This episode begins with Ally walking by a homeless man who suddenly decides to strum her bass with his fingers, sing her life with his words, but not kill her softly with his song. They NEVER kill her softly with the song. Darn it. I can't even get into the particulars of this scene because I was distracted. My thoughts ran thusly, "Oh, no. Not ANOTHER person who supposedly has insight into Ally's life and yet CARES about it." Then I thought, "The mittens are not cute. The hat is not cute. She's not adorable. She's frumpy and annoying." Then I thought, "Who smeared soot-colored makeup on this actor's face, all the better to set off his blue eyes?" Then I thought, "That alleged homeless guy looks a little like Will Ferrell." Then I settled back and let Vonda's voice engulf me in its tsunami of heinousness.
Shriek! What the --? Oh. It's Ally's distorted visage, reflected in a cup of coffee. For a second I thought it was that old Star Trek episode with the man-eating puddle. Ally blows into her cup. Elaine walks up, shows a bit of cleavage, and asks if everything's okay. Ally stone-faces the distance and says her life's a fraud. She walked by the homeless guy that morning and with one look he knew her whole pathetic existence. "Is it that obvious?" she asks. Elaine looks up from her paperwork and deadpans, "Yes." Luckily Ally hasn't removed her coat or her scarf or her mittens or anything, because she suddenly decides that she has to find the homeless guy and talk to him. Okay, loser. See ya, wouldn't wanna be ya. Oh, but Elaine chases her to the elevator, telling her that "these people" have germs. Elaine's wearing a dark brown cardigan with a large red-rose design. She's paired it with a black mini-skirt which also features red roses. Ally's knees are showing between her overcoat and her boots. She rudely puts her mitten over Elaine's mouth, saying she'll be back in an hour. Two cops step off the lift. Elaine horn-doggedly offers them her help. "Is there a Ling Wu here?" the cops want to know. Ling Wu walks up in a shimmery white turtleneck and a big white fur or faux-fur coat. There's a warrant for her arrest. "Excuse me?" says Ling. "Wuh-wuh-wuh-what?" Ally butts in. The officers tell Ling to put her hands behind her back but she says she'll do no such thing. Richard is wearing a purple tie AND a purple shirt, and he's all bewildered and stuff. He wants to know what the charges are. The actor who plays the speaking cop in this scene says, "She's been running an escort service for underage boys," all matter-of-factly. Don't even throw in an "alleged," Officer Fake-O. He starts to read her the Miranda rights but Ling is the Unsinkable Ling Brown and she yells that she also has the right NOT to remain silent. "Rhubarb..." says Richard. "Ling!" says Ally as she and Elaine give these tsk-tsk smiles at Ling's sassiness. "That's the girl I kissed this season! You tell 'em, honey!" you can see Ally thinking.
We see Ling's face carping that you can't just barge into a person's office and arrest her. And you're a lawyer, Ling? Then we pull back and see that she's stylin' in her orange jumpsuit, behind bars. D'oh! The guard lets Richard and John into her cell. Rhubarb tells us that the toilets are hideous and she's "getting a bladder infection from holding it." Quick! Someone put her on Prozac! John glances at the toilet and is grossed-out. "Remnants..." he tells Richard. Richard neverminds him and starts yakking with Ling about her case. I can't go into detail because John is wearing a navy tie with larger-than-necessary white dots. Let's not mince words. They're polka dots. Nutshell: Ling has sold dates to twenty-one high-school boys. One of the boys was caught, by his mom, having sex with his "date." Ling claims that she was running a legitimate escort service for boys who can't get dates with their peers, not a prostitution ring. She makes eighty or ninety thousand dollars a year doing this. It's her hobby. John is disgusted. All right. That plot line's all set up. I'd like to point out to the staff of Ally McBeal that if you're going to put eyeliner several millimeters above a woman's natural lash line, then you shouldn't reveal this technique with a close-up.
