Damages ended its season — the series? — with some many plot resolutions it had to expand to 90 minutes and still felt stuffed like a Thanksgiving turkey. Not that the finale itself was a turkey; a lot of it was superb.
Finally, we got a scene between Glenn Close and Lily Tomlin that demonstrated just how good these two could have been if they’d joined forces earlier in the season. We learned why Keith Carradine had been hanging around on the edges of this season, as the flirty, slightly creepy architect who kept giving Close’s Patty Hewes apartment re-modeling advice. Most important for the purposes of the bigger picture, we learned who killed Tom Shayes.
Damages spent much of season three proceeding at a leisurely pace. At first I was irritated by it (and when I think about how much of an info-dump last night’s show had to be, I’m still irritated it didn’t parcel out these revelations over the past couple of weeks — it would have made for better dialogue and character interaction). But I now see, with the puzzle complete, that the pace of the season matched the pace of the life that the Tobin family lived.
As mega-wealthy Manhattanites, the Tobins, even embroiled in a financial scandal and a multitude of family secrets, led a typical New York City-ritzy existence. All the dirty work was done for them; everyone, even alcoholic son Joe (what a fine final performance by Campbell Scott as the alcoholic brat), managed to avoid messiness until the very end. (The Joe storyline could be edited and shown at AA meetings as a very effective cautionary tale.)
Timothy Olyphant took time out from Justified to mosey over and justify his last-season behavior to Ellen, and then pull a gun on Ted Danson’s Arthur Frobisher — could that have been any better?
True, some of the pieces of Damages didn’t quite fit. Why was Joe able to appear at the stabbed Tom’s apartment with such perfect timing (after Tom had left a phone message for his family to clear out, and just as Tom himself arrived)? This qualm was overridden by the murder scene that followed. Tom’s death — drowned in the toilet bowl by a totally blotto Joe — was one of the grimmest scenes in the series’ history.
What did you think of the final revelations, especially the extended flashbacks to Patty and her law-school pregnancy, her abortion-by-miscarriage? Did that final scene, with a silent Patty gazing at the departing back of Rose Byrne’s Ellen, make you consider that Patty may have been thinking, this is the daughter I never had? And what about the explanation of the car wreck we’d been shown again and again throughout the season? Is Patty’s son, Michael, the most miserable, doomed kid on the planet, or at least in Manhattan? And does Martin Short’s Lenny live to star in a spin-off? I kind of hope so…
What did you think of the Damages season finale?
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So, did Patty want Tom and Ellen to stop pursuing the Tobin’s because she saw herself in Marilyn Tobin?
I think its because Ellen and Tom were the only ones who’ve stuck with Patty. She really cared about them and didn’t feel as if something was right with the whole set-up. She heard her son’s words that people either end up leaving her or dying and since they weren’t leaving her, she feared the latter. I think that she realized some things are more important than money or winning and this wasn’t something she was able to realize when she purposefully miscarried her baby so she could be a successful lawyer.
She wanted them to back off because of the risk. Tom and Ellen’s point was that there is a risk with everything, but Patty is smart and knew that it was too risky. In the end Patty was right and Tom paid for it.
FANTASTIC EPISODE. FANTASTIC SEASON. FANTASTIC SHOW.
Great analysis. I completely agree with you. After being reminded of what her son said to her, she wanted to protect those that stayed with her. I was a little confused on the whole story line of hiring/firing that wanna be associate for Patty. But I think that she thinks so highly of Ellen, and thinks of her as her daughter, the daughter she never had cause she sort of killed her baby on purpose, that that story line was to show how highly she values Ellen’s opinion. Ellen didn’t like her, so Patty fired her because while she was ambitious Patty clone, what she really wanted was Ellen’s sense of morality. My only complaint is that I wish they had some of the explanations come out sooner, so that the season wasn’t as slow as it was. Still it is one of the best shows on TV, and I’m still holding out hope of a season 4, hear that DirecTV? BTW-I loved that they brought closure to David’s death and Frobisher is finally going to pay for killing him. I appreciate that they wrapped that story line up that I always felt was incomplete.
Maybe, or because she had enough on Marilyn for the money.
She didn’t want Tom and Ellen to stop pursuing the Tobins, she wanted them to stop pursuing Winstone.
I think it also has to do with the flashback she had of Michael saying “either people leave you or they die” Patty trusted the loyalty that Tom and Ellen had with her, so the only other option was that death. She has a strong intuition and didn’t want them to get hurt. She was all ready to help compensate Tom’s financial woes, she loved him like family.
She knew it would end bad.
