I've got to hand it to the creators of Damages. They really know how to televise crack. Seriously, the FX thriller is ridiculously addictive, hooking you from the opening image and never letting go.

We're two episodes into Season 3, and so far everything points to this chapter being of equal quality to Season 1, which established the series as one of television's best. But of Damages' many sparkling qualities, what we're seeing in Season 3is a clinic on how to present a mystery for maximum viewing pleasure. Provided your idea of pleasure is letting out audible gasps and picking your jaw up off the floor.

But how do they do it? Let's take a look (spoilers from the first two episodes of Season 3 lie ahead!):

Revealing the Answer Early: This is probably the most obvious tool that sets Damages apart from your normal mystery. In a typical procedural, we start off with a murder/crime/vicious name-calling and follow specialists as they dust for fingerprints, search under rugs for clues, and take off their sunglasses at Eureka! moments. Damages does things differently: The mysteries, in this case Tom Schayes' murder and Patty Hewes' car crash, are presented early as flashforwards—and we get the perverse privilege of watching a character in present time while knowing full on that he's a goner when we catch up to the flashforward. It's splendidly morbid and it does the trick of throwing the viewer directly into the mystery, rather than simply playing alongside a CSI detective as he works out the details for us. Bottom line, we feel involved.

Time Jumps: Damages leaps through the calendar are every bit as effective as the current king of time-scrambling, Lost. But where Lost's playing with the clocks can be disorienting and serve a larger purpose that stretches over six seasons of mythology, Damages' time shifts are more straightforward and instantly gratifying. We see things as they unfold in present, yet also move backward from the flashforwards that were revealed to us early on. We see that Tom Schayes will end up dead, but we don't know who killed him. Concurrently, we're watching Tom in present-time, and suddenly, everyone is a suspect. It's frickin' beautiful.