Beautiful, smart and extremely ambitious, young Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne) is given the change of a lifetime when she is taken under the wings of star New York litigator Patty Hewes (Glenn Close). The explosively talented and manipulating lawyer is in the middle of a potentially explosive class action lawsuit against one of the country’s wealthiest CEO’s, Arthur Frobisher (Ted Danson), and the deeper the young associate gets embroiled in the case the more she begins to realize it isn’t just hundreds of millions – maybe even billions – of dollars that are up for grabs. Lives hang in the balance, and if Ellen isn’t careful, hers might also be one of them.

CRITIQUE

The FX sensation “Damages” is a magnificently entertaining 13 episode legal mystery that starts at the end and finishes with an explosively demonic question. It takes a person, in this case the goodhearted (if overly ambitious) Ellen, strips her down, asks her to examine all that is important in her life, questions what it is she really wants to be, and then lets all the devilishly acidic chips fall where they may, all of it overseen by an omnipresent she-devil in the form of class action specialist Patty Hewes.

And it is fantastic. This is one of those shows right up there with PBS’ “Prime Suspect” or HBO’s “The Wire,” a myriad puzzle box of twisting narratives, legal maneuverings, personal malfeasance, shocking brutality and surprisingly visceral heroics. Creators Glenn Kessler, Todd A. Kessler and Daniel Zelman don’t so much do anything knew with the genre, they just do it better than just about anyone else. In other words, “Law and Order” don’t have nothing on these guys or their program, three different shows and almost two decades of programming be damned.

Granted, like any anthology series not everything is perfect. The flashback device starting with the murder of a pivotal supporting player and the bloody incarceration of one of the leads is instantly intriguing, but after about the fifth or sixth episode I kind of wished they’d get on with it already. The tension ends up being just a wee bit diluted because of this, everyone knowing nothing can happen to so-and-so in episode eight because we’re still three months away from the point when the actual series began.

The other problems are really quite minor. There’s a bizarre stalker/love triangle/potential relationship going on between Ellen, her student doctor fiancé David Connor (Noah Bean) and mysterious woman from his hospital that goes absolutely nowhere of interest, while much of the stuff revolving around Patty and her psychotically disgruntled teenage son Michael (Zachary Booth) is interesting without telling us anything new about the mother we can’t readily pick up on already.

And yet, none of this matters near as much as it probably should. There is a kinetic intensity to the series that just will not quit, everything building up to a viscerally brilliant waterfront coda that had made on absolute cliché pins and needles. The last two episodes, in particular, are stunning, and for fans of a intelligently plotted and imaginatively produced television this is just about as good as these things can possibly get.

One can’t watch “Damages” without being impressed by the casting. It almost goes without saying, but Close was born to play Patty Hewes. Star turns do not get better than this, the Oscar-nominated actress unleashing a firestorm of emotional complexities so twisted I’m almost surprised she didn’t end up looking like a gigantic human pretzel. She is, in a word, brilliant, and I can think of nothing better to say about her than that.

The rest of the cast rises to the occasion (if in the case of Byrne a bit too slowly, the young actress disappearing being her costars far too frequently early in the program), Tate Donavan, Anastasia Griffith, Peter Facinelli, Peter Riegert, Bean and especially Danson having moments that can’t help but impress. But it is veteran character actor Zeljko Ivanek who really shines, his portrait of Frobisher’s veteran defense attorney one that lingers in the mind longer than anything else this show has to offer. He has knockout scene after knockout scene, all of it building to a moment of such raw power the tissues in my hand were a gelatinous wet sopping mess thanks to all the tears the man forced me to shed.

I can’t help but wonder if “Damages” can keep all this up. The bloody wasteland left at the end of the thing leaves things in a bit of a mess, and trying to figure out how the writers can exceed, let alone match, the accomplishments of season one is certainly an open-ended one. But here’s hoping they can. Lord knows they’ve got me hooked, the season two premiere just not coming fast enough as far as this woman is concerned.

THE VIDEO

The 1080p Blu-ray edition of “Damages” is presented in 1,78:1 widescreen. Overall, it looks fairly great. That said, the grainy present day sequences are almost too high-def in some instances (and there’s something I never thought I’d say), the image so pixilated it almost gave me a headache until I got used to it.

THE AUDIO

“Damages” is presented in English (Dolby TrueHD 5.1) audio with optional English, English SDH and French subtitles.

THE EXTRAS

There isn’t much to say about the special features. There are two solid audio commentaries with the series’ creators, the group joined by star Close on the pilot episode and by Ivanek on the mind-blowing episode 11. Both are good (the second particularly so) but nothing so wonderful you’ll feel compelled to check them out more then once.

Other than that, there are a collection of deleted scenes that don’t really add anything special, some previews for other Sony Blu-ray titles and a collection of featurettes (“Willful Acts” and “Trust No One”) offering the usual behind-the-scenes breakdown of the show from inception to finale. Finally, there is a great interactive feature called “Understanding Class Action” where real-life cases like the Exxon Valdez disaster, the Tobacco Settlement and Agent Orange are examined in relation to the fictional proceeding taking place inside the television series.

FINAL THOUGHTS

One of best things I can say about “Damages” is that it is a legal drama that never once steps inside the courtroom in front of a jury and yet still produces more tension, excitement and suspense then 99-percent of the programs that do. Anchored by an incredible performance by Close and moving in directions both shocking and surprising, this is one of the best new series television has offered in ages, and for my part season two just can’t get here fast enough.