The Attitude

Episode: 7

Production Code: AM107

First Air Date: November 3, 1997

Writer: David E. Kelley

Director: Michael Schultz

Recurring Characters:

Jennifer Higgin

Guest Stars:

Jason Blicker as a Rabbi Stern
Andrew Heckler as Jason Roberts
Steve Vinovich as Jerry Burrows
Brenda Vaccaro as Karen Horwitz

Synopsis:

ALLY GETS AN UNEXPECTED OFFER FROM A RABBI

Ally meets attractive District Attorney Jason Roberts via best pal Renee and agrees to a date with him, you’d think the likes of Richard and John would scare her off this path.

Her caseload this time out focuses on Karen Horwitz, who wants to sue her Rabbi, the very least that can be said of writer David E. Kelley is that he’s not afraid of anything. The story goes that Karen is officially divorced (according to the law) from her comatose ex-husband, yet the Rabbi refuses to grant her a ‘get’ (Jewish divorce) unless the man suddenly wakes up.

At a firm across town, Billy’s beloved Georgia is having troubles of her own, similar to Ally’s horrid treatment on her first job way back in the pilot. Her slithery boss Jerry Burrows transfers the blonde into corporate law, claiming his wife is jealous of him litigating alongside the curvaceous beauty. Thankfully, Thorne Smith is no longer a part of the simpering Melrose Place and we won’t have to suffer through too much soap opera melodrama.

Feeling particularly feisty Ally meets with Rabbi Stern and they communicate about as well as Michael Ovitz and almost anyone, to say the least the meeting is not pleasant for either side. Ally decrees that Jewish laws are ‘silly’ (there’s that Kelley bravery) and the Rabbi labels her bitchy, sending her clopping away in her high heels.

Paranoid about her date, Ally consents to testing Elaine’s acne treatment, winding up red in the face, and hiding when Jason unexpectedly visits the office. To make matters even worse Karen arrives, her husband died but thanks to her lawyer’s out of line tantrum, she’s been banned from her synagogue.

Elsewhere, Georgia’s worries are compounded when she hires The Biscuit at her husband’s urging only to come to the conclusion that he’s some sort of freak since the only thing he said in a meeting with Burrows was “I’m deeply troubled.” Courtney Thorne Smith’s Georgia is a great underused catalyst in the series, the lone straightman in a cast of loons, even Billy’s questionable at times, he did date Ally.

Ally’s dinner goes swimmingly until a drop of salad dressing lands on his chin and she fidgets in her chair like she just found out he’s a mass murderer or something. The day after Renee calls her crazy and who can really refute that?

The strongest waif on earth’s next run-in with the Rabbi doesn’t go much better than the first, throwing viscous barbs at him going so far as to belittle his yarmulke. Though we learn that the Rabbi Stern has already changed his mind about Karen and apparently like every red-blooded male in Boston, he’s developed a little something, something for our favorite nutjob. Later, Ally’s eyes bulge with surprise when he asks her out, but she refuses, weary from the night before.

Georgia refuses to give up the fight so John goes into heavy training by playing his bagpipes, is it surprising that he would be play the most irritating instrument in history? After hitting the heavy bags so to speak, The Biscuit shrewdly suggests a settlement though he is very cryptic in explaining the outcome of the meeting to his client.

Egged on by Renee for being far too picky when it comes to her love life, Ally gives salad dressing boy a passionate kiss and agrees to a second outing. Seems Ally must do everything on a grand scale, probably so she has ever so much more burden to bare than everybody else, so she says a resounding yes to Rabbi Stern as well. The only truthful moment she has here is when she labels both of them the ‘Mr. Not Likelys.’

The final meeting with Georgia’s boss goes exactly as John devised, as he convinces Burrows the jury will sympathize with her. Georgia wins $311,000, and a position at Fish, Cage and Associates.

At the bar downstairs while everyone is celebrating, Ally’s head is swelling significantly as she declares herself a ‘man-eater’ while dancing with the Doublemint dudes again, she must have forgotten she’s done that a time or two already.

AM-107 ©1998 Almost Human