AM-104 "The Affair"
Original Air Date: 9/29/97
The Brief:
The one about Ally's affair with her professor; the one where Cheanie (finally) breaks up with Ally.
The Verdict:
Short Summary:
*Please note: this is going to be really, really short... I didn't see the whole episode, only the last parts (the eulogy and Ally & Billy dancing), so this is basically put together from bits and pieces of other sites's summaries...*
The wife of one of Ally's professor's, Katherine Dawson, comes in to the office to ask Ally if she would mind speaking at the funeral; Prof. Dawson recently died and she had heard the way he spoke of Ally, saying she was his best student... Well, what Katherine doesn't know (yet) is that Ally and Dawson had more than a student-teacher relationship - they were lovers... Ally remembers the reason why she broke up with Dawson in the first place: his four-year-old daughter had seen them together, and she just couldn't bear to wreck a family... At the wake the next day, Ally walks up to the casket, and then suddenly turns around to see Dawson's daughter, who is now eight, staring at her. Katherine sees this and understands everything...
(Meanwhile, the episode is being spiced up with Elaine's face bra ("a revolutionary invention"), Billy reading "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus" and some hilarious special effects including the famous "foot-in-mouth" scene...)Then Katherine comes into Ally's office to talk about this, and Ally makes an excuse to slip out of the room, going to Billy for help. This whole affair deal shocks him as well, but he nonetheless gives his opinion: not to tell... Ally returns, explains the whole "love/didn't love" deal using something like "mid-life crisis". Despite this, Katherine no longer wants Ally to speak at the funeral.
The next day at the funeral, the minister doesn't get the note that Ally won't be making a speech, but then notices his mistake when Ally is already on her way up... He, of course, in a moment notices her in the isle and tells her to come up... Ally starts her eulogy in a very peculiar way: "The, um, thing about funerals... The guest of honor is always dead..."... She follows with a bizzarre monologue, talking about everything and anything and mentioning all sorts of nonsense, and finally ends by saying Dawson was a "very devoted man"... The episode ends with Billy coming in to check on Ally at the end of the day, and they slow dance while Vonda's version of "You Belong To Me" plays...
