By Brandon Nolta

All right, boys and girls, after three months of high-tension, plot-twisting drama, it’s the end of the line for DAMAGES … except it looks a whole lot like the beginning. Ellen (Rose Byrne) gets attacked by a mysterious henchman in Patty Hewes’ (Glenn Close) apartment, and accidentally kills him in the struggle. You would think that would be the murder she’s arrested for, but no; nobody’s found that body yet, thanks to the other henchmen apparently working for Arthur Frobisher (Ted Danson), who now has lots more to worry about than the stock fraud lawsuit that started this whole mess.

But, there’s more than one group of henchmen running around, and one of those groups works with Hollis Nye (Philip Bosco), the avuncular attorney Ellen almost took a job with when the whole thing started. He’s helping Patty, who Ellen has, well, blackmailed into being her defense attorney, using a videotape made by Gregory Malina (Peter Facinelli) as leverage. Meanwhile, the lead henchman who was in on David’s (Noah Bean) murder turns out to be a NYPD detective who is moonlighting.

But wait, what’s this? Last episode or so, Patty vamoosed out of sight to her beach house, then to a graveyard, but who she was visiting wasn’t clear. Now, a brief flashback to the 1970s indicates that the plot belongs to Patty’s first child, a stillborn daughter. Hold onto your seats, because we now fast-forward 30 years to a different flashback, where it appears that Frobisher and the now-deceased George Moore (Peter Riegert), a former SEC investigator, have known each other for 40 years. Jump forward again: Patty manages to get the charges dropped against Ellen, and Ellen tells Patty where Malina’s tape is. Irony of ironies, it was hidden in the bookend that was used to kill David, so Tom (Tate Donovan) retrieves it from evidence. At this point, we’re only 29 minutes into a 68 minute show. Good God, I’m tired already.


Anyway, Patty shows Frobisher the videotape, which would tank his case and probably reopen a federal case against him, so he gives in and settles for $2 billion. That ain’t a typo, folks. Ellen’s still not thrilled with Patty, so she leaves the celebration early and gets waylaid by Nye and his henchmen, who turn out to be G-men. They try to pressure her into helping with the ongoing investigation into Patty, and she essentially tells them to piss off ...  or so we think. In yet another plot twist, Frobisher is shot by Popler, the old guy who was spying for him on the Hewes side of the lawsuit; Patty found out about his perfidy and forced him to give up his share of the settlement.  By episode’s end, it becomes clear that everything we’ve seen is just the opening skirmish in a war between Patty and Ellen, although why this is would be is something for next season if there is one. Patty tried to have Ellen killed, Ellen consents to work undercover for the feds and we fade to black cruising at deception factor nine.

Is it a good season finale? Hell, yes; it winds up all the story threads from the whole season, and does a pretty neat job, although the plot twists are delivered so quickly that it’s tough to keep them all straight. Is it a good episode aside from the finale bits? Yeah, but it’s not as involving, simply because the mystery is being brought to the surface, and let’s face it: the anticipation is always more fun than the reveal. It must have taken all damn season to write the finale with all the crap the writers fit in; I’m pretty sure I saw a kitchen sink or two. I could go on about the acting or the intricacies of the characters, but DAMAGES is an exhausting series to cover, and I’ll leave it at that. Fans of complicated, intense drama should have been watching all along, and the finale brings everything together in a satisfying manner while leaving things open for the next round. Can’t ask much more than that.