Pawns and Players: "Damages" Casts a Dangerous Spell

Can I just say how bloody much I'm already addicted to FX's new drama Damages?

As if the pilot didn't grab me from the opening scene, last night's installment of Damages ("Jesus, Mary, and Joe Cocker") had me completely hooked. This is riveting stuff and, if you're not watching this taut gem of a series, you're missing out on some brilliant television. (Fortunately, FX is giving you a zillion opportunities during the week to catch any single episode and My Network TV will re-air the first two episodes tonight.)

Frobisher. Just when they had me thinking that Arthur Frobisher (Ted Danson) wasn't the greedy fat cat embezzler that Patty (Glenn Close) has made him out to be, the writers went and pulled out another twist. Frobisher's reaching the end of his rope and he's terrified that this case--and the bad publicity stemming from it--will destroy his picture perfect family. (Sure, that picture doesn't include his little cocaine-fueled trysts in the back of limos.) I thought the scene in which Frobisher weighed whether or not to take a human life--that of key witness Katie (Anastasia Griffith), who happens to be the sister of Ellen (Rose Byrne)'s fiancé--was absolutely beautiful and gorgeously shot (this week's episode was directed by Drive's Greg Yaitanes); one could see the cogs turning inside Frobisher's head as he wrestled with his moral dilemma. Does killing change you, even if you're not the only holding the knife? What is the value of a life? And, if someone's life is going to be destroyed by this trial, is another's life worth less than your own?

Katie. I was pretty sure that Katie was a goner too, especially since Frobisher gave the order to kill her while hopped up on the devil's dandruff. But Katie turned the tables on her would-be attacker, confronting him in the street. I'm still not too sure why Mr. Friendly Killer was going to murder her in broad daylight on a crowded Manhattan street but I assume that it was meant to look like a botched mugging and Katie was once again "in the wrong place at the wrong time." Whatever the message Frobisher and Fiske (Zeljko Ivanek) intended to send, it did reach Katie; she signed those confidentially agreements so fast that she never noticed she was signing in blood. Loved the scene where she kept her distance from Frobisher as he visited "their" restaurant, realizing just who she got in bed with. Speaking of bedding, who would have thought that her big bad secret was a one-night stand in Florida and an ensuing pregnancy, which Katie subsequently terminated? Hmmm, do we think that her former lover (Peter Facinelli) will turn out to be Frobisher's stockbroker?

Patty. I think she is pure, unadulterated evil. She's so evil, she's actually eeeeeeevil. But I think it's great that Damages' writers do want her to have a sliver of humanity, as evidenced in her conversations with her husband and frustration/worry about her son, who has graduated from school expulsions to hiring out strippers. She's manipulative but she's brilliant and she sees the bigger picture of this case as though it were a life-size chess game, moving her pawns across the board without any care of who gets hurt so long as Patty wins at the end. I did think that she had instructed Tom (Tate Donovan) to hire a private investigator but I was surprised that the well-dressed gentleman (The Comeback's Damian Young) turned out to be nothing more sinister than a high-end real estate agent who picked out the perfect apartment for Ellen and David (Noah Bean). And just when Ellen was losing faith in Patty, too. You've got to give her credit: she's a brilliant strategist and she knows when people are lying.

Ellen. Wow, those flash-forward scenes at the end of the episode almost seem to portray Ellen as a cold-blooded killer, the murderer of her beloved boyfriend. After all, she's seen holding that bloody (and rather pointy) Statue of Liberty bookend over David's corpse; then again, maybe she too is just in the wrong place at the wrong time. What could compel Ellen to kill her beloved McDreamy fiancé? Still, it's not Ellen's apartment building that she runs out of--covered in blood and wearing a negligee under a coat--in the pilot episode. No, it's Patty's apartment. Which leads me to believe that there's a hell of a lot we're not seeing yet.

What did you think? Did the second episode live up to the promise of the pilot? And have you fallen as deeply under Damages' spell as I have?

Next week on Damages ("And My Paralyzing Fear of Death"): a mysterious threat could disrupt Patty's entire case against Frobisher while she is distracted by the disappearance of her troubled teenage son; Ellen discovers that she will have to sacrifice everything for her job; and Tom discovers something buried deep in Katie's past.

What's On Tonight

8 pm: The King of Queens (CBS); America's Next Top Model (CW); According to Jim/According to Jim (ABC); So You Think You Can Dance (FOX; 8-9:30 pm)

9 pm: Criminal Minds (CBS); Last Comic Standing (NBC); America's Next Top Model (CW); American Inventor (ABC); Don't Forget the Lyrics (FOX; 9:30-10 pm)

10 pm: CSI: New York (CBS); Dateline (NBC); The Nine (ABC)

What I'll Be Watching

10 pm: Top Chef on Bravo.

On tonight's episode of Top Chef ("Freezer Burn"), the show's producers trot out a now terrifying-looking guest judge Rocco DiSpirito (complete with bleached hair and overly tan skin!) from under whatever rock he's been hiding since the demise of The Restaurant.