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After dragging her paint-covered nipples over posterboard for Playboy videos, whacking in her abusive boyfriend's windows with a baseball bat (or so he claims), and humiliating herself on Letterman, Farrah Fawcett's logical next career move is - guest starring on Ally McBeal of course. Bear with me now.

I. Help Me Farrah, Help Me Get Her Out of My Heart

On this week's Ally, Billy goes from Georgia's arms into the arms of . . . Farrah. Unfortunately for him, Farrah is neither in her famous red nipple-bathing-suit, nor is she imitating Jackson Pollock in the nude. Instead, she's in turtlenecks and jackets, in her serious Angel - I mean, actress - incarnation. And, I have to admit, she really is an excellent Angel - I mean, actress - when she tries to be.

But I'm not sure you can trust my critical judgment, given how much I enjoyed the "Stuart Little" commercial. Especially the dancing parts. Stuart is also a fine actor, albeit a mouse.

On Ally, Farrah plays a super-babe who inherits the editor-in-chief spot at her elderly lover's "Beantown" magazine. For her first issue, she decides to do a lingerie spread of herself - thereby boosting circulation and infuriating the editorial staff, who first cruelly mock her and then conduct a mass sick-out so that she can't put out the magazine. She files a sexual harassment suit.

It's a weird "sexual favoritism retaliation" case - another of Ally's bizarre, backlash-y permutations of sexual harassment law, all of which seem designed to make us think the whole area of law is ridiculous. (Remember the suit by Plain Women against Sexy Women earlier this season? Same drill.)

How weird is this case? Let me count the ways.

First, the fact that Farrah is the boss would seem to seriously undermine, if not destroy, her claim. How can the environment be hostile if she has the hire/fire power to ultimately define it? This is a point that is made at trial, but it should have ended the case in motion practice long before.

Second, Farrah's Title VII claim should technically be against the corporate employer that permitted the hostile environment; not against her subordinates. But it's heavily implied that Farrah may have inherited the company, or part of it - and thus, is, um suing herself?

Third, I believe the law is unsettled as to whether sexual favoritism by the boss (promoting the one you boff) is also sexual harassment of other workers in the office. Query then (as lawyers say) whether the downfall of a sexual favorite can be sexual harassment of she who was boffed - or simply her comeuppance for the unfair advantage she received in the first place.

One could argue that those who live by the low-cut blouse, should die by the low-cut blouse. Who live by the miniskirt, should die by the miniskirt! Who live by the nipple-less bra, should . . . . Okay, I'm calmer now. I was about to storm my neighborhood Bastille (Wait, it's been replaced by a Starbucks! I can't even afford a croissant!)

These and other theoretical questions in sex harassment law will keep me, your trusty Reviewer, up tonight. When I'm not thinking of delectable sportscaster Tom Rinaldi, that is. But that's my private obsession. (Well, it was a moment ago).

II. Billy: Pig In the City

Meanwhile, Farrah's case - meritless though it may be - is sending shock waves through Fish & Cage.

Farrah was initially represented by John and Billy, but she fires John after he starts stuttering like Porky Pig, and his shoes explode. I kid you not. This leaves Billy, a lone associate, to soldier on solo (examining all witnesses and ultimately doing the closing). Not to mention leaving Farrah with an all-blonde defense, always effective.

A little reality-check: At no real law firm would the associate get to do the whole trial once the client "fired" the partner. Instead, I think it's pretty likely the client might get "fired" right back. (It does happen.)

Anyway, Billy does well solo - mostly because he is able to channel the Male Chauvinist Pig God in the courtroom, becoming so virtually possessed by the guys who taunted Farrah, that at times I thought he was arguing for the defendant. Until I realized that in fact, Billy's whole closing is supposed to be an exercise in sarcasm; he's not really a chauvinist, he just plays one on TV. You can tell he's being sarcastic because he emphasizes every other word, as in: "She can't be qualified because she's too pretty. Good Americans will find out who are the sluts in the workplace, and make sure they get fired."

I guess the logical extension of Billy's strategy would be to simply give your opponent's closing argument verbatim but in Billy's sing-songy sarcastic voice. ("And then you should award damages to the plaintiff because she's been so badly injured. . . .")

Another little reality-check: Jurors don't like sarcasm. Neither do judges. From the judge's perspective, sarcasm is in tension with the serious atmosphere of a courtroom. From the jurors' perspective, they wonder why they are being paid $5 an hour to listen to Adam Sandler when he is not half as funny as he was in The Waterboy. So, because lawyers are no fools, they generally stay away from sarcasm. Nice try Billy.

