"Damages" Recap - Episode 12: There's No "We" Anymore

This is the episode we've all been waiting for.  The one with the red herrings and the real answers. The one we knew was coming from the very beginning.

The one that broke my heart.

Ellen and poor, doomed David are in bed contemplating their wedding rings and how they'll have to wear them for the rest of their lives.  They're all cute and sad.  Cute because they're so sincere and sad because we know it won't happen.

Ellen insists David doesn't try his on because it's bad luck.  Instead she wants him to lock both rings up in their "hiding place."

The phone rings and all of us except David know it's Patty.  Ellen listens for a minute and then says she'll be there right away.  She lies to David, telling him it was her sister and she needs to go to her.  "She's in the village.  They had another fight."

A while later Ellen walks into Patty's office and sees poor Ray Fiske still propped up against the wall.  He's dead, dead, dead and Ellen gasps in horror.   Patty walks up behind her. 

"He shot himself.  I need your help."

Patty gives Ellen the folder with the evidence against Ray and says no one, not even David can know what he was doing there.  This is the first time we've seen Patty this scared---except of course for the beach house freak out---and you can tell it's killing her to have to depend on someone else.

"Ellen, I can trust you?"  She asks fearfully.  Ellen nods.

Opening credits.

Flash forward to Ellen in jail and she's getting a new cell mate.  The new cell mate is one of these street tough broads who thinks she can intimidate anybody.  "What's the matter rich girl, Daddy won't post bail?"

Ellen barely bats an eye and tells her the bottom bunk's hers.  Miss Street Tough takes that as an insult and says how she knocked off a convenience store and a bodega before the cops caught her.

Again, not batting an eye Ellen says, "I killed my fiance."   Besides, I worked for Patty Hewes and lived to tell about it, so you sister ain't got nothin' I ain't seen before.  Sit the hell down and shut up.  Even though she didn't say it, that's gotta be what Ellen's thinking.

Flashback a week earlier to Ellen sneaking back into the apartment with the Fiske folder.  She locks it in a compartment in her desk just before David comes in the room and sees it.  He asks about her sister and Ellen says she's fine.  David's getting dressed because he got called in to work.  They tell each other, "I love you," and David leaves. 

The cops are interviewing Patty in her office.  Hubby Phil is by her side.  Patty looks absolutely shell shocked but she sticks to the story she's concocted.  Speaking very slowly she explains that Ray wanted to see her urgently.  He proposed a settlement offer which she turned down.

Did he threaten you?

No.  He got up and left.  I thought the meeting was over.  But then he came back...and did it.

Privately a CSI guy tells one of the cops all the evidence, blood spatters, etc, say this was a suicide.  Patty needs to stay available, but she can go home.

We cut to an angled shot of Frobisher asleep. He's wearing one of those sleeping eye masks and the phone is ringing.  As he gets up to answer the phone, the camera angle straightens out.  It seems someone's outside his front door.

It's Marshall, the Peter Krause look-a-like, and the two cops who interviewed Patty.  When Frobisher asks what's going on and where's Ray, Marshall tells him Ray killed himself.

They're all seated in Frobisher's living room and the cops want to know if Art knew Ray was meeting with Patty last night.  No.

When was the last time you spoke to Fiske?   Yesterday on the phone.  I don't even remember what we were talking about.

Though Frobisher "doesn't remember" we're reminded with a flashback of Fiske telling Art, Grandpa is dead and "it's over."

Was there any indication Fiske was distressed?  No. 

Anything to make you think he would do this?  No. Nothing.

Patty's sitting in the park with Corey.  Tommyhawk joins her and after asking how she is, wants to know if Patty knows why Fiske did it.  Patty says she doesn't know, but she wants Tom to shut down the office for a few days.  Oh, Patty must be this close to catatonic if she's willing to shut down the office.

There's a hearing coming up with the judge and Tom needs to handle that 'cause Patty's going away.

At Patty's apartment, she's with Michael and Phil in the kitchen.  They both offer to postpone their plans to stay with her but she prefers to be alone.  She's going to the beach house to get away.

Cut to Patty's famous breakdown at the beach house.  Now we know why.

Just a note here about the great directing and editing of this episode.  Throughout the whole hour we have the intricacy of the flashbacks we've been seeing all season inter cut with the scenes we've been missing that give us the answers.  It's very, very well done and only gets better as the episode goes along, as if someone is visually taking us by the hand and leading us through what happened.  Kudos to all the show's editors and directors but especially Mario Van Peebles who directed this episode.

