Skip summary and go straight to Dana's "Bits and Pieces"
A young nun has been forced to leave the order because she broke her vow of celibacy. She comes to Ally and John and asks them to help her get her job back. She believes that she made a mistake, but since she admits it, she also thinks that she should be allowed to move on and be a nun again. Ally and Cage walk together towards the unisex, and Ally walks in, talking on and on about how the firm is a magnet for strange cases, especially those involving sex. "Do it and sue. Do it and sue. Do it and sue," she says, while standing in front of the mirror and doing a little hip push. She turns to continue talking to Cage, who she thinks has come into the unisex with her, and sees Nelle standing there watching. Nelle tells her she liked that little hip movement she did. "Can you show me how to do it?" she asks. Ally starts to show her, then realizes that Nelle is making fun of her, which Nelle admits to. Ally smiles, says she's late for court, and skips out.
Ally and Renee are walking together outside when Renee sees a gorgeous man who she obviously knows. He stops, they say hello, and Renee introduces him to Ally as Matt Griffin. He's in town on legal business, and after a few more formalities, they say goodbye. Ally asks who Matt is, and Renee tells her, "That was 'my' Billy."
The nun's case is being heard in Judge Whipper Cone's court. Chrissa, the nun, is being questioned about the affair. She says the man, Peter, ran a shelter for the homeless and she was helping out there by scrubbing floors and painting walls. It wasn't long before they realized they had feelings for each other, and they began making excuses to be together. Then, one day the found themselves staring at each other, he moved a little closer, and kissed her. "It was soft. It was almost delicate," she says. "And, that night, in the same kind of soft, delicate passion, we made love." Ally blows her nose very loudly, and Judge Cone calls her into chambers. Once there, Whipper tells Ally that she's been practicing with Cage too long and she isn't going to tolerate any of her tricks. Ally says she has a little sinus infection, so Whipper wants to look up her nose with one of those medical instruments doctors use. (Why does Whipper have one of those in her office?) Whipper says she looks fine and tells her she can leave. When Ally questions her about why she called her into chambers, Whipper says she called her in their to shut down the stunts. Before Ally can get out the door, Whipper asks her how Richard is. She says he's fine, and then Whipper asks if he is seeing anyone. "A little," Ally answers. Whipper tells her to tell Richard she said hi.
Renee is about to enter a courtroom, but decides against it and starts to walk away when she sees Matt. He notes that she was about to go into the courtroom where his case is being heard. She asks him about married life, and he says things aren't going so well. He asks if she would like to get some coffee or get a drink so that they could catch up.
The attorney for the church is now questioning Chrissa. She tells him that she confessed, sought penance and was granted absolution. The attorney says that she saw him again and lied about it. She admits she did and admits she knew it was wrong. "If a priest has sex with a boy, he gets transferred," Chrissa says. "At least my lover was of legal age, for God's sake." Cage stands up. "Your honor, she was tricked into saying that," he says. "This man is a trickster and should be sanctioned." Judge Cone overrules him. The attorney asks Chrissa what kind of message she thinks she is sending to other nuns by running around with this man. She says the affair was completely discreet and she doesn't know how word of it got out. The attorney says that the church had to do something or it faced being attacked by the parish, and by doing something about it, now she is suing. "Damned if they do. Damned if they don't," the attorney says. "Is that it?" Chrissa answers "We're Catholic." Cage stands up again. "Objection! He tricked her again," he says. "This man is an anti-Catholic papal bigot trickster."
Georgia is sitting on the toilet, reading the paper, when she hears a gurgle. She listens for it again, but doesn't hear anything, so she goes back to reading. She hears another gurgle, but she still does nothing. Finally, a third gurgle prompts her to get up from the seat and look into the toilet. She doesn't see anything, so she starts to look around. Another gurgle comes from the toilet, and as she gets closer and closer to the seat, she sees a frog (Stefan) and it leaps out and lands on her face. Georgia starts screaming and backs out of the stall, stopping only when she runs into the closed stall on the other side of the unisex. Nelle is standing at the sink, and she turns to see what's going on as Georgia slaps the frog off her face, sending it flying through the air. It lands in Nelle's hair. She slowly turns toward the mirror, and when she sees that Stefan is on her head, she starts screaming, too. Nelle starts trying to get it off her head, and in the process sends Stefan flying back at Georgia, where it lands on her chest. This time, Georgia picks up the frog and throws it at Nelle. It lands on her chest. Nelle removes it from her chest, pulls back as if she's throwing the first pitch of the World Series, and throws Stefan at Georgia with all her might. Unfortunately for Stefan, Richard was also in the unisex, and he chooses this exact moment to come out of his stall. Stefan splats against the stall door, and slowly slides down to the floor.