Patty probably suspected that something was going on in the Tobin clan that could lead to disaster because she had the visit of Lili Tomlin who tried to confess she was the one who set up the panzy’s scheme but Patty knew it was not true and she was lying
I thought this season was superb! I thought Damages had started to lose its mojo last season, but it has redeemed itself!
i seem to have missed the explanation for why keith carradine had been hanging around as the flirty neighbor. can anyone fill me in?
Carradine was all in Patty’s head. He was the horse caretaker that was talking to her in 1972 when she deliberately miscarried her baby.
I totally agree!! Hope that they can continue the vibe with a Season 4 … somewhere!
I agree, nice post. Makes me think of the Walt Disney world view so many of us grew up in. We limit our porpectiens of beauty by what others have presented us with rather than going out and experiencing the real for ourselves. We can get fooled, so to speak, by the artist rather than inspired.
Was it just a coincidense that Michael crashed the car into Patty?
How was the accident timed so perfectly?
Other than that, I do hope Damages returns again – though I will miss Tom too.
He looked incredibly angry, and he knew she was on her way to meet him. It could definitely be on purpose.
It was on purpose. He was upset at her for having his gf arrested, and generally meddling in his life. He stole Ellen’s car and drove off in a rage to do some damage, no pun intended.
The acciddent was timed so perfectly because he had called her and knew she was on her way home. He was laying in wait to do that, not just driving around.
How could he have been waiting for her? How did he be in the position to snatch Ellen’s car exactly when she stepped out, leaving the car running so he could be in position to ram his mother in a way that would kill her but allow him to survive??? Too may coincidences and a big fat plot hole.
I feel like this season finale could be better. I think that they left a lot of holes, like wasn’t Patty desperate at the fone, then she acts like that call never happended or whatever?? It doesn’t explain also how Michael took the car, was he following Ellen? There were superb scenes, like Tom’s death, but there was mistakes as well. But i think that Damages deserves a fourth season, we are not done with Patty and Ellen yet.
Juliana,
They show that the car was stolen outside Patty’s house right after Ellen went there to talk to Patty but ended up bumping into Michael. And he knew which car to crash into because it was his car that his gf bought for him.
She wasnt in a Jaguar, she was in a Cadillac.
Nope, she was in the red Jaguar.
How could he have been going after Ellen? She was standing by the car???
He (michael) was going after Patty and hit her while she was driving his old red Jag. Michael stole Ellen’s car while she was distracted on the phone.
I really liked last night’s episode. At the end of the day, though, everyone on this show is truly unlikeable and despicable. That’s kinda what makes it so much fun!! A lot of things made no sense to me. Like..Michael was the one who hit Patty’s car? Ugh. And…I did not understand the architects role in this season at all. Was Patty just imagining him? If not, she didn’t recognize him? It went right over my head. LOL. And..was the father really just protecting Joe? Or was that a lie?
..oh..and I forgot…the whole Frobisher thing this season just seemed so, er, just “tacked on”. I mean his storyline didnt’ tie in with anything else going on and it seemed so random.
I wonder if maybe it was actually tacked on due to the fact that the show will probably not be returning? They may have wanted to give the fans that have stuck with it since season 1 some closure.
I didn’t think it was “tacked” on as much as it was a way to show that Ellen had grown from her revenge plot in Season 2. She had finally moved past the desire to get revenge on everyone involved with David’s death. Plus it was a way to show that Frobisher wasn’t as much of a changed man as he wanted the world to see. The fact that he was willing to “confess” to the actor as a way of impressing him showed the depth of his ego. Great way to end his storyline which went through all three seasons.
This season was indeed superb and tonight’s episode had on the edge of my seat. The pieces did fit together.
Michael ran into Ellen at her apartment as he wanted her to be at his meeting with Patty. She declined as she wanted to get the envelope to the DA. When she got distracted by a phone call & walked away from the car, he hopped in. I think he recognized the car Patty was driving as the repossessed Jag she took from Michael’s girlfriend and rammed it.
I think the Frobysher “add on” to the season was to set up getting justice for Ellen.
I really do hope they can keep the show on for another season. I can’t believe the reality crap gets higher ratings. Evidence the brains of American have been numbed by the crap.
So true ….. well said!
Ken, I had the same thought during that last scene: This lost-daughter thing really explain Patty & Ellen. But the dizzying array of deftly timed coincidences was not the resolution I expect from this show — everything from the shell games w/ Ellen’s purse (filched from an UNLOCKED car?!) to Patty’s son just happening to be there to hop into the vehicle and just happening to be uninjured in the crash, letting him hop out again and run off. It was all kind of a bloody slapstick.