Flash forward to Patty driving in her car with the freaky glasses in the scene we've become so familiar with.  Now we see where she goes.  It's a cemetery.  She walks over to a small head stone and stares at it.

Flashback a week earlier and we're at the hearing with the judge, Marshall and Tom.  The judge says some nice things about Ray...knew him 20 years, great friend, tragic loss...and then he gets down to business.

Marshall wants a six month extension to bring other lawyers in the firm up to speed on the case.  Tom says they sympathize but their clients can't pay their bills for another six months and he suggests a one month extension.  The judge agrees, so the Frobisher trial will start in one month. 

At Ray's office, Marshall lets Frobisher in saying Ray left something for Art on his desk.  Frobisher pours a drink, picks up a framed photo, toasts it, and sits behind the desk.  He's got tears in his eyes and we can tell he's truly upset.  He then opens up the envelope with his name on it.  Inside is Greg's letter to Fiske telling him about the tape.  Frobisher's astounded.

He crumples up the letter and looks down at the framed picture.  It's of him and Ray, standing side by side.

Ellen comes home and she's in that trench coat from the beginning of the series and from the flashbacks of the fight with David, so I'm thinkin' this is where the fight happens.  I'm not disappointed. 

The first thing David says to Ellen is "Ray Fiske killed himself last night.  It's all over the news."  Ellen's like, I heard.  David waits to see if she says anymore and when she doesn't he says Ellen's sister called and said she hasn't spoken to Ellen in three weeks.

"Where were you last night?"  A perfectly reasonable question under the circumstances.

As answer we cut to a closeup of the pictures of Ray Fiske and Gregory Malina.  David's looking at them and Ellen has told him the whole story.   She explains that although Patty fired her, she needed Ellen to meet with George Moore.  David goes ballistic and asks if the folder is why Fiske killed himself.

Ellen is very unconvincing when she says she doesn't know.  David figures out that Patty blackmailed Fiske and that's why he killed himself.  Ellen's not real sympathetic, saying Fiske was guilty of corruption.

"Patty may be a horrible person  but...these guys are ruthless."  They killed Gregory Malina, they probably killed George Moore and they have to be stopped.  The only way to do that is to get Frobisher.   

David wants to know if she's going back to Patty after all this is over.  Ellen hedges, saying,  "This is the kind of work I want to do, David."

That's when David gives her the ultimatum.  Me or the job and you have to answer now.  When Ellen hesitates a little too long, he says, "We're done."

Ellen, tears in her eyes, leaves the ring on the table next to the ugly Statue of Liberty murder weapon and leaves the apartment.

I'm on the edge of my seat because I know this is where it all starts to happen.  The last minutes of David's life.  The phone call from Fatal Attraction, his throwing the phone across the room, yelling at her to stop calling, the knock at the door and he opens it...

Turns out it's Mr. Creepy light bulb changer.  Neighbors said there was a commotion and he came to make sure everything is okay.  David's like, yeah we're fine, get out, have a nice night. 

Ellen leaves the apartment building and Katie watches her go.

Cut to Frobisher on the phone with Scruffy telling him Gregory made a tape.  Scruffy figures he gave it to Katie since Greg went to see her after he came back from Mexico.   Frobisher wants to know if he still has people on her.  Scruffy says yes.  Frobisher doesn't care what it takes, but he wants that tape.

David's at the apartment and leaves a message for Ellen on her voicemail apologizing and wanting her to call him back.  The ugly Statue of Liberty bookend sits menacingly on the table in the foreground.  There's another knock at the door, but this time it's Katie.   She stays only long enough to give David the tape and tell him to give it to Ellen. 

Outside, Katie walks down the street and we see she's being watched by someone from a car.

Ellen's also walking the streets and ends up at HH.  Tom finds her packing up her office and it's an interesting reversal of the scene when she came upon him packing up after he was "fired."  They have a phony little conversation, Tom trying to find out what Ellen might know and Ellen making sure he doesn't.  Tom suggests they have coffee sometime and Ellen says sure. 

Frobisher is at his apartment listening to some crappy loud music and snorting coke.  The doorbell rings and it's Mallory, Ray Fiske's widow.  Seated in Frobisher's living room, she tells Art, Ray was medicated because he had severe bouts of depression.  Living a lie will do that to you.

