Patty Hewes - Reception

Reception

Upon the first episode of the show, Patty Hewes received enormous praise. David Hinckley of the New York Daily News, has called the character, "the new J.R. Ewing - someone who's rich, powerful, unscrupulous, conniving and charismatic. And this time, this 21st-century approximation of J.R. is played by a woman." Many critics thought that Close and her portrayal of Patty are the main reason for the show's critical success, such one critic was Tim Goodman of the San Francisco Chronicle who wrote that "it's Close who makes Damages a series to contend with". However, few reviewers have criticized the character's "false complexity", by stating that her psychotic behavior is not grounded, with nothing else but psychological explanations. Heather Havrileskey of Salon.com has named Patty part of FX's myriad of "psychopaths", "histrionics", "schizophrenics" and "tyrants", but referred to her in particular as "a perennial wacko". She concludes by saying that Patty is more morally corrupt and villainous than the show's central villain Arthur Frobisher (Ted Danson).

By the end of the season, the character reached almost "universal acclaim". At the beginning of the second season Heather Harvileskey called Patty "more sympathetic" and "fragile" than before mainly because of the character of Daniel Purcell, played by William Hurt, an old acquaintance and flame of Patty's.