Danson racing ATVs, lots of swearing, and Tate Donovan's character is a vegan?

CAN NOT WAIT (to see this on my DVR)

So how are you, Matt?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/22/arts/television/22heff.html?ei=5070&en=29a11cc455c7ac03&ex=1185940800&adxnnl=1&emc=eta1&adxnnlx=1185394389-wIKX30bbu2HKJU/MBwL7hg

[let's take this offline dave but everything is really good right now]

Ha - I just wanted to keep the thread bubbling around the top of the page, but if you wanna backchannel, hot stuff, I is yrs. ^_^

check the OTHER forum

Not sold on Zelkjo Ivanec's southern accent, but that just makes "Damages" more fun.

i'm actually really xcited about this. glenn close can pretty much make anything watchable. she saved the experience of watching The STepford Wives.

there isnt a single likeable character in this show! and the soundtrack sucks.

Will watch again. Felt about half-a-notch better than CSI/Shark/whatever, but yeah I guess it's Glenn Close who's keeping me interested.

The opening sequence with the bloodied disoriented hot girl wandering the streets, then cut to girl in interrogation room = half a notch worse than CSI. But glad I stuck with it.

well, fuck me, I'm already counting the minutes til ep 2, TONIGHT AT 9. I watched ep 1 last night, again, in its entirety!

10pm, not 9. I just moved to the eastern time zone.

I'm watching this and enjoying it. I understand that it got v poor ratings in the US?

the way it plays with chronology is unusual for a TV series I think, despite being common in films.

Glenn Close's son = piece of inspired casting.

this is apparently Close's first TV series.

I'm watching this on DVD. Kinda wanna work for Glenn Close's character, despite, y'know... everything.

i liked this show.

I'm guessing / hoping S2 starts sometime in February (after The Shield / Sons of Anarchy do their thing)?

Hey, look @ this!!! "Glenn Close, Tate Donovan, Rose Byrne and Ted Danson are all on board for the second season. New cast members will include William Hurt, who will play a client of Patty's, and Timothy Olyphant, who becomes entangled in Ellen's life."

nice oen on the william hurt front.

(from Wiki, with citations!!!)

s1ocki, I'm thinking we'll both be pulling for Asshole Olyphant to show up, ya?

definitely!

cautiously optimistic!

ugh the commercial for season 2 sucks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

also why doesnt this thread come up with i search damages

season 2 not nearly as good as s1 so far

scenes with rawls's right-hand man are skin-crawlingly bad... close is still stellar, as is the main chick, who is really really hot

Didn't even realize there was a Damages thread on ILX! This show demands a lot of patience - I still really enjoy it and it's building up as slowly as it has in the past. Let's face it though, was there any chance this season could be as good as the first? (largely because the gimmick/structure/surprise was pretty tightly done and can't really be replicated as a continuation)

What is up with the ridiculous grunge theme they pull whenever Timothy Olyphant has a revealing scene, though? It's the most unintentionally comical I've ever seen this show get.

its funny that the first season is so tight, b/c apparently the head writers didnt actually have any clue where they were headed when they started!

I've been loving this season. Not sure if it's as good as the first season yet, but I definitely don't think it's a bad season. I've also been trying to turn all my friends onto this show - praying it picks up an audience since the actors are apparently all signed up for six seasons, assuming the show survives that long.

I converted so many people to this show.

It's really such a smart show, and in very subtle ways. It doesn't wear its brilliance ostensibly.

Man, super brief twist that the FBI agents might've been completely fake was awesome... second twist that the investigation actually IS a corrupt conspiracy action - still pretty good nonetheless.

I just love how Patty Hewes continues to be this huge, complex character, how she uses this authentic mantle of justice to fuel all the terrible or great things she does.

the backlash on this show is going to start before it gets remotely popular, isn't it?

great season, anyway

Who is backlashing?

nobody - i'm just making a dumb joke about how this show will not be watched by anyone, let alone get enough notice to get a backlash like every other good show on this board

LOVED the first season--thought this one wasnt nearly as good

Finally saw the season finale. I thought the whole thing was brutal and brilliant. Really the best drama on television IMHO.

Agree this season wasn't quite as engrossing as the first, but they had set the bar awfully high. It still far exceeded almost everything else on TV this year, and I thought all the new cast additions were great. Was a really satisfying finale; didn't see any of those surprises coming.

It's quite a difficult show to jump into (unless you've been watching from the start), I wonder if that (plus being on FX?) are the main reasons behind the poor ratings?

Probably it being fairly narratively challenging (esp for a television show) has something to do with it too.

I think this show really has this amazing grasp of character drama that others don't. In particular, most shows will dangle the plot to get the audience invested, but Damages seems to have character's motivations and interrelationships constantly in question by everyone in virtually every episode. Even the audience is never totally in on it until the very end, yet with both seasons I never felt cheated - the plot developments and character choices felt totally logical, as complex as they were.

Also, rage. The rage moments are just fantastic.

Still loved this season and the finale, even if it wasn't as good as the first one (but what is?). Pretty much an impossible show to join in on without starting at the beginning. Surprising that FX started and stuck with this show - I'm glad, but it sure doesn't fit with the more crassly sensationalist tone of their shows like Nip/Tuck. (Though I do like Sons of Anarchy and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, they both fall into this mold.) At least we're guaranteed one more season!

