“Alex”, you have nothing to be proud, of other than you can spell a four letter word, which happens to be your name. Like the use of a smiley, really added weight to your thoughts.

Some reviewers have compared the flashback/flashforward style to Lost, but the key difference they forget to mention is that Damages rewards viewers who stick around until the end, whereas Lost has become an entangled morass of unanswered questions and utter confusion.

With Damages, there is always a sense that the answers will be revealed. But the fun, as the producers intimated, is how the answers are arrived at. I enjoy the twists and turns because it keeps you interested, even if they are occasionally tiresome or predictable. But that’s serialised TV. We all know the purpose of Season 2 was for Ellen and Patty to have some kind of showdown. However, it is ultimately the series of events in the intervening episodes that make the showdown all the more powerful. We find that a number of characters are slyly playing both sides and the contest of wit and cleverness between, say, Walter and Claire, or Patty and Ellen; is engrossing to watch on screen.

The only character who I thought wasn’t used appropriately was that of William Hurt. On the one hand, he is unhappy about the egregious environmental damage being committed by UNR, but he is all the more happy to perjure himself on the back of a handsome UNR pay-off. This is justified with excuses about wanting to look after his daughter, yet his motives never seem that convincing because the script portrays him as being deeply haunted by the death of his wife (which he unsuccessfully instigated) whilst enjoying chummy sexual relations with Claire Maddox.

http://blogcritics.org/writer/aleks_chan

Aleks Chan is a young (16) writer living in San Antonio, and hopes to one day leave the homeland to be Gillian Flynn’s successor at Entertainment Weekly.

Needs some time to grow up. In the meantime there is The Simpsons, King of the Hill, Scrubs, American Idol, lots of nonchallenging TV out there.

Frobisher should have died in that field. It was a perfect, poetic end. And this season should have been about revenge.

I also miss Ellen’s adorable late fiance and Frobisher’s lawyer.

The plot twists were mostly a strength in season one but by this point the twists have become so formulaic they themselves have become boring. While you don’t always know exactly what is going to happen, it’s a safe bet what you just saw is not the truth. You only saw 35 seconds of that event, the next 20 seconds will turn that on it’s head and then 3 weeks later you’ll see it from a different camera and it will once again be turned on its head. For example Ellen talks to the feds, says one thing and then gets out of the car. Later it turns out she got back in the car and decides to do exactly the opposite. While sudden revelatory plot twists (ala “The Usual Supects”) can be great fun, after awhile you get tired of being lied to just so the show can spring the truth on you at a later date.

All in all the show has some strong actors that do what they can to put life into their characters but the quick pace of the convoluted plot leaves little room for true character devleopment or even proper treatment of the individual plot threads. It seems as the show moves along with the express purpose of setting you up to be suprised with a series of “reveals” with the biggest yet to come in the season finale.

I’m glad there are still lots of fans for the show, I really wanted to like it but I guess it’s just not for me.