Previously on Ally McBeal: Ally and Larry broke up but, more importantly, Ally whined about it.
The season finale begins with a flashback of a totally contrived metaphorical scene in which Little Ally brings a decapitated Ken doll to her mother. Jill Clayburgh -- in a face-framing layered haircut which is supposed to hide her age but doesn't -- tells Ally that they just don't make the men as strong as the women. She throws the Ken doll into the trash, saying they'll get Ally another one. Whatever.
Ally lies in bed with her eyes like black marbles and a fuckload of salmon gloss on her inflatable lips. "Never, never, never gonna get married," we hear an annoying male voice sing. Ally sits up and sees the dancing baby, singing in a tuxedo coat and top hat, at the foot of her bed. She throws a shoe at it. It makes a sound like an electrical failing and turns into a transparent cherub, making bird noises as it flies up into the air. Here's where it gets sicker than usual. Ally says, "Aw, what a sweet little birdie. Come on over here. Come on, let me pet you, little birdie." She reaches for a tennis racket that just happens to be under her bed. "Let me kiss you," she says, preparing to hit the baby, which has by now flown near. Uh -- are we really supposed to feel sorry that Ally doesn't have children of her own at this point? When she swings at the baby, it turns into a dragon or a gargoyle or something. Ally yells like the maniac she is. Her mom runs in and tries to be concerned and consoling. Ally does the teenage rejection-of- your-own-parents thing that is so, so endearingly cute every single time she's done it ever since she turned twelve years old -- I mean, it's not tired as hell and it never gets stale. (P.S. I am being sarcastic. Get it?) Jill Clayburgh leaves the room and ominous chords play as Ally hits the racket against her hand, looking in the direction her mother just exited. I don't think it was supposed to look like Ally wanted to kill her mom, but it kind of did. I'm not surprised by any violent thing she does anymore.
Morning meeting. Richard introduces Jane Wilco, his new assistant. She flounces in wearing a red halter dress with built-in fake flower accessory. Jane is back to her "natural" hair, but it's now permed and more dirty-colored. She tells everyone that she's really an actress and that Richard has told her the staff is nice and forgiving of any mistakes she might make. Ling makes the growling noise, and everyone else stares at Jane with slightly raised brows of disdain. Jane flounces back out again and Ling asks what skillz she has. "Warmth. We've decided you can't do it alone, Ling," says John. And, yeah, that's kind of funny, but I didn't realize that the staff was there to provide warmth for John. Maybe he should try to develop a personal life or something. Richard moves on, trying to assign a case -- Wyatt vs. Mason -- to Ally. She whines, wanting to know why he's giving it to her. Um, how about "because I pay you to do work here, bitch"? Is that a good reason? That's what Richard should have said. Instead, he says something about distracting her from her break-up with Larry. Ally hallucinates that Billy is standing in Richard's place saying, "Who do you think you're fooling?" Then she hallucinates that Jackson is singing "You've Got a Friend." I hate season finales full of hallucinated songs, don't you? Elaine comes in and tells Ally that her ten-o'clock is there. Ally sees Elaine wearing mourning clothes. "Why are you dressed like that?" Ally asks Elaine. "Like what?" Elaine says, taking the opportunity to feel the '70s-print polyester that now drapes her breasts. Ally tells Elaine to forget it, and I gladly do so.
Ally's new client, Malcolm Wyatt (who is played by Josh Goban), is standing in the lobby. He's accompanied by "Reverend Harris," the nelly/nerdy scientist who testified about the fascinating world of human cloning a couple of episodes ago. "God and science are not always mutually exclusive," the Reverend says, trying to make light of the inexplicable decision by the casting director to use him again. Malcolm is one of the Reverend's choirboys. We learn that he asked some girl to prom in the fall. She accepted, but then told him a week before prom that she was going with another boy instead. The Reverend thinks that Malcolm has a case against his former date. Ally says they'd have to show irreparable harm and asks whether there's something special about this girl. Malcolm explains that he's been best friends with her since ninth grade and he loves her and blah, blah. Ally's been making goo-goo eyes at him this whole time, so she says she'll confer with them further instead of just laughing them out the door. Then she hallucinates Billy standing in her office doorway. Malcolm, with his big dry jheri-curl-looking hair, waits in the lobby while Ally and the Reverend walk through HalluciBilly.