She wants to know if Frobisher has any idea why Ray might have blown his brains out.  Frobisher lies like a trooper and says no.  The case was going extremely well, and if Mallory doesn't know why he did it, no one else would. 

When Frobisher's cell phone rings he hustles Mallory out of there so the hookers he ordered can come up, have sex and snort some more coke with him.  At least this time we're spared another Frobisher orgasm scene.

Ellen's left HH and ends up at Patty's apartment.  This is where the "Do you regret what we did" conversation happens.  All the flashbacks are falling into place and we're being guided along to what we know is inevitable.

Ellen tells Patty she does regret what they did because they crossed a line.  Patty's surprised.  She starts to ask how could they know Ray was going to...but doesn't finish the question.  Instead she wants to know if the folder is in a safe place.  When Ellen tells her it's locked up in her apartment, Patty says they'll deal with it on Monday.

It's funny, because this scene is where it became clear to me that Patty doesn't regret the blackmail at all.  She's just really surprised and disappointed that it got out of her control.  I think she really liked Ray Fiske and that she's upset about him, but the worst part for her is the lack of control.

Anyway, Patty invites Ellen to stay the weekend at the apartment while Patty's at the beach house.  She thinks Ellen and David can works things out and wouldn't be surprised if they're back together by the time she gets back.

Back at Ellen and David's apartment, David's watching the last words and testament of One Night Stand Greg.  Greg gives all the names, dates and places and says "if anything happens to him, George Moore and Arthur Frobisher are responsible."  David takes the tape out of the camera and tries to call Ellen, but Ellen is seeing Patty out to her car.  David leaves a voicemail explaining about the videotape.  He says he'll leave it in "their hiding place."

Patty drives off to the beach and Ellen walks Corey.  When she comes back to the apartment she leaves her shoes and trench coat slowly and deliberately where we know she's going to snatch them up hours later as she leaves the apartment in a panic.

When she goes upstairs we see someone come in the front door, but we only see their feet.  Ellen goes to the kitchen to get a drink and when she turns around Michael's standing right behind her.  Ellen's understandably scared out of her skin and Michael says "he's grabbing some stuff."  He then says, "Don't tell my mom you saw me.  If anyone asks, I wasn't here."  Ellen agrees and it's all very weird.

Michael was supposed to be spending the weekend with a friend and his family, but obviously that's not what he's doing.  Just when we thought Patty had Michael back in his little box, he surprises us.  What do you want to bet, if there's a season two, Michael will figure prominently in the plot? 

Back to poor, doomed David.  He's asleep at the apartment when someone puts a key in the front door and opens it.  There's a shot of a woman walking into the apartment and in the foreground is the soon to be murder weapon on the foyer table and the engagement ring Ellen left beside it.  We watch as the woman picks up the ring and puts it on.  Could it be Ellen? 

Well no, it's Fatal Attraction and in her sick little fantasy, she reaches for David and says, "I'm sorry David."  David wakes up immediately thinking it's Ellen.

Fatal Attraction says, "Ellen's gone." 

David's outraged, shoving her away from him and out the front door into the hallway.  He says he's calling the police.  Fatal Attraction yells at him and tosses the ring in his face.  Okay, so this is where the neighbors who are going to testify against Ellen thought they saw Ellen in the hallway throwing the ring at David.  David closes the door and grabs the phone to call 911 when Scruffy says, "You really should lock your door," and hits him with the Statue of Liberty bookend.

Flash forward to Patty at the cemetery kneeling in front of that same small head stone.  Her cell phone rings and she finally answers.  It's Tommyhawk.  When he asks her where she's been, she says "visiting family."  He tells her she needs to come back because Ellen thinks Patty tried to kill her.  Patty looks genuinely surprised and tells Tom she's coming home.

Ellen's in her jail cell when a guard comes to say her bail has been posted by a Patricia Hewes.  She's processed out, changes into a set of clothes Patty sent over, and we see her walk out the jail into the free daylight.

She has to walk through a tunnel to go out to the street and as she emerges the shot changes from that very stylized sepia yellow they've been using for all the present day action to realistic, natural colors.  There's a crescendo of that throbbing music they've played throughout and it ends as Ellen reaches Hollis Nye and the car he has waiting for her.  We've come full circle.  Nicely done.

