everyepisodeofallymcbeal

[everyepisodeofallymcbeal]

S1 E4 - The Affair

This episode is all about Women in STEM:

Sexual impropriety

Telling Lies

Entrepreneurship

M - ok, take the M, turn it upside down so it's a W, and the word for this letter is Wigs. The wigs this episode are positively demonic.

Let's dive into the episode.

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Jane Krakowski has never been more Jenna Maroney that when she is wearing a face bra and trying to find investors. If I said this sentence to a mental health professional with no context, they would have me institutionalized. And I would be grateful for it!

But seriously folks, if Ally McBeal took place in 2025, Elaine would get on TikTok, start selling her Face Bra (which is essentially already a TikTok trend), make enough money to leave Cage & Fish, and then be cancelled and return to Cage & Fish by the end of the episode.

Ally tries to dim Elaine's light and crush her entrepreneurial dreams. Ally McBeal is not like other girls, she's worse. Thank GOD Richard walks over to support Elaine! Richard Fish -- feminist ally! I think Richard's quote "there's no embarrassing way to make money," was a prescient statement about the turn from Gen X's fears of "selling out" towards to the Millennial Hustle Culture and the influencer #sponsoredAd economy.

---

THE WIGS!

Ally's wig in the flashback is so bad! I know they had to do something to make her look younger, but that is a Party City (RIP) wig from a "Shrill Attorney" costume.

AND THEN they put the dead professor's daughter in another horrible wig! Why did they do that? What was wrong with the daughter's hair? Surely, if there was a problem with the child actor's hair, they could have cast a different 9 year old girl to turn around and look sullen.

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Professor Dawson...

...is a liar. Obviously, to his wife. Definitely, to Ally, when he mischaracterized his marriage to make it seem like it was over.

And then the flashback when he was like "Ally, you're the love of my life, I only love you, etc. etc." he is either unstable and fallen in love after like 6 months with this anemic 25-year-old, OR he's lying to manipulate Ally (sorry, not trying to wade too far into Gen Z age-gap discourse, but like, oh no this doesn't seem healthy), OR, and my favorite explanation -- sorry, my favorite explanation is that while guys in powerful positions can/do/will lie, but my favorite ALTERNATIVE explanation -- is that Ally McBeal is an unreliable narrator and her flashbacks do not reflect reality. While we "see" Professor Dawson in love with Ally, what probably happened was that Ally was a fling as part of a mid-life crisis. Ally is obsessed with the idea of being in love and being the object of love. Of course, as a young woman, stressed from year 3 of Harvard Law, she sees the attention of her professor as fulfilling her desires to be loved and wanted. That would explain the melodrama of the flashbacks where Prof. Dawson says such out-of-pocket things as "Ally, you're the person I've always dreamed of." Sorry, people don't say shit like that, TV hunks and the brooding antiheroes of YA fantasy novels say shit like that.

To take this theory further -- Later in the episode, Ally "lies" to the widow but in fact is telling the truth when Ally explains that it was a mid-life crisis, and Prof. Dawson loved his family more than Ally. It is emotionally painful for Ally to reconcile her fantasy of the relationship (as we saw in flashbacks) with the reality of the situation. We are constantly shown how Ally's grip on reality is fleeting. Time and again, we are shown that Ally has a difficult time judging when to act honestly, and when to perhaps cover the truth or hold her tongue. Speaking the truth of the situation out loud makes real the lack of love and desire she feels. In real-time, she is trying to rectify this past version of herself and the truth as Cheanie breaks up with her! The pain of reality is unavoidable. This pain drives her straight into the arms of Billy, and she is now set on ruining his relationship with Georgia to feed her insatiable desire for love.

---

Does Ally have a cluster B personality disorder? I do not know, I am not a psychologist, just a boy without a job. But I do think she could benefit from psychotherapy. I would hope the benefits at Cage & Fish would cover mental health treatment!

---

In the end, Ally delivers an inappropriate and unhinged eulogy at Professor Dawson's funeral. Funerals, as they say, are for the living. And whether Ally's eulogy reflects the truth is frankly, less relevant than the myths told about the deceased, and the truths we tell ourselves and each other as we try to construct our lives and our realities.

