Damages: Had to Tweeze That Out of My Kidney

Patty reminisces about her girlhood days, Frobisher’s newly formed conscience retracts into his brain, and Uncle Pete makes his final farewell, for realz this time.

Well there goes the only sex symbol on this show.

A groggy Ellen wakes up in her hotel room and grabs her head. I know that look. That’s the holy-crap-did-I-really-finish-that-whole-bottle-last-night-and-where-are-my-pants look. Girl, just take two Advil and don’t check your phone to see who you drunk texted. Trust me – it’s best to not know.

Ellen does get up and pop some pills, and something tells me they’re a little stronger than Advil. And whatever, they are, they seem to have the unsettling side effects of seeing dead people. “Can’t sleep?” a voice calls out. Ellen turns around and sees…David. Now I’m not a psychology major or anything, but seeing your dead fiancé…proooobably not a good sign.

David, dressed in his doctor scrubs, explains to Ellen that she’s having a hallucination and her mind doesn’t know if it’s asleep or awake. Ellen’s all ‘oh, that’s cool then. Please continue.’

“So I talked to God – he says what up by the way – and he sent me to come down and pass judgment on your pill-popping, FBI informin’ ways. Shape up or ship out, yo.”

Ellen apologizes and says David was right about everything. “No that’s okay. I just wanted to know why you haven’t opened your wedding present,” he says. Um, because she already has a toaster? Thnx, though.

David gets out the pink-wrapped box and hands it to her, telling her it will make her laugh. Suddenly the phone rings. Ellen goes to answer it, and when she turns around, David is gone. That’s the thing about ghosts/hallucinatory subconscious projections – they’re not the most reliable bunch.

It’s FBI Dum on the phone, telling Ellen that Uncle Pete tried to kill himself and is now in a hospital.

After the credits, we see Pete in hospital bed being watched over by a distraught Patty and Stefanya. “Why did Pete do this?” Patty asks. Stefanya explains about the two “clients” Pete brought home – Dee and Dum. Patty’s mind starts to piece it together. I predict the FBI will go down hard for this one. Not just Dee and Dum – the entire federal bureau.

Aw, Stefanya and Pete have matching breathing tubes. Those must be like BFF bracelet charms for old people. Stefanya hands Patty Pete’s final note.

Patty has a flashback to herself as a young girl. She looks much more carefree, and certainly less murderous then. Plus that cardigan is adorbs. In her memory, young Patty is playing in the yard when she hears her father come home and start screaming for his wife. In the distance we hear a younger Pete telling her father to leave. Young Patty hides behind a tree.

Ellen gets into a car with Dee and Dum again. They look pretty sheepish and rightfully so – they only had this one job and they effed it up pretty horrifically. They tell her they have surveillance in Pete’s hospital room to monitor the situation. They hope they can still flip him if or when he wakes up. Considering that last time he was faced with the prospect of betraying Patty he chose to off himself, that seems like a pretty slim hope, guys. But, you know, keep on keepin’ on.

Patty’s husband Phil is meeting with Kendrick’s number 2, Dave, at a fancy restaurant. Dave tells Phil that there’s an opportunity with UNR stock, and he should jump on it. “You’re gonna thank me some day,” he says. He tells Phil that Kendrick has compiled a group of private investors who are going to pony up some capital. “There’s a conflict of interest,” Phil says. I think ‘conflict of interest,’ is a light way of saying ‘my wife will cut off my balls in my sleep if she finds out I invested in UNR.’

“The stock will rise, the case will vanish,” Dave presses.

Frobisher and his mystical Indian spirit guide walk through the field where he was shot. Frobisher remembers the incident and his spirit guide looks concerned.

“No, no, pashminas are coming back. BACK, I say!”

Then Frobisher launches on a Crazy Tirade to end all Crazy Tirades. Instead of selling the land where was shot and, you know, left for dead, he wants to build it up into a healing center. He starts waving his arms around. “We could do the…the homo-tropic breathing thing right over there!” Homo-tropic, hehe. “And we could have the drumming circle right in this area. And stables for that thing with the horses…” This healing center sounds awesome. Drums, horses, and homo-tropic art work (cutouts from the Gay Porn Stars of Aruba calendar?) Throw in some brownies, and I’m there.

Then Frob jumps the crazy train. He gets out the bullet that shot him and throws it to his spirit guide. He wants to bury it in the ground and make it the “cornerstone” of the whole place. Even the spirit guide’s like ‘dude, that’s kind of effed up.’

