A show about lawyers? Tell me more!

Damages is about Patty Hewes, sorta the goddess of lawyers, and Ellen Parsons, a young ingenue just joining her law firm. The firm is handling a high-stakes litigation case against Arthur Frohbisher (no way I spelled that right), a high-powered executive who cheated his employees out of a billion by selling his own stock in his company after telling them to invest in it. Our she-roes need to prove that Frohbisher was in contact with his financier before the scam went through, namely during a brief period when both men were in Florida at the same time. Just in case this sounds like the sort of thing that Sherlock Holmes would do while he was on the toilet, this is all told in flashback, while in present-day, Ellen is covered in blood and being investigated by the police.

It gets off to a rough start, with a bit of a trying-too-hard scene in which Ellen's prospective boss warns her that taking a job with Patty Hewes THE BEST LAWYER EVER will DESTROY YOUR LIFE LIKE WHOA (if he had said "Have you ever seen The Devil Wears Prada?" it would've redeemed that whole plot point), but then it's smooth sailing. I like Patty as a character so far, in that she can be ruthless but she isn't just a bitch for no reason (she's usually a bitch for a reason). Like how she appears to fire a trusted underling for an unforeseeable failure, but then it turns out it's all part of a larger scheme. It would be a lawyer who was first to use the Evil Overlord List. See, Batman, just because you're willing to do whatever it takes to achieve your goals doesn't mean you have to be an ass about it ALL THE TIME.

Also, three episodes in and I'm curious enough about the juxtaposition between her being God Lawyer and her openly altruistic goals. Is it that she just likes swinging a big stick and has decided that she might as well swing it at people who have it coming, or does it have something to do with her obvious issues with mortality? Or the weird Oedipal subtext between her and her son?

I also like how Ted Danson plays the heavy and he starts off as almost so nice that you want to believe him when he says it wasn't his fault that five thousand people got screwed out of their life savings. Like, OMG, Cruella de Vil, why are you picking on Sam Malone? Then, BOOM, ADULTERY, COCAINE, MURDER! Still, he's not so much a moustache-twirler as he is a major-league douchebag.

And now, for in-depth HBIC commentary, we go to senior HBIC expert Emma Frost. Emma, what's your opinion on Patty Hewes?


"Killing a dog? Get back to me when you've killed a horse. Named Butterrum."

Crisis on two earths

This post is going out to alternate dimensions.



In one universe, this is a still of Yvonne Strzechowski as Dinah Lance in a sequel to the smash hit Batman spin-off "Birds of Prey." In this scene, she's about to undergo some more brutal training from Lady Shiva, played by Michelle Yeoh.

In the other universe, this is a picture of Yvonne Strzechowski as Sarah Walker in an upcoming episode of Chuck.

People of the two universes, interact. Learn from each other. Let's not have a big to-do like we did with those assholes from Earth-Nazi.

Alexa Davalos = Huntress

If they ever did make a Huntress/BOP movie, I say ditch the booty shorts, keep the belly cut-out, but make sure you put in the scar tissue from getting shot in No Man's Land. Helena should be like Sue Sylvester with that shit. "You think this is hard? Try getting shot seven times in the gut! That's hard!"