Busy sidewalks, city sidewalks. Ally approaches the homeless guy with her hair blowing all over her face in that waifish way. Oh, Ally! You're just an adorable little freaking match girl, aren't you? The homeless dude isn't having any, though. Well, he will be having some later, but first he wants to play up the unresolved sexual predictability. "Ooh...I knew it. You're also a narcissist," he tells her. She doesn't say anything, but he knows what she wants, so he gives it to her. "You love your dad. You've always been distant from your mother. You probably went to law school to [mumble] become your dad but you're still turning out more like your cold mother." Ally blinks and hopes to catch a fly in her open mouth. The homeless guy says that his spiel has to be worth at least fifty cents. Silence from Time Mag's cover-girl-for-modern-feminism-NOT. The homeless guy says "Blah blah savant blah blah not that complicated." Ally says, "Take me now, you hot, dirty, hunk of man! I'm a woman like any other! I'll fall into your arms if you seem to pay the slightest attention to anything about me!" Oh, wait. Sorry. She says that instead of giving him money for coffee, she'll buy him a cup. But she says it in her cute little "I. Am. Talking. Like. A. Robot. To. Show. You. That. Even. Though. I. Want. To. Have. Sex. With. You, I'm. Still. A. Strong. Woman" voice. Gee. I wonder how this will play out. I'm so, so interested to know. This is fresh and original. I didn't just see this on Time of Your Life the other day. I want to buy David E. Kelley a cup of coffee.
John is telling Judge -- Judge Seymour Something-with-a-W, is it? -- that this is an outrage and blah blah blah. Richard jumps up and goes off about the police state that is our nation in which women, pretty women, are held back from entering the work world and Judge Seymour says, "Mr. Fish. I don't even want to see your lips move." I kind of love Judge Seymour. Richard makes his confused face. Now THAT'S freaking adorable. Then it's negated by a close-up of John holding a finger to his lips and wrinkling his nose. The DA says, "Your Honor, blah blah running a PROSTITUTION RING. A brothel, if you will. Servicing UNDERAGED CLIENTS." Ling rolls her eyes and her head. John moves for a probable-cause hearing. Hearing's at two. Defendant's released on personal recognizance. Adjourned. Whack. Doo-doo-doo-doo. (That last bit was the guitar taking us to the scene.)
At the diner, Homeless Guy wants to know if Ally's New Year's resolution is taking homeless people to lunch. Dude...Quit hinting. It's still only morning. Ally's playing with a piece of silverware and furrowing her brow as she says, "Hey, you verbally assaulted me! You dared me to recognize your existence. Is this too much recognition for you to handle?" Homeless Guy is all appreciatively smirking. "I intimidate you. This is what you do with people who scare you...You try to bite first..." Ally interrupts, "I don't bite people who haven't bathed! I am afraid of catching something just by having a cup of coffee with you..." Dude! Hurry up and go bathe so y'all can get it on! "Why are we having coffee? So you can feel charitable?" he fires back. Ally's ready for him. She barks, "OH! So now you have a problem with charity? You sit on the street corners begging for change? [passive-aggressive smile with lips in sore need of Chapstick] YOU'RE the big FRAUD, Louis! [pointing to Homeless Guy Louis with fork] You sit out there with an outstretched hand but you're too proud to accept a handout, you cheap unwashed lying loser." Cheap? He's cheap? I don't get it. Oops, I mean: you go, girl! You tell that sexy homeless guy, you saucy feminist thing! Woo! This abusive banter is turning me on, just like when they call each other names in the first twenty chapters of the romance novels! Ally heavy-breathes and tries to make her tired eyes look smoky. Louis laps it up. "Okay, then," says he. "So now we both know each other. I'm a proud loser and you're a desperate, lonely lawyer." Ally turns on the baby voice and asks why he thinks that. He says it's because she came back -- not to buy him coffee, but because he hit some nerve. Ally moves her eyeballs all over the place, savoring her favorite part, which is the part where she's bullied her partner into talking about her. "What gave me away?" she simpers. Louis goes into some narrative about the way Ally looked deadened and disappointed in her idealism, and Ally starts with the mouth-touching. No. Please. Not the mouth-touching. Pick up the fork...something...but not the mouth-touching! Then the Here's-another-Ally-centric-episode music plays and Ally bangs her gnarled head on the table. What's worse -- the mouth-touching or the head-banging? Please don't make me decide.
