Notes on my favorite FX series, “Damages,” which - following its first-season Emmy nomination for best drama - launches its second season tonight :
* Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne) continues to work for both murderous lawyer Patty Hewes (Glenn Close) and vigilant FBI agent Randall Harrison (Mario Van Peebles), who remains determined to send Hewes to stir.
* As they did in season one, flash-forwards starring Byrne frame the first two episodes of season two.
* Season-one villain Arthur Frobisher (Ted Danson), now penniless and hospitalized, is in the very first episode back, but doesn’t appear in the next two.
* Ray Fiske (Zeljko Ivanek), who thoroughly dislodged his brain near the close of season one, makes a non-flashback appearance tonight as well.
* The great William Hurt joins the cast with 2.1, making this not only a “Big Chill” reunion (thanks to star Glenn Close) but also a “Body Heat” reunion (since Danson’s back – though, sadly, Hurt and Danson don’t share any scenes in the early going).
* The great Tim Olyphant (“Deadwood,” “Live Free Or Die Hard”) joins the cast as Wes Krulik, a haunted support-group member and new potential love interest for now fiancé-free Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne).
* Marcia Gay Harden (“The Mist”), billed in the opener’s opening titles, doesn’t show up till 2.2. She’s holding up well!
* Jamie Bamber’s fabulous blonde sister, Anastasia Griffith, is listed in 2.1’s opening titles, but doesn’t reprise her role as fragile Katie Connor until 2.3. Philip Bosco, whose character pursued Ellen’s services in season one, and Michael Nouri, who plays Hewes’ husband, return in 2.3 as well.
* Brett Cullen, who plays an Other on “Lost” and played Alan Alda’s vaguely sinister Christian-coveting running mate on “The West Wing,” is on hand here to manifest corporate menace.
* I'm smitten with this series' opening titles, set to the Bauhaus-ish "When I Am Through With You" by The VLA.
* FX, happily, has already ordered a third season of this mesmerizing series despite its low first-season ratings.
… In a perfect world “Damages” would have folded when the Frobisher case was closed, and Patty’s character was still open to interpretation. The second season has style and suspense, but it’s harder to keep viewers guessing when the characters are so familiar, and the time-scrambling format is no longer as novel. “Damages” is still an entertaining thriller, but second time around, some of the thrill is gone.
… The deliciously tangled story threads, the endless possibilities, the killer performances, the really great lighting, even the mysterious Uncle Pete (Tom Aldredge) are all mustered and seething once again, a siren song of television to which we, our beloved multitasking forgotten, can only surrender once again.
… Why does the word "melodrama" get such a bad rap? If the word is used as a description, it's usually meant as a warning sign. Yet the terrific new season of "Damages" (***1/2) proves just how entertaining well-made melodrama can be. …
… remains one of the most compelling -- and certainly mind-bending -- dramas on television today, with no points taken off for the fact that it falls under the category of "legal thriller."…
… incredibly compelling television. If, in the process of delivering that brand of smart, riveting drama, there are maddening moments of utter confusion, well, so be it. This isn't "The Mentalist" or "Law & Order." It's a serialized mystery that pays off your devotion. Let's not be coy here - if you can't commit, this isn't the show for you. …
… [not that] it's a bad show; it's just not believable. But "Damages" engrosses with plotting, backstabbing, murder and revenge in its arsenal of dramatic devices. … As a serialized, character-driven show, "Damages" embodies the unexpected left turns and mind games that are standard-issue in modern thrillers. By bringing it to television and stocking the cast with fine actors such as Close, Hurt, Ivanek and Danson, "Damages" provides TV viewers with a high-class melodrama, a soap that takes on the semblance of quality despite its over-the-top nature.
… just as working for Patty is ultimately a bad career move because she's going to turn on you in the end, "Damages" is a show that inevitably reveals itself to be less fulfilling than it seems at first glance. … If everything's surprising, then eventually nothing is. …
… Judging by the first two of the season’s 13 new episodes, the tension is delicious, the intriguing relationships ever more strained and complicated, the secrets piling up in even more promising ways. …
… Consider the volume and variety of circumstances provoking use of the phrase "best show on television." … there is a plethora of shows that can justifiably vie for that title. And the current leading contender starts its second season Wednesday …
… If you don't love "Damages," you may well be in a coma -- or at least in the throes of some sort of brain rot. The deliciously edgy and multilayered FX drama begins its second season of playing with our synapses by picking up precisely where it left off last year, the first two episodes showing it hasn't slowed an inch. … The thing with "Damages" isn't so much that the Sony Pictures TV entry is so adept at taking viewers along on this thrill ride into insanity; it's that it aims so much higher than nearly every other hour on the tube, presuming an audience intelligence that's at once precarious and inspiring. One can only hope that the middling ratings numbers from its rookie season rise to a level commensurate with the ambition.