As Ellen gets in Hollis Nye's car, we see Patty driving her own car back to the city.  When Hollis Nye drops Ellen at her apartment, he offers to get her things, but she wants to be alone.

What follows after Ellen enters the apartment is a montage of Ellen in present day and David on the night of his murder.  As Ellen walks through the trashed apartment, we flash back and forth to the David's murder and how it happened at each point in the apartment she reaches.  She sees the blood stain on the floor and we see how it got there when they hit David in the foyer.

Scruffy and his accomplice immediately start asking for the videotape which means they must know that Katie gave it to David.  Is the apartment bugged or is the phone?  One of them has to be or they would think Katie still has it.

As Ellen looks around at the books and papers all over the floor we cut back to Scruffy throwing things around, searching.  David's lying on the floor semi-conscious.  He gets up and tries to defend himself but Scruffy hits him again.  This time they drag him to the bathroom and demand to know where the tape is.  As Ellen enters the bathroom, a bloody David doesn't answer.  Scruffy closes the door and we kow they're going to try to torture it out of him.

Ellen leans against the clean, white bathroom walls and remembers finding David all bloody in the bathtub.  She collapses against the wall, crying.  We cut to the killers leaving the bathroom with David dead in the tub.  They keep looking for the tape.  Ellen remembers the folder in the desk and goes to look.  Scruffy says he's found something and Ellen sees the Ray Fiske file is gone.

It's a harrowing sequence and very sad, because even though I knew David was going to die, I kept hoping somehow he would be saved.  He was a decent guy who didn't do anything wrong except have Katie for a sister and Ellen for a fiance, and for him to die like that was just wrong.

R.I.P. poor, dear David.

Frobisher is looking at the pictures in the Fiske file and Scruffy the Killer tells him the tape wasn't at Ellen's so they went to Patty's apartment.   When Frobisher asks what happened there, Scruffy the Killer says, "things got a little fouled up."  What that means is Ellen killed the accomplice and escaped, and they still didn't find the tape.

Remember how we had a discussion a few weeks ago in the comments section of Episode 5 about why some viewers saw Frobisher as a sympathetic figure?  I thought it was in part because we didn't see the consequences of what he did.  We weren't following the lives of the employees he stole from and what they were going through because that's not what the show is about.  However we did see scenes where Frobisher appeared tortured, misunderstood and kinda human.

Well I'm going on record right now as saying that's all over.  After knowing Frobisher is responsible for David's death just so he could get that tape, all small vestiges of sympathy for him are totally gone and ain't coming back.  They can hang Frobisher by his toenails from the highest building on Wall Street and I'll bring some popcorn and cheer.  Frobisher my man, you're goin' down.

Ellen's still in the apartment when there's a knock on the door.  It's the prodigal Patty.  The two of them stare at each other until Ellen says bluntly, "Where the hell have you been?"  A perfectly reasonable question under the circumstances.

Patty starts to explain she didn't have anything to do with trying to have Ellen killed, but Ellen interrupts her, saying she knows that.  Patty's puzzled because of what Tom said.

"How else was I supposed to get you back here?"  Ellen asks.

Now I must say, that was genius on Ellen's part.  Because if Patty thinks Ellen doesn't trust her and tried to have her killed, she'll be worried Ellen might spill the whole story.  Patty would then do everything in her power to convince Ellen otherwise.  Smart move, Ellen.

What follows is more plot exposition for those of you who might still be a little lost.  Patty and Ellen are walking down the street and Ellen fills Patty in on everything.  The tape, how it implicates Frobisher, how Ellen found out about it when she listened to the last voicemail from David, how the killers came to Patty's apartment to look for the tape and found Ellen instead. 

Patty wants to know where the tape is now.  Ellen says she has it and it's safe.  Patty's about to say "Good then we..."  But Ellen interrupts, "There's no "We" anymore."

Ellen tells Patty she knows she only hired her to get to Katie.  She knows Patty tried to break up her and David.   And she knows Patty sent Tom to mislead her when Ellen was suspicious.  But that was before Ellen knew Tom was a "scared, weak, liar who would do anything to please you."  That's our Tom.

But with all that Patty taught her a valuable lesson:  trust no one.  "Well, I don't anymore Patty.  Least of all you."