The lawyers are at their meeting table and Renee's there, too, wearing three of those little flower barrettes from Wal-Mart. Nice try, Renee, but I still think you need a new style. Richard and Ling are asking why Ling should testify at the probable-cause hearing. Richard's eating something covered with powdered sugar. "You brought me in...do you want my advice or not?" asks Renee. "Not," says Richard. Ha. He explains, "We brought you in because you used to be a DA, Renee. We were hoping maybe you licked this prosecutor's tonsils at an office party and you'd have some kind of inside...you know..." Everyone sighs. Renee says good-bye and gets ready to peel out. "Renee..." says John. "What'd I say?" says Richard. Nelle asks Renee why Ling should testify. Renee says blah blah no real free discovery. Okay. Richard says that Ling will testify, then, because they have to shut this thing down fast. They can't have this hanging over their heads, "an associate running a brothel," everything this firm stands for will be compromised. Renee hears this and is like "whatever!" She laughs and says, "He used to have sex with call girls," indicating John. John coughs on his pastry and blows powdered sugar all over Richard. HA, physical comedy! Love it. Everyone gasps again and Nelle goes, "Excuse me?" Richard says, "That is SUCH a major bygone!" Nelle won't let go; she has on her passive-aggressive super smile. John explains that the call-girl incident was "before [he] knew [his] character." Nelle asks to be excused again and huffs away. John thanks Renee sarcastically. Renee and Ling are amused, and so is the oboe. Me, too, actually. See how well the scenes go when Ally's not in them? But y'all already knew that.
Meanwhile, back at the diner (SIGH)...it's ascertained by Ally that Louis doesn't choose to be homeless. So he SAYS. He made bad financial decisions, went bankrupt, blah blah. Oh, but Louis doesn't strike Ally as a "wacko." Because Ally knows from wackos, you see. Louis has suffered from some "manic-depressive problems," he says. Okay...check this out. He says he was once haunted by The Pips. "Doo-doo-doo-doo-DOOOO!" goes the music, and Ally is awakened from the near-stupor she falls into every time the topic turns from her problems. Blah. Blah. Blah. Here comes the Al Green confession. Time-out, though...I have a public service announcement to make: HALLUCINATIONS ARE NOT A SYMPTOM OF MANIC-DEPRESSION. Carry on. Ally says that she almost took Prozac to try to get rid of Al Green, but she eventually "shook him without medication." Oh, she did? When was this? I mean, not like I'm saying that Prozac would have cured a person of HALLUCINATIONS, but I just didn't realize that Ally was over that. Good for her. Maybe she can write a self-help book and get rich. Every other know-nothing in the world is doing it. Ally leans forward, feels up her lower lip, and lays upon Louis her rationalization. The two of them are better off than all the "corporate drones" out there because they have the "capacity" to hallucinate R&B celebrities. There's no music in their lives! But there's music in Louis's life...and Ally's, too! The piano plays as Louis thinks, "This crazy bitch. I want her!" Then he says some crap about Ally being sad because she has no time to "let it live." Okey, dokey. Whatever-the-helly. Ally bangs her head on the table.
I'm not psychic, but I can tell that Down to You is going to suck. Okay, and don't freak out, but I'm gonna go out on a limb, here, and predict that Freddy Prinze, Jr.'s movie will suck as well. I just have a feeling.
We see Billy's feet beneath a Unisex stall. "How many girls do you have?" he's asking. Then we pan over to Ling's feet. She's wearing these off-white, satin pumps with three-inch heels and RHINESTONE ANKLE STRAPS. Her off-white skirt falls over the straps as we hear her say, "Forty or fifty, all independent contractors not on salary." A toilet flushes. No, I'm not at all grossed-out by these bathroom scenes. Thank you for asking. They emerge from the stalls and Billy says that he wants to hire six of Ling's escorts because [contrived reason involving potential client]. A loud guitar chord plays as Billy struts away. Billy! Don't forget to wash your...oh, forget it.
