Episode Report Card Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Sex, Lies, And Second Thoughts
By Gwen | Season 4 | Episode 1 | Aired on 10.22.2000
I'm lingering over the commercials on my video tape because they're so much more amusing and entertaining than Ally McBeal. It's the season premiere and I'm already sick and tired. I've aged a year in the last ten minutes. Why did I say I'd keep recapping this show? It's true that I foresaw the great pleasure I'd take in its eventual cancellation. Can that possibly be worth the hours of my life that have been tainted and lost by this travesty of a program, though?
Ally sits in her office, going on and on to Renee about the man in her life. Renee assumes she's talking about Brian, but Ally was actually fixating on Larry. Renee says that Brian's boring but that Ally should stay with him. Ally indicates that sex with Brian didn't last longer than sixty seconds. Renee concedes that Brian might not be "the one," but then she warns Ally away from a guy who makes her as crazy as Larry apparently does.
Wayne Keebler is on the stand. He says something strange about beans. "...if a couple puts one bean in a jar every time they have sex during the first year of their marriage, and then, for the rest of their marriage, they take a bean out of the jar every time they have sex, the jar will never become empty." Maureen looks like she's mentally digesting this. Either that or she's thinking, "But I only had a few beans in my jar to begin with. This just sucks." John tries to ascertain that Wayne was broke and into dating models when he married Maureen. Wayne claims he did love Maureen when they married, but she pushed him away.
Ally's bothering Larry AGAIN. She claims she came back to apologize. They have some more saucy banter. Robert Downey, Jr., does a good job. I read that he can't stand Calista Flockhart in real life. If that's true, he plays it off pretty well. Ally says something about a tiny penis that pops out like a chicken thermometer. Presumably this is in reference to Brian. If I remember correctly, Ally was the one begging Brian to have sex with her last season. He refused and then sang her part of The Music Man, and then...OH NO IT'S HAPPENING AGAIN! SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME! NOT THE SONGS! NO-O-O-O!!! Okay, remind me not to think about last season's musical finale anymore, please. Larry advises Ally to be blunt in her dumping of Brian. My question is, would a real therapist put up with these constant impromptu mini-sessions?
In the Fish & Cage lobby again, John and Maureen rehash their case some more. Richard passes, greeting Maureen flirtatiously. She excuses herself from a wary John and follows Richard to his office. Closing the door behind herself, she starts grooving to John's favorite Barry White song, tossing aside her purse and jacket. "Eh, Maureen, uh, what's up?" stammers Richard. "I'm involved, actually, with this vicious woman..." He hits his intercom and asks for help. Maureen sings, "Nobody but you...and me..." and the record warps and then Richard screams in slow-motion horror. "What were you thinking?" John's suddenly asking her in his own office. She says she wanted to allow herself to be more sexual after hearing the harsh things that were said about her in the courtroom. John yells that he warned her about that. He asks if she wants to win the case or not. She tells him to do what he needs to do. That's right, John. Humiliate her some more. She's got to learn, damn it. We can't have her thinking that she's worthy of sex. Sure, she's got a pretty enough face, she's rich, and she's not even bigger than a size 18 -- sure, she's way better looking than YOU, John -- but someone has to teach her that a woman of her size will never be attractive to any man. Embarrass her some more, John. Give her some pamphlets on bulimia if you have to. The Barry White technique only works for pudgy, homely men -- NOT for larger-than-average women. Sheesh -- the nerve of some of these fat bitches...