Rev. Harris explains that Malcolm is "a bit of a necrophiliac." Ally figures that he meant to say that Malcolm's agoraphobic. This is played for chuckles, even though we were supposed to believe the other week that Rev. Harris was an expert witness when it came to groundbreaking genetics. We learn that Malcolm overcame his pathological shyness and agreed to sing a solo at the prom because he was filled with confidence when Andrea Mason agreed to be his date. ["Who the hell sings at a prom?" -- Wing Chun] When she ditched him for another guy, he became despondent. Rev. Harris thinks that filing suit against Andrea will "embolden" Malcolm. Whatever. Oh, and guess what? Larry Paul is representing Andrea. What-the-hell-ever. Sheesh.
One of Vonda's backup peeps sings "Rescue Me" at The Bar. My closed-captioning calls her "VAEN," but it's always leaving letters out of most of the words, so I'm going to assume this woman's name is either Valencia or Veronica Veronese. Richard dances with Jane while Ling and Nelle watch cattily. At another table, John suggests that Ally call Larry. Ally refuses and then asks John to dance. Vonda sings that "For Once" song that never, ever gets old and Ally runs off in a sad tizzy, saying she has work to do.
Ally sits at the piano in her apartment, scarily staring into space. "Whatchoo doin'?" simpers Renee, who has walked in wearing her two big cotton-candy-looking ponytails. (Did you think I was going to say "two big [something about her breasts]"? Get your mind out of the gutter that is Renee's cleavage.) Renee sits by Ally on the bench and asks whether Larry's called, sounding even sadder about the shit than Ally does. He hasn't called. Ally asks Renee to play "Goodnight, My Someone." Renee does, and it sounds nice until Ally joins in. The women hug, and Ally tries to do a dramatic lip quiver. "You'll beat this," Renee whispers. Ally says that first she has to beat Larry in court. It would be pretty compelling, this plot point about having to argue against an ex in court, but since Larry's been the surprise opposing counsel so many damned times already this season, I can't bring myself to care less.
Ally entertains silly questions from Rev. Harris while they wait with Malcolm in the courthouse hall. The elevator bell dings, and Ally turns in slow motion to see the love of her life of the season. Out come Andrea and her parents, and then out comes Corretta. "I can't believe you're doing this, Malcolm! This is so embarrassing!" says Andrea, who is tall, blonde, and yet not interesting-looking. The lawyers send their clients into the courtroom. Corretta very sensitively lets Ally know that Larry moved back to Detroit, not to live with Famke, but to be near his son. Whatever, Larry -- way to constantly use your son as a dumping device. Ally tries to exert grace under pressure and go on with the case. Wait -- I'm unclear on what's happened. Is it that Rev. Harris hired Ally and then Larry found out about it and suddenly left town? Or was it that Andrea and her family walked into Larry's old office and assumed that Corretta's name was Larry Paul because that was the name on the door? Is Corretta now a Larry Paul Law Firm franchise? Is Larry still paying for the office space? Is there anything to eat in my refrigerator? These questions weigh on my mind.
Ally and Corretta present arguments in front of Judge Seymore Walsh. Ally's case is weak and she knows it. Rev. Harris jumps up and asks permission to speak, then fucks up by referring to Malcolm as a "borderline necrophiliac." A close-up of Andrea shows us that the actress playing her is at least twenty-four years old. Malcolm is forced to sit on the stand and tell everyone that he cried for a couple of days after Andrea dissed him. He says that everyone in school laughs at him as it is, and now it'll be even worse when they see that Andrea's not going to prom with him like he told everybody she would. Judge Walsh is sympathetic, but he can't give Malcolm a court order to force Andrea to go with him to the prom.
Oh, yeah...and there were a bunch of meta-statements and significant looks that were supposed to indicate that Ally was mentally drawing comparisons between Malcolm's situation and her own. But you could have guessed that, right? I bet you also could have guessed that when I hit stop on my VCR and saw a few moments of The Young and the Restless, I realized that the whole cast had been frozen in time. Only Nina's son Philip has aged, and he's made up for everyone else's refusal to age by going from age five to age eighteen in only eight years. I jot down, "Web search -- Y&R plastic surgeon" on the pad near my computer and go on with the recap.
