Last night's DAMAGES all about Tate Donovan

Tate Donovan finally got his 15 minutes of air time last night on DAMAGES as the Patty-whooped Tom Shayes finally revealed his secret agenda: to be Close, so Close, to Her Royal Closeness.

Despite being approached by "The Clients" to take over the case, and despite Cutler's proposal to make him a partner, Tom "Tomahawk" Shayes opted to remain loyal to his boss of 10 years. The episode itself was kinda lackluster in that it dwelled a lot more (for the first time, too) on Shayes' character without revealing any insight or clues as to the secrets of the show. On a previous episode, for instance, Katie's drug-addled whoring ways were revealed in sordid detail, but were done so in order to show how crucial a witness she really coulda been if, say, she hadn't taken the blue pill after all.

Of course, this is the same series that cut a score with the words "Trust No One" on repeat during one of the last, revealing scenes of the episode, so we have yet to see if "Tomahawk" has ulterior motives: if he was playing Patty all along to get a raise, and if Patty--seemingly omniscient--knew all along and played him back by preying on his insecurities, "You're a great #2," she tells him in one scene. Ah, to be told words more often spoken aloud in the bathroom...

Highlights: Donal Logue's greed-is-good, but-dating-20-year-olds-is-better character. Most memorable line: "Pinch my dick." Which reminds me, how is it that the FX show can get away with such tourette-like language?

And Glenn Close. Oh my. She steals the show. The rest of the time I just find myself waiting for Ellen or Tom to be more like Patty. "Be more like Patty," I say aloud to the television.

Lowlights: The secrets. While other people might like this whole murder-mystery theatre thing and get excited at the prospect of having eight more episodes to figure it out, I shudder at the thought. Having already spent all my mystery-guessing brain cells on LOST this year, I kinda just want them to get to a point, any point.

Recap: Each episode, we're given one, two, three minutes tops to see the present situation. So far we've gathered: Ellen had a struggle. She killed someone in Patty's apartment, presumably out of self defense. And her fiancee/ex-fiancee is murdered by the horrible Lady Liberty bookends, which for some god awful reason Ellen decides to touch and get her fingerprints on. But I need to know more, and the reality is, with each episode that passes, I become a little less interested. Especially when you start going into character development for character development's sake. Thus far, this show is not about development: it's about motives, it's about MOs, it's about the sacrifices made to reach a goal. This week's episode felt out of place, but I'll keep watching. I always keep watching for more clues.