[everyepisodeofallymcbeal]

S1 E3 - The Kiss

At least in this episode, Ally sticks to ruining her own life rather than ruining the lives of others. Ah, wait no she tries to ruin Cheanie's (sp?) life too.

My thoughts on this episode, with timestamps.

0:07

Starting early in the episode. Sitcoms love to make Jane Krakowski help her friends buy jeans.

1:07

OH! Georgia works AT Cage & Fish, I thought she worked at a different firm.

OH! The sexual tension between Georgia and Ally is palpable... knife through butter, etc...

1:12

Representing an anchor woman while dressed like an anchor woman... it's giving Theme Dressing.

2:34

They're friends now! It's official!

2:47

Billy got his wispy bangs fixed. RIP.

4:09

"Your first wife" is an incredible line. I will now be using that with any friend/acquaintance/enemy in their first marriage. Ally is so mean and a role model.

4:57

The Rules! I listened to a podcast about this book. It's psychotic, regressive 90s guide to dating that was randomly super popular. Most of the rules are around how the MANN must pursue the WOMAN who should play COY and not LOOK LIKE SHE WANTS IT TOO MUCH. Interesting to see Gen X be interested in this style of courtship, while Millennials try to reject it but can't fully escape these norms, and Gen Z is too TikTok brained/anxious/incel to even date.

5:41

"I can see where you get your snappishness." Elaine absolutely calling Ally OUT for being an uptight virgin...

6:40

The girls are scheming and overthinking this date. Let me rewrite this scene, gender-flipped.

Alex McBeal: I'm going on a date tonight. Ricky Raddick: Hell yeah. Think you're gonna get lucky*? Alex: Heh, we'll see. -end-

*I tried using period-appropriate slang, acceptable for network TV.

8:10

Ok, I needed to do some research, who the hell is this woman singing throughout the series! Turns out, she is singer Vonda Shepard, who is "playing herself." Apparently her music from the show was very successful. Good for her! The 90s, a crazy time where you could make a living as a musician!

9:12

You can tell the Renee has fucked the twins; both separately, and then together. She has the eyes of a huntress and the spirit of an artist.

9:40

Ally is a bad liar! Girl, take an improv class! It sounds like you're having a stroke.

10:59

Not to quote an ex-Meta COO and génocidaire, but Ally if you want something, you need to Lean In! Advocate for yourself!

11:36

Renee is the voice of reason!

13:17

An era when people thought highly of TV news! Of TV! Of news! Of media! What a quaint era.

14:04

I do think it's interesting that the defense's legal argument is not "We did NOT fire her because of her age/looks" but is instead arguing "Yes we did fire her because of her age/looks, and THAT's ok!" This is why everyone needs a union.

15:09

The way Ally is eating chow mein one noodle at a time... she needs medical attention.

15:24

Popping over to her apartment unannounced... how did he get into the building... red flag...

16:32

More people need to take a note from Renee and BULLY Ally.

20:20

Cheanie showing up to Ally's office unannounced is problematic.

20:51

Wow, what if this was a genuine moment of reflection and change from Ally, where she learns the power of honesty and vulnerability? Hmm, I have a feeling it won't be, and she'll continue to ruin peoples' lives with the strength of her toxic personality.

21:02

Incredible delivery from Jane Krakowski.

22:23

Oh you just know he did something EVIL to that toilet and left the bathroom without washing his hands.

22:26

Bad personality, mostly.

22:51

So she was trying to Lean In.

23:50

"We're a stupid country." And this was BEFORE our brains were cooked from Covid and social media and Russian propaganda.

25:30

"a BLACK (look to judge) anchor...."

26:50

Still can't tell if this show takes sexual harassment seriously or not!

27:20

Cheanie's office is a living room? Styled like a living room?

27:57

Automatic door closer... It's giving Jigsaw. I would love to see Ally McBeal try to survive a Saw-like scenario. Not trying to sound like I'm pro-violence against women! But I think a little bit of violence against this woman is warranted.

31:20

Georgia is trying to seduce Ally. You don't look at another person like that unless you are trying to seduce someone. Ally, take the bait! Start playing footsie under the desk. Tell Elaine to go home. Press the close button on your automatic door closing remote that everyone seems to have...

