Whatever I think of the new run of Will & Grace on its own merits, I have to acknowledge that the first run did much to help change Americans’ views on marriage equality.
Lawyers like Dana Nessel (hopefully Michigan’s next attorney general) did the hard work of legal research and preparation to argue these cases in the courts, but changing public opinion must have helped the judges take a more sympathetic stance.
Before Will & Grace, gay characters were usually just guest stars forgotten the next week. On Star Trek: The Next Generation there was the clunky metaphor of “The Outcast,” and later the poignant and more directly applicable to real life “Rejoined” of Deep Space Nine.
When Will & Grace started in 1998, Queer as Folk was still two years away and The L Word was six years away. What few gay characters there were on the regular cast of a show usually started out in the closet rather than out.
Without Will & Grace, the two JAG episodes with Commander Mary Beth O’Neil (Mary Page Keller) probably wouldn’t have happened, though still the writers of that show were too timid to criticize Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.
During the first run of Will & Grace, there was frequent criticism that Jack (Sean Hayes) was too much of a gay stereotype, and that with Will (Eric McCormack) the show did not present a complete picture of gay men in society at large.
It was still better than the occasional guest star. Just two characters are enough to demonstrate that there is more than one kind of gay man. And even shows with more gay characters in the regular cast, like The L Word, could not quite escape this sort of criticism.
For his part, Sean Hayes has apologized for not having come out of the closet sooner. But it’s understandable: acceptance is a long, winding road. Alright, on to the review.
★★★☆☆
Rightly or wrongly, I hold the new Will & Grace to the same standard of continuity I hold any of the Star Trek series. However, I’m not as familiar with Will & Grace as I am with most of Star Trek.
I vaguely remember that the original series finale jumped ahead something like twenty years and that Will's daughter and Grace's son fell in love. Or was it Will’s son and Grace's daughter? Either way, they had kids, the kids fell in love. That’s how I remember it.
That’s also how Karen (Megan Mullally) remembers it, but it turns out that was just a drunken hallucination on her part. After Jack explains it, Karen asserts that no one wants to “watch” Will and Grace (Debra Messing) raising kids.
Grace did get married, to a Jewish doctor, and I guess Will got into a civil union (that was before marriage equality) with a cop. But both couples dissolved their unions, and now Grace is back at Will's apartment, just temporarily, right?
With that out of the way, the episode proper can get underway and down to business, which this week is taking some well-deserved jabs at Trump's maladministration.
Will is angry that Rep. Sandoval (R?) wants to undo all EPA regulations (yeah, definitely R). Grace is impressed that Will is so “woke.” But the truth is that Will has a crush on the congressman.
Jack quickly figures this out, and also figures out a way to get Will to the Rose Garden at the same time Sandoval will be there. Meanwhile, Karen, who is of course a Trump supporter, gets Grace a gig at the White House, decorating the Oval Office, which Grace briefly pretends to turn down.
This is of course a setup for Will and Grace to be at the White House at the same time, to find each other there and see each other as hypocrites. And also a setup for a pillow fight in the Oval Office.
Along the way to that pillow fight, a White House staffer (Kate Micucci) complains rules don’t mean much to “owner” Trump, and Grace discovers a Russian-English dictionary and a fidget spinner in the Oval Office desk.
Also, Will and Jack express their nostalgia for President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.
Will future episodes get as political as this one? Maybe not. In another wink to the fourth wall, Karen says Will and Grace are too preachy when they talk politics.
I wasn't a regular viewer of this show, and it’s been more than a decade, but it all feels very familiar and a bit predictable. Some of the professional critics are even using the word “stale.”
But there are worse ways to spend half an hour in front of the TV. Which reminds me, episodes of The Orville are an hour long each and also on Thursday nights, on the channel that used to have Megyn Kelly, as opposed to the one that now does.