Skip summary and go straight to Dana's "Bits and Pieces"
This episode begins exactly where last week's left off. Ally is walking home after her encounter in the office with Billy. When she finally arrives, she tells Renee about what happened. Renee tells her to breathe deep. "I am not in labor," Ally says, but she is obviously in need of a deep breath. "Do you realize what I've done?" she asks. "So. You kissed him," Renee says. "It's not like you made love. It's not like you lied about it under oath." Ally says that there is no bigger betrayal than a kiss. "Sex is physical," Ally says, "sometimes it's even primal. A raging penis and a burning…" Renee starts to giggle. "Never mind," says Ally, before she continues, "but a kiss…" She struggles to find a way to describe it. "The reason we probably didn't rip each other's clothes off is because there's more intimacy, more emotion, more connection in a kiss than any other physical act and we wanted to stay right there in that…that…place." The doorbell rings and Ally gets up to answer it. It's Greg, and he's not happy. He waited in the restaurant for Ally for over an hour. He asks her, "What's the deal?" She says, "I just had to come back here and…and…and…lie." He looks at her strangely. "Lie down," she quickly adds. She tells him she has cramps. He tells her that he only gets two nights off a week, if he's lucky, and he doesn't appreciate being stood up. Ally tells him that yes, there is a reason that she didn't show up, and just as she is about to talk, Renee comes up and stops her. "Don't you dare give him the reason!" she says. "We're women. We're against reason, and that is what makes us mysterious. It works doesn't it? It got you to come right to her doorstep. Right where she wants you!" She makes him sit down, then grabs Ally by the ear and pulls her over to the other side of the room. She tells Ally not to tell Greg about what happened. "What kind of a way is that to begin a relationship?" Ally begins, "Dishonesty…" "Every relationship starts with dishonesty, you dope," says Renee, "it sets the stage for marriage." Renee tells her that if she really wants to have a relationship with Greg, "you can't tell him you were kissing…Billy!" She has just seen that Billy has walked into their living room. Ally is very surprised he's there. Greg wants to know why he's there. Renee says he is there to see her and Billy plays along and says that they are planning Ally's surprise birthday party. "Gee, I hope you pull it off," Greg says, sarcastically. "Oh, yeah," Billy says. "Surprise." Ally gives a small laugh and says "Whoop – de – do."
Renee is on one side of the room with Greg and Ally and Billy are talking on the other side. He can't believe that she told Renee and Ally says that this was a big thing and she needed to talk to someone about it. She didn't think he would like it much if she talked to Georgia instead. He wishes that she had talked to him. Renee interrupts. "Hey, kids," she says. "Leave me along with Greggy and I might start singing. And besides, it's my New Year's resolution not to mess with somebody else's other." Ally tells them that they have settled on her surprise party, and she pushes Billy towards the door, telling him he can go. Greg still wants to know what's going on. She says she has cramps and she wants everyone to go. She pushes both of them towards the door now, and says, "Billy, I'll kiss you later." They both turn to look at her. "See you later." She blames it on the Midol. They both leave. Ally shuts the door and leans her head on it. "I have Tracy on speed dial," she tells Renee. "Would you mind calling her?"