Nelle is bitching John out in what appears to be the library. I can't take her seriously because she's wearing a cadet-blue-and-caramel plaid mini-poncho. John tells her to let him talk. He says some junk about men in bars looking for women, the bottom line being sex, blah blah. He was too busy to go to bars, so he clicked his mouse instead and hooked up with a call girl. It was consensual. That was his thinking. He's a different person now, but that was his thinking at the time. Nelle says that it's just like John to admit something was wrong, but to refuse to take responsibility for it. John hilariously leans on a ladder and causes it to roll away while he tries to excuse himself. Nelle says something about his staunch defense of having sex with a "hooker!" They start cross-talking and then John says, "Oh, bite me!" and walks away. "What?" says Nelle. John says he has to go to court. Well, Ling wants Nelle there, too. Well, just don't sit to John, Nelle. Fine, not a problem for Nelle. Then Nelle busts out her trademark rank on John's stuttering. She goes, "Pih-kih-pih-kih-PECKERHEAD!" John makes this face like "WHATever, rude skag," and leaves. Nelle makes her "Oh, I shouldn't have said that! I really do love him, even though I'm always finding fault with him and he really gets on my nerves!" face.
We see a guy get on an elevator containing Ally McBeal. Oh, hey, what do you know? The guy is Louis! Ally is forced to touch her mouth as she confronts him and then gives him the big-eye look and the robot voice. Did I mention that Louis was clean and wearing black office attire and a scarf? He follows Ally into the firm after apparently telling her that he was doing research for a book on homelessness. I assume it's still the same day on which they had coffee, because Ally's wearing the same outfit. Now that I see her outfit clearly, I want to puke. You won't believe it. You thought that she had gone into a time machine and overwrought the thrift stores of the 1970s before...but you haven't witnessed the full ramifications of the travesty until you've seen Ally today. She is wearing a pale blue cardigan. She is wearing a red skirt. Tucked into the red skirt, she's wearing...she's wearing...For the love of God, she's wearing a black t-shirt with a huge iron-on transfer of a TIGER'S HEAD. What in the NAME of all that is decent and right...? DANG.
Meanwhile, Louis is wearing a rust tie, rust shirt, and black overcoat with his white/rust/black scarf. Keep this in mind, okay? He tells her that he's an insurance agent, he has a client on the 6th floor of the building, and he lives "in the North End." His book is "a treatise on homeless subculture in urban America." Ooh. Deep. Not at all overdone...He never meant to deceive anybody; he's sorry. Lip-picking as Ally asks how long he'd planned to keep up the charade. "Ally, we had no plans to ever see each other again," Louis points out. BUSTED! Louis says that she actually skewed the whole premise of his book. Ally asks if the things he said to her were part of a script. Yeah, Ally. It was part of a script. You'd make a great improv player. Louis says he really saw those things in her, though. He says he guesses it takes one to know one. "So you were never haunted by The Pips?" asks Ally wistfully. "Wish I was," says Louis perfunctorily. Ally is downcast. Louis is jealous that she really saw Al Green, because there's still hope for her. He walks away. Ally says his name and asks, "One more cup of coffee?" Louis says yeah, smiles, and pulls out his net so he can carry his reeled-in fish to the cooler.
Cripes. We're in court and some boy's on the stand. "I couldn't get anyone to date me. Even the fat, ugly girls with facial hair said no," he's saying. WHATEVER. John winces, but it looks like he's wincing because he identifies with the datelessness, not because he's dismayed at such a loser's description of less-attractive girls. "Yes...thank you for that," smarms the prosecutor. Loser Boy tells him that he found out about Ling's escort service through his friends and then he "logged on" to the website. "It worked kind of like pay-per-view," he says. Then he says he paid $175. I don't get it. He paid that much to look at the website? Weird. Oh, but then the prosecutor asked if this sum was paid for the date and the boy says yes. Loser Boy indicates the escort he hired, who's sitting in the courtroom. She's smiling like an understudy for Touched By An Angel. Her name's Leslie. She drove Loser to parties three weekends in a row and "made love" with him after Homecoming. It was in his house, in his room. That's how his mom happened to walk in. The prosecutor asks Marcus the Loser if he paid to have sex with Leslie. Marcus says he can't really be sure. Ling rolls her eyes hard-core. Marcus says that he paid the same $175 for each date, but "it was the third time," and he thought maybe he was "getting an upgrade or something." Ha. Richard makes an enlightened noise. "...like Frequent Flier Miles?" Marcus continues. Nelle squints. Marcus tells everyone that he spent $700 altogether on Leslie, "plus incidentals." He "bought all the protection." Hmm. How much did he think he was going to need? Or did they do it more than once? The prosecutor's done. Ling leans over to John and tells him, "You'd better pick this little bastard to PIECES." John is shocked. Scene over. Oh, wait...I have a question: How many court cases do we need to see involving sex and mirroring John's sex problems? How many times is Nelle going to pity a high-school boy and then transfer that pity to John? Enough already. David E. Kelley, did you have a hard time getting dates in school? Guess what. NO ONE CARES.
