As expected, the season finale of Damages left no stone unturned, wrapping up an ambitiously complicated season with a tidy bow and in turn dishing out a few new surprises of its own. It’s the kind of storytelling we’ve come to expect from this legal thriller.
If there’s one remarkable thing about this episode, it’s that it actually manages to reveal another layer to the entire story—i.e., that Patty has been the puppet master all along, playing UNR’s corrupt figureheads (Kendricks, Dave Pell) off of each other and using the FBI and Ellen as her unknowing pawns. Tom, meanwhile, has now pretended to be fired by Patty on two separate occasions. He’s getting quite good at it, isn’t he? Just another indication that in Damages, nothing is ever as it seems.
The question looming large for most of this season has been just how Ellen and Patty were going to make it through their hotel room stand-off in one piece. We’d never seen Patty take any bullets, so nobody could have known whether or not she was indeed shot at—and this week, we learned that it was trader wiz-kid Finn Garrity who caused all that bleeding by stabbing her repeatedly in the gut. Next, there was the matter of how Ellen would deal with Patty’s confession, should she get one—and she did—but that was resolved in a hurry, too. Just as we saw that Ellen had started to relate with Patty on a whole new level a few episodes back, this week we saw that she is also willing to accept her do-anything-to-win instincts, even if they involve her own murder.
The threads left hanging for next season are irresistible: Is Wes going to be Ellen’s… boyfriend? Will Ellen “be back,” as Patty predicts, or is she indeed going to defect to another employer? Why was Frobisher even in this season—unless he’s going to play a significant role in Season 3? Will Patty indeed find a new man?
Let’s hear your thoughts in the comments. And don’t forget—you can get your Damages fix online. Visit the Showcase video centre for streaming episodes.
‘Till next season…