I think this is one of the few shows on television that balances being character-driven while still maintaining a structure that includes serial (rather than episodic) plot twists and revelations. It might be my favorite show on television.

Also, rage. The rage moments are just fantastic.

just got to close smashing glass and screaming at husband to get out. she kicks ass.

s2 is definitely not as gripping or interesting as s1 but i guess that was inevitable considering how emotionally wrought the first season was.

Anyway,

http://23.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kukwb8OW9x1qzi154o1_r1_500.png

Is everyone else as excited as I am?

Jan 25, motherfuckers.

Also, some cast additions:

Lily Tomlin (Marilyn Tobin)
Martin Short (Leonard Winstone)
Keith Carradine (Julian Decker)
Reiko Aylesworth (Rachel Tobin))
Sarah Wynter (Danielle Marchetti)

Fuck yeah, I'm excited.

Just finished watching last two episodes of S2 last night, really looking forward to 3! All through watching these, I wasn't paying attention to credits (lol bittorrent) and kept thinking, "Is that creepy guy Darrell Hammond from SNL? No, it can't be. But it is, right? No. Yes!"

Sitting there w/Ellen all that time after getting gut-stabbed = HARDCORE.

Ehh, s1 was awesome but s2 pretty much sucked. Won't be rejoining it, I don't think.

I love the conceit behind this show but fell behind on season 2.

S2 was amazing

anyway, it's ON TONIGHT

feel like i need to be on this.

rose byrne is such a doll

yes. gorgeous, perfect, goddess, etc.

i keep hearing that S2 wasn't good, but it was.

CO=SIGN ON THAT SHIT.

haven't seen martin short since three amigos, but he's certainly delivering on the promise of that film.

i liked s2! not as much as s1 but danson was great.

lily tomlin looks really good! even if heavily botoxed/made up.

tomlin is such a weird choice for that role

first two episodes show promise tho

I can't wait to start watching this. Can't now cause we're already doing Homicide and Oz.

tomlin is such a weird choice for that role

― max, Saturday, January 30, 2010 1:29 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark

ya... keep expecting her to turn kooky. but i don't think she's a bad choice.

Still best show on television. I was a little worried in the beginning, but there's some great stuff going on. I liked how they turned the Madoff thing into a family psychodrama, and I also loved the totemic use of items on the show -- how the purse passes back and forth between time and to a lesser extent the phone number passes from hand to hand. Also Keith Carradine looking really skeevy and creepy. Martin Short I'm meh on so far, but I think Lily Tomlin is kinda great.

2nd episode was *amazing*

I really like how it's a little ambiguous on exactly how complicit or evil Martin Short's character is so far, one of the kinds of things this show excels at. Campbell Scott's character is having a quick descent into hell already, which is great.

Woah. New episode was amazing.

Once again the bizarre title for this week's episode is a home run - "Don't Throw That at the Chicken".

That scene with Short making faces at the video cameras was a great mixture of humorous and creepy. All the actors are continuing to bring their A-game, though this was a pretty slow episode compared to the last couple. Tom Noonan as the detective interviewing Patty is weirder than ever, I love it. Also liked the line from Ellen, "Of course he is! You always mentioned how you're such a bad mother!" followed by an "OK that one was too far" awkward silence.

That scene with Short making faces at the video cameras was a great mixture of humorous and creepy.

omg next level

the one where they were trying to get the chick to the airport was great. no flashforwards, oddly

yeah was wondering why no flash forward in that episode

missed tom noonan :(

i watched the first seasons on dvd over about two days apiece so am feeling it's not fast enough atm

+ they shd bring back olyphant, he's always good value

He's on Justified so I doubt he's coming back... I figured they'd get back to the whole Frobisher plotline at some point before the end of the series, but the ratings are so bad, this is probably the final season.

rly? that sucks

Yeah, the ratings have always been pretty bad but they've only gotten worse every season. I mean, this is getting beaten by the Kardashians show and Pawn Stars on the History Channel - Damages gets about 25% of the viewers of those shows. Thanks, America! I'm definitely glad they signed up everybody for two years after the first season, otherwise it never would've gotten this far.

gd u america, this show owns. keep it going.

i can kind of see that this is not a show that grabs you by the nuts straight off, and it requires some memory n whatnot. but so does lost.

i blame fox's marketing people. if you can't market significant rose byrne screentime you can't market, period.

i dont think its that complex compared to other 00s narrative tv really. its not as layered or as wide-ranging as lots of cable shows really the structure of s1 felt awkward more than confusing putting the main story in flashbacks didnt really add much and the stuff in the present was ugly and broke the flow of the story.

i still liked it but havent watched any of the other seasons.

I genuinely love this show but stopped watching after S1 because I completely forgot it was gone. I really like the title of this thread btw, I laughed out loud in real life and everything.

havent watched any of the other seasons.

stopped watching after S1

if this show gets cancelled it's YOUR FAULT.

there is a curious agreement about season 1 here
now that i am watching this show it will probably get axed
rose byrne should maybe eat a hamburger once in a while, beautiful gal but lollipop head syndrome nagl

she is hideously skinny.

I finally caught up to the latest episode. I think I like this season more than season 2. It's weird, though... this season's story seems less grandiose, as far as the main characters are concerned - like it's more about the case than it is about Ellen vs. Patty - yet they are killing off a key main character.