On the bright side, it was delicious to see Timothy Olyphant again (though his subplot was resolved in a ludicrous way, as well). He’s great on his new Fx show, too.
Oh yes delightful Wes came back. My heart skipped a beat. I do like watching him on his new show. I hope he and Tom can reappear in the 4th season kind of like Frobisher’s lawyer.
I understand that you have to suspend some belief when watching TV and not pay attention to many of the details. But Damages prides itself on being accurate on all those little details. With that said, it seemed a little ridiculous that Martin Short’s property he owns, the homeless man and the dumpster, Tom Shayes home, and Campbell Scott wandering around drinking, were all within one block of each other in NY? That was a little much.
yeah, I like how a stabbed and bleeding Tom made it from Brooklyn (where Lenny’s apartments were) to Manhattan to then get drowned like a sucker in a toilet.
I also couldn’t figure out how a wasted Campbell Scott would be able to move a body from a Manhattan brownstone without attracting any attention.
Plus, whatever happened with the Tobin sister?
Well first, Michael has finally come to his senses and just flat out tried to kill Patty. She knew she screwed him up, he suspected it, and now he’s figured out how much Patty has been messing with his life. So she has that success to crow about.
I do think Patty looking at Ellen was another mixture of regret and “what if”. I kept doing the math and wondering if they were trying to say Ellen was the daughter (remember the adoption scare earlier?). But more likely Patty was just reminiscing and wondering. That is probably also why she lets Ellen get away with murder.
I thought the Tobin things were too convenient. Joe came out of nowhere. The fight was good, but they set it up wrong. Mom didn’t need to jump, though it was cool. I didn’t see that coming.
Martin Short is a lot better dramatic actor than I thought. I always knew Lily Tomlin was good, but I wasn’t expecting much from him. Rose Byrne needs to stop bouncing all over the place. She seems a bit frenetic. And of course Glenn Close was just magnificent. When she was standing next to Rose in the final scene, I wasn’t just comparing the characters.
That reminds me, why did we go into Ellen’s life w/ sister’s drug addiction and the woman who was asked to adopt her to protect her from her father? What did that have to do with the story except did it explain why Ellen didn’t quite fit in the family and was looking for a mother figure in Patty?
I agree with others that say this season’s Frobisher storyline felt tacked on, but it gave us some more Ted Danson (and a little Zeljko Ivanek last night) so I’m not going to complain. Unfortunately, the whole Frosbisher arc makes me feel like the show is NOT coming back this season because giving Ellen that kind of closure feels like something the writers would do in anticipation of wrapping the series up.
Overall, I thought this was a pretty excellent season. Short and Tomlin were revelations, Campbell Scott was outstanding, but I really hope Tate Donovan grabs a “Supporting Actor in a Drama” Emmy nod that’ll probably go to his showier/higher profile co-stars.
Unfortunately, like last year’s finale, things got a little frantic to the end. I agree with Ken that info could’ve been parceled out a little more gradually. I realize we were watching a lot of the flashforward scenes finally come to pass, but those last 30 minutes felt incredibly fractured and a bit disorienting (which may have been the point). Fortunately, the excellent scene between Patty and Ellen on the dock made up for it.
One more thing, just to be absolutely sure: when Patty saw Julian Decker in the present day, he was simply part of her imagination/dreaming? If he was simply a part of her imagination, I imagine some of the patrons at that bar where he flirted with her in the season premiere might have been giving Patty funny looks when she was sitting there talking to dead air.
truely an incrediable season & one hell of an ending; hope it was the ending of the season & not the series. “Damages” along with “Breaking Bad” “Mad Men” & “Dexter” are the best shows on tv {in my opinion } & while “Justified” amy develop into a great show – “Damages” IS a great show & the show that brings FX attention during award season. That reason alone should give FX the smarts to bring “Damages” back. And Glenn Close was fantastic all season.
I miss The Riches.
I love this show, and really hope it gets renewed for another season. The quality of the show is so high above most of the drek out there. That said, this finale had a few flaws (too much to take in for one episode), but overall I was blown away. It was really shocking at times, especially Joe killing Tom. He started out this season being the one who seemed to have all the morality in that family – ha! Not so much. Now Patty and Ellen have both lost their families, all they have is each other. Of course they’ll work together if there’s another season. One thing to add – Patty’s shame about her child really seems completely personal, nobody else (like the father) invades her thoughts. Why does it haunt her so much? I get that Ellen is a replacement, but I think if we don’t see Patty in therapy next season things are going to be bananas.
I hear ya-
When Patty told Joe that she actually believed he wanted to do the right thing in the beginning, I blurted out, “Me too!”
Patty Hewes should visit Paul Weston on HBO’s In Treatment.