Come See the Softer Side of...Patty Hewes?

Alright, alright. I've already raved about how awesome this show is, but Tuesday night's episode scared me a little--not in the content, but in the lack thereof. I though it was equivalent to the middle laps of a 1600 meter Swim watched on an Olympics telecast. You know that you cared at the beginning, you fully anticipate being riveted at the end, but these middle laps are just swimming back and forth. That's how I felt but I wasn't totally disappointed. It's giving the show time to settle itself in.

But there was one little thing that irked me about the move in the episode last night to reveal Patty's "softer side." Let's just say upfront that there is nothing "soft" about this "soft side," it's merely soft-er. So, it turns out, Patty has these horrifying dreams that forecast her own, violent death. (The title of the episode was "My paralyzing fear of death"). Throughout the episode we see her breaking down just a teensy bit as grenades keep arriving randomly, scattering themselves about her life: one at the office (her response at receiving the gift-wrapped weapon of destruction was wicked awesome, though: "Oh, this is going to be a crappy week."), one in the glove-box of her husband's car. As I watched it, I was just waiting for the explosion, but Damages is tricky that way--kill the husband in the 3rd show--I daresay that's so jumping the shark way too soon. "My irk?" you might ask: I don't want to like Patty.

This hits up against one of those basic, fundamental questions regarding a viewer's own tv habits. Do I watch tv passively or actively? Am I just there to absorb what you give me or can I take something away from the experience? Last night, I found myself thinking it's too much work to learn to like Patty. She's the villain (right?); I don't want to like her. I already like Ellen and Tom, and poor David who is clearly doomed. Katie is obviously devious beyond belief. Arthur Frobisher is kinda maniacal. I have a weird soft spot in my heart for Ray Fiske that somehow has to deal with Arthur Frobisher. But the truth is, I just want battle lines drawn neatly with a red Sharpie. I just want to turn on the show and watch it fit into the formula of spaghetti* Westerns: there's a good guy and a bad guy and one wears black and the other white (as utterly wrong as those convenient "colors-that-correspond-to-race" are).

*(which are named such because it was cheaper to shoot and produce the movie if they filmed them, not in the American "Wild West" but in the Italian Alps...where they eat a good deal of spaghetti...fun fact.)

But, this very lament is ultimately the reason I go back again and again to this show. The fact of the matter is that this show will not allow me to be a passive consumer of its messages and relationships. It is bursting open the conventions of regular one-hour drama and making it...dare I say, real and challenging. No one in reality is one-dimensionally good or bad. People wear colors (some of them which should never be transferred into apparel, but that's beside the point) not just black and white. The story is complex. It's normal to feel empathy for someone who is heinous...and then feel guilty for somehow realizing that they are, at the very least, human. So, while I don't want to know that Patty is scared of death and, maybe even in the deepest darkest corner of her heart sometimes cries (shudder), I have to know that because it's real. That's why everyone should be watching this show!!! Sorry...lost it there for a second.

By the way, if you were wondering who was sending the grenades--it was NOT Arthur Frobisher. Why? Because that would be prosaic and easy. No...the harbinger of gift-wrapped death was none other than PATTY'S OWN BRILLIANT BUT WAYWARD SON! That's why everyone should be watching this show!!!