Before I even start telling you about FX’s new show Damages, let me tell you that I was kindly invited by McCutcheon to blog about it, because she doesn’t watch it and I do. That rarely happens and it results in you having to read my comparatively unqualified opinion.
Damages has a lot of well-known and liked actors that bring the show to life in a marvellous way. Glenn Close is brilliant as Patty Hewes, a high-profile litigator with slight ethics issues, it seems. Tate Donovan plays her second in command, Tom Shayes who I haven’t quite figured out just yet. Then again, I really haven’t figured out any of the characters because the show is so fantastically grey. Ted Danson plays Arthur Frobisher, a fishy business tycoon and Patty’s opponent.
In the beginning – after one minute of a bloody, half naked young woman wandering lost in the Streets of NYC – everything is clear. Patty is good and Frobisher is bad. A little further into the show everything is turned upside down and nothing is as it seems. Patty is not the litigator in shining armour, but has a dog killed and her arms deep down in other rather dodgy schemings. And Frobisher turns out to be a loving husband and father, quite opposite his reputation as a ruthless business man, who is probably guilty of a big-time fraud.
Having seen five episodes I’m no wiser on how Ellen (Rose Byrne) ended up all bloody and messed up at the police station. Unlike other shows, Damages keeps my mind occupied with working out wild theories on how it all happened and who is who, only to be contradicted when watching the next episode.
The acting is brilliant, especially Glenn Close. I can’t help but really like Patty Hewes for being a little morally challenged. Ellen unnerves the shit out of me for being so naive – and then I tell myself that even though I feel like I don’t know anything about how it all happened, I still have more information than poor Ellen and it’s not her fault that she’s always the last to know.
The show is 100 % drama and suspense paired with a good cast and nice acting. As for the rest I’m not near being qualified to judge, but I feel that camera stuff and all that is good too. The music certainly is!
posted by finn
