TVSquad

Damages has lived up to the hype. After a jaw-dropping debut season that garnered Glenn Close an Emmy and a Golden Globe for her turn as Patty Hewes, the FX legal drama roared back in January amid speculation regarding whether or not the unique storytelling techniques used in season one could be re-created again. The result? Eight episodes into the new season and Damages is as thrilling as ever.

However, after learning that Patty is indeed the person being held at gunpoint in last week's final moments, it proved one thing - Patty isn't the only one in the hot seat. The creative team behind Damages should be sweating too.

(S02E01) "Actually, I take that back. You should be scared. You should be terrified." - Ellen

Payback's a bitch, ain't it? Not if you're Ellen Parsons - then it's a slow, methodical, patience-testing process where it apparently takes six months before you get to shoot a gun. And thus begins the second chapter in the twisted law legacy of Ellen Parsons. After one episode, David Connor's killer is no longer the issue at the top of everyone's mind.

I don't know how Mario Van Peebles finds the time for all the work he's been doing lately. Somehow he fits it all in. And now he's circling back.

Mario Van Peebles will return to FX's Damages for six episodes, reprising his role as Agent Harrison. He was briefly seen as the FBI agent who approaches Ellen about going after Patty Hewes (Glenn Close). Indications are that Ellen will work with the Feds in some way, because Patty has definitely crossed the lines of legality -- and morality -- multiple times. Agent Harrison only cares about the former.

At the same time, Van Peebles is also assigned to direct FX's motorcycle drama Sons of Anarchy. That new series, with Ron Perlman, premieres in September.

Actor/director Mario Van Peebles has a new gig: he's joining the ABC daytime soap All My Children.

Van Peebles will come to Pine Valley and play Samuel Woods, an attorney who runs for Senate and just might get romantically involved with Erica Kane (Susan Lucci). If you've never watched the show, everyone at one time or another gets involved romantically with Erica Kane, and often marries her.

I think everyone's first reaction to this will be "gee, his career has really gone downhill, eh?" But I don't think that's necessarily the case. Van Peebles works a lot and often does his own stuff, so maybe he just thought it would be a good gig and we shouldn't read anything else into it. No word on whether it will be a temporary role or a long term stay.

Maybe he should come to the show as this guy.

Hey, say that headline 5 times real fast.

I was watching Ebert & Roeper this weekend, and the fill-in for Ebert (he should be back in 2007) was actor and director Mario Van Peebles, who most recently won acclaim for directing the movie Baadasssss!, playing Malcolm X in Ali, and as a cast member on the show Rude Awakening a few years back. But back in the late 80s he starred in a really fun Stephen J. Cannell show titled Sonny Spoon, about a con man who helps people (and himself) out of various jams. He used his connections on the street, the help of a bar owner (real-life dad Melvin Van Peebles), and, best of all, several disguises to solve the crime. You don't see that enough on television these days, people using funky disguises. I think some of the heist shows have used them here and there, but it was a major part of Sonny Spoon. And the show was hip without being annoying, and was just really entertaining.