TV Eye

Glenn Close in Damages

There's a telling scene in the pilot episode of Damages (FX), wherein Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne) waits as her new boss, Patty Hewes (Glenn Close), signs a pile of legal documents Parsons has delivered to her. The scene occurs outside the high-voltage environment of the legal firm where the two women would ordinarily see each other. It's after normal work hours. Hewes is waiting to see the headmaster of her son's school, as he's been acting up again. Parsons already has had several shocking encounters with Hewes: the first at her sister's wedding reception, where Hewes drops in to interview Parsons. But all those encounters were in public. Now, it's just the two of them. As Hewes scribbles, Parsons stands meekly, fascinated by her formidable boss.

"You're staring at me," Hewes says in a tired, singsong voice without looking up from the documents she is signing. Parsons is embarrassed, realizing that she was indeed staring, and stunned that Hewes knew she was staring at her. What else is this woman capable of?

That's only one of the ongoing questions in Damages, the legal thriller starring Close and a fine cast that includes Ted Danson, Tate Donovan, and Anastasia Griffith. The bulk of the press has been focused on Close, most of it good, though mildly dismissive of her as just another in a string of dragon ladies she's played over the years. Close might have cornered the market on playing powerful, sometimes cutthroat women, but Hewes is a new kind of powerful woman for TV.

There have been other strong women on TV: Murphy Brown, Maude, Lucy Spiller (Dirt, FX), and Dr. Yang and Dr. Bailey (Sandra Oh and Chandra Wilson, Grey's Anatomy, ABC), among others. In the past, strong women were typically played as successful in their careers but lonely at home. Their love lives were nonexistent, complicated, or fleeting (Lucy Spiller, Dr. Yang, Murphy Brown), and if there was a partner around, he was not as fully realized as the strong woman (Maude). She might be successful in the workplace, but love and family were somethings the strong woman could do without, or their lives are presented as cautionary tales (i.e., if you're too strong, you won't get a man.)

Not so in Damages. Hewes is as cunning as the other barracudas she swims with in this finely tuned drama. She has a loving husband who gets her (played by Michael Nouri), who isn't threatened by her success, has his own career, and appears to be in a committed partnership with her. (I say "appears" because as Hewes says, "Trust no one.") They share anxiety over their teenage son's behavioral problems. This is the fascinating tension of the series. Hewes has a weakness: If you want to injure her, get to her family. This is a far cry from the powerful woman who is an accidental mother or childless and, therefore, unencumbered (but lonely). Henes spends a lot of time declaring her work domain a family-free zone. She warns Parsons about the aggravations of family and parenting, seems to go out of her way to disrupt Parsons' family life, and even disallows personal family photos in the office. But it's not because she's a dragon lady. It's because family and intimacy are what is most precious to her. If there is anyone more furious than a mother protecting her brood, it might be a woman who has not been convinced of her inferiority.

As her prime adversary, Danson is superb as Arthur Frobisher, as is Zeljko Ivanek as his lawyer, Ray Fiske. Frobisher is the CEO at the center of an Enron-like scheme that bilked his employees of their retirement funds. Hewes represents his aggrieved employees in a class-action lawsuit. Besides his reputation and his riches, Frobisher has a lot to protect, including his own young family, buffeted by all his bad publicity.

It's a riveting battle between this earthly Zeus and Hera. Their power is great, their needs are so fundamentally human, and their capacity to inflict pain is apparently boundless. And where will it end? That's the tantalizing question that drives this superb series. Like Hera, Hewes is not above a bit of cloak-and-dagger manipulation to sway things in her favor. The real question is: Who and what is she willing to use as weapons?

New episodes of Damages air Tuesday nights at 9pm on FX. Previous episodes can be viewed online at www.damages.i-villain.com.