I think maybe the main problem with this show is that it's too dumb for people looking for a legal equivalent to The Wire, but too dark, complicated, and subtle, for like, people who watch NCIS or whatever. Like, I have a feeling my lawyer friends would scoff at this show the way scientists probably laugh at Fringe.

one thing that amuses/annoys me about this show is that they don't even seem like they practice law. it might as well be a detective agency. Like, you never see straight-out-of-law-school Ellen plugging away at her desk, and on her laptop, until 10:30pm every night. I think she wrote one brief in three seasons. I try to just imagine they are doing that shit on the side and that it would be boring to show, but damn... especially with the straight out of law school chick trying to prove herself, you'd think she would have less spare time.

I don't think too dumb compared to the The Wire is really appropriate at all, since this show isn't even trying to be so "realistic" or in the same genre - this show is a character-based mystery thriller. Damages is actually quite smart, particularly in its storytelling via character dynamics - making you constantly wondering what every character is after, how they're all related/communicating/lying to each other - I can't think of any other show on the air that's as good or superbly acted. Damages just isn't going to appeal to people who can't keep track and pick up all the nuances of these relationships - most continuity-heavy shows more heavily rely on plot for this sort of hook instead. The flashforward structures are also pretty effective on the whole, I think only Lost even tries anything as interesting on a season-long basis.

People could totally go for this show if they gave it a chance, but Damages has always been totally mismarketed ("Live the lifestyle of Patty Hewes! By Cadillac!") and probably isn't helped by completely dissimilar programming on the channel, like Nip/Tuck or Rescue Me or the 297th airing of Fantastic Four. (Though perhaps Sons of Anarchy or Justified are slightly closer in spirit?) Maybe because it's such a female-dominated show that's not your typical Grey's Anatomy or Desperate Housewives type soap.

I do agree though that, surprisingly, the whole Tobin family drama is better than last year's William Hurt/family drama, since the concept seemed pretty thin at first, but the acting as usual has really made it work. Not that I wasn't pretty amused by Kevin Corrigan last year, but just compare that to how entertaining Martin Short's brief character scenes are in every episode this year. You're totally right about how it seems less grandiose, despite the stakes being much higher all around.

I vaguely remember in the first season there were a lot more scenes of Ellen telling her fiance/family members that she was too busy to ever see them since she was working late in the office - I think we've seen enough of those scenes in this show to be safely assumed at this point that all these people are busy all the time doing boring clerical work. Court appearances and so on work pretty minimally into the plot, which I think is a good choice for this show.

Still kinda sad that this is likely gonna be it - only three episodes left, and I doubt they're going to get a renewal or really wrap up the Frobisher storyline for good.

god that was a long post, my apologies

I don't mean to slag the show by being all, "it's dumber than the Wire" or anything... I just meant that maybe that's one reason why this show hasn't tapped into that 'don't watch anything but intelligent cable dramas' crowd that seem to support shows like Breaking Bad.

No, it was a good post - not too long at all! I don't have time to respond to all of it, but I'll try to get on later. I agree with most of your points anyway, though. It's sad to hear that this show is probably dying.

http://www.talkingtoyourselfbook.com/uploads/1/7/0/2/1702575/7361888.jpg

Apparently DirecTV might try to pick up the show and share half the costs with FX, the way they did with Friday Night Lights. I hope they do, as I really do not want this to be the last season.

I don't know a single person who has kept up with Friday Night Lights since they did that, but at least it is still on the air, I guess.

Just realized that the Antiguan crook is Brother Mouzone from The Wire. Mind blown.

1/2 of the cast are wire alums

Turns out Lily Tomlin is one cold-blooded character, huh? That scene w/her and Campbell Scott was great.

i had a feeling they had something good cooking for her, since she was pretty important in the first few episodes and then disappeared for a while

Also, I literally LOLed when they were doing the table read for the Frobisher movie and the dude started doing the Zeljko Ivanek drawl. That was amazing.

I'm so behind on this season.

gotta say i don't think it's as good as the last two...

too serious somehow, and a bit slow

but i liked the second season, possibly even more than the first

then again i watched both of the earlier ones on dvd over a weekend, which might be a better way to do it

hope it does get rescued as is rumoured

everything's so close - so psyched for the finale!

btw, i love how completely fucked Jill is (the mother of Patty's future grandchild) and how she really has NO CLUE the kind of revenge she's in for

also campbell scott perfectly getting crazier and more evil with every appearance, even as his scenes get briefer

everybody knows that this show is over everybody knows the finale was trash

trash? no way. it was more or less the same kind of finale we get every year, which was great

on top of that it's a nice series finale if it doesn't come back

meh it failed to resolve the timeline & the plot resolutions were rushed and nonsensical. final scene was dope tho

Timeline seemed pretty resolved to me. In particular, Tom's actual murder and the bridge suicide red herring were pretty unexpected and well handled. Also, for once, the angle with Patty's son wasn't a complete misdirection!

The only part I was waiting for that wasn't quite explained totally or left out was when Ellen went to Tom's wife and asked her "Who else knew about me and Tom?" when it was still being implied that they were either having an affair or were going to open a practice together, I don't quite get that one. My only guess is that it had something to do with the final evidence that Ellen eventually retrieved from the awesome hobo.

