Review of Alone Again

Written by Dana Hagerty

Okay, a lot of people have been mentioning this lately, and I wasn't really bothered by it -- until this episode. The jail breaking case is a case Cage/Fish & Associates should have lost. The guy was charged with attempting to break out of jail, and that's exactly what he did. The fact that he wasn't really going to do it means nothing to me. He planned it for 18 years! If he had been able to, he would have picked himself up off the ground and made his attempted jail break a successful one.

The thing I liked most about this episode is Ally seemed almost normal. She didn't fall down, she gave pretty good advice to Cage, and she didn't freak when he yelled at her.

Okay, I take that back. My favorite part was when Cage yelled at Ally. So many times I've wanted to tell people just to leave me alone when I was upset, but I didn't. (Sort of like the way I never tell people I was asleep when they call me and wake me up, but I digress.) I also love the way Cage's voice gets higher when he yells.

The character of Elaine drives me crazy, and she continued to do so in this episode (that CD was almost worse than the cold briefs from last week), but Jane Krakowski does an excellent job of taking small moments and making me feel for Elaine. Tonight, it was when she told Richard that she didn't have all the answers when it came to dealing with being alone, and when she left the office, alone.

I almost never have anything nice to say about Richard, but in this episode he had what could very well be his first credible argument. When he argued that courts get involved in marriage all the time and that the case was really all about fairness – then when he told Whipper that underneath her robe was more than just a good body but a good judge – well, I could totally see his side. If he only left it at that and stopped with all that talk about money. I could have been much more interested in following through with the jilted bride case than the jail escapee case.

Guest star Cynthia Stevenson was a perfect match for Cage. The remote for the briefcase – another great toy. Too bad she had to break his heart again.

Favorite Line of the night goes to Ally explaining why Cage uses "poughkeepsie." In fact, it was so good, I think I will use it in my FAQ.

Ally: "He used to have a stutter, but he corrected it, or well I should say he controlled it but with a song, da da ta da da, and then he picked poughkeepsie to preempt the da da ta da, but Poughkeepsie is actually a town in upstate New York so he seized upon New York instead of Poughkeepsee because it's phonetically less jarring. Now, he is an excellent, excellent lawyer, he's just nervous around, um, criminals, right John?"

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