Damages: He's A Monkey, Man

  Next week's Damages finale will either mark the end of the third season, or the end of the show itself. 

 The show's future has been up in the air. It might be rescued by DirectTV -- in a deal similar to what NBC does with Friday Night Lights -- but FX's president has pointed out that for all of the critical praise Damages gets, it's an expensive, underwatched show. (And as I was writing this, Variety came out with a report, citing "insiders" who said the DirectTV deal was unlikely.)

 With that in mind, this season's most unusual development -- the return of Arthur Frobisher -- starts to make sense. If you're not getting another fourth season, it's not a bad idea to tie up your longest-running loose plot thread.

 And I'll give them this much: they picked a creative way to do it.

 "OK, so what if Frobisher met this actor, and the actor wanted to make a movie about Frobisher's life, so he started hanging out with him to get into character, and Frobisher got all coked up and told him how he hired an ex-cop to kill someone, and then the actor told Patty Hewes, and then Patty told the DA..."

 Etc. etc.  At any rate, it'll give the show a chance to bring back Timothy Olyphant.

 As far as everything else went, this episode did a really nice job putting together most of the rest of this season's puzzle. We can't see the whole picture yet, but we at least have the corners. 

 I liked the way this episode took this year's three most compelling characters -- Tom Shayes, Joe Tobin and Leonard Winstone -- and let them play off each other as they all struggled with their various secrets and familial obligations.

 Patty finds out Tom is one of the investors who lost their fortunes to the Tobins, and he resigns from the firm, showing us that the flashforward from a few weeks ago was just misdirection. His resignation was what Patty expected. 

 It was also kind of a sham: he outs himself, resigns, then goes undercover to get at the Tobins. 

 His plan can only work because of Leonard WInstone and his dad, who gets busted following a barfight. When his son comes to bail him out, Ellen's boyfriend gets a tip from one of his cop sources, and tells Ellen the truth about Len: not only is he not Len, he's not even a lawyer. 

 Ellen tells Joe Tobin, which leads to the episode's best scene, a bitter, brutal confrontation between Joe and Len, two men who seem to have equal claim to call Louis Tobin their father. One's related by blood, the other by loyalty. 

 Except...

 Len thinks he was the reliable one, at Louis' side when Joe wasn't. Joe tells a different story: "He said you were his little monkey, to make me laugh."

No one's laughing now, and I'm glad to see that it's the characters, rather than any legal maneuvering or 11th hour plot twists, that are really driving the engine of the story. Tom, Joe, and Len, three powerful men all brought down by their insecurities: Tom, wanting to be a hero, Joe wanting to be in control, and poor Leonard, trading one con artist father for another.

 Next week, we'll see once and for all how everything collides together.

 Other thoughts:

•  I knew there was no way Jill was just going to take money from Patty and walk away. This will have an ugly conclusion next week, I imagine.
• With one episode left, there's a lot to tie up next week. All the Tobin stuff, of course, plus Frobisher, Patty and her son, that weird horse dream, and whatever compels Ellen and Tom to start their own firm. Good thing there's 90 minutes.
• Anyone else going to be royally pissed if it turns out the homeless guy stabs Tom?
• We see tonight that Albert Wiggans is actually a really good con artist, impersonating Stuart Zedeck without a hitch. He's also a creepy, terrible father. "Let's say we buy ourselves a coupla whores." I'd steal a dead guy's identity too.

Tom Coombe

Comments

[damages fan]

>>Whatever compels Ellen and Tom to start their own firm ...<<

Can't you see that the whole "starting a new firm idea" is most likely a ruse that Patty is in on?

Can't wait 'til next week!!!

[Tom Coombe]

I hope it's not a ruse...it's a bit too late to be introducing things like that. Besides, we've seen from previous episodes that after Tom died, Patty was angry at someone for doing something against her wishes.

Of course, that could just be the writers cooking up their own ruse; maybe she's angry about something unrelated. In which case: bad form, Damages writers.

We'll see...

[OldManTan]

bad form perhaps, but not out of their reach. remember, the key to damages is nothing is ever as it seems...

[William Ford]

What's up, Tom! I have been reading your stuff and watching "Damages," one of the few television shows I actually watch, besides sports of course. Anythoot, this was your best write up. Your thoughts about Jill not walking away was exactly what I thought: get money from Patty to make her new family more wealthy. HA!

Keep up the good work and I'll read your season finale column.

[Tom]

@OldManTan: Yeah, but that was part of the problem with last season. They'd show us stuff like Ellen firing a gun at someone, but the payoff wound up being kind of lame.

@William: Great to hear from you. Had no clue you'd been watching this.