John is making his approach to the unisex when Ally stops him. She says they have got to try and settle the case. Cage says Ally should try and talk to Chrissa because he isn't making any headway. Elaine has joined them, and she offers her services. "Maybe I could talk them into rehiring her," she says. "I'm very good at flirting with clergy. At communion, I always got the extra wafer." "What a shock," says Ally.
In the unisex, Richard and Georgia have Stefan on the floor, and Richard is giving tiny CPR thrusts to Stefan's chest with his finger. Georgia is petting Stefan's hand and encouraging him to "Come on." Nelle also is touching the frog, and she announces that she feels a pulse, but Richard says he's not breathing. They hear a flush, and figure out that John is on his way in. They leap up, and Nelle grabs John and takes him out of the unisex before he can see anything. She tells him that she has decided to throw a dinner party with just a few close friends. Just as she tells him this, Ling appears and wants to know when Nelle is having this party and why she wasn't invited. Nelle assures her she is invited, as is Richard and John, but she needs to talk to John alone right now.
Back in the unisex, Georgia and Richard notice that Stefan is breathing. "Look at his little lungs!" Georgia says. He's still unconscious, and as Richard and Georgia continue talking to the frog, Ling comes in. Billy is right behind her. "They're talking to a dead frog," Ling tells Billy. Georgia tells Billy the frog is Stefan. He can't believe it, and she starts to tell the story. "I was on the toilet, and he just jumped out at me," she begins, "and I tossed him to Nelle, gently, and she threw him at the door." Richard says they need to get Stefan to a vet. Elaine comes in with an urgent message from Nelle. "John needs to pee like a racehorse," she says. She notices Stefan and walks over to see him. "He's alive. But dying," Georgia says. They are trying to find a way to sneak him out when John comes in. Richard passes the frog behind Georgia's back to Billy. John asks what Richard passed to Billy. Billy says he doesn't have anything, and he passes it to Elaine, who turns and puts it in her bra. She starts walking out, and John asks her why her bosom is beating. "It's my heart," she says. "I'm in love."
Renee and Matt are having coffee. He asks why they fell out of touch. "We fell out of touch because we couldn't keep in touch without touching," Renee says. "When you got married, keeping in touch became a bad idea." He asks her if she remembers the prom. They stayed up all night then went fishing the next morning. He tells her that two days before his wedding, he was looking through the RSVP's and he came across hers. It said "Regrets. Gone fishing." He tells her that he cried. Renee says she did, too. Renee realizes where she is and what she's doing. "Here I am, talking to a man in a bumpy marriage," she says, "and this tide of common sense just comes rushing in." She gets up to leave and kisses Matt on the cheek. He asks if he can call her, and she says no.
The nun representing the church is on the stand. She says that Chrissa doesn't regret what she did, and that she's only saying she's sorry to keep her job. We learn that Chrissa only stopped seeing Peter because he dumped her.
Richard, Ling, Georgia and Billy are in Richard's office. Richard hangs up the phone and tells them that Stefan is stabilized, but he's still in a coma. Georgia wants to know what his chances are and Richard says it's hard to tell because there's some swelling of the brain. Richard thinks they should go ahead and tell John, especially since he punished himself so much for thinking he killed him. "It might be easier to learn it was Georgia," Richard says. Georgia says, "Me?" "You started the game of killer catch," Richard says. Georgia goes on, "Nelle threw him, and if you hadn't opened the door.." Billy stops them and says that if Stefan makes it through the night they have to tell John. "Even if he lives as a vegetable?" Richard asks. Ling tells them that a frog is not a vegetable, it's meat. When Georgia asks her if anything nice ever comes out of her mouth, Ling turns and growls at her.
