Damaged Goods (Damages)

Member Name: sdean

Product:	Damages
Date:	20/04/09 (103 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Glenn Close and a brilliant story to keep us hooked ! Ted Danson pulled it out of the bag too !

Disadvantages: The same flashbacks were getting annoying after episode 5

Damages was recommended to me as I have watched The Wire, seven seasons of The Shield, I'm really into my intrigue and deception (only in TV life of course). Law drama's are not really my cup of tea, but as the wonderful Glenn Close was in the Shield for a season, I thought I would give it a go.

Damages Season 1 is 13 episodes. Starting back to front, we meet Ellen, she is in a police interview room all bloody with torn clothes and spaced out look on her face. We realise this is the present and something horrible has happened to her, someone has tried to kill her and have actually killed her fiancée David, she is being held responsible. We travel back in time 6 months to see where this all started.

We re-meet Ellen (Rose Byrne) a pretty lawyer who has a job offer from a law firm, she turns it down as she has an interview at Hewes & Associates. The law firm owned by Patty Hewes (Glenn Close). Her sisters wedding gets in the way of the interview but Patty turns up at the wedding and interviews her on the spot. Ellen can't believe her luck and starts work on the Monday.

Patty and her team are working on a lawsuit against Frobisher(Ted Danson) who has sold out all his employees as he was dealing underhandedly with his stock. This meant his employees with stock and pensions in the company have not only lost their jobs, their security as well. Patty is trying to prove that Frobisher knew the company would go down as he sold his stock the day before news leaked that his company went bust. 5000 people are depending on Patty to get a financial result for them. The case rests on a meeting in Florida in 2002 where they think he was given the information about the company, but they just need to prove it.

It quickly becomes apparent that Katie, David sister is somehow involved in the case Patty is working on. It appears she was in Florida the same weekend, and had actually catered for Frobisher's party. She maintains she knows nothing and doesn't remember seeing anything untoward. However since then, Frobisher - despite having never met Katie, bought her a restaurant on the strength of her pork loin. It becomes apparent to us and to Ellen that patty hired her to get close to Katie and find out what she knows.

~The Result~

I wasn't really a legal drama type person and despite Glenn Close being in this. I was glad it was only 13 episodes. Well was I wrong, this was brilliant. The story went back and forth so many times even in the last episode you weren't sure who tried to kill Ellen. You like then dislike Patty Hewes with frequency and you realise everything is for her and what she wants. She never backs down, or if she appears to, she still gets whatever she wants in the end. Luckily Ellen is really smart and tries to work it out as we do.

There is no legal mumbo jumbo, or technical court room stuff at all in this series, it is more of a detecting story and trying to find out who is lying about what which makes it all the more interesting.
Glenn Close really pulls it out of the bag in this one, and for a long time you see no emotion from her, then when you see it, she is so forceful you are sucked in. When things seem to be obvious it is all explained later on that this is not real at all. It is surprising how many people are sucked in by her, but you can see why. Ted Danson also appears throughout the series and is a brilliant, love to hate him, sometimes good guy, sometimes bad.

The only bit that did annoy was the flashbacks, which are great, but they repeated the same bits in almost every episode, so I was almost fast forwarding by the 5th episode. It was a little too much!
It was a brilliant series which a great cast. From the end of season 1, it looks like Glenn Close and Rose Byrne are going to be season 2 for another battle of wills, so I can't wait to see that.
Crime drama fans, Glenn Close fans and even legal drama fans will enjoy this immensely, it's not been a well advertised programme, but just like the Wire it's a great one !!

Summary: Brilliant legal, detective drama!