Glenn Close's Freak-Outs
That woman knows how to have a breakdown, doesn't she? I'll miss the way she handily destroyed her enemies, like the time she just eviscerated Michael's pregnant fiancée for trying to steal her money, and I'll miss her awesomely over-the-top reactions to tragedies, like Ray Fiske's suicide and Tom's death (I still have nightmares about "I told you to stooooop!!!"). Actresses come younger, but they don't come better at glaring and hyperventilating.

The Shocking Murders
It started with Patty Hewes sending an assassin after a dog named Saffron and ended with Joe Tobin drowning Tom Shayes in a toilet, with about a dozen more in between. Throughout the show's entire run it has blown us away with astonishing twists and surprise, horrific killings that actually made sense, plot and character-wise, and didn't just serve to shock. The only other scripted show that has half as much fun with gore as Damages did is Sons of Anarchy, but that show is about biker gangs -- it's supposed to be bloody. How often do you get to watch lawyers go medieval on people? It's criminally rare.

The Flashbacks
There's not a whole lot going on in the way of well-crafted, season-long mysteries on TV right now, and Damages' way of expertly introducing reveals little by little by way of grainy, blood-stained, often booze-soaked flashbacks will leave a nail-biting void on the television landscape.

The Character Twists
It was a show where you didn't know where anybody's allegiances really lied, what their real motives were and who they'd end up being in the end. Yes, some of them didn't quite work -- we all saw Daniel Purcell as his wife's murderer from a mile away -- but the ones that did were chilling. Marilyn Tobin manipulating her son into murdering her granddaughter just to keep her money safe would have been absurd on a lesser show, and Ray Fiske's suicide over being exposed as not only an insider trader but, probably more importantly, a closeted homosexual was one of the most shocking TV moments ever.

Tom Shayes
Arguably the emotional glue of the show, Tom Shayes was a man torn between his ambition and moral weakness, and the small parts of him that were actually capable of better. And when everything was taken away from him he was too embarrassed to go to Patty for help, and it was his pride that ultimately got him killed. He was the show's most tragic figure, and Tate Donovan always managed to play him in a sympathetic way. There aren't too many whipping boys on TV you actually like, but Tom Shayes was one of them.

There's One Less Great Female Lead on Television Now
Patty Hewes was a terrifying, cagey, unpredictable character with tremendous power, and Glenn Close played her so perfectly Glenn Closey I couldn't imagine anyone else ever having the part. TV as a whole is undoubtedly worse for the absence of Patty Hewes.

The only thing I won't miss is Rose Byrne. I know she has her fans, and I'm happy for her -- I'm sure she's a lovely person -- but that girl was in way over her head for the entire run of the series. Hope she gets a less challenging gig next time around.

Your Damageseulogies? Vehement denial over its impending official cancellation? Rose Byrne indignation? Let me have it below!

See which past TV shows need to come back from the dead.

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