To be fair to Billy, there isn't a partner there to give him advice. Also, his opponent indulges in a little sarcasm, too. After cross-examining Farrah about her meteoric rise to publishing stardom -- via a highly lubricated route -- he sneers: "Wow. That's quite a leap." A real judge would probably admonish the attorney for this "testimony by a lawyer." Not only is it sarcastic and improper, it's ineffective. A good attorney would let the jurors think, "Wow. That's quite a leap" - and let them also believe the thought was their own, not one planted by the attorney (which jurors naturally resent a little).

Despite Billy's amusing sarcasm, he loses. However, since it's Billy, a loss is just an opportunity for a little sexual tension. Don't worry about being a solo associate who just lost a case that could have settled for $100,000. Flirt with the client.

Sparks start to fly when Billy tells Farrah, "I find it difficult to believe you loved an eighty-six year old man." (That would be the guy who promoted her then died, coitus interruptus, in her bed). Farrah counters: "Then I feel sorry for you." He'll have to prove to her that he can love! It's so romantic . . . . Except, of course, he's married.

At the end of the trial, though Billy has lost, Farrah gives him a porcelain "male chauvinist" pig. I didn't think women like Farrah would have to resort to Lladro figurines, but we all have our weak moments.

Ultimately, Billy and Farrah end up rolling around Billy's desktop and, surprise! Georgia walks in. Which only strengthens her resolve to quit the firm. Which she had done that morning. She leaves her wedding ring in Billy's office and stalks out.

III. Money Changes Everything

Money changes everythaaaaaang. Or it would, if anyone on Ally McBeal ever mentioned it.

Money was the unspoken subtext of this week's show. And maybe it's because I spent Thanksgiving with someone who refers to Karl Marx as "Karl" (as in, "Karl tells me my work is not going to be finished in my lifetime"), but I have to think the show may be in denial about some of the economic forces governing the law firm world it describes.

Let me tell you something about law firms, and I hope it won't come as a shock. They are all about money. (Shhh!) If you are lucky, they are also about other things, such as integrity and craft. But wait until that time of year when partners dicker among themselves over profits, and eighth-year associates slaver at the mouth and kiss their rings. You'll see.

Money is not much of an issue on Ally. As long as the pretty young women associates are flush enough to keep themselves in zebra-print halter-tops from Bebe, they're happy. Well, not quite. They also need to have their hair expensively styled into the messy-sticky look Ally now favors. (As my friend commented tonight, "Is she too big now to brush her hair?") Otherwise, they don't bother their pretty little heads about money.

Georgia, for example, leaves Fish & Cage to join Renee's firm - despite the fact that it is a two-woman shop with (Renee admits) "no clients," and also despite the fact that Georgia is on the verge of a divorce.

When Ling's relationship with Fish breaks up, she considers leaving too - with not a whisper as to the wasted time she's invested on the partnership track at Fish & Cage. She ultimately decides against it, but only because her ex-boyfriend/partner-and-boss convinces her it's okay that they work together. And fool around again too. Not a word about her career. . . or what she might want to do as a lawyer in a few years' time. Law is just a hobby for these girls.

With these breakup subplots, Ally touches on - but never explores - a dirty little secret of law firm practice. In law firm couples, the women are always younger, and for this reason, when one half of the couple must leave, it is virtually always the woman. If the fling goes bad, the female associate often leaves - so as not to have to face the sourness of the entrenched male partner. If it goes well, she leaves to have his children and stay home. After all, if someone is going to work, shouldn't it be the one with the higher income? (Read: The guy). This is how a J.D. is converted into the fabled M.R.S. Degree.

Guys are luckier. Georgia leaves in the wake of a bad breakup. Ling considers leaving, in the same situation. But Fish and Cage could be reliving Fatal Attraction - with bunnies simmering ominously in every conference room - or reliving Sleepy Hollow - with their decapitated receptionists unable to greet clients - and they'd never consider leaving. They don't have to. It's their firm. Fish and Cage can stay, and have a midlife crisis - as John does when he realizes his compulsive stuttering, exploding shoes, and the mammoth boxing gloves he dons to address the aforementioned problems, make him, well, strange. Forget the billables. John no longer has the courtroom as his "haven from ridicule," he complains. But at least he has the firm; he can still be a "litigant savant," as he describes himself. That's more than you can say for the women associates.

As my friend said at the end, "I have an Ally McHeadache." Maybe it's the feminism getting to us. It's a curse.

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