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The percentage of law on Ally McBeal has diminished, this season, to the point where it's lower than the percentage of fruit in Fruitopia. This week, I had an insight as to why. Or, perhaps, a pseudo-insight. Or, arguably, the kind of thought that makes your roommate go: "Duh! Like I didn't think of that in the season opener. Like, where have you been?"

Here's my insight (Now don't all go "Duh!" at once now): What the writers of Ally really like, it seems, is not actually the law itself, but the Hamlet-like courtroom soliloquies that trials permit the characters to deliver. On the show, the courtroom really is the theater to which it's always compared.

Take My Wife, Please - But I'll Sue

In support of my theory, note that intentional infliction of emotional distress claims - which are awfully rare in real life - are legion on Ally McBeal this season. Why? The show's writers are particularly fond of this type of claim, I think, because it gives them an excuse to transform any situation in which someone is monumentally pissed off at someone else into a "lawsuit." (By the same theory, the writers have learned to transform any situation in which someone is monumentally pissed off at someone else of the opposite gender, and they work together, into a "sexual harassment lawsuit." Raising the possibility that any situation in which someone is fired and thus monumentally pissed off at his or her boss will become an "employment discrimination lawsuit.")

This week on Broadway, the plaintiff is an estranged husband, represented by Marc and Ally. He is suing his best friend for intentional infliction of emotional distress on the ground that the friend slept with his wife. In real life, this claim would have been toast (badly burnt toast, to use the highly technical legal term) at the pre-trial motions stage. That's because adultery, in modern life, hardly meets the standard of outrageousness and atrociousness required to prove up an intentional infliction claim.

In addition, the so-called "heart balm" torts, which once allowed lawsuits for marriage-related hurts like these, have been abolished. And, letting an intentional infliction claim replace a "heart balm" tort would be an end run around the decision to abolish these torts in the first place. In short, the law has decreed that all of our hearts are just going to have to do without balm for a while (use aortic Chapstick instead). The rule is: you've gotta tell it to the couples therapist - not the judge.

But I err - there's one legal principle that undermines this analysis: The show must go on! And so, this bizarre claim goes to trial, as it never would in real life.

In the courtroom, Marc is portrayed (as usual) as a sharpie, while Ally is portrayed (as usual) as merely a hottie - uninterested in the trial proceedings, and interested, instead, only in sex. Ally starts slow - by merely flirting with opposing counsel, a cute British guy. This consists of a little pen fellatio by Ally, as well as a couple of goo-goo eyed looks.

Eventually, though, the witness' testimony is virtually drowned out by Ally's personal soundtrack, while his visage is obscured by Ally's tacky romantic fantasies of dancing with Cute British Guy amidst roses, in soft focus. After her experience with Carwash Guy at the start of the season, I was hoping that Ally's romantic fantasies would be a little more Last Tango In Paris than Sleepless In Seattle - but Seattle it is. (At least she's not dancing with Bill Gates, with a rose between his teeth to stop him from talking about the Microsoft ruling.)

Later, Ally confesses to Cute British Guy that "I like to distract opposing counsel. I like to look at them as if I'd like to tear off their clothes and lick them from head to toe." (In reality, I have found most opposing counsel to be generally too disgusting to lick. Please. Don't try this at home.) Then, Ally and Cute British Guy make a date. During the trial. Um. I'm sorry? Shouldn't someone get disbarred here? Come on, writers, it would allow more melodramatic speeches - this time to the Bar Committee on Discipline.

Then, when Ally cross-examines the defendant, Cute British Guy starts making Cute British Objections. She's mildly effective - but the really effective cross-examiner here is Marc. Indeed Marc, cross-examining the plaintiff's wife about her adultery with her husband's best friend, is so effective, he's borderline abusive. The judge shuts him down a bit for harassing the witness, but Marc makes his point nonetheless.

Despite Marc's obvious effectiveness for the client, Ally feels the need to protest to Marc that the wife has been treated even worse than the defendant, with whom she cheated. She finds this unfair. But why not? The wife took the vow, after all, not the best friend. And whose side is Ally on, anyway? Not her client's, it seems.

Marc replies, quite reasonably, "We need the jury's anger." He's right: if the jury isn't upset about the adultery, they won't sympathize with his client's distress, and his client will lose out on the big bucks. Ignoring Marc's strategy arguments, Ally focuses only on emotion (faithful readers of these reviews can chime in with me here: "of course she does - SHE'S A GIRL!"). "Can we talk about your anger?" she asks Marc. Although Ally is stereotypically using her feminine intuition, and stereotypically focusing on emotion rather than litigation strategy, it turns out she's right on target. Marc is angry - at both Ally and himself.

