Will & Grace Season 3, Episode 1
“Eat, Pray, Love, Phone, Sex”
Posted by Sarah
We’re back for one final round, kids…and a full three months early, too! The end is nigh once again, and we’re counting down the weeks until we have to say another goodbye to our Fab Four. It’s definitely going to be a bittersweet journey, and I can almost guarantee you I will become more and more emotional about it as the season goes on (will I even be able to coherently recap the series finale? Stay tuned…). But for now, let’s bask in the glory of a surprisingly solid season premiere.
And I say “surprisingly” because, truth be told, I was nervous about this one. After what happened with Karen in last season’s finale, I was bracing myself. Add to that the promos that came about last week with Grace’s surprise pregnancy as the main headline, making it feel like we were just redoing the final season of the original run, and I honestly didn’t know what to think. I’m still working my way through my feelings about this particular storyline (and you better believe we’re diving into them). But seeing as how we also got a yard sale with ulterior motives, accidental phone sex, and the return of the Cher doll, I think we got some great things out of this episode. We’ve got a lot to unpack, so let’s get down to it!
Grace is back from Europe with a new lease on life, and honestly, it made me so happy to see that she was finally living life for herself instead of for some asshole who never showed up for her (I hope the door hit you so hard on the way out, Noah). She had a good time with Marcus, but they eventually went their separate ways, leaving her with the freedom to do whatever she wanted. And she isn’t about to shed this new outlook on life just because she’s back in the States; once she gets the nasty bug bite on her leg checked out by the doctor, she’ll be good to go, embarking on a life that is all about her. So naturally, now would be the perfect time for the doctor to tell her that she’s pregnant.
Oh. Okay. So it’s 2006 again?
Listen, I’m just confused by this whole route we’re apparently about to take, because we absolutely have been here before. I mean, sure, there might be one or two improvements this time around (namely that this kid is in no way Leo’s kid, and if I’m being honest, we should take that as a win). But just because that part of the original run ended up being Karen’s drug-addled dream at the beginning of the revival does not mean we have to rehash this. And it feels weird to do this just when Grace was beginning to reclaim her life post-Noah. I was so on board with this refreshed version of Grace who’s living her life on her terms, who’s no longer settling for “happy enough,” who’s out there grabbing 100% of what she wants. And it felt like the show wanted us to be on board with that in the beginning of the episode, too. So by the time Grace is crying to the woman sitting next to her on the subway about her pregnancy, it made me a little sad. And the woman on the subway isn’t helping much, telling Grace that there’s no perfect time to have a baby and to get used to it when she admits that she’s scared. It’s not what I pictured for Grace after her split from Noah, and I know it’s not what she pictured for herself, either. And you know she’s just waiting for the subway to get to her stop so she can go back home and get Will to make her feel better about it all.
But Will’s having a crisis of his own, worrying about his long distance relationship. Since McCoy is working in London, there’s not a lot of intimacy between the newly engaged couple. McCoy thinks the solution here is phone sex. But since phone sex can get very awkward very quickly, Will decides to enlist Karen’s help before he FaceTimes with his fiancé. And it’s honestly not the worst idea in the world. After all, Karen knows what she can bring to the table; she’s a…well, let’s let her say it:
Source: wagedits.tumblr.com
Okay, we DEFINITELY need to talk about this. I know it took up all of two seconds of the episode, but considering what happened at the end of last season, I just can’t relegate this to the bullet points at the end. Look, I do not have the energy to rehash Karen’s disastrous storyline in last season’s finale (but if you need a refresher, see my recap for “Jack’s Big Gay Wedding”). Needless to say, I’m still trying to get the taste of that terrible Ellen “homage” out of my mouth. So when Karen casually labeled herself as pansexual here, I was thrilled. BUT, after the mess that was made out of the Karen/Nikki storyline, this is nowhere near enough to fix things. We just jumped from Karen announcing she’s straight over a PA system to declaring herself a pansexual superstar in no time at all, without any kind of insight into that self-discovery, almost as if Karen buying into Smitty’s insinuation that she’s just a lost straight woman never happened. Except that it did happen. It’s out there. It rightfully pissed everyone off. And this show can’t just pretend that they didn’t do that to my girl and continue to go on its way.
I realize that “Eat, Pray, Love, Phone, Sex” didn’t really have the right plot to be doing this kind of a dive into Karen’s journey. But that doesn’t mean that we’re just going to consider things resolved after such a quick declaration. That’s not how you rectify everything that infuriated and alienated so many fans about Karen’s trajectory over the previous three episodes. Literally anything more about how she found the pansexual superstar within would be great (and also necessary). Writers, you have 17 more episodes to make it happen, I know you can do it. And I hope you do, because I don’t want to have to keep yelling about this in the weeks to come (but I absolutely will if I have to). In the meantime, though, I have to ask…hey Karen, can I have your business card?
