“Damages” — She Spat At Me
Ah, the pinewood derby. Simpler times, no?
There were two interesting things going on in this week’s episode of Damages on FX. The first was Arthur Frobisher’s futile attempt at saving his name. With the help of a ghostwriter he gets a publishing deal so that he may get his side of the story told. Unfortunately, the publishing company is far more interested in his side of the accounting scandal that’s at the crux of the series. Arthur is more interested in telling America about his childhood and how he overcame his dyslexia. More after the jump…
The storyline was brilliantly played by Mr. Danson. It is so rarely we get to see such a richly portrayed bad guy in television or film. Part of what makes his character so interesting is we, the audience, only get glimpses of him involved with nefarious characters and deeds. Tony Soprano was a bad man, and we saw it. He killed people and stole and cheating on his wife and it was all in full view. He was also the story’s protagonist, which rendered a lot of our feelings about him moot. We rooted against him only in theory. On The Sopranos, Phil was the bad guy, or Ralphie was the bad guy, despite the fact that the only thing that differentiated them from Tony was screen time. With Arthur Frobisher we know he’s the bad guy, because cinematic rules say so, but as far as we’re concerned he’s a completely charming person, loving father, and self-made billionaire.
This made his drunken soliloquy in the kitchen of his ghostwriter so perfect. The longer he went on about his childhood — an unremarkable childhood — the more angered he became. You could see in his face that the only thing that really sets him apart from any other faceless millionaire in this country is the very scandal he’s trying to get out from under. It was here that gives up and starts taking shots at the only other person in the room, the writer, ending with him punching the guy in the face with a pinewood derby car.
The next morning we see him sober behind a computer, writing his story by himself, knowing full well that all he was doing was proving to himself that his life had meaning.
The second thing that struck me this week was that as much as Damages is about high stakes litigation, it’s starting to become a fairly decent look at the dissolution of a relationship. In this case our once madly-in-love couple, Ellen and David, are falling apart due to circumstances out of their control (though apparently fully in the control of two high priced legal teams). Regardless of who is pulling the strings, the love versus ambition question is becoming front and center in this series. What are these characters willing to give up in order to achieve?
For the first five episodes I was pretty bored with all of the relationship nonsense that seemed to be clogging up the narrative, but now the story line has developed into something far more intricate. It’s now about falling out of love as you change as a person. Pretty interesting stuff, really, for a show that started as nothing more than a dressed up legal drama.
Damages is getting better with age.
July 21st, 2008 at 3:58 pm
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