In the courthouse hall, Ally sits her clients down and tells them about her ruined love for Billy and for Larry. We learn that Rev. Harris did, indeed, meet Larry Paul, and that he found him "dandy." Ally explains to Malcolm that even after what's happened, she still believes in love and in the fact that she will love and be loved again. Malcolm absorbs this and then says, "But the prom's Friday." Horror-movie music plays as Ally's eyes widen. I don't understand why. My phone rings. I pick it up and one of my friends says, "Moulin? Rouge." I see Nicole Kidman on the TV screen. "Hel-lo...mocha choco-lattayaya, Miss Thing," I say. I hang up and get back to work.
We see Ally in military basic training. The drill sergeant forces her to say that she can live without a man and that "men suck, sir!" Ally wakes up in the proverbial cold sweat (the proverb being, "He who lies down with the melodramatic subplots wakes up with the cold sweat") and drags herself out of bed.
Jane walks up to Ling in the F&C lobby, saying, "Hi, Ling" as winningly as she can. Ling totally ignores her. This scene would have been much more effective if the two women hadn't been wearing the same basic polyester halter dress, just in two different prints. Or maybe it was meant to show that Jane is trying to imitate the women of Fish & Cage in an effort to make friends. That might be more subtle than the wardrobe people's abilities can account for, though. Jane sighs and sits at her desk. Richard walks up and asks how Jane's doing. She tells him about the coldness of his associates, although you can tell she's trying to stay chipper about it. She incompetently answers a phone call while Richard looks pensive.
Ally sits in church, gazing upward every few seconds. Malcolm comes out of the vestibule (or whatever it is) with an armload of books and asks whether she's praying. She quickly demurs, as if praying in a church would be beneath her, and says that she came to see him. They talk about the fact that he'd asked to sing at prom. He says he did it because he'd worried that the other kids would make fun of Andrea for going with him, and he wanted to show them he was good at something. Ally says he should still sing. Hell, yeah, he should. You go, Malcolm. Sing at the prom and then sing karaoke at a bar the night after that. Malcolm says that he's not going to the prom alone. He's "not that pathetic." Ally offers to go with him. That would be really sweet if she weren't Ally McBeal, who always makes everything all about herself. Malcolm agrees, though, and Ally peels out in fast motion to get herself a dress.
Jane and John talk in the lobby. She tells him that Richard is sitting in his office and seems a little sad. "He basically has a sign around his neck that says, 'Go away, I'm sad,'" she says. John goes to check on him.
John finds Richard sitting in his office with a sign around his neck that says, "GO AWAY, I'M SAD." Heh. Richard bemoans the fact that the firm members used to be friends, but now they're all cold to each other. John says that he and Ally have had wonderful years. They had their hearts broken, but they lived emotionally. Oh, shut up, John. Nobody cares about you and Ally. Jeez. John goes on to say that most of the people at the firm don't live emotionally. Richard says they should change that and asks if they should fire everyone. John says no, but that they do need a big change. The theme music for "Wacky Schemes to Come" plays us out of the scene. Since there's no time for any life-changing hijinks between now and the end of the hour, I'm going to pretend that this dialogue is David E. Kelley's wink-nudge pledge to the viewers to try to make the show stop sucking season.
Ally explains to a nosy, bitchy retail clerk that she's not chaperoning a prom, she's attending one as a guest. The woman asks whether Ally's "a little vintage" to be attending a prom, then says that she has a lovely chiffon number that will go beautifully with Ally's Botox. Ow. Meow! Ally got bitch-slapped with that one. While the clerk goes for the dress, Ally looks at a wedding gown and then hallucinates the mannequins coming alive and singing "Remember -- Walking in the Sand." Normally the live-mannequin thing would scare the crap out of me, but the blonde one is super-hot so I'm okay with it. Ally cringes and wails just in time for the clerk to come out and see her doing it, of course. The clerk asks whether Ally's worried that she won't be able to fit into the gown. All I can say to that is, "Snort!" (No -- really. My sinuses are messed up today.)
In the F&C lobby, Richard asks Ally whether he may go along to the prom, too. He wants to take Jane so she can be with people near her age. Ally says he can go. Whatever. Maybe it's because the high schools in my hometown were underfunded, but it seems to me that kids have to pay for prom tickets with their senior dues and can't be asking any old local lawyers to come along for the ride. Elaine walks up to tell Ally that her father is waiting for her in The Bar.
