Hey, kill your HBO -- "Nip/Tuck" (9 pm CT Tuesday) and "Damages" (9pm CT Wednesday) are back on FX, after being off for more than a year! And they won't cost you an extra $10 on top of the $100 you're already shoveling at the cable company.
No offense to "Big Love" (which is returning to HBO Jan. 18), but it sure seems like FX is making a bigger effort than certain pay-cable channels I know -- and without that icky "pay" part involved.
"Damages" has added not one but two Oscar winners (Marcia Gay Harden and William Hurt) to go with the one it already has, plus some HBO familiars ("Deadwood's" Timothy Olyphant and "The Wire's" John Doman and Clarke "Freamon" Peters). Marcia Gay Harden even reminds me of Jeanne Tripplehorn. Kinda.
And if the first three episodes I've looked at are any indication, it's going to add a few Emmy Awards to go with the ones handed out last year to Glenn Close and eljko Ivanek.
The second season starts just the way the first season did: with a flash-forward six months, and then a flash back to the present. The flash-forward lasts long enough for us to draw a couple of quick conclusions: First, young Ellen (Rose Byrne) has survived her hellish first year at the Hewes & Associates firm, run by that crazy, grief-stricken, revenge-seeking litigator Patty Hewes (Close).
And second, young Ellen is very angry. Pistol-packing, dead-eyes angry. But why?
Well, that's why we watch the show.
Clearly, the show's producers have taken the advice to heart that they make the storylines on "Damages" not quite so labyrinthine. I almost got whiplash at one point last season, trying to figure out whose blood spatter wound up on Patty's shoe, why Patty was having Katie's dog killed, when/if Ellen was going to wake up to the fact that Patty was the source of all her troubles, what Patty's kid was doing in that apartment ...
See? I've lost you already. Don't worry, it's going to be easier this season. That's not to say there's less complexity this season, rather that it's more like being told a story that has lots of characters in it, instead of being given a murder mystery chopped up and presented as a nonlinear puzzle game.
As we rejoin the "Damages" gang, Patty and Ellen are all chummy again at the firm. They even appear on "Live with Regis and Kelly" together! (It's better than it sounds.) But Ellen wants Patty locked up for her role in killing her fiance David. Meanwhile, out of the sky blue, comes William Hurt, playing Daniel Purcell, an old adversary who fought Patty in a huge legal case 10 years ago -- conveniently, just before Tom (Tate Donovan) or anyone else but the mailroom guy joined Hewes & Associates.
The mailroom guy will bring in a package, and it will sit on Patty's desk, so that Ellen will notice it. And soon there will be a scene where Purcell talks about it, and pretty soon everyone's talking about it. Now, being so obvious about an obvious clue -- one that will take "Damages" deep into another nefarious conspiracy eventually -- may strike you as a dumbing-down move on the part of the producers.
But as far as I'm concerned, it's ratings management. "Damages" barely got a renewal after its first season precisely because enough people weren't watching. Hal Hartley wrote in to say the editing was giving him a headache. No, he didn't -- but the out-of-sequence storytelling did get a little challenging at time, and steps are being taking to ensure that doesn't happen again. It's all in the package.
As for "Nip/Tuck," it wouldn't be very sporting to reveal what the outcome of the crazy ex-agent stabbing incident was, except to say that the show is going to use a little flash forward/back action to put our worst fears about Dr. McNamara (Dylan Walsh) to rest ... but a Hollywood ending, it ain't.
I will tell you this. The incident with the agent -- Sharon Gless can play a lunatic any time she wants and I'll watch -- is replayed in great detail in the opening scene ... to the tune of ... the O'Jays ... yep. That song.
"Backstabbers."
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