Ally McBeal: Cro-Magnon/The Attitude

"The Attitude" (first season, episode 7) finds Ally struggling to navigate the stormy seas of romance. She's coping with close proximity to Billy, the former love of her life, and the tension increases when Billy's wife, Georgia, is invited to join the firm of Fish & Cage. While Ally defends a woman (Brenda Vaccaro) who's been wrongfully expelled from her synagogue, Cage takes on Georgia's ex-boss on a sex-discrimination charge. During a disastrous dinner date Ally obsesses over salad dressing on her date's chin, and later she simultaneously offends and attracts the young rabbi who ousted her client, leading Ally to trade her pursuit of "Mr. Right" for more pragmatic dates with "Mr. Not-Likelys." As usual, this episode is blessed with Kelley's rapid-fire dialogue, but it's best remembered for the superbly written scenes between Ally and Georgia, who forge a friendship despite their shared history with Billy. Calista Flockhart and Courtney Thorne-Smith really shine here, making this one of the first season's pivotal episodes. --Jeff Shannon

Customer reviews:

Ally takes some chances on a trio of Mr. Not Likelys, 2003-06-23
I keep trying to draw some significance out of the fact that the two episodes from the first season of "Ally McBeal" are shown in reverse order of how they originally aired, but all I can come up with is that the better known episode (where Ally dances with the infamous dancing baby) goes first. Both episodes, written by David E. Kelley, deal with Ally's decision to take some chances on some Mr. Not Likelys instead of waiting for Mr. Right:

"Cro-Magnon" (Episode 12) finds Ally (Calista Flockhart) and Renee (Lisa Nicole Carson) are taking a sculpture class where they discover that Glenn, the male model, is rather "gifted" (they need more clay). Georgia (Courtney Thorne-Smith) joins the class but it is Ally who actually dates Glenn. Meanwhile, in court our heroine is defending 19-yeard old Clint, who punched out a guy for insulting the virtue of his date and who's cute little behind has become the object of his lawyer's attentoin. The title of the episode comes from Ally's declaration that she likes a little Cro-Magnon in her man. Actually, this episode is one of the more heavy handed ones, with the contrast between the girls oggling the model and the guys watching a prizefight on pay-per-view lacking subtlety.

"The Attitude" (Episode 7) has Ally getting the hots for district attorney Jason Roberts, a colleague of Renee's, who fortunately asks her out before the theme from "Jeopardy" ends. Ally's client this week is Karen Horwitz, who is trying to get Rabbi Joseph Stern to grant her a divorce because her husband is in a coma (the poor guy was hit by a bus before he obtained a "get," the formal Jewish divorce decree). Ally cannot get the rabbi to change his mind, but she does get another offer for a date.

I would not label either of these as classic Ally McBeal episodes, but they are certainly representative of Ally's love life in Season 1, before things became increasingly bizarre in Season 2. I would have paired up "Cro-Magnon" with the follow up episode, "The Blame Game," where Ally and Renee take vengeance on Glenn by giving him "the penguin," but that is just my impulse towards narrative completeness.

These are the two best Ally McBeal episodes, 2000-01-21
I have the DVD box set thing, and it has these two episodes, and they are the strongest. So if you don't want to spend all the money that the box set costs, you can buy this.