Ally is in Tracy's office. "You kissed him," Dr. Clark says, "Fabulous." Ally asks her if she is even listening. "While falling in love with a new guy I kissed the old guy who happens to be married," Ally says. "I could still love him. Not to mention his wife is a friend of mine." Ally doesn't feel like Tracy is taking her seriously. "I committed adultery. I betrayed a friend. I'm an awful person," Ally says. Tracy tells her that every person who comes in to her office thinks they are the world's biggest loser. "For the first time, I agree," Tracy says. "You're a baby," she continues, "you come in here crying 'oh, I kissed him, oh, my guilt, oh, my conscious.' Baby. You probably still poop green. Here," she picks up something and tosses it to Ally, " have a rattle." Ally catches the rattle. "Aren't therapists supposed to suck up and make patients feel good so that they keep coming back long after you hike up the rates?" Ally asks. Tracy wants to talk about Greg. She asks if he's good in bed. Ally admits they haven't slept together. Tracy takes her remote control and punches a button. We hear laughter coming from the speakers. Ally takes the remote from Tracy and turns the laughter off. "Can I be blunt?" Tracy asks. "No, just continue to kid-glove me," Ally says. "You've got the cute little preppy thing going," she starts, "that innocent 'I'm looking for a soulmate who can read Dickens to me over the phone.' I understand that and I try not to judge you by my own vomit. But deep, deep, deep, deep, down we both know what you are." Ally asks, "What?" "You're a slut," Tracy says. "The way to your heart is through your fallopian tubes." Ally says she is not a slut. "Come on, Ally. When you watch the nature channel and you see the snake swallow the thing four-times it's size, you ever wonder why you reach for Bounty, the quicker picker-upper?" Ally makes a very disgusted face. "You love sex," Tracy continues. "A man, physically intertwining with you, you become one, connected, Siamese genitalia. You find it meaningful." Ally gets up from the couch as if she might leave, and Tracy quickly picks up the remote again, aiming it at the couch. It moves out, hits Ally in the back of the legs and forces her to sit down on it again. The couch moves back into place. "You like Greg," Tracy says. "You're afraid you like Greg. But you're afraid of falling in love again. So, you're looking for some kind of guardrail to reach out and grab onto, and it's Billy. You kook." Tracy tells Ally that the right guy might be Billy and it might be Greg. "You can't know if Greg is the right guy for you until you know if you are sexually compatible with him, so I want you to go home tonight, I want you to honk his horn and call me in the morning. If you see a blimp on the way, ignore it."
At home, Renee tells Ally that Tracy actually has a point. She says that sex is a big part of a relationship, and Ally tells her that sex is a symptom of a relationship. "Who the hell said that?" Renee asks. "What? You would never marry a man without sleeping with him first?" Ally asks. "Abso-you-know-what-lutely-not," Renee says. Ally tells her that she isn't going to sleep with Greg just to find out how good he is. As Ally says this, Billy again walks right into their living room. "Plus, which I already know." Ally continues. "You can tell how a guy makes love by the way he kisses, and…" she screams when she sees Billy. "Did you already give him a key?" Renee asks. Billy says the door was open. He tells Ally they need to talk.
They go into her bedroom. She paces for a bit. He sighs. "Well, good," Ally says. "I'm glad we cleared the air. Are you going to go now?" He stops her with a simple, "Ally." She tells him that she has too much going on in her head and that they can talk later. "Right now, I think you should leave Georgia..," she says, "here, leave here." But Billy thinks they need to confront the truth about what happened and why it happened. "Truth," Ally starts, "okay, what is it?" Billy says he doesn't know. "Did you come here to tell me something, or did you come here for me to tell you something?" Ally asks. He says he isn't sure. "What happened was the most wonderfully worst thing I ever did." Ally doesn't think they should analyze this tonight. Billy agrees. "Our heads will be clearer tomorrow," he says, "because this was either a mistake that happened in some moment of.." "weakness," Ally finishes the sentence for him. "Yeah, or, it wasn't," Billy continues. They say good night and he leaves.
The next morning Ally is leaving her apartment when she starts to hear music. She stops and the music stops. She starts walking – the music starts again. This happens several times. She starts to walk across the street and about halfway across the music becomes more than just a jazzy tune. It has words, and the singer is talking to Ally. "Last Night! Oh No." the singer bellows out. Ally stops in the middle of the road. A driver yells at her to wake up. She starts to walk and the music starts up again, too.
Ally is standing in the elevator on her way up to the office. The elevator dings, the doors open, and Ally starts to walk out. As she does, the music starts up again. She picks up her messages from the receptionist, stops and closes her eyes as if she is trying to get the song out of her head, the singer again admonishes her for "Last Night!", and she opens her eyes, only to find Georgia standing in front of her. "Georgia!" she says. Georgia looks upset, and she asks Ally if that is all she has to say to her. Ally is a bit shaken, but before she can say anything, Georgia explains that she's mad because Ally dumped part of a case on Georgia. Ally tells her that because she deposed the doctor on the case, she thought Georgia should handle that part of it. Georgia looks a bit less mad and says she guesses she can do that part. As she walks away, Ally imagines that Georgia has a large butcher knife sticking from her back. Ally starts walking towards her office and the music starts. The singer this time tells her that, "You know your mama taught you better than that!" Ally walks into her office, shuts the door, and then bangs her head against it, telling herself out-loud that, "It was only a kiss It was only a kiss." Just as she is about to hit her head on the door again, it opens, hitting her in the head anyway. It's Elaine, and she asks Ally if she is free for Billy. "Well, he's not free for me, so what difference does it…Why?" Elaine says, "He's here. I meant to tell you on the way in." Ally turns and sees that Billy is inside her office. Ally says she knew that he was there. Billy asks Elaine to excuse them. "Why, what have you done?" Elaine asks. They both yell, "Elaine!" She calls them "Snap and ish."
