DAMAGES: Season 4 Kicks Off Tonight on DirecTV

The fourth season of the critically acclaimed (former FX) series Damages will have its season premiere via DirecTV this tonight at 10/9c on the cable provider’s Audience Network (channel 239).

Damages revolves around ruthless lawyer Patty Hewes (played by acclaimed actress Glenn Close), her protégé Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne) and the law firm Hewes & Associates. Each season of the award-winning series has focused on a major case undertaken by Patty and her firm while also examining the very complicated relationship between Ellen and Patty.

To summarize the past three seasons of the show, let us start with the events from season one:

In an interesting case of time-jumping, the pilot episode opened at what appeared to be the end of the series with a young woman running through the streets, half naked and covered in blood. That young woman was Ellen Parsons. As the events of the series unfolded, viewers learned that Ellen’s fiancé, David, had been bludgeoned to death in his and Ellen’s apartment, explaining her condition in the pilot and the suspicion that Ellen was the culprit.

Meanwhile, the major case taken on by Patty’s firm was a class action suit by former employees of billionaire Arthur Frobisher (Ted Danson), who was accused of insider trading and lying to his employees about the health of his company even as he unloaded hundreds of millions of his own stock, depriving his employees of their retirements and benefits.

It is explained very quickly that Patty was willing to go to any extremes necessary, even those that are illegal or unethical, to win her case. As a new employee at the firm, Ellen became deeply embroiled in the case because, as it turned out, her fiance David’s sister turned out to be an important witness in the case.

In what became tradition with the series, the narrative of each season switched between past, present and future events with answers to the over-arching stories coming to light as each season came to a close.

Where the first season ender was concerned, David’s murderer was revealed and allegations against Ellen were dropped and Frobisher’s case was resolved but he was nearly fatally wounded by a disgruntled former employee for whom Frobisher double crossed. Also, evidence – as seen only by the viewers (and suspected by Ellen) – was pointed toward Patty for the attack on Ellen during the season’s run.

When the show returned for its second season, the stakes were even higher with the opener showing Ellen talking to an unknown person off-screen, but then suddenly she pulled out a gun and seemingly shot the unknown person twice.

Hewes & Associates was once again ensnarled in a major case involving a mysterious scientist named Daniel Purcell (William Hurt) and a conspiracy that takes place between Purcell’s scientific firm and the huge energy corporation, Ultima National Resources (UNR). Meanwhile, Ellen is working with the FBI to bring down Patty, through a contrived scheme to catch Patty in a bribe, which unfortunately backfired.

As the season closed, the viewers learned that while Ellen shot at Patty (who turned out to be the aforementioned unknown person off-screen), she did NOT actually shot Patty. Also, through a convoluted series of events, the perpetrators behind the UNR case are arrested and Ellen left for a new as-yet unrevealed job.

Season three, once again used the flash-back and flash-forward story-telling angle, revealing in the opener that not only was Patty involved in a car accident, but also that Tom Shayes (Tate Donovan) was found dead with Ellen appearing to have been involved somehow in his death.

As for the big case handled by Patty’s firm, it was that of recovering funds from Louis Tobin (Len Cariou), a Bernie Madoff-type man who scammed thousands of investors through a Ponzi scheme. As Patty and Tom worked their way through the wealthy family attempting to learn where all the pilfered money was hidden, they found an intricate web of deceit and hidden scandal.

Meanwhile, it turned out Ellen took a job with the District Attorney’s office but was still, unsuccessfully, trying to get the better of Patty, failing at all turns. However, Patty dealt with her own demons from the past, falling prey to nightmares and visions of past events in her life. The season was also filled with major complications in tracking down the missing funds and unfortunate deaths that greatly affected the Tobin and Shayes families.

With the return of the show this Wednesday, it is now three years later and quite a bit has changed although Ellen still does not work for Patty. The focus of the season finds Patty and Ellen embroiled in a wrongful-death suit against a private military contractor, Howard T. Erickson (John Goodman). It seems that Erickson has made a fortune supplying the U.S. Government with security forces in Afghanistan and is protected by his connections within the highest echelons of power in Washington, D.C.

Meanwhile, Chris Sanchez (Chris Messina), a decorated soldier who now works for the security firm, is drawn into the web of intrigue when Ellen and Patty set their sights on his corrupt employer. Complicating matters is Jerry Boorman (Dylan Baker), a shadowy opportunist with ties to both Erickson and the Middle East who is intimately involved in the season-long conspiracy at the heart of the lawsuit.

If you are a DirecTV subscriber, don’t miss the season premiere of Damages tonight at 10/9c on channel 239.