The law-office elevator opens and emits Billy and those women from that old Robert Palmer video. I mean the first video, when the women were wearing black. Oh, and they brought along two of their clones. Billy walks in, flanked by these six women in their vinyl dresses. An electric bass is playing along with a guitar and some drums. Billy has a huge cigar in his mouth. Nice phallus, Billy! (Yes, I know that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. I don't think this is one of those times, though.) Billy and his squad reach Elaine. Billy holds up his hand and they all stop. There's a noise like air being let out of a tire as Billy removes the cigar from his mouth and the girls let their breasts down for a sec. Elaine is obviously aroused by the spectacle. "He's in the conference room, waiting," she says. Billy just nods and puts the cigar back into his mouth. They go into the conference room. The client double-takes over his coffee. Billy says that this guy is the CEO of a "hip" advertising agency and he needs to switch to a "younger, hipper" law firm. The CEO gestures and says, "Duh, hold on for a second...Who are they?" Billy says they're his assistants. The CEO asks what they do. "You're seeing what they do," says Bill Doggy. "We all have our ways. I do my best work operating on a heightened sense of acuity. Mine is best derived from sexual energy. Pretty women make me a better lawyer. It's a fact. I won't apologize for it. I like the way they look, the way they smell. The testosterone they generate makes me a bigger ass, and I've discovered the more of an ass I am, the better I litigate. Putting modesty aside -- you won't find a more gigantic ass than me!" Billy punctuates this with a cigar thrust and then puts the cigar into his smirking mouth once more. I admit it -- this scene made me laugh. I doubt DEK will care, though. After all, I am just a fat ugly girl with facial hair.
John hammers into our heads the fact that Leslie slept with Marcus because she liked him, not because he was paying her. Marcus says he wasn't sure if that was just something "hookers" are paid to say. Leslie just smiles in a googly-eyed way. If she doesn't mind, I guess I don't, either. Then we hear some gratuitous sob-story excerpt about Marcus wanting to take a pretty girl to a party so that everyone will think he's cool. Marcus told this same fantasy to Leslie and she thought it was sweet and had the pity-sex with him. Marcus admits that he believed, at least for a moment, that she did this through her own volition. Leslie smiles like a Golden Retriever. Yeah, keep smiling, honey. Your statutory-rape case is coming up . Ling, the prosecutor, and then Nelle make sympathetic faces.
Night time. Ally and Louis are at the bar. Ally sucks her martini stirrer and asks Louis what else he can tell her about her. "Well, you love people to talk about you," he says. They laugh as she punches him on the arm. Are there any guys who like it when women punch them? Even Styrofoam-armed women? I'm glad I'm a woman and no one's punching me in an effort to be flirtatious. "For real..." says Louis. "You have a lot of friends." BUZZ! Wrong! Ally smiles like it's true, though. He says that her friends would be fascinated to know all the details of her date with him. How does he know that? Louis indicates the usual Fish-Cage table, where everyone's staring at the two of them like the nosy, friendless gossips they are. Louis suggests they go some place less "fishbowl-y." Ally's coworkers are amused at the sight of Ally tripping over a chair as she and Louis leave. Richard remarks that Ally finally met somebody. "He's cute," says Nelle. John says, "Bitch." Everyone trips out. Then John says, "Supposedly that's the line he used to pick her up." Smirks all around, except at Nelle's seat. Way harsh, John. Way harsh.
Is it just me, or are most of the commercials in this time slot aimed at men? Why is that, I wonder? Oh, no...here's a Diet Dr. Pepper one featuring a fat girl in a gym. Guess I was wrong!
