I Love Damages

"When I am through with you, there won't be anything left."

Oh, how happy I am to, once again, hear those opening lyrics each week. After a full year off the air, Damages returned last week, and the first two episodes of the second season have reminded me why I love this show. Is it realistic? No. Over-the-top? Probably. Gimmicky? Yeah. But I still eat up every second of it. The unexpected plot twists that come out of nowhere, the use of cliches which are then undermined, the bluring of fiction and reality, as expressed through fantasy sequences, plot lines that seem to lead no where, then ultimately have importance, but not in the way you thought - all of it, I adore. The show is brilliant as a puzzle or mindf***. It makes you try to figure it out, and at some point you've got an idea of where it's going, only to have the rug pulled out from under you. I'm just saying, any show that can make go, "Oh my God! Oh my God!" while doing jazz hands, like last nights episode did, is doing something right. And of course, there's Patty Hewes. I love that a show was built around Glenn Close, and while the role can at times come off as a dragon-lady, I think there is something deeper to Patty, which Close easily pulls out of her. As for the rest of the cast, Rose Byrne seems to have improved since the beginning of the first season, and William Hurt and Marcia Gay Harden are good additions. I'm most excited about Harden. When she's given a good role, I love her, and Claire Maddox appears to be a kind of role she's never played before. The only iffy new cast member is Timothy Olyphat; I still don't know what's going on their. Also, Anastasia Griffith is listed at the beginning of the show, as a regular cast member, and I had no idea who she was. Then I looked it up on line, and Griffith plays Katie Connor, sister of Ellen's murdered fiance David, who had a recurring role last season. Now Anastasia Griffith hasn't appeared in the first two episodes, but I'm interested in the season's plotline, which would require her to be a regular cast member. Hmm?