Episode Report Card Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Pursuit Of Loneliness
By Gwen | Season 3 | Episode 13 | Aired on 02.20.2000
Hammond and Ally work at the coffee shop. They obviously enjoy each other's company. Sandy comes in for a small decaf and, unwittingly, for advice from Ally. Ally guesses that she's having problems with a guy. Sandy explains that it's a guy just coming through a divorce. She likes him, but doesn't want to be his rebound. Ally asks what the guy says. Sandy claims that he says, "All the right things." Yeah, for a '50s teen novel, maybe. Sandy admits that it's Billy. Ally is surprised. She points out that she's Georgia's friend (Whatever! Dang. Get off it!) and then gives Sandy Secretary a pep talk anyway. She says Billy's special and if there's a chance that he's the one, Sandy should go for it. At least she qualifies it by saying first that she's the last person to give advice about love or anything. Hammond eavesdrops and seems moved by Ally's little speech.
Vonda sings and John does an "angry dance" with a feather duster. Gosh, these quirks are hilarious. Richard watches him for a while, prompting the warped-record sound. John yells that he's angry. It's supposed to be funny, but it isn't at all. Then he tells Richard that Nelle is a "rich bitch elitist snob." Wow. DEK has managed to call another woman a bitch. How saucy. How does he shoehorn them in? Of course I don't even have the right to be angry, because he let Nelle get in so many put-downs on John earlier. I guess I should just smile, learn that we're all bitches, and buy the pretty things I see on the commercials. Richard points out that it'd be worse to go home and find Nelle with a janitor. "Oh, balls!" says John. Oh, shut up, John. They plop down on the couch so that Richard can deliver his sermon of the week on women. The gist is that John is a non-handsome, short, funny, little man whose equalizer is money. ("Let's say it again. Money. Let's go for the trilogy. Money.") He says John should be grateful instead of condemning Nelle for her values, because without them, he never would have stood a chance of "getting her." John thanks him dryly for the fresh perspective. Greg Germann is cute.
We're "treated" to Vonda singing that java-jav song while Ally and Hammond continue to work at the coffee shop. Afterwards they walk home, I guess, and Ally says that "it's better than practicing law -- you just give your client a cup of coffee and he walks away!" "Satisfied!" adds Hammond. I'll excuse Ally because it's only her first day, but I must assume that Hammond doesn't do this sort of work as often as he'd like us to believe. I want to hear from them after they've been (a) yelled at by clients having a bad day, (b) vehemently accused of purposely short-changing the client by five cents, (c) reported to their supervisors for not unlocking the drink machine and serving the client after hours, (d) reprimanded by their supervisors for not doing whatever it takes to make the customer happy, (e) called bitches, or (f) forced to stay an hour or two after closing to clean up overflowing machinery. Until they deal with these realities on a regular basis, I'll thank them not to romanticize food-service work while I'm watching the show. Ally and Hammond stop at her door, and he asks her out again. She agrees to go out the next night. She shakes his hand instead of letting him kiss her. He kisses her, anyway. They say goodnight and she hops up the steps. He calls out to her. He asks her if she really believed what she was saying about her case. She did. In the spirit of honesty, then, he says, "I'm bisexual." Cut to Ally's frozen face. Cut to Hammond's observing one. One more shot of Ally, still, frozen, and then we're good to go to commercial.