I wish they'd gotten a full two hours instead of 90 minutes - it was a little rushed - but the pieces still came together.

my biggest eyeroll.gif was michael knowing by magic exactly where his momz was at so he could hit her with the car he stole i mean

re: timeline idk i couldnt really get a grip on what was happening relative to anything else - when was ellen @ the station when did tom die (b4 or after mama tobin? i guess it doesnt matter) how did tom get home w/ those stab wounds & why was joe @ is apt in the 1st place? idk feels like none of it really held 2gether imo. & usually theres more of a coda that resolves shit? also didnt really understand cowboy cop wanting to get revenge against frobz like the scene with the dead doc was really good couldve left it @ that.

Michael didn't know by magic, he knew Ellen was supposed to meet Patty back at her own apartment because Ellen just told him a few minutes earlier. Alternatively, he figured she was coming back from the police station after talking with Jill.

Ellen was at the police station after Tom died, she got called in when they found her ID in the bloody purse (from the dumpster with Tom's body). Tom died presumably while Ellen was stranded after Michael stole her car.

Tom crawling home with the stab wounds was purely for dramatic effect, when he could have simply called 911 instead - but he had just been kicked out of his home a few days ago and was desperate to see his wife and kids again. (Also, the stab wounds were bad, but they were also from a pen knife - not necessarily fatal, and I'm don't think Zedek's goon really was trying to kill him, just torture him for information.)

Joe was at Tom's apartment because he was drunk and believed that Lenny had just made a deal for testimony with him, and wanted revenge - really liked that all of those "Joe makes really bad decisions when he's drunk" storylines lead up to this.

i will miss u, rose byrne

is this show cancelled then?

yeah, it's off fx and nobody else has picked it up

I finally got around to checking out the final two episodes, and I have to say that it was probably time for this show to die. Each season got a little bit worse imo.

my biggest eyeroll.gif was michael knowing by magic exactly where his momz was at so he could hit her with the car he stole i mean

I think I said, "Oh brother!" aloud when this was revealed - even though I kind of knew it was coming, but hoping it wouldn't. :-/

the finale was p bad

i didn't think the season was a total bust by any means

but i think they erred taking ellen too far away from patty, and there were other problems

rose byrne is doing a paul feig movie w. kirsten wiig... that's kind of irrelevant, i just like rose byrne is all

she makes me swoon

she's also got a prominent role in the sure-to-be-awful Get Him to the Greek

im an apatow stan so im hoping to like it. idea of byrne doing comedy kinda incongruous after three seasons of "damages".

rose bryne is crazy pretty. hard 2 img her doing comedy cuz she nvr really appears to be human but well see

she is sickeningly thin. hope she's ok.

sorry, "sickening" was mean

I've finally got around to watching s3 and watched it over the space of about 1 week. It was fantastic! I love how it was scaled down compared to s2 but still so intense. Plus, a lot of s2 hinged on you thinking Ellen shot Patty in the flashforwards when that was just a big trick, and I hate when they pull that shit, but they only did it a few times here (like Alex's "conjugal visit", the implication that Ellen & Tom get together). They took it too far in s2, so it was like in 24, if you don't see someone actually die then you can assume they're still around somewhere - in Damages if you don't see something explicitly said or done, you can assume what they're implying is leading you up the garden path.

I even got over the weirdness of Martin "Shoot me, Dragon!" Short being a serious character - he was so good in this. I hope the slightly rushed Ted Danson comeuppance doesn't mean this is over for good?

probably. no news on the DirectTV talks lately, so it's likely dead... at least they were nice enough to give us a legit series ending (that doesn't preclude killing a possible fourth season)

I can finally open this thread without fear of spoilers now the final episode has been shown in Britain. I thought it was great and I can't believe it had low and falling ratings in the USA. They should definitely call it a day though rather than try to find someone to take on a fourth series.

http://www.deadline.com/2010/07/fxs-damages-saved-by-directtv-deal-drama-going-to-satcaster-for-seasons-45/

well now

yes!

shoulda saved Party Down instead. certainly way cheaper to produce, plus they might not have marketed it so crappily.

just watched the first two seasons of this in about... 5 days. one of the best things i've seen on tv, ever.

the scene in s1, close sitting on the beach chair at her summer house after she gets off the phone with uncle pete, and she starts crying - did anyone else find that incredibly unsettling/disturbing?? it was one of the repetitive flash scenes, and after the first couple of times i found myself looking away bc it was so unbearable. amazing acting.

yeah, i loved that bit - they keep you guessing about the context all season and it's still a rattling image

watching season 2 now. 1 episode left. all in all a good season, although it starts slow and only picks the pace up at episode 6 or 7. one thing i don't like is the casting. why did they use such comical/cliched bad guys? also, the 2 FBI guys look too dumb to be FBI guys.

just started watching this (season 1) off netflix last night, it is awesome and kind of addictive popcorn tv (by which I mean, you run through four or five episodes, one bad of popcorn, realize it is 1am and stumble off to bed)

new series in a few days

? not til July I thought

this says weds: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0914387/episodes#season-4

that might be based on a confusing wikipedia article which basically said this:
http://www.poptower.com/news-22685/damages-season-4-directtv-premiere.htm

Can't find owt in the TV listings either :(

directtv is running this from the beginning and acting like it's a new series, which was confusing.

i can't read this thread because i'm still watching s1 but goddamn this show is good

the scene where ted danson goes to his ghostwriter's apartment, gets in an argument with him, punches him in the nose, and in the next scene is typing "MY LIFE" on a computer, it's like he's crossing over to his character from Bored to Death

still can't read this thread

watched all of s1 over the weekend. i think we watched five episodes in a row on friday night. so good. also so many character actors that you recognize from other things.