Once alone, Billy asks Ally if things are any clearer. She asks him if they are clearer for him. He says he asked her. Billy says, "I see." "You see what?" Ally asks. Billy tells her that obviously she thinks what happened was wrong and even if he were interested in going down a road, the road isn't open to him. Ally tells him to hold on. "You think I'm going to let you get away with that?" she asks. "You want me to say it was wrong. You want me to hold up the stop sign so you can walk away feeling 'hey, I followed my heart and took my shot.' Well, you can forget that, Billy. The road is open, let's go," she tells him. "You're the one who regrets the things you don't do," Billy says. Ally tells him she has loved him her whole life and that he is the one who doesn't have the guts to make a decision about this. She says she is falling for him more and more with every second that passes and that "you better nip this in the bud right now and I am not kidding." "How about we meet at your apartment?" Billy asks. He wants to meet there at lunchtime. "I can't stop thinking about you," Billy says, "and I can't go another day without making love to you."
Ally returns to Tracy's office. She tells Dr. Clark that she thinks it's a trick and she knows he's bluffing. Tracy reminds her that she told her to have sex with Greg. Ally says she hasn't gotten around to Greg yet, then asks Tracy what she is supposed to do if Billy isn't bluffing. "I know he wants to be able to have his cake and not eat me…It!" Ally says. Ally says that if Billy isn't bluffing, she isn't going to go through with it.
On the way back up to the office, Ally and Georgia end up on the same elevator together. Georgia apologizes for jumping on Ally about that case and sort of lets on that the problem she's having doesn't involve any case. Ally asks if it's anything she can help with and Georgia says no. The walls of the elevator start beating like a heartbeat. The heartbeat gets faster and faster until the elevator finally stops at their floor. The door opens and Georgia gets out. As she walks away, Ally again sees the knife sticking out of her back. Ally falls back against the wall of the elevator, breathing rapidly. Richard walks by. He stops and asks her if she is getting off. "What?" she exclaims, then she realizes he is talking about the elevator. The door almost closes on her as she finally exits the elevator. When she starts walking, that music starts up again. She stops and asks Elaine if Billy is in her office. Elaine says no, but as Ally walks away we see Elaine has a very small smile on her face.
After Ally gets into the office and turns around, she finds Greg is waiting for her. (Why doesn't this woman ever look into her office before closing the door?) Greg asks her if she is going through some kind of crisis. She admits she is and that it's personal. She adds that she would like to work it out on her own. "I know this must be frustrating for you to hear," Ally says, "but is it possible for you to understand without understanding?" Greg tells her that she can't walk through life alone and she says that isn't the problem she's having at the moment. He tells her that he will take her cue. They kiss. When he leaves, Elaine comes in and asks Ally what's wrong. Ally tells her that Greg is really wonderful. "A woman would be crazy not to…," Ally says. Elaine thinks Ally sounds like she is trying to talk herself into loving him. "It's not that," Ally says. Elaine asks her, "What is it?" "What it is, is what it always is," Ally says. "I don't want what I want and I want what I don't want. And to complicate it even more right now, I don't know what I want or don't want." Elaine tells her that maybe she should see a therapist. She says she did and that she told her to sleep with Greg to find out if they were physically compatible. Elaine is surprised they haven't slept together yet. Ally can't believe that everyone judges a relationship of how the sex is. Richard comes in and Ally asks him if a man would judge a relationship on how good the sex is. He says, "Of course. True love means short refractory time. Fishism." He asks them if they have seen Billy and Elaine says she thinks he left for lunch. Ally gasps. "It's lunchtime already?" she asks. She jumps up and starts to put her coat on, explaining that she hates it when it sneaks up on you.
Ally runs home and the music is still with her. She stops as she turns the corner and sees that he isn't there. While looking down, a car door opens. Ally looks up and sees Billy getting out of a cab.
