The fourth season of the legal drama series Damages premiered on the Audience Network, an entertainment channel owned by DirecTV, on July 13, 2011 and concluded on September 14, 2011.

When she discovers an old high-school boyfriend has been through a traumatic experience while working for High Star, a private security firm hired by the U.S. government to carry out special missions in Afghanistan, she suspects foul play and asks Patty for help.

Patty, currently in the midst of a lawsuit against a French pharmaceutical giant at Hewes and Associates, advises Ellen not to look into the company, as they are extremely dangerous.

During the deposition, he sends Ellen a coded message that leads her to a friend of his, a vet who may know more than she thinks she does about the final High Star mission.

Leaving a sick Catherine with Ellen, Patty departs for Boston with Huntely, who has managed to close in on Michael's possible whereabouts.

[4] FX announced on April 4, 2010 that they would not be renewing Damages for a fourth season, though by that time rumors of the series being picked up by DirecTV had already begun to circulate.

[5][6] These rumors continued making the rounds until July 19, 2010 when DirecTV announced that it had officially picked up the series for a fourth and fifth season, each consisting of ten episodes.

The website's critical consensus reads, "Damages deftly negotiates its transition onto a new platform with a more compact season that further escalates the series' already considerable drama, this time aided by a boisterous John Goodman.