[DMG] Look What He Dug Up This Time

TV Programme: Damages
Season: 2
Episode: 12
Date I watched this episode: 27/03/2009
Time since I last watched this programme: 4 days.

In this penultimate episode, we had several stories, including the truth about what happened with Danny and his wife that night, Tom being brought into the conspiracy, Dave Pell coming out of the woodwork, and Wes's continuing failed attempts to kill Ellen. This made for a fairly compelling episode, but it feels like too little too late.

In truth, quite a lot of the supposedly shocking revelations in this episode were things we knew already. Were we the viewers supposed to be shocked when we heard that the GPS co-ordinates corresponded to a state, a time and a day? There was a decent amount of screentime spent cracking these codes, but we already knew what they meant, and so from a viewing perspective this was a pointless exercise.

Obviously I've spoken before about Danny's real motives and these were indeed revealed in this episode. Again it seems like a long time coming - Danny basically disappeared for half the season, and the thing with his wife seemed to have been forgotten about. In fact I'd all-but forgotten that Danny was Michael's father, until they had that conversation in this episode. I do truly believe now that Danny is actually trying to set things right. I don't think the writers have the stomach to paint Danny as a double-agent now, although if this was last season, this would have been totally on the table.

One thing I can give them is that they did pull something unexpected off with that murder. I was always wondering in my mind between whether Danny killed his wife or Kendrick's thugs did it. But the truth is, both are right. Danny started it, and the "closer" finished it. I do think Christine was unbelievably naïve in trying to get more involved with these people who were going to kill her own daughter, and in that sense she brought it on herself. But now, Danny is going to have a redemptive thread, turning himself in and hopefully exposing Kendrick for what he is.

It was a bit bad timing bringing Tom Shayes in and making him miss his wife giving birth. I think this was overly ruthless and I can't imagine Ellen doing this, but I suppose she has got desperate. She has realised that she is of less use to the FBI right now given her closeness to Patty. It was well-done dramatically when Tom was brought in, kind of reminded me of Marcus Dixon being told that SD-6 wasn't part of the CIA (in Alias).

Patty Hewes's character is still undergoing development. She got uncharacteristically angry both with Phil and with Tom, and seemed to be trying to restrain herself with Michael. Is this UNR thing still about redemption for her in the attempted murder of Ellen? She doesn't actually seem to have a client (except for Frobisher, who has been absent recently) and the terms of the deal she offered Kendrick were all about a cleanup rather than any money exchanging hands. She seems to be trying to do the right thing, and getting very angry/upset when she has barriers in her way to do that, because she feels she has created them herself by her past actions? I don't know but she is a satisfyingly complex character.

I don't know what Wes is up to. He's demonstrated clearly that he doesn't have what it takes to kill Ellen. I would have thought his best move was to tell her what he knows and then the pair can take down Kendrick/Frobisher/Messer/anyone else, together. Perhaps this is where they end up with shooting Patty, but who knows.

The remote that Christine threw at Danny - I'm not sure what significance, if any, that this has: why did he want to bury it? When we were first shown that clip, it was implied that he was burning the original documents from the study, but actually he still had them. He's clutching the remote when he rings Kendrick's man, so perhaps it has some special significance that I missed.

The title of this episode was wrongly predicted by me yet again - it was Purcell's daughter speaking to him about their dog.

The next episode is the season finale (not currently given a title on the official website other than "Damages Season Finale"), though I probably won't be watching it for a while, til I can fit it into another Finale Day. Unfortunately, much of the footage in it we'll have seen already - stuff with Ellen and Patty in the room, Wes getting asked to leave, Tom and Ellen getting the gun, Tom telling Patty he's going to sue her for unlawful dismissal, etc. However hopefully there will be enough to slightly redeem this season from being the tragically inferior one it has become.