They walk together into the apartment and Ally offers to get him some coffee. He declines. Ally chuckles nervously. She says that for the last two years, she has imagined this scenario in her head at least a hundred times and it always felt romantic. She says this doesn't feel romantic. She asks Billy, "Did you really come here to…?" "Did you?" he asks. She admits that she didn't. "You win," she says. "You don't have to punish yourself for not taking a dare, you took it." He says that if he wanted to take a chance, he wouldn't accept 'no' for an answer. He walks towards her. "I'm not going to pretend that I'm certain of anything," he says. She says, "For God's sake, Billy, if you're not certain…." He asks her how this scene ended when she imagined it. She touches his lips and kisses him. When she pulls away, a tear falls down her cheek. She tells him that when she imagined the scene, they would get to that point and then she would start to cry. She covers her eyes with her hands and cries.
Ally returns to see Dr. Clark. She tells Tracy that she and Billy didn't have sex. "What about the democratic definition?" Tracy asks. Ally asks her if she even gets the concept of love. Tracy gets serious and says that she sent the greatest love of her life away, 11 years, 3 months and two days ago. "He asked me if I believed in immortality," Tracy says. "Asked if I was afraid I'd burn if I got too close to happiness. I remember as if it was last night." "It was last night," Ally says, "on cable. That's what Paul Henreid said to Betty Davis in 'Now, Voyager'." Tracy laughs. "Oh bugger," she says, "you saw it. Oh well." Ally asks her to please take this seriously. She gets serious and says that she needs to see Ally and Billy together. She wants to hear his side.
Back at the office again, Ally finds that Greg has sent her roses. Elaine tells her that she opened the card to see if there were any special watering instructions. She reads the card to Ally. It says "Thinking of you. Yours, Greg." "That says it all," Elaine says, "doesn't it? Or does it only tell half the story." Ally asks her what she means by that. "Ask her," Elaine says. Ally turns to see Ling standing behind her. "I'm penile psychic," Ling says, "Something's up in this office." Ally says, "Well, it's not me. Thank you." Ling growls at her. Elaine asks her if everything is okay and Ally barks, "Everything is never okay with me – why all of a sudden does it matter?" Elaine walks away and Ally looks at the card. She looks up and sees Billy has come into the main office. She watches him walk over and start talking to Nelle. Georgia comes into Ally's line of vision, and she sees Georgia stop and watch Billy and Nelle. When Billy turns away from Nelle and starts walking, he sees Georgia. He says hi and asks her if everything is okay. "Sure," she says. "With you?" "Fine," he says. She responds, "Good," and he walks away. As he does, she turns to see Ally watching them. She quickly turns around and pretends that she didn't see anything.
John is in the unisex, standing in front of a mirror, flossing. Georgia comes in, turns the mirror down so that he can see her, and asks about him and Nelle. She lets him know that she knows they aren't dating, but she wonders if he knows if she is seeing somebody else. "Not to my knowledge," he says. A stall door opens and Ling comes out, wiping the side of her mouth. Seconds later, Richard comes out the same stall, blowing on his index finger.