Yeah, Season 1 of this show is perfect - definitely one of my favorite TV shows. Seasons 2 & 3 aren't quiet as good, but they're still excellent - any news on Season 4? When is that supposed to start?

is season 4 a real thing? omg i will lose my shit!!!

season 2 has tim olyphant in it and is fine by me

yeah the show got picked up by Direct TV for two more seasons - S4 was supposed to start in January I think but it got pushed back

season 2 has tim olyphant in it and is fine by me

― horseshoe

otm

when the fuck is s3 coming to netflix

season 3 is on netflix in canada.

season 1 was great, especially the first half, when the future scenes are so disturbing. but they were too focused on the whodunnit aspect, even adding a character that only existed in order to be a red herring. i'm a few episodes into season 2 and it's not gripping me yet.

one thing i was uncertain about in s1 was if the crazy stalker woman was affiliated with the hit men or if it was just a coincidence that she was bugging them. because in the scene where david kicks her out and then the hit men are RIGHT THERE and hit him on the head, it seems like she would have seen them and maybe responded somehow. but if she was with them, they went to the trouble of giving her a history of stalking other dudes and having restraining orders? which i guess isn't that far-fetched in the context of the show. but it was just kind of unclear to me.

i guess she was probably meant to be part of the conspiracy but it wasn't really spelled out

btw:

trust no one

it never even occurred to me that she was part of the conspiracy! it's plausible, but she did just have a history of stalking dudes. (yes i have just rewatched season 1 for the third time no i am not embarrassed)

i think she was more of a red herring that seems like a significant part of the plot early on.

i had no idea this was coming back!

damn directv savin good shows

i never, ever rewatch tv shows but i think i might make the exception for this one. i feel like there was probably a lot of stuff i missed that'll make me 'ooohhh' the 2nd time round.

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS
it took me like the entire first season to realise that the shady cop/hitman dude is mel's husband from flight of the conchords.

i recognized him as the guy from breaking bad season 3 as soon as i heard his voice!

Just finished season 2. What a bunch of shit. The bad guys had to do some seriously stupid bullshit in order to be caught. The only good episodes were the ones about uncle Pete, and they pretty much ignored the season's plot line.

Season 3 is much better. I agree 2 is weak.

aw i liked season 2. really wishing they'd go ahead and put s3 on DVD in the US already, although i don't have DirecTV so it's not like i'll be able to watch s4 when it starts this summer anyway.

i finally got to see s3 - got sick of waiting for it on netflix and found it on some shady site (surprising good image quality and fast loading time on wisevid). sooo good! obv not as good as the s1, but still completely absorbing.

someone asked upthread about the ph call between ellen and deb in a flashforward, where she asks 'did anyone else know about me and tom?' - that is a reference to them starting a law firm together (she talks about this with the cop). kind of dumb bc it was just to push the are-they-having-an-affair line and didn't actually come up anywhere else.

i also didn't get how tom made it to his house without someone seeing him and taking him to a hospital.

s3 now on netflix instant

i never finished this! i think it was running around the time i moved and i never got back to it. thank you for reminding me!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Clis_h36aiM

now with bangs

John Goodman is the villain this season? Awesome.

Brilliant

So excited.

it looks like ott amped-up conspiracy shit over 'spooky' but im ok w/ that

Anything with Patty Hewes in it is worth watching.

considering they apparently wrapped up all the old plot threads at the end of S3 I might pick up w/ this again if I hear it's good and no longer shitty and boring.

do you mean s3 was boring? I'd agree it wasn't as good as s1 & s2

no I mean S2 was boring! I quit halfway through and never watched S3. I remember reading that William Hurt basically had no clue what his character was supposed to be, which neatly sums up my general feeling about that season - lots of smoke and mirrors ultimately concealing nothing much.

Oh, how wrong you are, Simon H. S2 is better than S1. Perhaps this show isn't really for you, and to continue watching it would make no sense.

jk

But I do really love S2

S3 was so good. Martin Short! Campbell Scott!

I only really know S2 and S3 and I loved both of them (even though I was a bit disappointed at the ending of S2). My wife watched S1 and I was in the room, but mostly wasting my time on the internet and only semi-aware at best of what was going on, but it looked pretty good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiOumcwJETo

Anything with Patty Hewes in it is worth watching.

― The Not Liking Radiohead Awards (Turangalila), Sunday, July 3, 2011 2:54 PM (6 hours ago)

Of all the things I have seen Turangalila be OTM about, he is rarely as OTM as when he is writing these things about Damages.

season really isn't grabbing me much at all, but I'll keep watching.

Am I missing this or is not on in Britain (yet)?

Hold on, it's started again? Yay.

re-watching this, it's funny how like the end of every single scene is a shot of someone lookin all, 'i am secretly plotting against you'

i had forgotten that gail-from-breaking-bad was the hired goon in this.

caught up. oh man, the obviously lower budget is really hurting this show. they can't even do establishing shots anymore!

also, can't help but feel like they had some a bunch of network notes telling them to dumb it down, especially the first episode where it seems everything gets repeated or overly explained.