So, this is how it's gonna be.  Ellen will give Patty the tape but only after she exonerates her for David's murder and helps her find who really killed him.

Ellen then walks off awesomely down the street.  Bravo.

Cut to Hollis Nye talking on the phone saying "Ellen Parsons is out on bail.  You know where to find her."

Cut to Ellen walking down the street and two shady looking guys walking behind her.

I knew it!  I knew Hollis Nye was up to something!

Far be it for me to gloat too early, but if you'll remember I never did trust that "I'm your favorite uncle/confident" Hollis Nye.  Now if those two guys are bodyguards following her down the street, I'll take it all back.  But I'll bet you five dollars and a glimpse of the death pigeon, they're not.

Flash forward to Ellen in jail and she's getting a new cell mate.  The new cell mate is one of these street tough broads who thinks she can intimidate anybody.  "What's the matter rich girl, Daddy won't post bail?"

Ellen barely bats an eye and tells her the bottom bunk's hers.  Miss Street Tough takes that as an insult and says how she knocked off a convenience store and a bodega before the cops caught her.

Again, not batting an eye Ellen says, "I killed my fiance."   Besides, I worked for Patty Hewes and lived to tell about it, so you sister ain't got nothin' I ain't seen before.  Sit the hell down and shut up.  Even though she didn't say it, that's gotta be what Ellen's thinking.

Flashback a week earlier to Ellen sneaking back into the apartment with the Fiske folder.  She locks it in a compartment in her desk just before David comes in the room and sees it.  He asks about her sister and Ellen says she's fine.  David's getting dressed because he got called in to work.  They tell each other, "I love you," and David leaves. 

The cops are interviewing Patty in her office.  Hubby Phil is by her side.  Patty looks absolutely shell shocked but she sticks to the story she's concocted.  Speaking very slowly she explains that Ray wanted to see her urgently.  He proposed a settlement offer which she turned down.

Did he threaten you?

No.  He got up and left.  I thought the meeting was over.  But then he came back...and did it.

Privately a CSI guy tells one of the cops all the evidence, blood spatters, etc, say this was a suicide.  Patty needs to stay available, but she can go home.

We cut to an angled shot of Frobisher asleep. He's wearing one of those sleeping eye masks and the phone is ringing.  As he gets up to answer the phone, the camera angle straightens out.  It seems someone's outside his front door.

It's Marshall, the Peter Krause look-a-like, and the two cops who interviewed Patty.  When Frobisher asks what's going on and where's Ray, Marshall tells him Ray killed himself.

They're all seated in Frobisher's living room and the cops want to know if Art knew Ray was meeting with Patty last night.  No.

When was the last time you spoke to Fiske?   Yesterday on the phone.  I don't even remember what we were talking about.

Though Frobisher "doesn't remember" we're reminded with a flashback of Fiske telling Art, Grandpa is dead and "it's over."

Was there any indication Fiske was distressed?  No. 

Anything to make you think he would do this?  No. Nothing.

Patty's sitting in the park with Corey.  Tommyhawk joins her and after asking how she is, wants to know if Patty knows why Fiske did it.  Patty says she doesn't know, but she wants Tom to shut down the office for a few days.  Oh, Patty must be this close to catatonic if she's willing to shut down the office.

There's a hearing coming up with the judge and Tom needs to handle that 'cause Patty's going away.

At Patty's apartment, she's with Michael and Phil in the kitchen.  They both offer to postpone their plans to stay with her but she prefers to be alone.  She's going to the beach house to get away.

Cut to Patty's famous breakdown at the beach house.  Now we know why.

Just a note here about the great directing and editing of this episode.  Throughout the whole hour we have the intricacy of the flashbacks we've been seeing all season inter cut with the scenes we've been missing that give us the answers.  It's very, very well done and only gets better as the episode goes along, as if someone is visually taking us by the hand and leading us through what happened.  Kudos to all the show's editors and directors but especially Mario Van Peebles who directed this episode.

Flash forward to Patty driving in her car with the freaky glasses in the scene we've become so familiar with.  Now we see where she goes.  It's a cemetery.  She walks over to a small head stone and stares at it.

Flashback a week earlier and we're at the hearing with the judge, Marshall and Tom.  The judge says some nice things about Ray...knew him 20 years, great friend, tragic loss...and then he gets down to business.