Somehow, Ally has talked Billy into going to see Tracy. They sit together on her couch and Billy says he can't believe he's there. Tracy asks him why he kissed Ally. "My private life is my private life," he says. "Is that what you tell Georgia?" Tracy asks. He says he may have a duty to Georgia but he doesn't have one to Tracy. She asks if he has a duty to Ally. "That's between me and her," he says. "And 'her' came to me," Tracy starts. "And, she shouldn't have," Billy says. "Such anger," Tracy says. "Is it rage, passion, guilt? It comes in so many forms these days." Billy says it's all of that, "It's rage, it's anger, and it's guilt." Tracy tells him that he left out passion. "Why the hell am I here?" he asks. She tells him that maybe he is as confused as Ally is, but since he's here they should make it count. "How are things with Georgia these days?" she asks. He says this has nothing to do with her. "You kissed another woman and it has nothing to do with your wife?" Tracy asks. Ally finally speaks, as if she finally figured it out. "Of course it does," she says. "Are things between you two..? Is that what's going on -- your kissing me was a symptom of your problems with her. Because if that's it..." Billy tells her that she can give him more credit than that. "Let's skip ahead a little" Tracy says, 'not just because I'm bored but because I think it might help. Show me how you kissed Ally." "What?" says Billy and at the same time, Ally says "Excuse me?" "Last night – show me," Tracy says, "I want to see how you kissed her. I promise I won't touch myself." Billy can't believe that this is the person who is nurturing Ally's mental health. He wants to know what purpose it would serve to show her how they kissed. "There's a different between lust and love," Tracy says and Billy jumps up from the couch. "It wasn't lust," he yells. He announces he is leaving and heads for the door. "Great. Run," Tracy says, "It seems to work for you." He stops, shuts the door and comes back in. He tells her that he will confront the truth of all of this, but first he wants her to tell him what makes her so equipped to help. "I want to know when ever you were in the middle of something like this," Billy says. "By this, do you mean love, confusion, or just your basic infidelity?" she asks. "If you have never stood where we stand," Billy yells at her, "don't you dare pretend to know who and what we are. Let's hear your credentials on a human level" "And don't quote a movie," Ally adds. Tracy tells them that she isn't happy. "And, when I see people that have a chance at happiness, I get impatient when they lie to themselves. And, I do know a lot about running, Billy. There was one time I should have run and I didn't. And it involved a married man." "So you're letting your personal history affect your professional history," Billy says. "You asked for my personal history," she yells. "You all think that I'm so silly over this theme song business," she says. She asks them if they want to know how she came up with it. "There's this song I used to sing to myself, just so I could…." she says, but instead of finishing the sentence, she starts to sing the song. "Sometimes I feel I've got to run away, I've got to get away," she sings as she reaches for her remote and turns on a Kareoke machine. She picks up the microphone and continues to sing "Tainted Love." She reaches down and hits another button and the blinds close, bathing Tracy in a blue light. After letting her sing for a few minutes, Billy has had enough. He walks over, picks up the remote, which he uses to turn off the machine and open the blinds. He misses the microphone. Tracy sings one more line, then puts down the microphone and sits in the chair, sideways with her feet up in the chair. Billy sits back down on the couch. "I guess we should take comfort that this is at least giving somebody a little joy," Billy says. "I committed an act of infidelity last night. Maybe you don't think that's much of an offense. I do." "Yes, you do, don't you, Billy," Tracy says, "and as much as I admire your values, they are very unproductive to this process." Ally asks why. "His value system is forcing him to attach meaning to this kiss," Tracy says. "Heaven forbid he could have betrayed Georgia just because he felt like it. Ally, I'm loathe to leave a footprint on your romantic naivete, but sometimes when husbands stray, it's when loneliness and horniness collide, period. There is no deeper meaning. When it comes to forsaking good judgment, there is nothing more effective than the penis." "How dare you trivialize this," Billy says. "That's my point," Tracy says, as Ally nods her head in understanding, "you can't trivialize it, can you Billy? You can't conceive of the notion that you could be unfaithful on a whim." Billy says she doesn't know what she's talking about, but Ally thinks she does. "If there's one thing you and I believe in more than everybody I know," Ally says, "it's monogamy." Tracy pipes in. "For you to be unfaithful," she tells Billy, "you need to believe it was because of something more meaningful than sex. Well, was it? Do you really love Ally, Billy, is that it? Or, do you need to find some higher justification to acquit yourself of the lowest low?" Tracy gets serious again. "The biggest thing in this room right now is Georgia," she says. "Maybe that's how it should be." She gets up, walks over and stands in front of them. "But if you two really want to answer the other question, whether you two are really right for each other, then for that question we cannot let guilt be the issue." She takes Ally's right hand and Billy's left, and places them together. "Now," she says, "I want you to consider this and only this. Is that the picture, or not?"