At home, Renee sits in front of the fire, looking at old pictures of her and Matt, and crying.
The next morning, Ally and Renee are in the living room (Ally's wearing her sheep pajamas). Renee tells her that she and Matt are going to have dinner. Ally thinks it's a bad idea. She says Renee will probably bring Matt back to the apartment for a nightcap and show him their yearbook. She starts mimicking what she thinks Renee will do. "Look at that one," she says, pointing at an imaginary picture. She gets closer and closer to Renee on the couch. "Look at that one," she says. She starts to pant, and breathe hard. Her breathing gets faster and faster, until she is spent and settles back onto the couch. "Gee, it was only supposed to be dinner," Ally says.
Later that morning, Ally learns from Richard that Stefan is on a respirator and that the next 24 hours are crucial. Ally asks if she can ask him something personal. "Personal questions don't bother me," he says, "I just lie." She wants to know if he and Ling are serious, but Richard says he can't tell because he hasn't slept with her yet. She tells him that Whipper asked and he appears surprised, then says, "Well, that's over," and walks away.
In Cage's closing argument, he says that when he was six, he wanted to be a nun. He thought it would enable him to fly. He also once asked Santa Claus for super feminine napkins so that he could bike and swim and ride a horse. He guesses that television caused these misperceptions. Cage says he can't be a nun. "It's impossible," he says. "But they're suggesting it's impossible for my client to be one as well because she broke the vow of celibacy." He says all Chrissa needs to be a nun is forgiveness. "And of all the places to look for it, you'd think the church would be a good one," he concludes.
The attorney for the church gives his closing. "The thing about love -- sex -- we've managed to cloak it these days with so much romanticism, that people sometimes refuse to see it as wrong even when it's wrong. This was wrong. Taking responsibility for it is more than just saying 'Sorry'." Renee has come in during the closings. It looks as if the words being said make an impact on her, and she leaves.
Renee meets Ally outside the courtroom to tell her that she has switched the dinner to drinks at the bar so that she can come and chaperone, "and I won't end up getting creamed." Renee can't believe that her life has gotten to the point where she is taking advice from Ally. Whipper walks by and Ally runs to talk to her. "This is from me, not from him," she tells Whipper. "Who?" Whipper asks. "You know who," Ally says. "I'm not presuming that you even care, but 'who' misses you, and the relationship with whoever doesn't appear to be serious." Whipper says she doesn't care, and Ally says "I'm saying its not too late, but one day, it could be."
Cage comes out of the elevator into the office, and Richard tells Billy and Georgia to wish him luck. "It's a miracle," he tells John. "Maybe it's because you've been hanging out with a nun, I don't know. All I can say is 'Praise the Lord'." He tells John that Stefan surfaced in the bowl and that he's in a coma, but he's "alive, alive, alive, coma. We rushed him to the vet, and he's there. He's living! Coma. The vet even says he's stable. Coma. But he's not dead! He's alive, he's alive, he's alive!" All John says is "Which vet?" They get in the elevator together to go to see Stefan.
Ally has gone to the church to discuss settling the case. The nun representing the church says that if it were just the sex, they might have considered it, but the cover up and the lying just made it worse. "They were legally accurate lies," Ally says. The nun tells Ally that while she adores Chrissa, she decided to become a nun after a bad breakup in college, and she's coming back to them now on the rebound. "We're just not that kind of sanctuary," she says.
Ally is on her way out when she sees a man come out of the confessional. She thinks about it, but only for a second, then she goes in. She tells the priest that she's only about a quarter Catholic, and that's only her first sin. She goes on to say that she's sure he gets lots of women in there confessing stuff about married men. She asks him if the women strike him as happy or miserable. He asks if she is happy and she says she's not talking about herself. "Shall we talk about you?" the priest asks. "Me? Okay. Quickly, I guess," Ally says. She tells him she's a lawyer and that she covets anything with decent glutes. Time goes by, and she is still talking. Now she's telling him about how last year she went to bed with a guy, partly because he had a big…"God, I slept with it…him," she says. The priest says he often hears that size doesn't matter and asks how the sex was. "It was great," Ally says. "You have no idea. I mean, I assume you don't." Once she finally tells all, she asks if she's forgiven.