In The Bar, Ally's dad plays the piano. He thinks Larry was un-noble for walking away from the relationship. Ally excuses him, saying that Larry was in a lot of pain. Then, of course, they sing "Dulcinea." Then, of course, we get the flashback to them singing it twenty thousand years ago. Ally's dad puts his arm around her, but she doesn't shove him away like she did to her mother. I wonder why her parents were in this episode, and then assume that it was because they had already been hired to participate in Larry and Ally's wedding scene before RDJ started careening down his spiral of tragedy and dysfunction again.
In Ally's office, Elaine pins back Ally's hair and tells us that she went to her own prom with a boy named Peter Pupple and then lost her virginity to a boy whose name she can't remember. Then she runs to get Ally another hair clip. I hope she's getting a comb, too, and that she's going to unclip what she's already done and detangle Ally's hair before pinning it up into another style that doesn't look like shit. We can see Ally's dress from the ribs up. It's a beige sequined number with spaghetti straps and sequined ruffles along the deep v-neckline. It's not great, but it's not too horrid, either. Ghost Billy magically appears, and Ally asks why he hasn't been around. He says she hasn't needed him. He's there now to share "a little classified information," which is that there's a very happy life in store for her. She tremulously says that she's never doubted it. Meanwhile, her hair looks totally different. It's brushed and loosened from its clips. She thanks Billy and he fades away. Then Elaine ushers Malcolm in, and Ally's hair looks like shit again. Hello! Miss Continuity Director! Get out the bathroom and back on the job, honey! Malcolm's hair isn't much better, though, since it's still in its Burning Bush shape. He trips and falls, showing us that he's quirkily awkward and vulnerable. Ally takes the flower clip out of her head and hands it to Elaine as they leave.
K.C. and the Sunshine Band climb out of the grave to do their gig at the prom. They play "Get Down Tonight" as Ally and Malcolm bob like plastic ducks in a tub at a church carnival. Malcolm falls down again. Some nosy chick walks up and asks Ally if she's Malcolm's mother. "I'm his mistress," Ally replies, and then ruins the effect of that by hopping at the girl and scaring her away. We see a million shots of the band as they merge into "Boogie Man." Then we see Richard teaching the kids how to do The Hustle. The whole room learns it way faster than I learned to do the Boot Scootin' Boogie on Friday night. I feel like a loser for more reasons than one.
Malcolm sits down because he's nervous as hell about singing in front of Andrea and everybody else. I feel for him. I hope he went to the bathroom beforehand. The school orchestra sets up and some little frost-queen boy gets on stage and introduces Malcolm. Ally hoots as he goes up. Richard and Jane join her and watch. All the kids are yakking as the music starts. Malcolm sings the first line and the students look at him like, "Huh? What the hell's going on?" We see that the bitchy girl is Andrea's friend. The two of them make constipated faces as Malcolm sings. He sounds good enough -- he could be on a Disney movie soundtrack. His song is boring, though. It's called "You're Still You" or something. He should have sung "A Whole New World" or "Part of Your World" or "Welcome to the Jungle" or something. Eventually Andrea and her friends smile. Some woman sings background, but we don't get to see who she is. The camera slowly moves over the crowd, all the way to Ally's damp, puffy face. Then it pulls back and she's alone in the hotel ballroom. We see that her dress has one of those heinous ruffled diagonal slits going across her legs. It's annoying enough that the scene has to be made all about her -- the ugliness of her dress is just insult added to injury. Finally we see all the students clapping and "woo"ing for Malcolm, though, and the prom scene ends.
"It was the most amazing voice I've ever heard!" Ally says as she McBeals down the sidewalk with Malcolm. Her dress has a little matching slip built in under the slit and she carries a pashmina-looking shawl draped haphazardly around her arms. The whole effect is just nappy. She's like Grizzabella the Glamour Cat. Malcolm falls down again as they reach his door. Ally tells him that he'll meet somebody and so will she. He says that, until then, they'll sing "Goodnight, My Someone." Okay, whatever, Malcolm. Ally kisses his cheek and then McBeals down the rest of the sidewalk alone.
Vonda does her nightly caterwaul as Jane walks with Richard, wearing her sage-green gown and sage-lined-with- dark-orange wrap. They poke at each other like middle-schoolers in love. Ally walks and stares into space some more, Vonda moans "Goodnight!" several times, and that's the end.
week: the rerun season begins while Gwen eats Vietnamese food and shops for bargains. Y'all have a good summer, now, ya hear? Goodnight, my someones!