“Every gesture has two sides,” spirit dude says. “One faces the sun, the other, darkness.” Sure. I think I summed it up better with my ‘dude, that’s kind of effed up’ remark. But Frobisher does that charming-talk thing and gets the spirit guide’s blessing.

They hug and Frobisher cries tears of joy into his spirit guide’s shiny, shiny pashmina.

Stefanya is slowly making her way down her front steps when a flannel-clad man, previously the suit-clad man who tried to kill Ellen at Uncle Pete’s request (let’s call him Knifey McFail) comes up and says hello. I thought he was supposed to be in Rio or something? Oh, he came back when he heard Pete was in the hospital. How sweet.

Stefanya tells Knifey that someone ratted on Peter and the “men from the government, they come.” Would you really call them ‘men,’ Stefanya? Knifey offers Stefanya a ride to the store to get licorice for Pete. What a gentle, kind would-be murderer.

A distraught Patty is thinking in her office when Ellen enters. She asks after Uncle Pete, who’s still in a coma. Then Patty starts telling Ellen about her father, a “brilliant, complicated” man who one day just picked up and left. Apparently it was Uncle Pete who stepped in to help out her family. “He took care of us.” And sold a few boxes of bootleg 8-track tapes on the side.

“You warned me that this would happen,” Patty says suddenly. She brings up the time Ellen supposedly turned down the FBI and warned that they would try to go after someone else in the office. “Does Pete have anything incriminating on you?” Ellen asks. Patty doesn’t respond.

Frobisher and his Spirit Guide hang out by a peaceful meditation pool when bad cop Grizzly Kurt and his sidekick Wes sidle up.

“Wait, wait, are you telling me we’re NOT going to Mardi Gras? Then why the frak am I wearing these beads? And why am I in my pre-boob snatching pose?”

A cheesed off Frobisher thinks Wes is there to intimidate him. Haha. “He’s been keeping an eye on Ellen Parsons,” Grizzly says. Okay, here’s what I don’t get. Grizzly seems to murder someone like every other episode – why is he so desperate to cover this one particular murder? So much so that he would hire undercover agents and murder other people, which he would also then have to cover up? Gah.

Then Wes starts to get aggressive with Frob. He tells him that Ellen thinks he’s behind David’s murder. He brings up how Ellen visited him at the hospital and debated whether or not to kill him, and has been using Patty’s firm to investigate the murder. Frobisher looks a little nonplussed at this information.

“I am not going to let anyone connect that to us, you understand?” Grizzly cop says all menacingly.

“I am sick of this shit!” Frobisher says. He’s just an ex-billionaire, ex-murderer who wants to spend his days in peace by a man-made lake, people. Can’t you just leave him alone!?!

“I’m not going to tell you this again. You’re going to drop this lawsuit,” Grizzly says. Or…you’ll kill him? Why stop there? Why not kill every single person on the show? That’ll solve all your problems.

Frobisher leans in and goes all Mr. Miagi, only if Mr. Miagi were mentally handicapped in some way: “Every action has two sides. One faces the sun, the other darkness.” Grizzly and Wes are all:

Riiiiight.

In another Wes-heavy scene, the sneaky double-agent accompanies Ellen to another support group, secretly wondering how much more of this “buddy” crap he’s going to have to put up with before he can get some (unless he’s still secretly seeing Katie Connor on the side, in which case, we all know he’s getting some…some herpes syntax, that is.)

The support leader welcomes Ellen back. Ellen explains to the group about the gift from David she can’t open, claiming that she just wants to move on. Wes calls bullshit. He says Ellen’s not opening the gift because it’s the last thing she has of David, and if she does open it that means he’s really gone. Which is technically the opposite of letting go. It is, as Wilson Philips would say, “holding on for one more day.”

In another depressing scene, Patty and Phil sit at their long, empty dining room table discussing Pete’s condition. It’s not so much of the good. Phil changes the subject to something less depressing – UNR and their leukemia-causing, pig-killing agenda. JK. It’s actually about how their stock is going to get an influx of capital and go up.

Patty surmises that this may have something to do with Finn Garrity, cokehead and energy grader extraordinaire. She thinks that he’s driving up energy prices to make the capital Kendrick needs. So not only are they killing baby pigs, but now they’re kicking our wallets in the balls at the gas pump, too?!? Kendrick Must Die.

