“Damages” — We Are Not Animals
Head games.
Kind of a clunker of an episode this week, marred by far too many head games and far too little action. Sure, the story progressed, but only in the sense that we’re now certain of what we already suspected: everyone is playing everyone else — a sentiment that became abundantly clear about thirty minutes into the first week’s episode. More after the jump…
This isn’t to say a series like this demands the visible carnage, but if you’re going to make your audience sit through 55 minutes of two sides fighting over a witness and one side wins, it’d be nice if we could actually see that witness get the bullet to the back of the head. I know, that sounds kind of harsh, but damn, talk about no release.
Of course, the witness really has nothing to do with anything. This is a story about the people who pull the strings, not the puppets. The problem with telling that story is the people in charge are never really in danger of losing anything significant (aside from maybe their time, money and a little ego). The present-day murder mystery tries to correct this by suggesting Patty’s hands may be far dirtier than we might have originally suspected, but the bulk of the show focuses far too intently on cat-and-mouse head games for us to be all that concerned about Ms. Hewes ultimate fate. This is why instead of seeing Greg get popped we see Ray popping his knuckles. It is the suits who matter in this series, not the pawns. Ellen is suppose to represent the link between these two worlds, but has yet to really grab me as a character despite being the focus of the series main mystery.
Perhaps if anything this week’s episode went to show how absolutely vital Ted Danson is to Damages general entertainment level. The series is always variations on “good” but Danson is one of the few members of the cast (Close being the other, to an extent) who makes the show actually fun to watch — and really, isn’t that the point?