At their apartment, Renee's ragging on Ally for dating an insurance agent. Nice snobbery, Renee. Ally's talking about how interesting and groovy Louis is. Apparently, between bouts of talking about her, he managed to fill out his own story a little. Then Ally is all negative and pessimistic about her budding non-relationship. She likes this guy, so she's sure he used to be a girl or has some other paranoid-imagining sort of thing. Renee's convinced. She baby-asks when Ally will see Louis again. Ally says any minute now, because he's in the shower. Renee freaks. Ally was just kidding. Hardy, har. She's meeting him for lunch. She tells Renee this twice -- once normally, and once translated into Babyese so that Renee will understand.
Leslie's on the stand. She's still smiling as she tells everyone that she had willingly had sex with "adorable" Marcus for free. Marcus is all Mr. Bashful as he hears this. His head is very big and round. The prosecutor coins a catchy little phrase: "Date for fee, but sex for free." Objection. Objection! The prosecutor asks if Leslie's ever dated sixteen-year-old boys for money. This fact has already been established, of course, but he asks anyway so that Leslie can say, "Yes, but sixteen is as low as we go," so that he can then repeat, "As low as you go" all meaningfully and everything. Ling is chagrined and Leslie finally quits smiling. Marcus looks sad, like he's wishing he hadn't called Leslie a hooker, because now he's afraid she'll go to jail and he'll never meet another woman stupid enough to have sex with him.
Ling, John, Richard, and Nelle storm into some room. Ling's telling John that he was terrible. "Ling!" says John, all ineffective. "Reese's Cup..." Richard tries to placate. Ling thinks John should have mentioned that her office policy forbids the escorts to see clients socially. John says he was saving that for Ling's testimony. Nelle throws in her two cents: "You should have gotten it in sooner." John gets all frothy at the mouth and starts to get up in Nelle's face. Richard stays between them. They snipe for a while and then John says, "At least I was an adult! She peddles her little trollops to teenagers!" indicating Ling. "That's constructive!" snarls Ling, in her shimmer-sheer white knit top and white fur vest. I think she should ask for a refund and find another lawyer. Why isn't Nelle defending her in this case? It makes no sense. Nelle tells John, "Why don't you argue THAT?" Yeah, word, Nelle. John should just stand up and tell the judge, "When I was younger, I had sex with a call girl. Now I'm dating a beautiful woman who's angry with me. I really want to continue having sex with the beautiful woman I'm dating. Please let Ling off the hook so that Nelle can see that I love her." He'll probably say something just like that, ten minutes from the end of the hour. Okay, so John tells Ling that it's important that she come off "LIKABLE," unlike the company she keeps. And he does a chopping motion toward Nelle so we can see that he's ranking on her. Then he stalks out the door, but not before Nelle mutters, "I hated your stupid frog, too." He gives her a pissed-off look and then leaves. Nelle's huge red window-pane plaid jacket is grody.
Ally walks off the elevator all forlorn and drags herself up to Elaine, who is reading Financial Times and drinking "Sqit." Louis didn't show up for the lunch date. "Maybe he's dead," Elaine hypothesizes. "You think?" Ally brightens. Uh, oh. It's that guitar...Here comes Billy with the Pleather Squad. "Buh-Buh-Billy?" says Ally. Through his cigar, Billy says, "It's a look. Like it?" She says "no," and asks what the point is, since he already landed his client. "It becomes me," says Billy, and they take off. Ally is grossed out and makes a joke about the last guy she fell for (Billy, I guess, because Greg was a hallucination?) and how he turned out. Louis runs in and tells Ally that he was almost killed. Someone almost ran over him. Does she still have time for lunch? "Um..." says Ally. Elaine tells them to go into Ally's office and that she'll go out for sandwiches. Aw. Elaine's such a friend.
Ling on the stand: "Girls are so stupid. Especially high-school girls. They want whatever other girls have, whether it's clothes, shoes...They don't choose on the basis of their own taste so much as they like what their friends like." Ling, is that David E. Kelley's pih-kuh-pih-kuh-penis I see ventriloquisting behind you? What does this have to do with the case? Were her employees paid for sexual service? That's all we need to know. We don't care about the whys and wherefores of boys and their libidos. Am I supposed to feel sorry for John now because no one would date him until he was seen with a pretty call girl? Or am I supposed to figure out that John's only dating Nelle because he's hoping to catch another woman's eye? Don't answer that, because either way, I don't care anymore. Ling tells the prosecutor that a promise of sex is implied on any date, that girls are stupid but men are stupider, and that it's typical that a man would consider company and conversation, "nothing." She tells the judge, "Your Honor, it's one thing for him to think with his dumbstick. I shouldn't have to be prosecuted with it!" D'oh. Everyone at the defense table puts their hands to their heads. She says the same stuff again, and then calls Marcus funny-looking. Then she tells the judge to get her a real DA because she's bored.
