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Season: 3 Episode: 4 Production Code: #3M04 First Air Date: November 15, 1999 Writer: David E. Kelley Director: Alex Graves # of Times Richard said Bygones: 1 Guest Stars:
Gina Philips as Sandy Hingle (Billy’s new assistant)
Synopsis: Life’s small lessons are hard-learned at Cage, Fish, and Associates, unless you arrive equipped with a sledgehammer, it seems they will all unblinkingly plunge into the nearest drained concrete pool of history. In the, I’m so shocked I’ll have to pry my eyes open with toothpicks to stay awake genre, The Biscuit got vocal about Nelle’s lack of intimate enthusiasm and she broke up with him. This particular skip on the record is getting very exhausting, with subtle relationship revelations like these how will I ever know when 90210 has finally hit the graveyard. Wouldn’t you rather see Nelle as sort of career-minded and devious instead of another carbon copy romantic neurotic? Speaking of downward spiral evolutions, Ling is another prime candidate for a reversal of fortune. First, what was with the Princess Leia pigtails and the sparkly red sailor pants? Is she shooting for being the Tori Spelling fashion victim of the millennium? Secondly, material cataclysms are not the only parts of this seudo-dominatrix that need some serious tweaking. So, Ling isn’t really into the mechanics of sex, we’ve been here before, right? This was simply another opportunity for the sort of one-liners that Law and Order passes off as character development. Why didn’t they cast an emotionally void stand-up comic instead of a talent like Lucy? Now Richard seems to have returned to daliancing with the potently aged wattle of his ex-Whipper (don’t we know how this story goes?). When Ling finds out, she better react with a little more emotional depth than your average action movie tag line. Vonda should not have to play ‘Heart and Soul’ as evidence that the character has either one. At least Ally has been Gwyneth-fying, not only Calvanizing her wardrobe, but by grabbing the hottest guy of the minute whenever possible. That one scene on the windy street where Joel (sudsy car wash man) tenderly pushed the hair out of her wide doe eyes and they just sort of gazed at each other was the single most heart palpitating thing this series has done yet. The bittersweetness of his returning to his fiancée made the impossible all the more appealing. Doesn’t every cosmopolitan professional need her very own elusive Mr. Big? Well, that and a great pair of Dolce and Gabbana open-toed numbers. The interesting thing is while the others were regressing, Billy dipped his head in some peroxide and became the deliciously unlikable mix of Buffy’s Spike with a Donald Trump infection. Not to mention that song when he made his entrance was the most hilarious thing this so-called sitcom has served up in quite sometime, it had a special Mr. Grinch quality about it. Sure, he’s over the top, and it sort of leaves Georgia in the dust, still, isn’t he ever so more enjoyable in pig mode? All in all, from the looks of things here, Vonda needs to do a cover of Great White’s “Once Bitten, Twice Shy.” For most of these characters, it’s high time to break some new ground. |