Marshall wants a six month extension to bring other lawyers in the firm up to speed on the case.  Tom says they sympathize but their clients can't pay their bills for another six months and he suggests a one month extension.  The judge agrees, so the Frobisher trial will start in one month. 

At Ray's office, Marshall lets Frobisher in saying Ray left something for Art on his desk.  Frobisher pours a drink, picks up a framed photo, toasts it, and sits behind the desk.  He's got tears in his eyes and we can tell he's truly upset.  He then opens up the envelope with his name on it.  Inside is Greg's letter to Fiske telling him about the tape.  Frobisher's astounded.

He crumples up the letter and looks down at the framed picture.  It's of him and Ray, standing side by side.

Ellen comes home and she's in that trench coat from the beginning of the series and from the flashbacks of the fight with David, so I'm thinkin' this is where the fight happens.  I'm not disappointed. 

The first thing David says to Ellen is "Ray Fiske killed himself last night.  It's all over the news."  Ellen's like, I heard.  David waits to see if she says anymore and when she doesn't he says Ellen's sister called and said she hasn't spoken to Ellen in three weeks.

"Where were you last night?"  A perfectly reasonable question under the circumstances.

As answer we cut to a closeup of the pictures of Ray Fiske and Gregory Malina.  David's looking at them and Ellen has told him the whole story.   She explains that although Patty fired her, she needed Ellen to meet with George Moore.  David goes ballistic and asks if the folder is why Fiske killed himself.

Ellen is very unconvincing when she says she doesn't know.  David figures out that Patty blackmailed Fiske and that's why he killed himself.  Ellen's not real sympathetic, saying Fiske was guilty of corruption.

"Patty may be a horrible person  but...these guys are ruthless."  They killed Gregory Malina, they probably killed George Moore and they have to be stopped.  The only way to do that is to get Frobisher.   

David wants to know if she's going back to Patty after all this is over.  Ellen hedges, saying,  "This is the kind of work I want to do, David."

That's when David gives her the ultimatum.  Me or the job and you have to answer now.  When Ellen hesitates a little too long, he says, "We're done."

Ellen, tears in her eyes, leaves the ring on the table next to the ugly Statue of Liberty murder weapon and leaves the apartment.

I'm on the edge of my seat because I know this is where it all starts to happen.  The last minutes of David's life.  The phone call from Fatal Attraction, his throwing the phone across the room, yelling at her to stop calling, the knock at the door and he opens it...

Turns out it's Mr. Creepy light bulb changer.  Neighbors said there was a commotion and he came to make sure everything is okay.  David's like, yeah we're fine, get out, have a nice night. 

Ellen leaves the apartment building and Katie watches her go.

Cut to Frobisher on the phone with Scruffy telling him Gregory made a tape.  Scruffy figures he gave it to Katie since Greg went to see her after he came back from Mexico.   Frobisher wants to know if he still has people on her.  Scruffy says yes.  Frobisher doesn't care what it takes, but he wants that tape.

David's at the apartment and leaves a message for Ellen on her voicemail apologizing and wanting her to call him back.  The ugly Statue of Liberty bookend sits menacingly on the table in the foreground.  There's another knock at the door, but this time it's Katie.   She stays only long enough to give David the tape and tell him to give it to Ellen. 

Outside, Katie walks down the street and we see she's being watched by someone from a car.

Ellen's also walking the streets and ends up at HH.  Tom finds her packing up her office and it's an interesting reversal of the scene when she came upon him packing up after he was "fired."  They have a phony little conversation, Tom trying to find out what Ellen might know and Ellen making sure he doesn't.  Tom suggests they have coffee sometime and Ellen says sure. 

Frobisher is at his apartment listening to some crappy loud music and snorting coke.  The doorbell rings and it's Mallory, Ray Fiske's widow.  Seated in Frobisher's living room, she tells Art, Ray was medicated because he had severe bouts of depression.  Living a lie will do that to you.

She wants to know if Frobisher has any idea why Ray might have blown his brains out.  Frobisher lies like a trooper and says no.  The case was going extremely well, and if Mallory doesn't know why he did it, no one else would. 

When Frobisher's cell phone rings he hustles Mallory out of there so the hookers he ordered can come up, have sex and snort some more coke with him.  At least this time we're spared another Frobisher orgasm scene.

Ellen's left HH and ends up at Patty's apartment.  This is where the "Do you regret what we did" conversation happens.  All the flashbacks are falling into place and we're being guided along to what we know is inevitable.

