NBC
It’s no secret that I haven’t been the biggest fan of the Will & Grace reboot, and episodes like last week’s bring on so many eye-rolls and make me wish the show could have stayed in the early-aughts, where I loved it. Okay maybe it wasn’t so bad – but it wasn’t great either, and at this point there are so many other things on TV, why should we subject ourselves to something that isn’t great.
First let’s discuss Jack & Karen’s story. Jack gets an audition on the JLo drama Shades of Blue so he needs to drop off his musical theatre class with Karen at Grace Adler Designs. She doesn’t know what to do with them so she tells them to all stay in the small office. Later, after getting a delivery of some fabric and some tassels that were supposed to be attached, she gets the kids to do the work for her and sew the pieces together. Jack’s audition is actually to play a corpse on the show, and he lands the role because we see him on set with JLo trying to get through the scene. He totally fails, talking to her every time and even pulling out his selfie stick. Jennifer is frustrated and gets down and dirty to show him how it’s done.
NBC
So, Jennifer Lopez graced us with her presence in this episode. Hers was the most overhyped cameo of all time! The press release literally stated that she would guest star as herself and as her Shades Of Blue character. While that’s true, the whole thing took 3 seconds and would have barely registered honestly.
Across town, Grace is headed to her friends nieces baby shower and is feeling all kinds of bitter about it. She drags Will along (he doesn’t fight it but really should have) and he gives her a WASP trick to dealing with annoyances. He tells her to write down the thing that’s bugging her about each person and crumple it up and put it in her pocket. This way she can remain cordial and get all her anger out. Grace loves this, and goes hella overboard, writing the most awful things. When her pockets get full and she gets hot, she take the cardigan off and someone finds all of her papers and puts them in the baby wish-bowl. So Grace’s friend gets to read the following to a room full of moms: “two drunk teens can make a baby in 5 minutes, it took me years to make Grace Adler Designs!”
NBC
Then Grace apologizes to the moms for insulting them, saying that she was protecting herself from being judged, and they’re like but Grace you’re the one judging us, allowing Grace to launch into a feminist tirade. I would have loved the speech she makes in any other context, so I don’t know why it annoyed me, but it did. Maybe because Grace was judging the women from the get-go and then suddenly turns around and realizes that everyone’s life is different and they make choices for themselves and not for other people.
At this party, Will bonds with some teens and gets their advice about calling his ex Michael, who he just deep-liked on Instagram. I can’t remember the teens’ ultimate advice or who Michael is (if we’re even supposed to know) but Will calls him in the end, feeling inspired by Grace’s speech about being happy and fulfilled.
NBC
Will & Grace airs Thursdays on NBC
