Big Names Bold Roles Hot Shows Glenn Close does Damages while Holly Hunter finds her Saving Gra
Patty Hewes loves red meat. "I'm thinking steak," declares the glamorously ruthless litigator, played to the cunning Cruella De Lawyer hilt by
Glenn Close in FX's twisted new legal thriller
Damages. When told her naive young protégée is also a carnivore, Patty approves: "Atta girl."
Meaty roles like Patty Hewes — and Saving Grace's Grace Hanadarko, a booze-swilling Oklahoma detective on the fast track to self-destruction — have brought dazzling stars with the Tony and Oscar cred of Close and Holly Hunter to cable. Not HBO, but high-end basic cable. Their characters, rich in layers and scene-stealing opportunity, are more rewarding than the sorts of roles most actresses of their generation are likely to get in the movies.
Close, who spent a memorable season on The Shield, is in top form in Damages, a classic FX melodrama that frames its dark story in a sinister Hitchcockian mystery involving ambitious law-school grad Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne), whom we first see emerging bloody from an elevator. This season flashes back to the six months from the time Ellen optimistically joins Patty's firm (despite ominous warnings) to the dire events of the opening scenes. Whatever mess Ellen is ensnared in has much to do with the emotionally manipulative Patty and her high-profile legal crusade against a scandal-plagued tycoon, cagily played by Ted Danson. Who's a villain and who's a hero here? Can you tell the pawns from the players? All excellent questions as we become absorbed in FX's latest thrill ride.
Meanwhile, TNT is adopting the FX trademark of raw language and sexually graphic behavior in the frantically offbeat Saving Grace, which is just the thing for anyone who ever yearned for an adults-only version of Touched by an Angel.
With humor, grit and a confident swagger, Holly Hunter commits fully to the title character, a cop so impulsive and abrasive she may deserve to be committed. Reckless with men (including her married partner, The Shield's Kenneth Johnson) while abusing all kinds of substances, Grace hits the skids with a drunk-driving incident that brings her to the sardonic attention of a scruffy, tobacco-spitting "last-chance angel" (Leon Rippy, who sprouts actual wings on request).
Grace's road to redemption is as irreverent as it is rocky. Self-consciously edgy while flirting with cosmic schmaltz, Saving Grace is overdone, but not run-of-the-mill. Same goes for its electrifying star, who chews the scenery like it's beef jerky. Atta girl.