33:13

I love those quirky button details on Ally's blazer.

35:33

Are they... straight up showing horse shit on TV? I'm sure there was some meeting with network execs where they were like "Ok, you can show the shit hitting the ground, but NOT the hole, nor the shit coming OUT of the hole."

35:56

Mr. Mustache has bad friends.

37:16

For reference, $400,000 in June (I had to guess a month) 1997 is the equivalent of $787,536 in December 2024 (latest month the Bureau of Labor Statistics has data on, as of this writing).

However, according to data from the Federal Housing Finance Agency, a home in Boston purchased in Q3 1997 for $400,000 would be worth approximately $1,806,549 as of Q3 2024. That doesn't have much to do with this episode, I just think that's neat.

39:09

Sorry, what the fuck is this episode trying to say about independence? I think they went too far with "we're trying to explore an issue, not say what's right or wrong" and ended up saying nothing at all. Or maybe they said something and it's didn't make sense! Idk I've been doing so much writing about this episode.

40:30

Replace. Smart. Phones. With. Beepers. And. A. GPS!

That's all I need! And get rid of QR code menus at restaurants!

41:20

$930,000! That's so much more money! That's... that's... ugh, I don't know, it's late. If you want to find the current amount that equates to vis a vis inflation, or the equivalent home price, you can find that out for yourself. It's late.

42:37

"Who says I'll end up alone?"

I hope so! That's like, the whole point of this TV show is that you're a hapless single woman in the city! Sure, the city is Boston, but I can put that aside.

[everyepisodeofallymcbeal]

S1 E2 - Compromising Positions

Alternate titles of this episode:

Sex And The City... of Boston.

It's the 90s!

WASPs Behaving Badly.

Sex Work is Work but Elaine Works Harder.

Ally McBeal... Shut the Fuck Up.

Some questions I have from the episode:

Will Elaine ever get an autism diagnosis?

Why does Ally hate Elaine?

Why did that creepy judge want to see Ally's teeth?

Why does Ally need to be in everyone's business?

Why are the mens' ties all so ugly? In the 90s we gave men one singular creative outlet with their tie selection, and boy did they mess that up!

Do ex-girlfriends have rights?

How would you feel about having your waddle caressed?

Who is that woman playing the piano at the end of the episode?

Other thoughts:

This show has an... interesting (I'm using "interesting" in the Midwestern sense here -- as a slur) couple of takes on sexual politics this episode! Striking an interesting (again, as above) tone that is both progressive and regressive, feminist and misogynist... That eternal tension... the dialogue... the Hegelian dialectic even...

In this episode, Ally ruins everything for everybody. Billy's relationship, Richard's relationship, Cage's survey averages... She really sticks her nose in everyone's business. Doesn't she have like, a ton of lawyer work to do? I don't know what lawyer work includes, but I think it takes up a lot of time. Time she instead uses to pass judgement and cast aspersions.

If this was a real office, they'd put Ally on a Performance Improvement Plan and get her ass out of the firm in 6 months. She is not a good culture fit for Cage & Fish. This is not me approving of all behavior and norms at Cage & Fish this is just me observing facts.

I do feel some sympathy for Ally trying to sort through these feelings without the aid of the "girlboss" as a mental model of feminine strength and professional achievement. This of the LinkedIn posts she could write!

Speaking of LinkedIn -- in 2025, Cage would have turned his pro-sex worker speech into a page-long LinkedIn post about "What Speaking up for the Rights of Sex Workers Taught me About Providing Stellar Client Service." Ally would have commented "Love this! Thank you for using your platform!" but spend all week talking shit about the post behind his back.

Elaine calls Ally "snappish," which of course Ally hates. Ally, you got to learn to like snappish because that's the NICEST thing anyone has to say about the toxic vibe you bring to Cage & Fish!

Final thoughts:

When Georgia and Ally are getting drinks towards the end of the episode (working it out on the remix), a lot of things came into focus. First, Georgia comes out as sapiosexual. Fortunately, tumblr.com had yet to invent that word for her to use. And then the sexual tension between Georgia and Ally cranks up to 11. I thought they were going to kiss. I thought they were going to find a random man in that bar and have a threesome. And then it hit me -- so many of these characters' problems could be addressed (nay, solved?) through threesomes to break the uncomfortable tension that Ally brings into Cage & Fish. It's the 90s, after all!

