Damages Finale Preview: What Happens in That Hotel Room?

If there's one thing viewers want from a season finale, it's answers. Well, Damages fans, rejoice, because that's exactly what you will get in Wednesday's 90-minute second season closer.

"With the web that we spin, we feel like we have a responsibility to the audience to pull the shoelaces together — to pull it tight so that everything starts to fit into place," co-creator and executive producer Todd Kessler tells TVGuide.com. "We really appreciate the audience and their attention, so we want to deliver on every story we propose."

Great! So, why is Patty bleeding after leaving Ellen's hotel room? What's going to happen to Daniel Purcell now that he's confessed to murdering his wife? Will trigger-happy Wes send Ellen to her grave? Naturally, the producers are keeping mum on the major plot points, but co-creator and exec producer Daniel Zelman promises this season's finale is much more about character than plot.

"Although there's a lot of plot and twists, our show really starts with the characters," Zelman said. "The season ends this year on a character note. It really has to do with the aftermath of what happened in that hotel room and where that leaves our main characters." 

In that spirit, the producers gave us a few tease-y nuggets about all this season's major players.

Patty
It's not been a great year for Patty. Uncle Pete died. She fired Tom (for real this time). She's divorcing her husband. What else could go wrong? Oh, right — she's being held at gunpoint by her newest associate. "Throughout the season, Patty has lost huge support systems in her life," Zelman says. "The idea is that Patty has sort of isolated herself to the point where all she has left is Ellen. The question is: Will Ellen betray her?"

Ellen
Ellen has been motivated by anger since her fiancé was murdered, and her new boy toy, Wes, hasn't impeded those desires at all. He even laid out her choices in their first meeting: forgiveness or revenge. "That's really what the finale is about for Ellen," Zelman says. "She gets to a place where she can make that decision. The question is: What is she going to decide? And where does she go from there?" As for Wes: "Ellen must separate herself from that [relationship] so that she has space to deal with Patty," Zelman says.

Daniel Purcell
This season's penultimate episode delivered a gut punch when viewers learned that Purcell strangled his wife to death... almost. "Our show is all about gray area, and what we found intriguing is that he thinks he [killed her], but it's more complicated than that," Zelman says. "The bad guys could have saved his wife, but they didn't. We really wanted to end his story on an interesting, complicated note." Even so, Purcell will have one final scene with Patty in the finale, Zelman says.

Tom
Tom is damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. Ellen (and her FBI pals) have information that could destroy him, but Tom still has a soft spot for Patty. So who will he side with? "Tom's a loyalist, and at the end of the day, he's always going to try to protect Patty," Zelman says.

Michael
Patty's son is the last family member standing on her side, but that might not be true by the end of this season. Patty, in short, has perhaps created her own worst enemy. "I think they engage in power plays with each other, and that is something that Michael has very much learned from Patty," Zelman says. "There will be a confrontation between the two of them, and really that's about as much as I can say about it. Patty learns something about Michael, and we'll see what happens from there."

Once Season 2 is a wrap, where do we go from there? Anywhere, Zelman says. "You're really left not knowing exactly what the future's going to be for these characters, but we want there to be a sense of everything's wide open now and anything could happen. We're very excited about that."

So are we.

What do you think (hope) will happen in the finale?