Ally McBeal (1997)

Season 2: Episode 22

Ally is having weird dreams about moments from her childhood, some good, some painful. But each compels her to wrestle with the question of true love. Can it be real or must it inevitably be just an illusion? Ally's latest case is calling the issue into question as she and John Cage are representing a woman charged in Criminal Court with fraud. Barry Philbrick has testified that his wife, Kelly Philbrick married him solely for his money. He claims that at the time of their marriage, she wasn't in love with him, that her wedding vow was a lie and that she admitted it in a letter to a close friend that Barry found. Kelly readily admits to her lack of feelings for Barry: she loved him but she was never in love with him. On the stand Kelly admitted that she had been writing to an imaginary friend: the man of her dreams, who then became the standard by which every real man in her life had to measure up too.