Ally, Georgia, and Billy: This one is obvious. There's clear tension between Georgia and Ally. At the same time, they are both addicted to Billy. Billy spent this whole episode talking about how men have insatiable sexual needs. So much of the tension between the three of them comes from not knowing each others' motives. Let you're guard down and kick off the pant suits!

Richard, Whipper, and the potential client who kissed Ally and I just found out via google is named "Ronald Cheanie" hahaha ok sure that's his name: But anyway, the three of them need to hook up. Judge Whipper has already kissed both of those men. Richard, especially, seems open to new experiences, and is willing to be cucked by an older woman. Ally turned down "Ronald Cheanie" (hahaha that fuckin name) as a client, but he shouldn't leave empty handed ~if you know what I mean~.

Ally and the Dancing twins: Ally is so tense from a long day of work and ruined her colleagues' lives. She needs to let loose with a crazy night with those twins! You know they'd be into it. You know they'd do some FREAKY stuff that would expand Ally's mind. She is clearly starved for intimacy but those twins would treat her RIGHT and make her an espresso in the morning.

[everyepisodeofallymcbeal]

S1 E1 - Pilot

Maybe I'm saying this as a millennial (born 1993, or 4 b.m. -- before McBeal) but there is something so... specific (?) about watching 90s TV. The 4:3 ratio of old TVs, the colors, the quintessential geometry of 90s TV hair. Ah, the 90s! What a time to be alive: smoking in restaurants, I didn't know what a credit score was yet, it was the end of history!

Also, the SOUND! The sound of these shows is so appealing. I'm not talking about the music (at the end, we had 3ish minutes of a woman's voice soulfully wailing over a piano) but literally the production/mixing of the dialogue. Typically, I find myself watching Netflix/etc. with subtitles on so I don't miss a line of dialogue. But the sound balance in Ally McBeal comes across crisp, loud, and again, a distinct feature of 90s TV production.

On to the episode...

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Amidst the Frasurbane aesthetics of the late Clinton years, we meet Ally. The pre-opening-credits sequence (see previous post) shows us a young Ally in love with her boyfriend Billy as pre-teen paramours. Their relationship lasts from youth to law school at Harvard. After a year of law school, Billy decides to transfer to Michigan to get a spot on their law review; in doing so, he breaks up with Ally.

In present-day Boston, Ally quits her job at a law firm due to a senior partner's sexual harassment. To feign innocence, the senior partner (whomst I'll refer to as Mr. Mustache because I do not remember the character name) claims to have OCD, which compels him to squeeze women's butts, and uses this sham diagnosis to avoid punishment. Upon learning of this injustice, Ally immediately quits the firm. While walking out the door and onto the sidewalk, she bumps into an old friend from law school, Richard Fish (did I mention she went to Harvard?). This friend immediately offers Ally a job at his new firm, Cage & Fish. I love a plot point like this in a TV show. I get it, you need to set up a back story in 10 minutes or less, then get on to building characters and relationships. It can't be purely logical and reasonable. But it also sounds like this is how boomers and white-collar Gen-Xers got jobs before application portals and AI resume screening.

Cage & Fish is not like other law firms, they're a ~fun firm~. Mostly what makes them ~fun~ is the gender-neutral bathroom. And Richard Fish is shown to be obsessed with making money. That detail is used in a flashback as a joke, but like... you went to Harvard Law, I already assumed you didn't have morals and enrolled there to maximize your income slay. The gender-neutral bathroom detail I knew about Ally McBeal (the show not the woman) before watching, as a concept that has floated around in pop culture.