Ellen tells Patty she does regret what they did because they crossed a line.  Patty's surprised.  She starts to ask how could they know Ray was going to...but doesn't finish the question.  Instead she wants to know if the folder is in a safe place.  When Ellen tells her it's locked up in her apartment, Patty says they'll deal with it on Monday.

It's funny, because this scene is where it became clear to me that Patty doesn't regret the blackmail at all.  She's just really surprised and disappointed that it got out of her control.  I think she really liked Ray Fiske and that she's upset about him, but the worst part for her is the lack of control.

Anyway, Patty invites Ellen to stay the weekend at the apartment while Patty's at the beach house.  She thinks Ellen and David can works things out and wouldn't be surprised if they're back together by the time she gets back.

Back at Ellen and David's apartment, David's watching the last words and testament of One Night Stand Greg.  Greg gives all the names, dates and places and says "if anything happens to him, George Moore and Arthur Frobisher are responsible."  David takes the tape out of the camera and tries to call Ellen, but Ellen is seeing Patty out to her car.  David leaves a voicemail explaining about the videotape.  He says he'll leave it in "their hiding place."

Patty drives off to the beach and Ellen walks Corey.  When she comes back to the apartment she leaves her shoes and trench coat slowly and deliberately where we know she's going to snatch them up hours later as she leaves the apartment in a panic.

When she goes upstairs we see someone come in the front door, but we only see their feet.  Ellen goes to the kitchen to get a drink and when she turns around Michael's standing right behind her.  Ellen's understandably scared out of her skin and Michael says "he's grabbing some stuff."  He then says, "Don't tell my mom you saw me.  If anyone asks, I wasn't here."  Ellen agrees and it's all very weird.

Michael was supposed to be spending the weekend with a friend and his family, but obviously that's not what he's doing.  Just when we thought Patty had Michael back in his little box, he surprises us.  What do you want to bet, if there's a season two, Michael will figure prominently in the plot? 

Back to poor, doomed David.  He's asleep at the apartment when someone puts a key in the front door and opens it.  There's a shot of a woman walking into the apartment and in the foreground is the soon to be murder weapon on the foyer table and the engagement ring Ellen left beside it.  We watch as the woman picks up the ring and puts it on.  Could it be Ellen? 

Well no, it's Fatal Attraction and in her sick little fantasy, she reaches for David and says, "I'm sorry David."  David wakes up immediately thinking it's Ellen.

Fatal Attraction says, "Ellen's gone." 

David's outraged, shoving her away from him and out the front door into the hallway.  He says he's calling the police.  Fatal Attraction yells at him and tosses the ring in his face.  Okay, so this is where the neighbors who are going to testify against Ellen thought they saw Ellen in the hallway throwing the ring at David.  David closes the door and grabs the phone to call 911 when Scruffy says, "You really should lock your door," and hits him with the Statue of Liberty bookend.

Flash forward to Patty at the cemetery kneeling in front of that same small head stone.  Her cell phone rings and she finally answers.  It's Tommyhawk.  When he asks her where she's been, she says "visiting family."  He tells her she needs to come back because Ellen thinks Patty tried to kill her.  Patty looks genuinely surprised and tells Tom she's coming home.

Ellen's in her jail cell when a guard comes to say her bail has been posted by a Patricia Hewes.  She's processed out, changes into a set of clothes Patty sent over, and we see her walk out the jail into the free daylight.

She has to walk through a tunnel to go out to the street and as she emerges the shot changes from that very stylized sepia yellow they've been using for all the present day action to realistic, natural colors.  There's a crescendo of that throbbing music they've played throughout and it ends as Ellen reaches Hollis Nye and the car he has waiting for her.  We've come full circle.  Nicely done.

As Ellen gets in Hollis Nye's car, we see Patty driving her own car back to the city.  When Hollis Nye drops Ellen at her apartment, he offers to get her things, but she wants to be alone.

What follows after Ellen enters the apartment is a montage of Ellen in present day and David on the night of his murder.  As Ellen walks through the trashed apartment, we flash back and forth to the David's murder and how it happened at each point in the apartment she reaches.  She sees the blood stain on the floor and we see how it got there when they hit David in the foyer.

Scruffy and his accomplice immediately start asking for the videotape which means they must know that Katie gave it to David.  Is the apartment bugged or is the phone?  One of them has to be or they would think Katie still has it.