"Okay, now we're at sixty," Tracy says, as we see Ally and Billy sitting on the couch, eyes closed, still holding hands. "It's a Sunday afternoon. What might you and Ally be doing?" They both smile. Billy says they are playing with grandkids. Tracy asks them how many they have. They both answer 'seven' at the same time. Tracy asks Billy what Ally looks like. He says that she's had some work done. Ally opens her eyes. Tracy motions for her to close them. She does. "What kind of work?" Tracy asks. "Well, face, lips," he says. "Wait a second," Ally says, and opens her eyes again. "Time out," she says, "Why would I have my lips done? I have perfect lips." Tracy tells her that there's nothing wrong with a little collagen. Ally says that the lips she has are her real lips. Tracy says they look done. "As if I would ever have cosmetic surgery," Ally says. "Are you kidding?" says Billy. Ally wants to know what that is supposed to mean. "Vanity is a part of you, you need to look good," Billy says. "I do not need to look good, I just do," Ally says. "What about when you considered having your breasts done?" Billy asks. Ally says that was a long time ago, when full body was 'in' and it had nothing to do with vanity. "If you think I'm that vain, if you think I'm that self-absorbed, why the hell did you fall in love with me?" she asks. "It happened when I was eight," Billy says, "I was too young to know better." As Ally looks at him in surprise, he tells her that didn't come out the way he meant it to. "Well, you know better now, Billy, I guess," Ally says, getting up and walking out the door. As it slams, Tracy yells to her, "Closet!" The door opens and Ally comes out. Tracy tells her to sit. "No, this crisis has been solved," Ally says. "We haven't solved anything," Tracy says, "this isn't an answer, it's a fight and you can't just walk out now. He's winning." Ally sits on the end of the table next to Tracy. "Assuming I'm the self-centered, facelifted, collagen-injected person you think I am, what's the point?" Ally asks Billy. Tracy thinks that's a good question. "Is there a point? You do seem a little amped, Billy," Tracy says. "What's the big deal about vanity? We're all vain. Why do you find it so threatening?" Billy says he doesn't know. "Yes, you do," Ally says, "Tell me." "You're never satisfied," Billy says, "not with yourself, not with…I know this may sound hypocritical for me to say, but…I worry that as much as you are a person who believes in monogamy you won't be able to stay monogamous." "What?" Ally asks. "I think you have, and always will have, self esteem issues and if you don't get the necessary affirmation from your husband, you might go someplace else to look for it." Ally stands up. "Billy, if you had shared that little insight with me you would have saved ourselves a lot of time and a lot of pain," she says, "because you could have sailed to Michigan just on the wind of me blowing you off." Tracy stands and tells them to take five minutes "so that we can think about what's been said, so that we can continue without defensiveness and most of all, so I can pee."
Five minutes later, Ally and Billy are still upset. "The idea that you could think that I would be unfaithful – talk about projection. You're the married man fooling around. You're the cheater. Not me," Ally says. "It's you that has the problem," she continues. "You say that you worry about me going someplace else to find affirmation. Why would I have to, Billy? Why wouldn't I be getting it from you? Why is that? What you're really worried about is that you wouldn't be able to give it forever. It's you that has the trouble with monogamy as evidenced last night when you were sucking away on my natural lips! You asked Tracy if she knew love. I'm not sure you do. Cause I'll tell you this. Love, more than anything else is about respect, and the way you just described me, the way you think I am, that wasn't respect. It all makes sense. You don't love me. You never loved me. And that explains why you left me with one look at Georgia. One look! And you didn't even take the time to smell her!" "We are talking about last night," Billy says. "We are talking about you being unfaithful," Ally says, "like you were last night. Like you were to me four years ago." "And what were you last night?" Billy asks her. "The one getting killed, as always," she says. "Oh, yeah, that's you, always the victim. Last night just happened to you," Billy says. "I was stupid," says Ally, "like I've always been stupid to think…" "To think what? That I loved you?" Billy asks. "I did love you. The problem is you couldn't recognize it. You never did. You never will." "I knew you loved me," Ally says. "Oh, and didn't it just lift you up," Billy yells, "Love is wasted on you, Ally, cause you'll always be unhappy. That's why I left!" "Love is wasted on me?" Ally asks. Billy tells her that it is. "You may go through your good times, dance with your unicorns, but we both know the place you'll always go back to," he says. "You don't give yourself credit for how strong you are. I couldn't have pulled you out of your world, you would have pulled me into yours." She asks, "Do you really think that? He says yes. "Then, why? Last night," Ally says. "Because, I love you," he tells her. "You just don't want to waste it," Ally says. She walks back over to the couch and starts to put on her coat. "You're wrong about one thing," Ally tells him. "I'm gaining on happiness and I am going to get there one day." "I hope I'm there to see it," says Billy. "If you are, it'll be from a distance," Ally says. She pauses and says, "I love you." Then she tells him good-bye and walks out the door.