What Makes 'Damages' Work: Structuring Suspense

What Makes 'Damages' Work: Structuring Suspense toggle caption Andrew McPherson/FX When you look at the way Damages is constructed, the genius is striking. In the first season, it took 13 episodes to find out exactly how Ellen came to be covered with blood, and anyone whose interest in the insider-trading tale had faded was nonetheless hooked by then. There's perhaps never been a more effective piece of foreshadowing in all of television than the ominous scene early in the first season where attorney Hollis Nye has Ellen sign a business card that says, with regard to working for Patty, "I was warned." That kind of up-front, tension-cranking maneuver -- always done with luscious, noir-like relish, is repeated in the first two episodes of this season, which layer a very strong A-plot over an irresistible raising of the stakes for Patty, Tom and Ellen.