What I’m Watching: Damages

Damages: Season 4, Episode 5 “We’ll Just Have to Find Another Way to Cut the Balls Off of This Thing” (B+)

One of the things that makes this show work is something that makes it equally maddening to watch: the bad guys always seem to be ahead. Ellen has suffered through some much hardship trying to get this case tried, and she is continually defeated at every step. Even while he’s sick, Jerry manages to be furiously productive. It’s interesting to see him admit that he screwed up and that he doesn’t yet know how many casualties his error has created, showing weakness to one person with whom he clearly feels a connection. I knew that the FBI’s raid being interposed with shots of a sickly Jerry was a fake-out, but I didn’t realize that he had planted Nasim’s hairs on the bomb so that the unsuspecting Afghan could be framed for his crimes. It was a brilliant move, and I’m very worried that the map of his with a target marked on Hewes & Associates is going to conveniently resurface. Patty definitely doesn’t have heard in the game, concerned about her granddaughter to the point that she’s plagued by the one in thirty-two odds, best illustrated in the haunting final moments of the episode. For all his good intentions, Howard has become more of a villain as he begins to order Jerry around and, by episode’s end, tosses the incriminating photos into the fire and relaxes with a cigar. It doesn’t look like Ellen and her distracted partner are going to be making any headway on this case anytime soon.