Close is as charged-up as ever as power lawyer Patty Hewes, who last season brought down evil billionaire Arthur Frobisher (Ted Danson). She presides over every scene she's in, her tense facial composure clearly a mask for her shrewd cogitations and manipulations. There's not a lot of subtlety in Close's icy performance; she doesn't quite succeed in creating one of TV's great ambiguous heroes, such as Vic Mackey from FX's "The Shield." But she's riveting in an exaggerated, pulpy way.
Rose Byrne is back as Ellen Parsons, Patty's protege, whose fiance was murdered by the machinations of Frobisher (who, by the way, survived last season's shooting). Now traumatized by the death, Ellen is also haunted by the knowledge that Patty tried to have her killed. She has become an FBI informant to bring down Patty, and even her FBI handlers think she might be a little too eager for revenge. So relentlessly mousy last season, Byrne seems appealingly jazzed to be going up against Close.
By the way, you don't need to have seen the first season to pick up "Damages" tonight. Danson appears sporadically as remnants of last season's plot linger, but most of the action is new, revolving around Hurt's energy-science researcher, Daniel Purcell. Purcell, who has a mysterious history with Patty, has uncovered incendiary information about the energy industry that has made him a target. Reunited with "Big Chill" costar Close, Hurt plays the temperamental Purcell like Close plays Patty - with broad strokes signifying nothing in particular. He's an entertaining addition, and so is Harden, whose purpose in the plot will emerge slowly.
Last season, "Damages" wore thin, as the Frobisher case became tiresome and the writers' efforts to build subplots out of it became forced. As on "24," rampant suspicions about each and every character's motives can get silly after a point. And all the show's trademark time-shifting - "6 months earlier," "10 years earlier" - can feel unintentionally self-parodying. Here's hoping this season's mystery builds carefully to a finish, not a fizzle.
Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com.