I'm not sure how I feel about the gender-neutral bathroom. Not due to any gender issues, but because of the architecturally open floorplan layout of the bathroom. Everyone is hyperexposed to every sound, smell, and splash of their coworkers' excretory varia. It's also a little upsetting to think about how this concept would be even more controversial today due to transphobic culture warriors creating the fake issue of bathroom usage. I love to be distracted by cultural conflict instead of building class consciousness!! How about you? Sorry, back to the episode. Wait, no, one last comment -- if a show today tried to have a gender-neutral bathroom on it, you'd have Jiminy Bumfuck from East-East-South Tampa pausing his episode of the Joe Rogan podcast to Google "Ally McBeel address" to try and mail Calista Flockhart a poorly-made pipe bomb. Maybe the loss of shop class in high school curricula was a good thing? Jiminy Bumfuck, of course, was encouraged in this venture by an X (née twitter) post from M4rjori3 T4yl0r Gr33ne. And if this post is ever used in a court of law, you should know that my newly diagnosed OCD causes me to say outrageous things for attention and I would never besmirch a lawmaker under my own volition! Now back to the show.

Ally starts at Cage & Fish, and is introduced to her assistant JENNA MARONEY. Ahem, let me try again. JENNA MA- ok, let me do this one more time. She's introduced to her assistant and star of TGS with Tracy Jordan, Elaine, played by Jane Krakowski. Elaine is very good at her job, and straight up should be a lawyer. Instead, she's Ally's assistant, staying on top of every case and all ongoings at Cage & Fish. She takes her job seriously, is literal to a fault, and very annoying. We didn't have the language for this in the 90s, but she clearly has autism. And VERY curly hair! But mostly autism.

Also working at Cage & Fish, and the emotional crux of the show, is ALLY'S EX, BILLY THOMAS. He's supposedly a very good lawyer (even though he went to Michigan (Ally went to Harvard, in case you didn't know)). Something I loved about the scenes between Ally and Billy were their joint usage of wispy bangs. Ally has the classic 90s wispy bang, with 4-9 sandy-brown tendrils bouncing across her forehead. Sometimes those tendrils get pushed up or to the side, to show that she's serious--or more likely as a continuity error. It's also so refreshing to see Billy with a wispy bang too. His hair doesn't really know what it's wants to do, so it just sort of comes forward and sits there to frame his face but remind you he's still young doesn't have it all figured out himself. Metaphor alert!

Ally is still desperately in love with Billy. Which is complicated by the fact that Billy is now married, and his wife Georgia is a lawyer at another firm! Georgia confronts Ally at her apartment about how they both love Billy and hate each other. Ok, sure, that seems normal. It's so confusing sometimes to be a girl, I guess. I hope that by the end of the series they can work it out on the remix.

Why is she in love with Billy? In the (admittedly) brief time we've known these characters, we don't learn much about Billy or his supposed charms. All we know is that he has a strong jawline, wears suspenders in the office, and I guess is a good lawyer. We have evidence that their relationship was built not on shared interestsor compatibility, but purely time. Speaking of time, how old is Ally McBeal supposed to be? Calista Flockhart was 33 at the time the pilot aired. Before I even looked up that fact, I assumed that they were in their early 30s. Billy would have broken up with her around age 23/24. It's been at least 7-9 years since you have SEEN or HEARD from this man, and you fall in love again at first sight? Ally, you don't need another dusty lavender skirt suit, you need THERAPY.

Ally has a roommate, Renee. Boston rent is expensive, but come on Ally, you're a corporate lawyer; you can get a 1-bed on your income! Renee is also the only person of color who had lines in the episode. There's a scene toward the end where Georgia is in Ally's office, and then Renee comes in to seemingly bully Georgia (why do we pit women against each other!), and all three women are wearing suits in three distinct but deeply Clinton-era shades of beige-inflected purple.

Also in this episode, we see some TV lawyers get to work! And of course, practicing the law is never as straightforward as you think. Although the way they "win" the sexual harassment case, by secretly recording Mr. Mustache, probably isn't legal in Massachusetts, I do love to see women win! The second case is about a Playboy-esque magazine being sued for libel for printing a comic about a priest involved in an affair. The judge gets sooooo angry about the print media! And how they "stoop so low to sell magazines"! Ah, the print media, how quaint. I'm not a lawyer but I do like the inclusion of legal cases in TV shows. It's sort of like a logic puzzle embedded into the plot! I find that charming and yes I was more of an indoors recess kid, why do you ask?

