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Damages

Rose Burn as Ellen Parsons in Damages
  • Posted at 4:31pm
  • 20 February 2009
  • by AlisonGraham-RT

In the unlikely event that Lladro should ever decide to manufacture a line of porcelain Angry Bereaved Lady Lawyer figurines to take its place among all of those shepherdesses and geishas, they'd surely have to model it on Damages's Ellen Parsons.

Ellen (Rose Byrne) returned in the much-anticipated new series of the brilliant, playful thriller looking like a bruised angel, with ice in her veins and fire in her heart, seeking revenge. In series one, her fiancé was killed on the orders of a crooked businessman and Ellen escaped with her life after her boss hired a hitman to do her in. Wouldn't want to work in that office, would you?

Ellen's boss is one of the great TV characters of recent years: Patty Hewes (the mighty Glenn Close). In episode one (15 February, BBC1) Patty was haunted by ghosts and guilt - though not too much. Nothing really ruffled those sharply austere business suits.

And those unmistakeable viper's eyes were still there as she took in everything and missed nothing. A wealthy benefactor pulled out of Patty's conscience-easing foundation to help the hungry of New York, so she struck back in a nasty but brilliantly indirect and efficient way - she made sure his high-achieving, Yale-bound daughter was busted for cocaine abuse. Of course, he was on the phone immediately, vulnerable and begging for help.

Things took a bit of time to get going, and Damages is a victim of its own success in that there'll never be another series one, so we can never again be so surprised, gripped and delighted by something so fresh.

But as it slowly picked up the threads of the first series, a whole new set of stories began to unravel. What does Daniel Purcell (a nervy William Hurt) want from Patty, and why does she dislike him so much? And who did Ellen shoot at point blank range at the end? Doubtless the three-month wait to find out will be delicious.

Oh, and it still has the best theme tune on television.

**

Alison Graham is TV editor of Radio Times - read her column in the latest issue of Radio Times magazine, on sale now.

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