Why? Because he'd rather see Ally in bed than at counsel table. Back at the firm, we see Marc ask Cage whether Marc and Ally could be a couple; Cage says no, and accuses Marc of having "the depth of a bottlecap." We also see Marc lash out at Ally - because he's too chicken to confess his feelings. On the verge of asking her out, he asks her to do the trial's closing instead - then he immediately reneges, noting that having Ally close would be "ridiculous." Rather than being annoyed with him for his condescension (would anyone suggest that having a guy close would be "ridiculous"?), Ally only asks Marc if he's "okay."

In the end, Marc does the summation himself, and does it well. (Unlike Ally, he doesn't let emotion get in the way of legal work. "Of course not - HE'S A BOY!"). His paean to the beauties of marriage clearly moves the jury. As always, Marc shoots - and scores. (But not with Ally). Marc is disappointed when he only gets $10,000 for his client. He should be happy; his client's claim was worth $0.

Cyber-Jailbait

Is it immoral to have cybersex with a married man? This week's episode begins with this interesting question - posed by Renee, who discovers Ally having an on-line affair. Renee points out sensibly that if the guy Ally's having cybersex with is "normal and unmarried," he'll agree to meet her - after all, their cyberaffair has been going on for four months. So Ally makes a date.

Weirdly, Cybersex Guy is nicknamed "Thunderthighs" - suggesting that, in reality, he is probably Camryn Manheim. Failing to perceive this, Ally convinces herself that Cybersex Guy is actually Cute British Guy, from the trial. She's very, very wrong.

Again, Ephronisia - (defn.: the moment at which a sitcom veers dangerously close to a Nora/Delia Ephron movie) is at work. You see, Ally mistook her sitcom, momentarily, for You've Got Mail. Instead, she ends up in a remake of Harold and Maude. Cybersex Guy - who claimed online that he was 33 - confesses, in person, that he's 19 (and an incredibly babelicious 19 at that, sort of like a maverick member of Menudo). Ally's 30 (as we learned from the recent episode in which she was near-suicidal over that fact), but claimed online that she was 25.

Ally has a fantasy about ripping Cybersex Guy's sweater off, and wants to continue their dinner. But police (and Cybersex Guy's mom) show up to arrest Ally - on the ground that Cybersex Guy is actually 16, not 33 as he first claimed or 19 as he claimed later. Ally is charged with attempted statutory rape. Cage claims there is also a charge of "computer sex" - the legal problem, unfortunately, being that computer sex is not a crime.

The judge begins the proceedings by asking the boy to stand up so she can check him out (are they going to arrest her too?). She ends the proceedings by ruling that "there is no evidence whatsoever that Ms. McBeal knew she was communicating with a minor."

Freed, Ally kisses Cybersex Guy on the cheek - making me wonder if there's a chapter of the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) for women and, if so, whether Ally should join. (Nell, who you may recall also kissed a minor this season, is a candidate too).

A Cold Day In Nell

In the show's final subplot, Nell continues her client-stealing ways and threatens to leave the firm if she's not made partner. Since she's consistently been the only woman on the show who has ever cared about clients, money, or professional success in the law, she must be evil… . And, indeed, evil she turns out to be.

While Fish can be callously charming when he focuses on money and partnership, Nell can only ever be a sexually manipulative bitch when she raises the same topics: "Between my portables, my hair, and the sexual harassment laws, I'll be partner within a month if I switch firms," Nell brags. On this show, rather than winning in court fair and square, women lawyers use lawsuits as a form of tantrum or manipulation. (Think of Georgia's suit against Billy and the firm, faulting the firm for causing her divorce).

When Nell asks to be made partner, Cage calls her a "rich bitch elitist ice queen." Fish is no more sympathetic, explaining that he doesn't want to make Nell a partner because her take would cut into the money he and Cage make, as sole partners - and also into the firm's male hegemony, it seems. He and Cage like to keep the women as associates; they have more power over them that way.

Understandably, Nell decides she's been treated unfairly at Fish & Cage. She asks Ling to leave and start a firm with her, but Ling protests, "I'm rich. I only go to work to wear my outfits." Somehow, the ludicrous justification allows even to Ling come off as more sympathetic than Nell - who's just unremittingly mean.

While Ally McBeal purports to give us new portraits of women lawyers, in fact the portraits are age-old: the sex kitten (Ally, as a sort of love daughter of Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn) and the bitch (Nell, as a sort of love daughter of Joan Crawford and a bottle of Clairol). I suspect that even the new Charlie's Angel's movie will give us a kinder portrait of women professionals than we've had this season.

Next week: War is Nell. In next week's episode, Nell turns evil and "it's war." (What war? The War Between The Sexes, of course). Also, Cute British Guy demands sex from Ally. Do you think it would be reserved, British sex? Does he shout out Winston Churchill's name? Stay tuned.

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