At the bar that night, Renee is dancing with Matt, and Ally and Elaine are talking. Elaine says Stefan is still on a respirator and that John doesn't know that it was Nelle who sent the frog into a coma.
John has brought Stefan and the respirator back to the office. He introduces Stefan to Millie and tells him that he taught her their little song. Cage begins to sing. "Green legs leaping. Amphibial reaping. Life zeal, it's all in the keeping. Be a frog. Be a frog. Be a frog. Be a frog," Nelle is watching and she clears her throat. Cage says he still doesn't understand how Stefan could surface in a coma and wonders why he didn't drown. Nelle still doesn't tell him.
Renee and Matt are slow dancing as Ally watches.
Richard brings Ling back to his apartment. "I expected better," she says. "It is better," says Richard, "I'm subtle." Ling says she has problems with newness, "It doesn't make me feel sexual." She opens his bedroom door, only to find Whipper, naked, lighting candles. Ling screams, and when Whipper turns to see what's going on, she starts screaming, too. Ling tells Richard, "There's a naked nude woman lighting a fire!"
The next morning, Richard and Billy are wondering why Whipper would even be there when Ally comes up and wonders what they are talking about. Billy tells her what happened. Ally admits to Richard that she told Whipper that Richard might miss her and that she shouldn't wait until it's too late. "But I didn't tell her to go to your place naked!" Ally says. Ling comes in to the office and Richard follows her, trying to get her to talk but she just turns and growls at him.
Ling goes to Nelle's office, where she announces that she wants to sue Richard. "I opened the door and see naked, nude buttocks," she says. "And this blond thing with big hair. I'll never get over it." Nelle tells her that it was just an old girlfriend trying to get back with Richard, and that she can't sue him. Ling thinks she is taking Richard's side. "I'm hurt, and I'm standing with my best friend, sideless," Ling says. Nelle says she can't sue someone in the firm. Ling decides she needs to shop.
The next morning, Matt comes by the apartment to tell Renee what a good time he had the night before. He had called her office and found out that she wasn't coming in until later. He asks to come in, and she lets him. "This is what married men do, right?" she asks. "Meet in private places." He says that they never broke up - they just went in their different directions once college started. She finally tells Matt that he shouldn't have come there, and as he moves to leave, he kisses her. She returns the kiss.
Ally goes to see Whipper in chambers to apologize. Whipper tells Ally she didn't do anything wrong, and neither did Richard, but she admits to feeling humiliated. Ally sits her down and tells her about a little game she plays when she gets lonely. She tells her to close her eyes and think of the perfect guy. She encourages her to think of him on their wedding day, with the suit and the smile, then she tells her to think about the night later at the hotel. After that, she tells her to think about that man in his entirety - his habits, his hobbies, his friends, the things he thinks are funny, the things he thinks are important. She tells Whipper to open her eyes. "We're not only wired to want what we can't have," Ally says, "but we're wired to want what we don't want."
The attorney for the church and the nun have come to see Whipper. They want to settle and offer Chrissa her job back. They have learned that it was their priest who first revealed Chrissa's affair to the other nuns. He had video cameras installed in the confessional and has been trying to get turn them into "World's Naughtiest Confessions." In fact, Fox has already offered to buy them. Ally's face turns white as a ghost as she asks if anyone else has seen the tapes.
Back at the firm, Cage announces that he's decided to take Stefan home. He notices something on Georgia's face and asks if Stefan touched it. "You have a rash," he says. "Their skin can be slightly toxic." Nelle jumps in and says that there is something John needs to know. She tells him that Stefan was conscious and healthy when he reappeared and then she explains to him what happened. All he asks is if the bowl was a "fresh bowl," then he says he needs to take a moment.
Chrissa sits next to Ally on a bench at the courthouse and tells her she got her job back. Ally asks if she is sure that this is her calling, and Chrissa says she is. When she leaves, Renee comes and sits beside Ally. She tells her that she kissed Matt. "He came by and I asked him to leave," she says, "I was doing great right up until I kissed him." Ally asks if Renee is going to see Matt again, and she doesn't answer.
Later that night, Renee and Ally play scrabble, Chrissa prays at church, Whipper thinks about her past with Richard, Ling shows Nelle the clothes she bought, and Cage stands looking out his window.