Ally is in denial about her birthday but her co-workers aren't. Elaine orchestrates a party at the bar and asks Dr. Greg Butters to sing a romantic ballad dedicated to Ally. He does, and knocks the socks off everyone in the room. Renee is especially moved, and jumps up on stage to join him in a seductive duet. Meanwhile, in the courtroom, Ally is forced to take the position for a new client that his foot fetish qualifies him as temporarily insane. Renee, as the opposing district attorney, maintains that sneaking into a would-be date's apartment uninvited to tickle her feet is breaking and entering.
Overview
Ally McBeal is a young lawyer working at the Boston law firm Cage and Fish. Ally's lives and loves are eccentric, humorous, dramatic with an incredibly overactive imagination that's working overtime!
Episodes
S01E01 Pilot
September 8, 1997 8.2 43 min
Ally McBeal, 28, and a recent graduate of Harvard Law School, is harassed on the job by a senior associate. When she confronts the partners, it backfires and she loses her job. On the street,...
Fish's partner, John Cage faces fines, jail, and public humiliation. To her dismay, Ally is assigned to be a litigator. Fish invites Ally along to dinner with a very wealthy potential client, Ronald Cheanie. Unbeknownst...
Ally senses Cheanie is withholding something when he neglects to kiss her goodnight after their first official date. Georgia asks Ally to assist her in trying an age discrimination case when the opposing litigator turns...
Ally is asked to be a pallbearer at the funeral of her ex-law professor. The widow, Katherine Dawson, invites her to give the eulogy, but Ally's initial reluctance betrays the reason. In a moment of...
Ally is arrested for aggravated assault and attempted shoplifting. Renee bails her out, but word spreads quickly, and Ally is brought before the State Bar Review Board. A litany of her recent travails is read...
Ally has to defend a friend of Whipper brought up on solicitation charges. She is serving as second chair to Cage, whose idiosyncrasies become increasingly apparent and mystifying to Ally as well as the other...
Ally represents a Jewish woman who needs her Rabbi to grant her a spiritual release from her marriage to her comatose husband. Ally goes personally to the Rabbi's office to find out why he is...
Billy and Georgia are faced with a crisis of confidence in their marriage. Elaine threatens to sue the firm for sexual harassment if Fish and Cage don't meet her demands for improved working conditions. Ally,...
The attorney, Caroline Poop, who represented Elaine in her short lived suit against Fish and Cage regarding the constant gawking directed at a beautiful delivery woman, returns. This time she is representing the beautiful delivery...
Judge Whipper Cone asks Ally to take on a pro-bono case of a young prostitute up on her third solicitation charge. Fish, meanwhile, wants to sue his uncle's church for discrimination, due to his uncle's...
Three intelligent, successful and motivated adults approach Judge Whipper Cone about the possibility of getting legal representation in their quest to have the courts approve a legal, binding, three-way marriage. Fish assigns Ally and Cage...
Ally is shocked to discover that her biological clock is ticking, unleashing strange libidinal impulses in her. During a sculpting class with live nude male models, she and Renee become enamored by one particular model...
Ally has a chance encounter with Glenn, the well-endowed artists' model, at a local Starbucks, and makes it very clear that she is irritated with him. On the legal side, John Cage takes on a...
Ally and Renee are bridesmaids at a friend's wedding. They both bristle at the absurdity of the rituals performed, and swear to never do it. Richard asks Ally to flirt with a wealthy new client....
Fish brings in a client, an 80-something world famous artist, who is battling his heirs to regain control of his estate. Ally and Billy co-counsel the case, and as a result of spending several late...
A high-profile case opens up for Cage and Fish when a jilted spouse plans to sue a U.S. Senator for "interfering with happy marital relations". The Senator's case perversely parallels the awkward love triangle between...
Ally, Georgia and Renee sign up for a kick boxing class to relieve stress. Ally and Georgia wind up having to fight each other because they're both beginners. As they start to carp more and...
Ally is a passenger in a car accident with the firm's client Greg Butters, a handsome doctor to whom she finds herself attracted. She attempts to handle the doctor's case herself, but finds she just...
Ally is in denial about her birthday but her co-workers aren't. Elaine orchestrates a party at the bar and asks Dr. Greg Butters to sing a romantic ballad dedicated to Ally. He does, and knocks...
A wealthy client is brutally murdered and the wife is implicated. Her only defense when caught red-handed is that she has no recollection of what had taken place. Billy, anxious to take on bigger cases,...
Cage prepares Ally for Renee's trial. Renee is fast becoming a basket-case because she's convinced Cage's untraditional tactics are going to cost her job. Georgia tells Billy that she took a home pregnancy test, and...
John Cage must confront the cowardice of his convictions when he comes face to face with an ex-law school classmate who is coincidentally trying the case he's representing. It becomes obvious to Ally that John...
Cage must represent his second cousin, a harmless but eccentric man with a Cupid Complex. His cousin was brought up on assault charges for swatting couples in the head with a paddle to goose them...