Damages: It’s about trust.

So Purcell turns himself in for killing his wife.  Totally did not see that coming.

But before he does, we open with Purcell’s dog digging something up in his yard.  We flash back 5 and a half months ago to Daniel tossing a device that looks similar to a remote control in a ditch in his yard.  Then he sets it on fire and hacks at it with a shovel for good measure.   I’m thinking he really, really wanted that thing to disappear.

In the present day, Kendrick pays Daniel a visit, just to make sure that they are on the same page – namely, that Daniel keeps his mouth shut. Daniel agrees, but looks pretty pissed at being continually told what to do by this prick.  A prick, by the way, who lost a Cadillac.  And, as Dave Pell notes in the following scene at a bar, Kendrick is pretty overconfident for a guy who lost a Cadillac.

Let’s see what Patty can do about that, shall we?

Patty meets Kendrick for lunch.  Kendrick is looking particularly smug, while Patty just looks confident, so we know how this conversation is pretty much going to turn out. But first, Kendrick tells Patty his “my daddy worked in a coal mine” story.  You know, the kind of story politicians tell in election years to prove their blue collar roots.  Patty just eats her salad during this, and then asks whether it was Kendrick’s or Dave Pell’s idea to manipulate the coal mine industry.

Silence.

Kendrick says name your price, and Patty tells him to clean up aerocyte, compensate the victims, and step down from UNR.  Cause this isn’t the first episode of the season, the viewers pretty much know it’s that last one that Kendrick isn’t going to go for.  Kendrick thinks Patty’s not going to be able to get the coordinates into evidence.  Patty says, “Then why do I feel so confident?”

Kendrick’s mad worried, y’all.  I’d enjoy this more if I didn’t think that Kendrick’s overconfidence was a bit out of sync with the way this character has been drawn.  I don’t really buy that Kendrick would be so calm about the loss of that Cadillac.  It only works if we assume that Claire Maddox was really the secret to Kendrick’s rise to power, and Claire isn’t around anymore, is she?

Patty’s confidence is due to the fact that she’s assigned Ellen to bribe the judge to allow inadmissible evidence.  And it’s a good thing that she’s feeling so confident regarding UNR, because her marriage is falling apart.  I blame Phil.  As Patty puts it, “You can overlook someone’s flaws, but you have to trust them.”  Patty can’t trust Phil. It’s not the cheating, it’s the fact that Phil bought stock in UNR.  In a great scene in the couple’s kitchen, Phil is outraged that Patty did a financial investigation into him; Patty is outraged that Phil, by buying the stock, was betting against her; Phil is outraged that Patty didn’t heed his warning to not go after UNR; Patty is outraged that Phil was so easily manipulated by Dave Pell, who, after all, both told Phil that Hewes & Associates was being investigated and who suggested that Phil buy the stock.  Moreover, this man was in their house, with her friends, while actively plotting against her.  Thus, in the outraged contest, Patty pretty much wins.

Patty ends the fight by telling Phil that he’ll hear from her divorce lawyer.  Phil says he won’t roll over; he’s going to fight her.

Whatever Phil.  Good luck with that.

(By the way, there was something about this scene that made me picture it playing out with Bill and Hillary Clinton in the key roles, circa 1998.  The words might be wrong, but somehow I feel like the emotions are pretty much on point.)

Still, while Patty had the upper hand in that exchange, it leaves her shaken.  During a confrontation with Michael about the sleepovers he’s having with his cougar girlfriend, Michael lashes out, and states that every person Patty comes in contact with either dies or leaves her.  He uses Ray Fink as an example, which is kinda unfair.  Fink, after all, was opposing counsel who shot himself in her office because of his personal demons, not because of Patty’s manipulations.  But the insult clearly lands, and next thing we know, Patty is telling Ellen that she doesn’t want her to bribe the judge after all. It’s a great moment, because it’s rare that we see Patty do anything that isn’t self-serving, much less protective of an employee.  For Patty, that’s a seriously “Awwwwww” moment.

But it’s a problem for Ellen, who needs to be the one to catch Patty doing something illegal to help the FBI.  She suggests that Agent Werner employ Tom to inform on Patty, using Tom’s bungled attempt to pay a witness as leverage.  But since Tom never paid a dime, the FBI will pretty much have to insinuate – okay, lie – to convince Tom to do what it wants. Which is corruption, according to Werner.  But Werner doesn’t exactly have the world’s best moral compass, so he does it.

Poor Tom doesn’t see it coming.  They nab him on the way to the hospital to see his baby being born.  (That is mean!)  At the station, Tom repeats that he did nothing wrong, but then Ellen steps in, and she tells him that he can save Patty, or save himself.  Tom is no Pete, so he saves himself.  He agrees to tell Patty that he can’t do the bribe.  (I’m not entirely sure why it was so important for Tom to not do the bribe.  As long as the person bribing someone is informing the FBI, who cares?  Seems like a plot contrivance to me.)

So Tom tells Patty that he can’t do the bribe.  And that, ladies and gentleman, is how Tom gets fired.

Well, at least Patty can count on Purcell.  Purcell cracks the codes entered into the Cadillac – they are coordinates for the time and place of energy blackouts, ordered by Kendrick.  And Finn Garrity used this info to manipulate the energy markets and make a ton of money.  Yet instead of looking happy about figuring out this information, Patty thinks that Purcell just looks forlorn (which is how William Hurt pretty much always looks, but whatever.)  Patty says, “I understand.”  But, when Patty flashes back to the night Mrs. Purcell was killed, it’s unclear exactly what Patty understands – that Purcell is simply sad about his wife’s death, or that Purcell was complicit in his wife’s death.

Oh, and about that whole Purcell killing his wife thing. . . .

I’d believed that Purcell didn’t kill his wife – he simply made it easier for others to kill her.  In other words, I assumed that when we saw Purcell in earlier episodes sitting next to creepy Darryl Hammond, he was sitting next to the man who was going to kill his wife.  Silly me.  Don’t I know yet that until you actually see the crime take place, you really can’t be sure what happened (which – duh! – is the reason why I don’t think Ellen shoots Patty)?

Turns out the whole scene with creepy Darryl Hammond takes place after Mrs. Purcell is murdered.  Kinda.  Basically, for those of you not watching at home, Daniel went berserk on the missus during their fight about ratting out UNR, then called Kendrick to help him clean it up.  When creepy Darryl Hammond arrived (perhaps I should just call him CDH?), though, she was still breathing.  Quite shallowly, but breathing nonetheless.  So CDH finished the job.

But Purcell doesn’t know that he didn’t actually kill her.  Which makes it kinda tragic when he turns himself in.  Emphasis on kinda – I’m still pissed at him for making a fool out of Patty in court all those weeks ago.  And he did make a pretty good go of trying to off her, after all.

Better than Wes does when he and Ellen go to the woods.  Despite his order to off her, he can’t do it.  Instead, he asks Ellen if he can stay at her place a night or two.  I’m thinking he wants to stand guard – and I think that he’s going to intercept Messer when Messer ends up in Room 1910 later.

So one episode left and those loose ends are tying up.  Just the big one is left – what the hell happens in Room 1910 when Patty’s in that chair?

Can’t wait.

Season 2, Episode 12: What He Dug Up This Time (originally aired March 25, 2009)

For more on Damages, click here.

Wednesdays at 10pm E/P on FX

Photograph courtesy of FX and IMDbPro