Now on to a cheerier sentiment: hookers. Tommy seems to have developed a penchant for one after his visit with the charming “Gabriela” last week, and now he has stalked Susie, Finn Garrity’s special lady friend, at her hotel. Susie tries to blow him off, but Tommy brings up Finn’s name and tries to convince her that he’s one of the good guys.

He hands her his card, saying “You’ve let some very dangerous people into your life and I’m gonna talk to them. Either you can talk to me, or I’m going to take you down with them.” I could make a joke here now about how to take a hooker down, but I’m just a shade too classy for that. Actually, that’s not true. But I AM a shade too lazy, right now.

Then we cut to Phil, sneakily buying a position in UNR over the phone. Yeah, because that won’t come back to bite him in the ass or anything.

Meanwhile, Knifey McFail, whose real name is, okay, Patrick, goes up to one of the young punks who turned Uncle Pete into the FBI last week. Patrick throws the punk up against a street wall. I’m not sure if this is the best course of action for him. We all know how ineffectual Knifey is with violence. But it only takes one punch for the punk to squeal about his deal with the feds. Hookers revealing johns. Low-life criminals folding after a light tap to the gut. Where’s all the integrity in the street folk today? It’s a damn shame.

At the hospital, Stefanya sits by Pete’s bedside. Suddenly Pete wakes up and grabs her hand. He’s aliiiiiiive!

And who is his first visitor? Why it’s Dum, of the FBI Dee and Dums. I see he didn’t bring any Get Well flowers or cards with him, the ass. “Hey, Pete, remember me?” He says jerkily, with a smile. “Where’s the other asshole?” Uncle Pete asks. Ha.

Dum then tries once again to get Pete to give up evidence on Patty. Just like last week, he uses Pete’s dying wife as a key guilt card. Pete still doesn’t bite. And it’s not just because he left his dentures on the nightstand. Zing!

The douche trader is once again in a hotel room with prostitute Susie, once again making a trade, once again pantless. This time, however, Susie asks him about what he’s trading. He tells her to mind her own beeswax, and she brings up her impromptu meeting with Tommy. Finn starts to freak out. “What did you tell him about me?” Finn asks. She says nothing, that she doesn’t know anything about him to tell. “If you’re lying to me, you’re dead,” he says. Charmer.

Then, oddly, we cut to Frobisher’s spirit guide, staring off into the sky and fondling a rabbit. I’m not sure if this is supposed to be intentionally hilarious, but if it is, then bravo, Damages writers.

Then Grizzly Kurt sidles up, all grizzly and sidle-y. “Am I interrupting?” He asks the spirit guide. The dude’s caressing a rabbit. What do you think?

“Are you there God? It’s me, Indian Dr. Doolittle.”

“I’ve been reading your books,” Grizzly tells the spirit guide. “That rabbit reminds me of a story you told.” Does it involve a fellow by the name of Cottontail? Peter Cottontail? Because I’ve heard that one too.

But no, it’s a story about a monkey, an otter, a jackal and a rabbit. They each decide to practice charity. A Blind Man comes along begging for food, and each animal gathers food. The rabbit, making the ultimate sacrifice, jumps onto the fire for the blind man. The spirit guide nods. This story is kind of lame. “And when the blind man sits down to eat, the jackal slits his throat and takes the jackal for himself,” Grizzly says. Whaaaat? The hell kind of bedtime stories did he grow up with?

“That is not the ending,” the spirit guide says. Maybe not, but it’s making me kind of hungry. Mmmm, roast rabbit.

Then Grizzly asks if he can hold the rabbit, in the creepiest manner possible. Then he asks spirit guide to tell Frobisher that he should still heed his own teachings. It’s super weird. If someone put Grizzly and Freaky Darrell Hammond in a room together, I think the entire show would implode with sleazy villainy.

At the hospital, Patty talks with a now-conscious Pete. “The feds have got me by the balls,” he says. Patty wants to know why he didn’t come to her instead of trying to kill himself. In retrospect, that does seem like a better solution…he tells her the FBI wanted everything he has on Patty Hewes. “If I don’t give them enough to put you in jail, they’re putting me there,” he says.

At the Lake of Bunnies and Solitude, the spirit guide is telling Frobisher about “the man with the beard” who came to see him. “He’s not your friend,” he tells Frob. Uh doy. “I have begun to think perhaps you have set these events in motion,” the guide says. Uh doy part deux. Then the spirit guide tells him that he must either spend the rest of his life running, or face the repercussions of his actions. Frobisher looks like he wants a third choice. Possibly one involving Aruba?

