Episode Report Card Alex Richmond: F | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Double Indemnity, Dammit
By Alex Richmond | Season 5 | Episode 20 | Aired on 05.12.2002
Ally's office. Helen is giddy because she "actually stood up for [her]self." She asks if Ally heard. Christ. Ally stammers around asking how Helen feels about Helena, and does she realize that if they "win" the case, the drug Beard gives her will "extinguish" Helena. Helen sketches her pencil drawing of John some more, and says that Helena is trying to extinguish Helen, and that she just wants to write and paint and have her husband back. La la la! Life, she is so simple. Not.
Ally and Helen head to the elevator, where they come across Dame Edna. Hellew! Ally tries to shush her, but too late -- Helena snaps back and asks if "there's a parade in town, because they're missing a float." No floats are that scary. Not even the giant balloons at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Even if you're high. Helena goes off to find Liza, and Maddie steps off the elevator. Ally tells her she can't leave just yet; she has to go to closings. She sends Maddie to hang out with Elaine. Maddie cringes: "She sings to me." Aww. I remember when I was a kid, my mon worked at NYU in the alumni office. I'd go after school sometimes and hang out, because one of her co-workers had a giant poster of Christopher Reeve as Superman. I loved that poster. Sigh. Does that date me? Like I care. Anyway, John walks down the stairs and sees the touching tableau of Ally, working "mom," setting her daughter up as she does "just one thing" before leaving for her birthday. More sad piano. More me saying, "Whatever."
Closing arguments. Liza gestures to a bunch of people sitting in the back of the courtroom, all of whom depend on Helena. If Beard gets to give his wife drugs, it's signing a death warrant for Helena. Judge Hall is all, "But Helena is killing Helen." Liza says that the "stronger personality should win out." Judge asks how he can decide such a thing. Liza says no one should. The judge says that doctors decide that sort of thing every day. Liza says, "Yes, to remedy illness. But Helena is more competent than Helen." John steps up and makes a pretty weak argument to the effect that Helen came first, and therefore should stay. Judge says that Kyra is Helena 95% of the time, so why shouldn't he care more about Helena? John has no answer for that. Liza leaps up and says, "You stumped him, Judge." John says the judge did not, and tells her, "Sit down, Ms. Stump. Rump. Bump!" Liza rolls her eyes and sits with a thump. John says, "Balls," walks over to Ally, and says, "You see this person here? She has hallucinations. Sees things. Has a hundred personalities. Some people say she's in need of mental health. But I never, ever question who she is." Because "what defines her most is her soul." And at Helena's soul is Helen: "That's where she loves, where she paints, where she writes her poems. Even Helena knows that." And the thing about Helena being more successful than Helen? "Says more about our world than about her." Go sad oboe, go!