While Ally tries to figure out life, love, and the law, we get a peek into her psyche through surreal daydreams -- a child-sized Ally sitting in a giant chair when she feels insecure in a meeting, or arrows shooting into Ally's chest upon Billy informing Ally of his marriage. This is fun! This is what the show is about. This puts us on Ally's side, makes us root for her even through her foibles and imperfections. The audience wants to see into the internal world of Ally, but as the mulit-camera, stage play style sitcom grew out of fashion in the late 90s, we wanted to know what these characters were thinking/feeling without hammy over-acting of, say, The Nanny, or saccharine emotional turns of Friends. These daydreams have a direct link to the use of 1-on-1 character interviews in mockumentary style shows like The Office of Modern Family -- to make obvious the internal worlds of the characters and serve as a punchline. The ironic and fast-paced tone of the show my keep us at arm's length, but Ally's fantasies invite us in just enough to make us empathize.

The politics of the show are a snapshot into the not-too-distant past: is sexual harassment bad or funny? Should Ally flirt with the potential clients to get their business? Isn't it funny that one of the potential clients iS A LeSbiAn?! There are two instances where "fat" is a punchline. You can't get too precious about the political correctness of a TV show from a pre-iPhone world. But I am looking forward to see how this point of view comes across through the advancing sexual and racial politics of the late 90s and early 2000s.

Overall I like the show! I like that Ally is a flawed hero. Which, yes, is a euphemism for annoying. The type of girl who would dominate a lunchtime conversation with tales of how "everyone" in her office is being "so dumb" but very quickly you understand that she is the villain in every story she tells. Otherwise, the show is pretty fast-paced and joke-dense. I'm not sold on some of the character relationships/details, but eh, the pilot episode needs to set up a lot in a limited amount of time. TV is supposed to be for turning off part of your brain and going along for the ride. I'm looking forward to watching these goofballs get along. It's clear that on Ally McBeal, nothing is black and white. Instead, it's these very 90's shades of charcoal and ecru.

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I've decided to watch the show and write about it because I needed to hmmm feel like I have a goal to accomplish and use my brain so it doesn't turn to mush during this time of unemployment. I make no promises about the length or even content of future posts. Thanks for randomly reading this!

[everyepisodeofallymcbeal]

S1 E1 - Pilot (3 minutes in)

Ok, I didn't want to do a live react. I thought I would have the willpower to sit through one entire 42-minute episode without needing to write something down. But omg I paused at the title sequence -- Jane Krakowski is in this?! Also Calista Flockhart has suuuch an "actress face." Could you imagine her in like, HR at your dumb job? Reviewing annual cost-of-living raises (never enough, btw) while having the bone structure of a 18th century British landowner's sullen, melancholic daughter who you know should practice the harpsichord more often but can't seem to get her dainty, anemic nose out of a book? She was built to make faces and say words on stage and screen.

Also I'm no expert on the legal profession, but I think her ex-boyfriend would, uh, be perfectly fine graduating from Harvard? I mean, I understand wanting to leave Boston (vomit emoji vomit emoji) but I don't think his plan to transfer to Michigan for a chance to get onto the Law Review is particularly wise! Correct me in the comments if I'm wrong!

Ally herself seems so annoying. I'm locked in and would die for her.

Ok, now back to the episode -- I'll watch the entire thing and then write about it.

[everyepisodeofallymcbeal]

It's January 2025 and I currently have no job and no real goals. So I've decided to make one. I am going to watch every episode of turn-of-the-century classic TV sitcom "Ally McBeal" and write about the episodes as I watch them.

I have never seen a single episode of Ally McBeal.

I do know that the dancing baby(?) in my profile picture is like, a meme from the show? Can we call it a meme?

The researcher part of me wants to go down a deep dive of information about Ally McBeal on Wikipedia, then cross-reference that with written and video essays reflecting on the show, getting a clearer picture on the show and it's context. But I think it's better if I go in raw.

Almost raw -- just so we're all on the same page, here's an excerpt from the introductory paragraphs on Wikipedia:

The series revolves around Calista Flockhart in the title role as a lawyer working in the Boston law firm Cage and Fish. Although ostensibly a legal drama, the main focus of the series is the romantic and personal lives of the main characters. The show originally aired on Fox from September 8, 1997, to May 20, 2002.

And look at this dramatic photo:

Alright, I gotta head over to Hulu and start watching.