Damages (season 5)

In the wake of the High Star case, Ellen launches her own firm and, according to Patty, is looking for a high profile case to help her make a name for herself. Simultaneously, Ellen is testifying against Patty in Michael's custody suit. Meanwhile, Naomi Walling (Jenna Elfman), a trader for the Princefield Investment Bank, approaches Channing McClaren (Ryan Phillippe), the founder of a website where confidential whistle-blowers can post information, intending to disclose illegal activity within her firm. McClaren, anticipating the need for legal protection, seeks Patty’s legal expertise, but she refuses to represent him and instead recommends Ellen. Later, Ellen meets with McClaren and wonders whether to take the job when she learns Patty recommended her. Promised anonymity, Naomi leaks the information against Princefield but somehow her personal emails disclosing her name and affairs with multiple high-ranking Wall Street traders are included in the encrypted leak. As a result, her life begins to fall apart. Naomi's daughter Rachel, a high school senior, seeks Patty’s help in suing McClaren for leaking the information but Naomi refuses to allow legal action. That same night, Naomi is murdered by two unknown men who stage the murder to look like she committed suicide by slashing her wrists in the bathtub. Naomi’s death is ruled a suicide and Patty files a wrongful death suit against Channing McClaren. Ellen's testimony in Michael's custody case is challenged by Patty, which presents Ellen with a hard choice: testify against Patty in the custody case or accept McClaren's offer and try a case against Patty. Ellen decides to take McClaren's case and convinces Michael to put the custody hearing on hold. Mentor and protégée prepare to face each other in court.

Publicly stating that he did not intend to expose Naomi's private life, Channing McClaren is involved in a media frenzy. Patty and Ellen face each other in court, where Ellen suspects that the judge is favoring Patty. An enigmatic woman named Kate Franklin approaches Ellen and offers to be her new associate. However, Ellen discovers that Kate had worked for Patty twenty years ago, and as a loyalty test sends her to Patty, making demands she double the offer Ellen made. Patty falls into the trap and tries to hire Franklin. Having overheard a conversation at Patty's, Kate confirms Ellen's doubts about the judge, leading Ellen to hire Kate and blackmail the judge. At the same time, a private investigator working for Ellen finds evidence Naomi had met Channing, contradictory to Channing's statement. After the judge recuses himself from the case and a new one steps in, Ellen finds out that Patty had orchestrated everything: the judge was ruling in favor of Ellen, so Patty manipulated Ellen to believe the opposite, making room for a new, more favorable judge.

Ellen continues to have disturbing dreams about her late fiancé. Later, she thinks that she sees the hitman who tried to kill her years ago. Her trauma counselor advises her to drop the case. In separate interviews with Patty and Ellen, Thomas Weld, who had stayed in the room next to Naomi Walling's, says he did not hear an argument from Naomi's room, which does not help Patty's case. Ellen pushes further by promises not to expose Weld, discovering he was carrying on an affair at the hotel. Naomi's daughter Rachel is confronted by Naomi's former boss, which causes her to consider dropping the case. Later she's approached directly by McClaren who convinces her to listen to his side of the story. In his retelling, McClaren is less aggressive. Instead, McClaren is awkward and his extremely poor social skills create a misunderstanding. Despite his actions quite clearly constituting a sexual assault, he was trying to be seductive and persistent, not aggressive. He accepts full responsibility and Rachel tells Patty to accept the settlement. Until this point, McClaren left Ellen unaware that he'd made a settlement offer, so Ellen is taken by surprise. Meanwhile, Kate lets Ellen know she still has some prior business with Patty. During Richard Weld's deposition, Patty confronts him with new evidence, at which Weld admits he heard McClaren berating and threatening Naomi. His vivid description is compelling. When Rachel sees the tape, she immediately rejects the settlement offer. It is revealed Weld's testimony was the result of blackmail by Ellen with Patty's support: both want to sabotage the settlement to bring the case goes to court. Ellen blackmailed the witness to make him provide the damning testimony; Patty agreed that the testimony will never be used in court.

Channing learns about the death of Samurai Seven, the computer hacker. Meanwhile, Patty and Ellen travel to Maine University to depose Dr. Lee Collins, a computer science expert who analyzed Princefield’s servers. Chris Sanchez, who now counsels military veterans, learns that the military routinely prescribes antidepressants to servicemen suffering from PTSD via web chat sessions and sends them back to combat without meeting a doctor in person. Chris wants Ellen to give this story to Channing. Channing meets with Beth Kim, Samurai Seven’s girlfriend, where she tells him that Ellen, Gitta, and Patty met Samurai Seven behind Channing's back. Rutger Simon meets with a major funder of McClarenTruth and describes the information that Samurai Seven leaked and how both sides of the cases now have access to it. He explains that Princefield was conducting its own investigation into Naomi Walling long before she began speaking to McClaren, and that Princefield’s CEO Bennett Herreshoff turned over the results of the investigation to the SEC. In Maine, Dr. Collins tells Patty and Ellen that Naomi's personal information was hacked from her laptop by someone with extensive expertise, possibly McClaren or Samurai Seven. A snowstorm arrives, prompting Patty to invite Ellen to board her private plane, an invitation that Ellen accepts. McClaren meets Naomi Walling’s old boss, Bruce Davies, to see what he knows, explaining that Princefied’s CEO Bennett Herreshoff was investigating both Davies and Naomi. In response, Davies explains that Herreshoff helped create Fund 23 with the express purpose of insider trading. Nothing leads back to the insulated Herreshoff, who had no motive to kill Samurai Seven. Davies writes down the name of the man who gave him the stock tips that led to the insider trading. Later, McClaren returns to tell Rutger the name of the man Bruce Davies gave: Helmut Torben, the donor Rutger had just met with.

Ellen continues private counseling while Patty continues to be courted for the Supreme Court. However, Patty is warned she must first deal with any existing improprieties, which reminds her of the attempted murder of Ellen. Gitta and McClaren go to Ellen with the information that Torben both assisted in Fund 23's insider trading and funds McClarenTruth. Michael discovers that his maternal grandfather, Lyle Hewes, is still alive and wishes the family land to go to Michael after his death. Lyle fails to convince Michael to drop the custody case. Later, Michael fails to convince Patty to release her portion and allow him to inherit the family land. After Ellen visits Uncle Pete's widow in her search for the man who was hired to kill her, the widow contacts the assassin, named Patrick, to warn him. Ellen gives a part of the blood stained business card (from season 1) to the detectives who worked the case of David's murder, asking them to test it for the DNA of her assassin. The press surrounding the case suddenly becomes positive when Chris Sanchez and McClarenTruth release the anonymous information on the soldiers with PTSD. Patty reveals to Ellen that she knows the identity of Torben and she demands the complete finances of McClarenTruth. Ellen finally learns the identity of her assassin—Patrick Scully, a petty criminal. Patty accepts the nomination for the Supreme Court.