When Glenn Close suited up as a police chief in FX’s “The Shield,” she was an instant television sensation.
The Broadway and film star brought a commanding aura to the role of Capt. Monica Rawling two years ago, going toe to toe with renegade Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis) in a taut showdown that reinvigorated that violent, edgy cop show and won Close another of her 10 Emmy Awards.
Now the “Sunset Boulevard” diva and triple-threat Oscar-Tony- Emmy nominee undertakes her first starring television role, playing a smart, conniving high-stakes litigator, the Norma Desmond of the legal world.
The cable network expects Close to give her new drama, “Damages,” the same instant cachet.
But not so fast.
In “Damages,” debuting Tuesday on FX (11 p.m. on Comcast digital Channel 27), she plays barracuda Patty Hewes, the most feared and reviled lawyer in Manhattan. And the one in the most expensive suits.
A central murder mystery weaves through the tale’s surprising turns, exposing the sinister motivations of various characters. Coincidences are not coincidences, motives are not what they seem, and money (in various shades of dirty) is involved at every turn.
The “mature audiences” designation that applies to other graphic FX series applies here.
In a sense, the larger-than-life, morally ambivalent character has worked for FX before, notably in “The Shield,” “Nip/Tuck” and “Rescue Me.” “Damages” proposes a difficult, brilliant protagonist whose moral compass may or may not follow a skewed setting.
Whether Hewes truly has the interest of workers in mind when pursuing a multi- million-dollar class-action judgment against an allegedly corrupt corporate titan remains in question. She may have the little guy in mind, but there may be more sinister forces at work. In fact, the whole lawsuit may be just a symptom of a larger battle.
From the start, the tone is intentionally curious and confusing: The camera observes New York streets in a halting cinematic style. A bloodied, half-naked young woman appears dazed and wandering. She lands in a police station, ultimately requesting a lawyer. Cut to six months earlier, and a complex back story: a promising young law student, Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne), has been handpicked by Hewes to be a first-year associate in the lofty firm, Hewes & Associates.
“Don’t bring anything you can’t carry out in one trip when she fires you,” Hewes’ senior legal associate Tate Donovan (Tom Shayes) advises. He’s unerringly friendly to Ellen, but he’s clearly Hewes’ consigliere.
Real Fox News footage
Hewes’ firm is involved in a class-action suit against billionaire CEO Arthur Frobisher (Ted Danson), whom Patty has sworn to destroy. FX uses its corporate sibling, Fox News Channel, for cable news footage depicting Hewes chatting with Greta Van Susteren to lend a familiar eerie realism to the case.
While Frobisher busies himself playing golf and dirt biking, his attorney Ray Fiske (Zeljko Ivanek of “The X- Files”) does his bidding. Fiske has the tough double duty of battling Hewes and placating the ego of Frobisher. Unfortunately, Ivanek handles the job with a distracting attempt at a Southern accent.
The whole case may turn on the events of one weekend in Palm Beach, about which we know very little. The pilot floats that idea but is content to stick with character development for now. Patty has a 17-year-old son who has yet to appear. For now, it’s enough to learn Patty’s views on child rearing: “Don’t have kids,” she tells her protégé Rose. “Kids are like clients. They want all of you all the time.” Is she heartless or just honest?
“Damages” lays the groundwork for interlocking subplots surrounding the central mystery. Co-creators Todd A. Kessler (writer and producer of “The Sopranos” Seasons 2 and 3), Glenn Kessler and Daniel Zelman have concocted an intricate web of deceit and back-stabbing. But the pilot isn’t instantly compelling.
The question is, will we care about these characters as much as we care about, well, Glenn Close?
She’s compelling, as are her designer suits. But that may not be enough. The doubling back on storylines and heavily plotted game of cat-and- mouse already feel manipulative.
TV critic Joanne Ostrow can be reached at 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com.