Anyway…
Look, you all know how I feel about the best secret friendship on television. I will gladly take any Will/Karen storyline you have to give me, and this one took the things I love about that friendship and mixed it with the things I love about classic sitcoms. Karen roleplaying as McCoy and getting super into it while Will is just trying to get the phone he dropped out from under the couch felt like something that you could have easily seen in something like Three’s Company, if iPhones and FaceTime existed in the ‘70s. It was goofy and fun, and a great source of levity to balance out the weight of Grace being scared about becoming a mom. Too bad it didn’t really teach Will the finer points of phone sex, though. Because by the time his FaceTime date with McCoy rolls around, things immediately get awkward, leading Will to throw the chat on mute so he can call Karen to help bail him out again. And boy, does she bail him out.
What I love so much about Karen is that she may be this over-the-top character you wouldn’t think to take seriously upon first glance, but if you give her the opportunity, she’ll drop the truth bombs and solid advice you need. She tells Will that he’s making things way too complicated when they don’t need to be; all he needs to do is tell McCoy what he wants, even if it’s something he’s never done with a guy before. And while she likely means some kind of sex thing (I mean, think of what they were doing before Will’s FaceTime date…), Will takes it to heart in a different way; when he returns to his date with McCoy, he decides to tell his fiancé what he really wants. And among the things that you’d expect Will to want here — talking about their relationship, their upcoming wedding, their future — he spills his biggest want of all: to have a baby.
This one is tricky for me. On one hand, we all know that this is something Will has wanted for a long time, from almost donating his sperm to his Grace before he met Grace in “Seeds of Discontent,” to the whole Will/Grace/Baby storyline that got derailed by Leo, to (and I know it’s not in play anymore) stepping up to the plate in the final season of the original run, planning to help raise the baby Grace couldn’t tell Leo about. On the other hand, McCoy is in London, in the midst of his dream job, and it sounds like the whole long distance thing is already starting to take its toll. I want to be happy about it, but I’m definitely nervous. So while I work my way through this, let’s turn to the other couple of the group for a moment.
Jack is settling into life as a newlywed, and he will not have anything destroy his happy marriage…especially not the garish cuckoo clock Estefan bought on their honeymoon. So of course the only solution to getting rid of the clock without starting a fight about it is to hold a fake yard sale in the hallway while Estefan is at work, and claim that it accidentally got sold. Jack is almost home free, too; Mrs. Timmer likes the clock and ends up taking it off his hands. But when Estefan comes home early and hears the music of his clock coming from 9B, the battle begins. After wrestling the clock back from Mrs. Timmer, Estefan confronts Jack about his dishonesty and tells him that they can sell the clock, as long as Estefan can sell something of Jack’s that he hates, too. Although I’m pretty sure that when Jack agrees to his husband’s terms, he isn’t expecting Estefan to hold his precious Cher doll hostage.
Sir, I do believe that is grounds for divorce.
This poor doll has been through so much in the years it’s been in Jack’s possession (remember the time Karen brought her to his OutTV office to cheer him up, but he threw her in the garbage to fit in with his colleagues, and Rosario had to pry her from a raccoon’s mouth to get her back?). And now, she’s being thrown straight down the trash chute, which is no way to treat such an esteemed diva. But also, bless the rough road she’s been on, because it churns out some great physical comedy. Jack flying down the trash chute after his beloved doll is a sight to behold, and the hold music in the middle of that slide down to the dumpster was such a great touch. And while swimming in garbage with a plastic fork sticking out of his button-down probably isn’t the way Jack thought his day was going to go, at least he’s saved his icon.
Estefan isn’t going to let this go, though. He races down the chute to catch up to his husband (if that’s not love, what is?) to put an end to it once and for all. And once the thrill of that ride into the dumpster wears off, he learns why Jack is trying to pull out all the stops to avoid a fight; since Jack’s idea of marriage stems from watching his parents argue and then divorce, he’s convinced that the second he starts to fight, his own marriage is over. As a child of divorce, I feel for him and I get it. But Estefan tells him that it’s crazy to keep everything bottled up. Of course there are going to be times when they don’t see eye to eye. But that in no way means that Estefan is going to quit on him. And once he ends up essentially reciting marriage vows, Jack realizes that everything is going to be okay. But seriously dude, if this guy’s willingly flying down the trash chute after you, you should know that he’s not going anywhere.