OTOH, they probably got a note to have more scenes with Patty and Ellen together, which is definitely an improvement, since they've been getting less and less of those since season 1

still, vaguely feels like damages, you got your creepy stalkery dude, morally conflicted corporate villain, questionable major witness, ellen doing things that patty would do, etc.

Didn't know this was back on! s4 started in US last week by the looks of it. Gonna go catch up although I have zero recollection of the last season.

watching season 2 now, it's weird whenever they have greta van sustern on, normally on-air she has a permanent look of disgust or something, but when she's 'interviewing patty hewes' she's all smiley and personable.

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my sister is watching the second season of damages, because she's on a tim olyphant bender, but she never saw the first season. we've been gchatting and she's been saying things like "i don't think patty tried to kill ellen" and "patty is nice." this is what happens when you skip season one.

Lololololol

oh, horseshoe, your sister is doing it wrong!

i told her! little sisters, man.

Much as I love this show it's becoming a parody of itself, right? especially the trick shots on the latest ep that seemed to last about 20 mins - FBI on route to a bust... cut to bad guy's apartment... MORE FEDS.... MORE BAD GUY OMG HE DOESN'T SUSPECT... MOAR FEDS!! ... KNOCK ON BAD GUY'S DOOR HELLYEAHawwww it was all a trick. Totally called that from the start and it was painful. Only 24 should be allowed to do that.

Also I cannot take my eyes off the tiny pencil neck of Patti Hewes' therapist.

This season is not very good so far and it's making me sad.

yeah i just stopped watching after the first three episodes tbh

The patty ellen tension is toned way down which takes lots of the suspense away. Meanwhile, cosign on the whole "parody of itself" thing with tormented boss, out-of-control right hand man, lawyer going to get slowly sucked into dark world of corporate evil, etc. Meanwhile there's like zero ambiguity in the case itself, and the evil plots to kill people, threaten em, blow em up, whatever, started way too early and too big so its much more like a grisham novel or whatever and much less sort of an "omg this is getting dark" thing. So a big disappointment all around. Still watching though.

i half maybe given up after two. only r b rose byrne is making the third ep a possibility.

Ok this has now gone, tonewise, the way of very, very dark comedy. The twists have gotten more interesting, at least!

OK I just got into this series over last weekend and I'm already halfway through season 2. Not going to read the past posts here yet but I'm enjoying this so far.

i just watched the first 2 episodes
this show is freakin intense!
i don't know if i'll be able to manage

omg rrrobyn you HAVE TO.

I know I know... Like the only way it could be more tailor made for me is if it had spies or marines in it.

I just have to be really disciplined abt watching it because a) I have work to do and b) too much of it will turn me into a ball of weird tension. Basically the reasons I haven't watched all kinds of other shows that everyone says I need to watch (eg, the wire, the supranos, etc).

Like the only way it could be more tailor made for me is if it had spies or marines in it.

looool

haha srsly my fave tv drama wld be a cross btwn Battlestar, The Unit and this. Like if Law & Order took place in a slightly alternate future and the lawyers were all ninjas in a semi-rogue military operation.

that sounds delightful

you know what is a great Damages moment from the second season

SPOILERS

when Patty is questioning Michael's thirtysomething girlfriend about what on earth she's doing dating a teenager and the woman is all, i think we both know your son is not a child and Glenn Close sort of leans back a little and regards her like she's a bug and asks, "are you mentally ill?"

finally watching season 4 of Damages. it's not that bad, you guys. ellen is mysteriously a huge idiot all of a sudden, but whatevs. i think i would watch glenn close sit around and bore into people with her eyes for 45 minutes at a time.

Much as I love this show it's becoming a parody of itself, right? especially the trick shots on the latest ep that seemed to last about 20 mins - FBI on route to a bust... cut to bad guy's apartment... MORE FEDS.... MORE BAD GUY OMG HE DOESN'T SUSPECT... MOAR FEDS!! ... KNOCK ON BAD GUY'S DOOR HELLYEAHawwww it was all a trick. Totally called that from the start and it was painful. Only 24 should be allowed to do that.

Also I cannot take my eyes off the tiny pencil neck of Patti Hewes' therapist.

― kinder, Wednesday, August 17, 2011 1:41 AM (6 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is totally otm though. i think i might have really low standards.

yo man why you gotta hate on Fisher Stevens

finally got around to finishing this past season. the lower budget and much crappier direction really hurt, but at least john goodman and dylan baker were great, as the villains usually are. ellen and patty were are good as ever, but the plots were not quite there...

i kinda wish Ellen had gotten more to do this season. also, that she cut off those bangs. the season might have been more emotionally striking if the guy who played the main soldier guy had more range as an actor, honestly

omg, fake ray fisk

Not reading this thread for fear of spoilers, but this show is great.

pilot was easily the best in awhile

also feel like glenn close has been her late 30s for about 30 years now

you're in for a treat!

have not read thread b/c i am approaching the end of a season 1 binge (on netflix)
consequently, my brain has turned into a paranoid mush and that mush is called "frobisher"
no idea how this is going to stretch out for 5 seasons, but am enjoying it one betrayal at a time

the first season is by far the best of the 3, so far, unfortunately.

first season is definitely the best, but i love all the seasons including the self-parodic fourth one. patty hewes means so much to me.

part of that makes me want to keep watching and part of it makes me want to stop before anything gets self-parodic because that is not my steez
(i will probably keep watching no matter what btw)

you have to watch it all!!! well you can do whatever you want, of course, but i think/hope you will enjoy this show a lot.

