Damages 3.07

[selenak]

In which a tag scene offers a genuine jaw-dropper. Also, it appears I've been getting a name wrong all this time.

Trivia first: I always heard our villainous CIA agent's name as Foreman, but it is spelled out as Boorman, Gerald Boorman, in black and white in this episode. (This might have been meant as a homage to a British director but unfortunately reminded me first of Bohrmann the Hitler lackey which I hope was not the intention.)

Also: I forgot in my last review to say the thoroughly screwed up Patty and Michael relationship is one of my favourite things about the show, so you can imagine that their scenes together here and in the last episode continue to make me happy on that front. This episode - via the conversation between Patty and her therapist wherein the therapist gets her to mention what she was talking about when breaking her hapless doorman's nose - reminded me that the late, missed Tom was the good son to Michael's bad son. Michael has a lot of Patty - her manipulativeness (well, if you're exposed to a master in the art of mind games from toddlerdom onwards), her intelligence - but he doesn't have whatever it is that drives her to take on causes other than ego; meanwhile, Tom was neither manipulative nor extraordinarily smart, but he was loyal to the core and ideal as a Trusted Lieutenant precisely because he didn't want the top job. Meanwhile, Ellen is many things to Patty, but among other things she's the returned-from-the-dead-discarded-daughter, and I find it fascinating that Patty keeps saying one thing (specifically, keeps denying Ellen is a daughter/successor/other self) while doing the opposite (wooing Ellen back, supporting her big time).

I thought Mrs. Ororo the religious nanny was doomed when she let Katherine accept the toy from Michael, but apparantly even Patty has to admit there are only so many nannies you can fire if you're simultanously involved in life-threatening cases and have a custody hearing coming.

Patty using her case against Big Pharma, French division, to get Boorman's file was unexpected but in a way that felt right - she did get a very high settlement, and they needed that intel. Also it's always fun wanting Patty making mincemeat of the guys across the table.

Howard Erickson kidding himself about being a responsible pater familias (of "my men") rather than a leader of mercenaries got a quick and brutal case of disillusionment when he talked to Chris who stopped believing in Howard's narratives a few tortures ago and is by now past fear of his life and limbs. "Because you paid the most" is a quick but fantastically effective masterstroke through all the neocon rethoric, and that is why Howard loses it and attacks Chris physically. He needs that belief intact.

Meanwhile, his buddy Boorman has already thrown him to the wolves (go, Patty and Ellen!), so that scene of the two sitting in fake chummyness on Howard's sofa came with smug delight on the side of this particular audience. Boorman's mistress the French spy tails him in a far too obvious way (they should have made that harder to spot, seriously, especially since the episode shows Boorman continues to be competent by letting him figure out Ellen played him with that phonecall (doesn't save him from another callprank by Patty and Ellen, of course!). Otoh then we got something I truly hadn't anticipated. But the show played fair: we saw that kid in all the flash forwards. However, the revelation that he is the prisoner/guestage (tm Andrew from BTVS) Boorman has been keeping at his flat was truly stunning. And suddenly explains as well why Boorman hasn't been getting any intel from his prisoner/guestage so far despite being a torture expert, why he appeared to so utterly frustrated every time we saw him enter that room. And suddenly Patty's whole subplot with Katherine as well as Howard's interactions with his children tie in as well.

So: new possibilities for the corpse from the flash forward, assuming Chris is a red herring: the French spy or Boorman. Though again, Ellen's reaction reads more personal than that to me.

Comments

[chaila]

OH, SNAP. This was a good episode! So, unsurprisingly, it turns out the cure for my finding Boorman (whose name I didn't even previously remember from ep to ep) boring was to put him in a scene with Patty. Prank-calling the CIA! Playing bad guys off each other! Go Patty and Ellen.

I approved of the pharma case too, especially since otherwise it was kind of a thread going on in the background that wasn't particularly relevant. But now Patty's given up something tangible for "Ellen's case," and that seems important. Yet another instance of Patty saying one thing (she wants to help Ellen and is happy with Ellen using her firm to make a name for herself) and doing another (potentially stepping on Ellen to do this her way?)? I agree that's a fascinating thread of their relationship this season.

Chris vs. Howard was such an amazing scene. "Because you paid the most," indeed.

Michael getting the toy to Katherine anyway--because he wanted to give it to his daughter or because he wanted Patty to know he could? It's such a little thing to make up for three birthdays and Christmases--was SUCH a Hewes thing to do. And yes, I was so glad they brought up Tom again. I've been really, really happy with the character continuity this season.

I was genuinely surprised by the tag scene too!

[selenak]

"Divide et impera" could have been a motto invented by Patty.

Yet another instance of Patty saying one thing (she wants to help Ellen and is happy with Ellen using her firm to make a name for herself) and doing another (potentially stepping on Ellen to do this her way?)?

Could be. I mean, obviously with all the "are you in all the way?" foreshadowing Ellen will be called upon doing something that crosses a line she previously didn't cross this season. No idea what it's going to be yet, though Bill's backstory (falsifying evidence, getting caught and disbarred) makes me wonder. If Patty is secretly intending to get rid of Ellen, demanding that Ellen do something that could ruin her professionally forever, as it did Bill, on the grounds that Patty did so much to help her and Ellen promised to do whatever it takes to win the case would be a possible strategy. But I think their relationship is more complicated than that, and it could also be Patty's way of testing Ellen. I.e. if Ellen finds a way to do whatever it is Patty is going to ask for without getting caught and ruined a la Bill, then she's truly a successor, something like that.

Michael getting the toy to Katherine anyway--because he wanted to give it to his daughter or because he wanted Patty to know he could?

Both. I think the size of the present was already a way to mess with Patty, because obviously he is now financially sound enough to buy half a toy store, but he's making a point to Mum. (But he also wants to start winning Katherine over.) That Katherine likes it is the cream on the cake, of course.