As Ellen looks around at the books and papers all over the floor we cut back to Scruffy throwing things around, searching.  David's lying on the floor semi-conscious.  He gets up and tries to defend himself but Scruffy hits him again.  This time they drag him to the bathroom and demand to know where the tape is.  As Ellen enters the bathroom, a bloody David doesn't answer.  Scruffy closes the door and we kow they're going to try to torture it out of him.

Ellen leans against the clean, white bathroom walls and remembers finding David all bloody in the bathtub.  She collapses against the wall, crying.  We cut to the killers leaving the bathroom with David dead in the tub.  They keep looking for the tape.  Ellen remembers the folder in the desk and goes to look.  Scruffy says he's found something and Ellen sees the Ray Fiske file is gone.

It's a harrowing sequence and very sad, because even though I knew David was going to die, I kept hoping somehow he would be saved.  He was a decent guy who didn't do anything wrong except have Katie for a sister and Ellen for a fiance, and for him to die like that was just wrong.

R.I.P. poor, dear David.

Frobisher is looking at the pictures in the Fiske file and Scruffy the Killer tells him the tape wasn't at Ellen's so they went to Patty's apartment.   When Frobisher asks what happened there, Scruffy the Killer says, "things got a little fouled up."  What that means is Ellen killed the accomplice and escaped, and they still didn't find the tape.

Remember how we had a discussion a few weeks ago in the comments section of Episode 5 about why some viewers saw Frobisher as a sympathetic figure?  I thought it was in part because we didn't see the consequences of what he did.  We weren't following the lives of the employees he stole from and what they were going through because that's not what the show is about.  However we did see scenes where Frobisher appeared tortured, misunderstood and kinda human.

Well I'm going on record right now as saying that's all over.  After knowing Frobisher is responsible for David's death just so he could get that tape, all small vestiges of sympathy for him are totally gone and ain't coming back.  They can hang Frobisher by his toenails from the highest building on Wall Street and I'll bring some popcorn and cheer.  Frobisher my man, you're goin' down.

Ellen's still in the apartment when there's a knock on the door.  It's the prodigal Patty.  The two of them stare at each other until Ellen says bluntly, "Where the hell have you been?"  A perfectly reasonable question under the circumstances.

Patty starts to explain she didn't have anything to do with trying to have Ellen killed, but Ellen interrupts her, saying she knows that.  Patty's puzzled because of what Tom said.

"How else was I supposed to get you back here?"  Ellen asks.

Now I must say, that was genius on Ellen's part.  Because if Patty thinks Ellen doesn't trust her and tried to have her killed, she'll be worried Ellen might spill the whole story.  Patty would then do everything in her power to convince Ellen otherwise.  Smart move, Ellen.

What follows is more plot exposition for those of you who might still be a little lost.  Patty and Ellen are walking down the street and Ellen fills Patty in on everything.  The tape, how it implicates Frobisher, how Ellen found out about it when she listened to the last voicemail from David, how the killers came to Patty's apartment to look for the tape and found Ellen instead. 

Patty wants to know where the tape is now.  Ellen says she has it and it's safe.  Patty's about to say "Good then we..."  But Ellen interrupts, "There's no "We" anymore."

Ellen tells Patty she knows she only hired her to get to Katie.  She knows Patty tried to break up her and David.   And she knows Patty sent Tom to mislead her when Ellen was suspicious.  But that was before Ellen knew Tom was a "scared, weak, liar who would do anything to please you."  That's our Tom.

But with all that Patty taught her a valuable lesson:  trust no one.  "Well, I don't anymore Patty.  Least of all you."

So, this is how it's gonna be.  Ellen will give Patty the tape but only after she exonerates her for David's murder and helps her find who really killed him.

Ellen then walks off awesomely down the street.  Bravo.

Cut to Hollis Nye talking on the phone saying "Ellen Parsons is out on bail.  You know where to find her."

Cut to Ellen walking down the street and two shady looking guys walking behind her.

I knew it!  I knew Hollis Nye was up to something!

Far be it for me to gloat too early, but if you'll remember I never did trust that "I'm your favorite uncle/confident" Hollis Nye.  Now if those two guys are bodyguards following her down the street, I'll take it all back.  But I'll bet you five dollars and a glimpse of the death pigeon, they're not.