Then we cut to Frobisher with his other spirit guide. This one may not have a rabbit for a friend, but she is naked, so…Once Frobisher, um, finishes up, he picks up his phone and says “yeah, I’ll do it.” Ah, Frobisher. Never change.

Patty sits with Pete at the hospital, once again reminiscing about the time he protected her from her father as a child. Flashback Uncle Pete don’t look half bad. Go on Stefanya wit yo bad self. In the present, Pete wakes up and looks at Patty.

Dee, Dum and Ellen sit in a van and listen to the conversation between Pete and Patty through headphones.

Patty asks Pete why he stuck around when her dad took off. “You didn’t owe us anything,” she says. Uncle Pete reaches up and gently touches Patty’s face. “I don’t know,” he says, simply. Man, if it weren’t for all the hookers and bunnies, this episode would be a real downer.

“You give them whatever you need to,” Patty says with conviction. She continues to try to talk Pete into sacrificing her to save himself. In the van, Ellen doesn’t buy Patty’s gesture. “I had one thing on her and she tried to kill me. Can you imagine what Pete knows?” she says. Indeed.

Frobisher meets Grizzly in a park and tells him he’ll give him what he’ll drop the suit against UNR. “Yes, sir,” Grizzly says.

Susie is sitting on a park bench looking nervous. Tommy comes up and sits down by her. Apparently her real name is “Lonnie.” How is Susie more hookerish than Lonnie?? Tommy asks if she’s ready to talk.

“I’m scared of Finn,” Susie says. Yeah, that dude’s short a few bulbs. But on the bright side, his pants always seem to be around his ankles, so you could probably outrun him.

Susie tells Tommy that Finn has money hidden in companies, that he plays markets all over the world. He asks if Finn knows Walt Kendrick, and Susie says she doesn’t know. She really doesn’t seem to know much of anything, yet I predict her untimely death in about two episodes.

Back at the office, Patty tells Tommy that Frobisher dropped out of the case. But it’s cool. Apparently dozens of other plaintiffs have jumped on the “sue UNR” bandwagon. Giddyup.

At the hospital, Patrick (Knifey) goes to visit Uncle Pete, who’s not happy to see him. “No one can see us here together,” he says. Patrick wants to know if it’s because of the time they tried to kills Ellen. Um…yeah, probably, genius.

Ellen, unaware who the guy is, listens from the van with the feds.

“Wait, wait, this my jam right here. Sing it, Ms. Streisand. Sing it, girl.”

The feds tell Ellen to go inside and see if she can ID the visitor.

Pete tells Patrick this is his problem. “You’re gonna have to give the feds something big to keep you outta jail,” Patrick says. “You’re safe, Patrick,” Pete says. “Whatever I decide, I won’t tell them about you.” Curious.

Patty, meanwhile, is watching schoolchildren play at a park.

Patrick gets up to go. “This is gonna mean goodbye, Patrick,” Pete says.

Ellen runs down the hall, all dramatic.

Patty watches a man put a coat on his daughter in the park.

Patrick sticks a needle into Uncle Pete’s feeding tube. He pushes liquid into it. “Take care, Pete,” he says, leaving. Patrick leaves the room just as Ellen turns a corner. She just misses him, of course.

Pete starts to convulse in his bed. Ellen walks in just as he starts to die.

Patty’s phone rings. “This is Patty.”

Ellen leaves Pete’s room on the phone – “Patty, I called the hospital to check on Pete.

I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

Patty asks when into the phone, starts to cry.

Patrick leaves the hospital. He gets into a car, saying “let’s go before his boss finds out.”

Patty breaks down in tears. Glenn Close continues to be amazing.

THREE MONTHS LATER. Stefanya finds a box in Pete’s closet. There’s folders in there – one with pictures of Katie Connor, and her late, great dog Saffron. Another folder is labeled “Ellen Parsons.”

Stefanya goes to Ellen’s hotel and hands her the folder.

The creepy murder music cues up next, and we see murderous Ellen, sipping a drink in her hotel room. “Actually, I take that back,” she says (again.) “You should be scared. You should be terrified.” She holds up a gun, and we finally see who it is Ellen is talking to…PATTY!!

“Ellen, don’t,” Patty whispers. Ellen puts the gun down. “So it’s just the two of us, face to face,” she says. A tear rolls down Patty’s cheek as she says “just the two of us.” Ellen takes out the folder she got from Stefanya and hands it to Patty. Glenn Close is holding her stomache as she takes the folder. Has she been shot already? The screen goes black as we hear two gun shots.