Louis and Ally are standing in her office. He's saying, "So you just hear it in your head, like voices?" Yes, but it's music, she explains. Then she asks him if he wants to try it. Oh, lord. This is so stupid. At first he doesn't hear it, but then he pretends he does. "Caterwaul, caterwaul, darlin'..." sings Vonda. Elaine walks in with the sandwiches and sees what's going on. She sashays up and dances against Louis's back. She touches his butt with her own and with her hands. The record scratches as Louis detangles from her and Ally fusses. Elaine says a word in Pig Latin that I can't understand at all. It sounded like "Uppish-snay." Whatever. Bygones.
Ling and her defense team come off the elevator. Richard is saying that she could have tried to be sympathetic. "I was under oath!" protests Ling. He calls her "garlic." John removes his shoes and Ling asks what the funny little man is doing now. "I have to prepare my statement, you ungrateful little pimp," meows John. Ling is silent until John's gone. Then she slaps Richard's arm and asks if he's going to defend her honor.
Nelle follows John and his shoes into his office and says that obviously his problem is with her. John says that he doesn't judge her on her past. "Well, I don't have a criminal record," quips she. Neither does John. But he committed a crime, Nelle points out. A victimless crime, posits John. Nelle argues, asking if he knows how some of these women got to be call girls in the first place. John takes out a big ol' nail-polish brush and glosses over that point, simply saying that he's not even going to argue about it. Nelle moves on to the pettiness: "How much did they charge to let you spank them?" John stutters. He says there was only one call girl, and the only woman he ever spanked ended up calling him a peckerhead. "You keep turning the argument on me," says Nelle. John tells us that Nelle is open to legalizing prostitution. They've discussed it before with John arguing the other side. Oh, well THAT makes it all different, then! Oh, wait. No it doesn't. I still don't care. Here comes the big, phony part. John asks Nelle why she's really mad. I'm waiting for her to say, "Because I don't like you at all and I wish I'd never started having sex with you in the first place. Instead, Nelle admits that she's hurt because she doesn't want the man she marries -- the father of her children -- to have been with a prostitute. WHATEVER. Nelle's character goes on humiliating herself while John and DEK lap it up.
Hey, if I use Finesse hair products, my husband won't be too embarrassed to buy me tampons! Oh, wait. I use Herbal Essence and my husband doesn't give a crap about what cashiers think of him. (It's not what I'd call a "totally organic experience", though.)
Elaine has borrowed Ling's shimmery top and she's asking Ally what happened after dinner. Louis walked Ally home and kissed her goodnight like a perfect gentleman, so she thinks he must be married or something else terrible. Hey! Watch that foreshadowing! You almost poked me in the eye! Here's Billy & Co. again. Ally thinks he's ridiculous.
"Life is about image," starts John's closing argument. There's a jury here, too. I no longer understand the difference between a hearing and a trial. Maybe I need to watch MORE lawyer shows. Richard cuts in on the closing. "Oh, dear God," says Judge Seymour. Richard says, "Almost every woman is bought. It's good that these kids learn that at a young age." Nelle rolls her eyes with her big old dragonfly pendant on a leather cord. Ling looks like a true madam in her red dress and pouffy red hair accessory. Richard babbles for a while about women wanting men with money, then suggests that the DA probably "married ugly" instead of waiting until he could afford a prettier model. John interrupts and sums up that we may not like kids paying for dates, but it's not illegal. The DA closes, saying that Ling was running a prostitution ring. John gets to close aGAIN. Here comes the Nelle-bait. He shoots the bull about how the kids will one day regret what they did and they'll be marked forever and blah blah blah, but that no crime has been committed. Judge Seymour looks thoughtful, as he is required by Hollywood law to do.
