Episode Report Card Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Ally and Victor Bite the Dust
By Alex Richmond | Season 5 | Episode 18 | Aired on 04.28.2002
New Guy Wilson walks into his office, and there's the guy he got to hand over $225,000 last week in the wife-sues-husband- for-sexual-advances-case. He's now hiring the New Guy. As if. He "sort of" taped himself having sex with his girlfriend, and now she's threatening to show the tape to his co-workers. Since he's "a vice-president," this "could really hurt" him. Wow, yeah. Except if he worked in advertising. Then, he'd make tons of cash. Or, you know, was in the entertainment industry. Or, was Tommy Lee. Or Pamela Anderson. Or, Bret Michaels. Wilson looks out the window as the President of Vice says he "makes some strange noises" on the sex tape he "wasn't aware of." Hey, Wilson? We can't see your face if you look out of the window. Just saying. The girlfriend is asking for $25,000 not to show the tape. So, can Wilson help with the sleazy blackmail case? Sure, he'd love to.
More Boston by air, woo. We land at JBJ's garret, which has lots of light, exposed brick walls, nice chairs for reclining in, and millions of paintings and painting accessories all over the place. JBJ, secret painter, is not smoking or wearing a beret. What a lost opportunity. Ally strolls around the place, checking out JBJ's large, colorful artwork. Ally calls them "paintings of naked women." He calls them "abstract nudes." I call it "ersatz Picasso-esque crap only slightly more interesting than the abstract works of Kelly's cokehead painter boyfriend Colin on Beverly Hills, 90210." ["And Colin ended up on Third Watch, too. Coincidence?" -- Wing Chun] Ally can't get over the fact that Victor never mentioned the fact that he paints, let alone that he paints pictures of "beautiful naked women with perfect bodies." And do these "beautiful naked women with perfect bodies come on to" Victor, or "know [Ally] even exist[s]?" Well, he does have a reason for keeping his brush habit a secret. He's been working on a portrait of Ally for her birthday. Ally reclines, cat-like, seduced by this bit of information. Can she see it? Sure. He gestures to a covered canvas. She gets up and removes the sheet, and -- surprise! -- loves the garish piece. She had fun picking out pieces of herself. An arm here, an eye there, a foot over there -- but "what-what-what-what-what's that?" That is "a buttock." Over there is "another buttock." The artist-formerly- known-as-JBJ's renditions of Ally's buttocks are oblong in shape and textured in a way that makes Ally uncomfortable. Angry, even. A car screeching on its brakes sounds. Did he dare paint cellulite on her ass? JBJ thinks the "texture" give an ass some "character." Oh, Ally's has plenty of that. What it "doesn't have is cottage cheese." Oh, for the love of god. Ally McBeal is famous for being ANOREXIC. Are we supposed to feel badly for her fictional body image issues when ON TELEVISION she appears to be scary thin? Yes, Ally has no fat anywhere on her body. Her ass? Fat-free. Victor painted her a painting, and she doesn't like it because he layered some paint on his version of her buttocks? Whatever. She storms out, and passes a beautiful woman with a perfect body, ready to strip down and pose for JBJ. JBJ tells the model that she's "a little early, but otherwise, perfect timing." Ally looks insane as she glares at the model's flat abdomen. Yeah. See, body-insecurity issues are just not funny. And the Victoria's Secret ad with the jiggling boobs, which follows this scene? Not funny either.