NO PRESSURE

i still haven't seen seasons 3 or 4, loved the first 2.

also want to note that katie is my favorite character so far
she looks like jodie foster, always wears nice clothes, and has only hurt herself so far (i think?)

i also like the way they treat people's relationships with their dogs, even if there has been some dog violence in the show. dogs have identities and the people relate with their dogs very differently, as people do.

Watched the first season with my wife, thought it was pretty ridiculous but enjoyed it. Watched season two with my wife, thought it was pretty ridiculous but not in a good way. Can't imagine watching any other season. Frankly, can't wrap my head around the fact that there even are future seasons.

please no spoilers but i am going to unbookmark just in case

this show has made me googly with paranoia, but not in a bad way just a funny way

i loved season one and kinda gave up halfway through season 2. season one was just so tense everything after is just...after.

when i first started watching this show, i was like, finally a show that matches my constant level of paranoia

see season 2 to me was really impressive in a "i didn't think they could follow that first season but this is almost as good" way

1st season = completely awesome

Started season 2 and only lasted half an episode.

not watching the whole season seems like a way of saying "i don't have an actual opinion on it" rather than "i have a negative opinion of it"

that's like saying that a person who walks out on a movie has no opinion on it.

walking out of a theater after paying for a ticket at least indicates a much stronger reaction then 'never got around to putting disc 2 at the top of my queue'

the season might have been more emotionally striking if the guy who played the main soldier guy had more range as an actor, honestly

BULLSHIT
Chris Messina Appreciation Thread

That said, I think I would rank the seasons:
1 > 3 > 4 > 2

For some reason, Season 4 felt curiously disconnected from the previous ones. Maybe because Tate Donovan and Ted Danson are gone? Maybe because it's three years later? Maybe because it was only 10 episodes, so there wasn't as much time to fill in gaps? Patty and Ellen have such a complicated history, but that wasn't really touched on outside of Patty's terse conversations with Fisher Stevens. Bringing them together again felt a little too easy. Great performances, though, and the main plot was probably neater than the previous two seasons, while still featuring a few twists.

^^MILD S4 SPOILERS, BTW^^

I finished watching season 3 recently. A real return to form; makes me forget season 2 ever happened.

finally someone who gets it

i haven't even started the new season btw - look forward to talking about it in a year

I am caught in the hammy overexplainy third season, i'm afraid. still enjoying, but not as much as i did before (obvs, who could?). i have enjoyed keith carradine, though.

did you like season 2???? people have the most inexplicable contempt for that season but i say: it rules.

yeah, i totally liked season 2 -- i liked the change in ellen, LOVED mystical ted danson and his fucking hilarious healer, love love love michael

mystical frobisher transformation is really one of my favorite tv moments of recent memory

http://static.whatsontv.co.uk/images/09326_160522_Ep8FrobisherPeaceGardened.jpg

Looking at some synopses of S2, I realize there was actually a lot of good stuff in it. I just remember thinking that the main plot got a bit convoluted, and I kind of didn't care about all the corporate hijinks or anything to do with Marcia Gay Harden.

i love how she ritually smokes 1 cig by herself every night
also like her weird relationship with her employer (who i can't stop seeing as the higher up law enforcement dude from the wire btw)

only subplot i didn't much care for was wes + ellen + guns
that was kinda dumb

i hope patty gets to s keith carradine and that he is not a creep -- i've only gotten as far as the part where he comes over to her apt to examine it for possible remodeling

oh and holy shit, campbell scott is so good. so conflicted and messed up, that guy. he is great.
not a fan of martin short.

i've clearly been saving up a lot of thoughts about this show.

(who i can't stop seeing as the higher up law enforcement dude from the wire btw)

Oh yeah I almost mentioned "Major Rawls" in that post.

only subplot i didn't much care for was wes + ellen + guns

Ha remember the episode that ended with Wes opening up the gun cabinet and looking all malevolent to a speed-metal soundtrack?

it took me a while to even care enough to figure out who that guy was and what his role was in the whole thing
is he a nut? is he a cop? is he an assassin? who cares.

she live in my hood

not a fan of martin short.

I don't know where you are in S3, but I think his character is actually really interesting and complex and was kind of surprised at how well Short inhabited the role. Better than Darrell Hammond in S2, whose presence always seemed ridiculous to me.

Oh TOTALLY. I feel bad saying this but he seemed to be doing an exaggerated Al Gore, Hired Assassin. I forgot about that.

CAMPBELL SCOTT, right??? I love him.

campbell scott was the fucking shit in S3
i loved Martin Short too

ooh thanks for reminding me that this is back. Just watched both of the first 2 eps, it's looking pretty good although I can't believe the flashforward bits especially after all the fakeouts they've done. Plus that Hoggle guy seems to only be there so Patty can explain things to him/us.

Wow, what happened to this show? Not really interested in discussing which pre-Direct TV era seasons are the best but this new season is so weird. I'd like to chalk it up to "they're just lower budget now" but there's no mystery to it anymore and it seems to have lost that eeriness that made it so appealing.