Ally is at some other office building in her coat and mittens which are still not cute. "Um, I'm Ally McBeal, and I'm here to see Louis Walters," she tells the woman behind the desk. The woman's sorry, but Louis no longer works there. Since when, Ally wants to know. "And you are?" asks the woman, who is trying to do actual work. "Um, Ally McBeal, I'm uh, I'm uh, a personal friend." Instead of just telling her what's up, the woman has to call some guy to do it. Ally gets all snotty. The guy comes out and Ally says her name again, in case we forget what show we're watching. The guy wants to know how well she knows Louis. Ally tells him they've been dating. I guess she doesn't mind bragging to a guy who has no business asking such a thing. Okay, here comes the bomb. "Louis has a paranoid personality disorder." Whoa! Dang! Y'all hear that? He's not just a paranoid schizophrenic...he has a PARANOID PERSONALITY DISORDER! Quick! Get the Prozac! Louis was fired six months ago, and last his former coworkers heard, he was living on the streets. Ally's speechless. Still the oboe gently weeps.
Sad sack Ally finds Louis waiting in her office. "Surprise!" says he. Aw. He's brought five peach roses. "You have a paranoid personality disorder, Louis," Ally monotones at him. She checked with the police and found out that Louis has filed seventy-three complaints about people trying to kill him. "You live on the streets," Ally tells him. "Did you steal these clothes?" Louis admits that he did. I think he has a knack for quickly stealing whole outfits that fit him so well, don't you? Ally asks why he hasn't gotten help. He says he took meds but they made him feel slower and dulled his senses. But after meeting Ally, he started taking them again. He knows he can be healthy...he just wasn't gonna do it for some stupid claims-adjuster job. But for Ally, he'll take the meds and get himself together. She makes him want to re-enter society. Poor guy. His life must have sucked pretty hard if Ally's the best thing he ever knew. He asks if they can still see each other. Ally doesn't think it'll work out. Louis mentions Ally's Al-Green hallucinations and says that he and Ally "get each other." Ally says, "Sorry, loser, but I only date psychos whose delusions involve big musical numbers. Take off." Actually, she tells him to let her get him some treatment. What, she's gonna hook him up with Dr. Tracy? Louis says he'd be happy to get treatment, but he's talking about their relationship. Ally's big moon-pie face says in close-up that she doesn't think it'll work out. Louis looks so hurt. He wants to know how many people can look inside Ally the way he can. She doesn't reply, so he just says okay, leaves the roses on her desk, and leaves. Ally sighs.
Judge Seymour thinks that the idea of boys renting dates is disgusting. He assumes that John had to take a moment when he first heard of it. Then he says there's no proof of prostitution and dismisses Ling with the "moral condemnation of the court." "Moral condemnation -- business will go up!" says Richard. Ling announces that she'd like to sue for malicious prosecution. Richard tells her to chill and they leave. John sits down. Nelle asks if he's coming with them. John says that never meant to hurt his children or Nelle. Nelle says she was probably being a little irrational. John says she wasn't and he's sorry. Nelle takes his hand. No one cares.
It's evening, it's snowing, and Ally's mooning in her office. Elaine comes in and tells her that she did the right thing. Elaine's wearing a skirt exactly like the red one Ally wore at the beginning of the episode. "I did? Not giving him a chance because he's homeless?" asks Ally. Elaine says, "Ally, this had no real chance. He's ill. You did the right thing." Ally thanks her. Elaine offers to buy her a drink at the bar. "No," says Ally, "I think I'm gonna head home down the snowy sidewalk while Vonda sings some crappy sad song." Elaine repeats that Ally had no other choice and then goes.
Ally walks home down the snowy sidewalk while Vonda sings some crappy sad song. Nelle and John walk home, and John stumbles over the curb. Ally smiles at strangers. Then she sees Louis at a trashcan bonfire with his homeless buddies. He's all dirty again, too. Ally gapes open-mouthed and then looks kind of happy as she turns and hurries the other way. "He couldn't have me, so he went back to the streets! He's rather be crazy than live without me! I'm so adorable! I'm the perfect modern woman!" she thinks, and her ego shoots its wad all over the inside of her coat and on the same red skirt that she was wearing the other day. The end.
week Ally has a dream about John and is therefore in love with him. Also, Georgia gives Billy the divorce papers. I know you can't wait.