I adore Jack and Estefan together. I remember watching Estefan’s first episode and being convinced it wasn’t going to last, that this was just going to be a rebound period while Jack gets over Drew, and I am so thrilled to see how wrong I was. There is so much love between these two, and they complement each other so well that you can’t help but root for them. It makes me incredibly proud of Jack, too, seeing where he’s at now compared to where he was during the original run of the show. Back then, he jumped from one relationship to the next and you never really expected anything different. Even when he was with Stuart during season six, there was something in the back of my mind telling me that it wasn’t going to last and, lo and behold, by the time we reached the season seven premiere, we learn that Jack cheated on him because “cheating feels good.” I never in a million years would have expected to see Jack McFarland in a marriage that wasn’t for green card reasons (I miss you, Rosario). But watching his relationship with Estefan grow now, it feels right. And now that they’ve survived their first fight, I can’t wait to see what’s next for them in their new chapter together.
But what about Will and Grace’s new chapter?
When Grace comes home from the doctor, she isn’t anticipating that Will has news, too. And after a brief miscommunication, they both realize that they’re about to become parents. All of the fear and doubt that Grace was feeling on the subway ride home is erased by Will’s enthusiastic reaction to her pregnancy, and even though Grace points out that they’ve been down this road before and processed and closed the book on it, Will counters that point with one of his own: “Just like every other book we have read over the last ten years, we closed the book before we were finished.” It’s the first time that Grace really allows herself to feel excited about this pregnancy, and by all accounts we should be happy for her, and for Will. But I’m just left feeling conflicted. Long distance relationships rarely work, and making a huge decision like this while McCoy is on another continent makes me so nervous for Will, because I really like his relationship with McCoy. I feel like this could go wrong for them in a bunch of different ways, and I hope it doesn’t.
Then there’s Grace. Here’s the thing I’m coming to realize: if we’re really doing this again, I don’t hate the way it was presented here? It’s not ideal, but it’s something that I think I can eventually live with even if I don’t think it makes sense to give us the same final season we were given before. But there’s a part of me that is finding it impossible to wrap my head around the fact that the writers are actually doing this. The doctor telling Grace she was pregnant makes it sound pretty definite, but I’m still remembering the fact that over the summer, Debra Messing said that she wanted Grace to go through menopause on the show and deluding myself into thinking there’s a loophole in this storyline (in related news, my search history is currently in a very weird place for a 29-year-old who doesn’t want kids). It’s going to be interesting to see how this pans out for the rest of the season. And I’m sure I’m going to have a bunch of opinions on it either way. So stick around, kids. Let’s shout it out together.
Honey…What’s This? What’s Happening? What’s Going On?
- Moment of appreciation for Will’s Dear Evan Hansen t-shirt/subtle nod to his terrible first date with Ben Platt’s Blake in the first season of the revival (I just rewatched “Who’s Your Daddy” a few days ago, and you should too, that episode is magic).
- “You know what this trip gave me, Will?” “Gonorrhea?” Between this and Will telling Grace that McCoy’s penis is always five hours ahead, this show managed to break me in the first two minutes.
- Pray tell, how does Grace know that Karen is really good at phone sex?
- There’s a sign at Jack’s yard sale that reads “Free donut with any purchase over $2,000,” and I wouldn’t expect anything less from this guy.
- When did Mrs. Timmer decide to move into 9B and shatter my delusion that Mr. Zamir was still a part of this universe? She was living directly below Will and Grace last season. What gives?
- Give me Karen as a bartender any damn day of the week:
- “Is there anything your people’s butts can’t do?” “So far, I have yet to be disappointed.” Give it up for the unsung brOTP of this show. And keep giving me all the Will/Karen storylines.
- “SHE’S BEEN THROUGH ENOUGH, SHE WAS BORN IN THE WAGON OF A TRAVELING SHOW!” If there’s a better Cher joke out there, I have yet to hear it. It was like this line was designed for me.
- This is a full-blown attack. And I welcome it with open arms:
- Related: This parallel is also a full-blown attack and IMMEDIATELY what I thought of the second I saw those smoke rings. Karen Walker: destroying every fiber of my being for 19 years.
- As conflicted as I am about the baby storyline, I really love that one of the main things Will is excited about with their impending parenthood is being able to race their babies around the apartment.
What did you think of “Eat, Pray, Love, Phone, Sex?” Let’s chat in the comments!
Featured image source: NBC
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