Last night's episode was like some bad 90s movie with like, hacker keyboard battles and shit. What is this. So sad, this was really one of my favorite shows.

Anyone still watching? I have no idea what this show is doing. I do <3 John Hannah though.

i got overwhelmed with other things to watch and i stopped watching like halfway through season 3
i figure pattyhewes will still be there whenever i'm ready to come back

huh.

she killed her? i think?

i had a thought today that michael's character reminded me of a blonde jackson browne
not sure where that came from but there you have it

totally forgot to watch the rest of this show. i think i'm partway through season 3? 4? i can't even remember.

she killed her? i think?

um what? I just watched the series finale. It was kind of a weird season but I liked it. AV Club has a good recap.

man i had no idea rose byrne is australian

My wife talked me into reading "Gone Girl," which I did not like, mostly because it reminded me of the first season of "Damages" (which I also didn't really like) condensed into a novel, totally ridiculous but with no likable characters at all.

ok so in the first season there's this blond chick who chats up the molina dude in a bar and then later runs up on him with a gun in her hand (concealed). the hewes bodyguard guy shoots her in the boob and she dies (molina dude just runs away). there is never any mention of this ever again.

also after rose byrne is alluvasudden cleared of all douchey fiancé murder related charges why do the police stop investigating? they're like, ok, you didn't do it, case closed.

The stalker chick in the first season was a red herring suspect for the murder of Malina. That was her only purpose -- viewer misdirection.

I believe they stated that the Malina murder was a cold case somewhere in season 2.

"I definitely have breast wound". The issue is casually dismissed and never revisited during the rest of the series.

I can't remember much about season 1 but it's never really clear whether the police are still investigating or why they do half the things they do in later serieses.

also after rose byrne is alluvasudden cleared of all douchey fiancé murder related charges why do the police stop investigating? they're like, ok, you didn't do it, case closed.

I didn't watch season 2 very closely but I thought a huge driver for Rose Byrne working as a mole within the firm was to help get more evidence to link Patty to the murder of her fiance

she's trying to screw patty for arranging her own [rose byrne's] attempted murder, i think she knows-for-sure that ted danson had her fiancé killed.

season 1 was entertaining nonsense, season 2 a little too silly--is it worth continuing?

yes

yeah it's pretty ok

just started this show on netflix, very enjoyable. Also fun to watch an over-the-top portrayal of a profession nowhere near as sexy and full of intrigue as the show makes it seem.

finished first season. second season doesn't start out so strong, but will give it a chance.

I believe we made it through the second season before we could no longer suppress our "OMG, this is so stupid" instinct.

This is one of those shows where iirc every single scene started out with a character pouring a big glass of brown liquor, which perhaps explains why everyone is so crazypants.

The show takes a lot of liberties of course with the legal world, some of which I have no problem with but some of which bother me. For example there's a scene where Patty Hewes just flat out rejects a $500 million settlement offer over the phone without taking it to her clients. Would be an extremely fucked up thing to do IRL. Also bothered me that Ellen is able to get back into her apartment when it's a murder scene -- no police tape or anything. I have no problem suspending disbelief for a show like this -- it's obviously not supposed to be a realistic legal procedural or anything. And they actually manage to get certain details surprisingly well. But there are elements that go too far. It's one of those shows where you can really feel that different writers are writing different parts or episodes.

Like at its best in S1, there would be whole episodes where almost every line spoken had a hidden meaning, where you always knew that every character wasn't saying everything they thought, etc., and that made the whole thing really fun to watch. In the first episode of S2 there are a lot of scenes that don't do much, at least not that I can tell so far. And the taxi driver sequence is corny as fuck.

Argh, S2 so frustrating but still good enough to keep watching. Glad they brought back Danson, he is so great in this.

Wish they'd given my boy Tim-O some decent shit to do

S3 is better, and very addictive, but at the same time it's so frustrated how written-on-the-fly the show feels sometimes, like plot twists that make NO SENSE just for the sake of a plot twist, e.g.

(SPOILER)
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Tobin's daughter is really his son's daughter, but Tobin's wife kept it from his son all these years because he was "messed up back then" or something. WTF, what wife would pretend that her husband had a daughter through an affair in order to prevent her son from thinking HE had had a daughter?

Finally finished the series after all these years. Even seasons (2/4) kinda sucked, Star Trek movie-style, the odd seasons were all good (1/3/5). Overall worth it though, season 5 especially came around in the second half with all the callbacks and wrap-ups from earlier seasons, especially to the first and best season. Even when this show slogged, I still admired their commitment to their various themes (PTSD, evil parentings, wonderful rainbows of moral shade) and they generally pulled it off really well even when the plots and flash-foward fakeouts would get too ridiculous.

Last night's episode was like some bad 90s movie with like, hacker keyboard battles and shit. What is this. So sad, this was really one of my favorite shows.

xp lol I loved all that absurd Tobin crap

Loved season one, liked the parts of season 2 that weren't dependent on the alleged sexual magnetism of William Hurt, liked season 3 until the big "here's what happened" finale (forget why but felt more contrived than necessary), gonna start 4 eventually

didn't realize there was a fifth season. guess i've got more summer watching now.

loved the first 2 seasons, still wanna see the other 3, need to see if they're on netflix or amazon prime or if i need to get the dvds or something.

they're all streaming on Netflix right now