Product Description
-------------------
Inspired by recent worldwide economic events, the accled
third season of the award-winning legal thriller stars two-time
Emmy®-winner Glenn Close as litigator Patty Hewes. Confronting
the most challenging case of her illustrious career, Patty and
trusted lieutenant Tom Shayes (Tate Donovan) meet their match
against the manipulative Tobin family empire, matriarch Marilyn
(Lily Tomlin), son Joe (Campbell Scott) and the clan's loyal
attorney Leonard Winstone (Martin Short). When former protegee
Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne) is also pulled into the maelstrom, she
discovers she hasn't escaped Patty Hewes after all.
.com
----
Glenn Close continues her steely reign as Machiavellian lawyer
Patty Hewes in the compelling third season of the award-winning
legal drama Damages. Here, as in previous seasons, the story arc
hinges on a single, high-profile case that leaves everyone in the
orbit of Hewes and her protégé/nemesis Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne)
reeling with physical and emotional war wounds. The case in
question for season three is a Ponzi-scheme of Bernie Madoff
proportions: Patty is assigned by the government to recover the
millions of dollars scammed from investors by Louis Tobin (Len
Cariou), the flinty patriarch of a wealthy but highly
dysfunctional family. Ellen, now working at the district
attorney's office, finds herself again drawn to Patty's side as
she works the criminal angle on the Tobin case, while the
family's faithful lawyer (Martin Short) attempts to parry their
efforts to ferret out the truth. The joys of Damages lie not in
courtroom fireworks--in fact, Patty and Co. never set foot in one
throughout the season--but in the complexities of the
investigation, which uncovers a network of secrets, deceptions,
and outright lies on both sides of the case. Things are rarely
what they seem in Damages, and that applies to season three as
well: over the course of 13 episodes, Tobin's dutiful son
(Campbell Scott), well-coiffured wife (Lily Tomlin), and
especially Short's lawyer shed layers of identity and loyalty,
while Patty and Ellen's relationship continues to deepen and
darken as the stories of their own pasts come to the surface. The
intricacies of the interweaving plot lines are expertly carried
out by the regular cast and its stellar guests; Close, Byrne,
Tomlin, Ted Danson, and Short, who is terrific in a rare
non-comedic role, all received 2010 Emmy nominations, while Tate
Donovan, as Patty's long-suffering majordomo, Tom Shayes, enjoys
a meatier and more emotionally driven story arc this season.
There's also quality support from Dominic Chianese (The Sopranos'
Uncle Junior), Craig Bierko, Tom Noonan, Miriam Shor, Bill
Raymond (the Greek on The Wire), and Keith Carradine, and
longtime fans will be pleased to see Danson return to his
career-redefining role as the morally conflicted Arthur
Frobisher. The performances, along with the fine writing and
direction (series co-creators Glenn Kessler, Daniel Zelman, and
Todd Kessler all helm an episode, as does Donovan), help to
smooth over the season's few wrong notes, which include Shayes's
relationship with a seemingly ubiquitous homeless man.
Extras, which are spread across the three-disc set, include two
commentary tracks with the Kesslers and Zelman, who are joined by
Short on "You Haven't Replaced Me" and Donovan and Byrne on the
season finale, "The Next One's Gonna Go in Your Throat." The
co-creators/producers are front and center in short introductions
to each episode, as well as a featurette on directing the series;
a selection of deleted scenes and a blooper reel, dominated by
Short and Tomlin, round out the set. --Paul Gaita