“Damages” – episode 5

This one begins as usual with Ellen, still in the interrogation room, telling her attorney, Hollis Nye, that someone tried to kill her – she didn’t kill David. And then we see more scenes of Ellen and some person fighting with a knife with blood all over, Ellen screaming and dog barking from out on the deck. After that wake-up scene, it turns back to what led up to all this mayhem.

There’s a good scene with interesting dialogue between Frobisher and Ray Fiske. Frobisher wants to pull the offer, and he launches into football jargon. He asks Fiske if he ever played team sports and Ray says fencing. Frobisher smirks at that and says Fiske is using “prevent defense” where you’re not playing to win, just playing not to lose. Fiske replies “I’m afraid you lost me there, Art.” Frobisher says he wants to play man to man – “Blitz the shit out of them.” He tells Fiske everything should be ok now that Katie Connor is gone, and they should go to trial. Fiske replies, “The sun don’t shine on the same dog’s tail all week.” To which Frobisher says, “I have no idea what that meant.” Fiske replies, “That means we got lucky.” Frobisher is going ahead with the trial anyway.

The show moves along like a train out of control. Tom quits and takes an offer from Martin Cutler as partner in his firm. Patty’s clients fire her and hire Tom. This was obviously a set-up by Frobisher or possibly Patty. Patty tells Tom he is a No. 2, not a No. 1. That’s his talent, his limit. So Tom visits Patty early in the morning with his list of negotiations for his return to her company. She agrees to all except partnership. His name won’t be on the door - it will still be just Hewes and Associates. Tom accepts. She smiles after he leaves as if she planned the whole thing which she probably did!

David tells Ellen what Katie said about Gregory and how bad things really are. Ellen goes to Patty and tells her everything and is surprised to see Tom back at work. They say they’ll get right on it. They had known this all along but were waiting for Ellen to confirm everything.

Gregory is beaten up by Man in Stroller’s thugs and warned to play along with them and not to call Katie anymore. The Man in Stroller is the missing link in the trial and can be brought down by Gregory if Patty ever gets Gregory on the stand.

The last scene has Ellen’s attorney telling detectives that someone tried to kill Ellen in Patty Hewe’s apartment. The detectives go there and find no body. The scene returns to actual time this occurred. Ellen’s struggling with her attacker and apparently kills him/her. There’s blood flying all over, and Ellen’s screaming. You hear a voice-over of Ellen saying “I’m so sorry, Miss Hewes,” and also Patty saying, “Trust no one” as she had told Ellen before. The scene ends with a horrible shriek from Ellen.

I don’t know what the hell to believe anymore. Patty’s extremely devious and seems to plan every move that’s made by anyone, even though it’s not apparent on the surface. She can have horrible things done at her direction and still come up smiling. She is one, cool bitch. This is a show that would be impossible to stop watching. I call it a winner!