“This is like the worst episode of The Golden Girls.” – Will & Grace Recap – The Chick or the Egg Donor

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Will and Grace are fully in impending parenthood mode as they spend their night preparing for ultrasounds and looking through egg donors on the internet. But the next morning, Grace starts spiraling, freaking out about her age and all the complications that could arise in her pregnancy because of it. And Will is so deep in his own process for starting a family that he’s dismissing Grace’s worry as overreacting, telling her she’s acting like the first woman to ever be pregnant. I get that searching for egg donors and trying to figure out a way to get your fiancé’s sperm from London to America would be stressful, but it just seems odd that Will would be so dismissive of Grace when her concerns are actually extremely valid (and I know the original run pregnancy storyline isn’t in play, but just remembering things like Will taking the prenatal vitamins with Grace back then kind of amplified this for me). And that feeling of being dismissed mixed with the stress of her situation causes Grace to fire back, reducing Will’s process to online shopping and picking out a designer kid. In the world of Will and Grace fights, it’s definitely not the worst we’ve seen, but it’s also painful to watch them do this when they’re both in need of each other’s support. And especially today, they’re both going to be needing each other’s support.

While texting with McCoy, Will tells him that he found their donor, and you can just tell how excited he is about it. Which makes it even more heartbreaking when you see that ellipsis appear and disappear before McCoy finally replies with “Call me.” Because you know what he’s about to say. I had a feeling that we were going to end up here; and I knew the second I saw that text screen pop up that this was going to be the moment he told Will that he didn’t want a baby after all (for a hot second, I thought he was actually going to say this via text and I started shouting at my TV because that would have been SUCH a dick move). We never actually saw or heard McCoy’s response to Will saying he wanted to start a family with him, and even though everything seemed to be going as smoothly as it could for a long distance relationship, there was something in the back of my mind that was convinced that McCoy wasn’t really on the same page as Will. And now, Will has to make a decision between the man he loves, and the one thing he’s wanted for essentially his entire life. It puts the whole argument with Grace into perspective, and he knows he has to show up for his best friend.

At the doctor’s office, Grace is still freaked about her age complicating her pregnancy, and the OBGYN isn’t helping at all; she’s too busy fighting with her cheating husband to comfort her “shockingly old” patient. But then, of course, Grace’s knight in shining pink Under Armour comes into the room to be there for her the way you knew he would. They apologize for the way they behaved earlier, and Will finally hears Grace’s concerns for what they are: “I just can’t shake the feeling that any appointment could be the one when they tell me that it’s all over.” No matter how you feel about the whole pregnancy thing, just hearing Grace say that is a gut punch. You know in that moment how much she wants this, and how scared she is that it’s going to be taken away, and it’s a lot to take in. Will tries to comfort her, telling her that it’s going to be okay but he understands where she’s coming from. And it’s here that he fills her in on what happened with McCoy. It’s just such a somber moment between the two…which of course is the perfect time for the OBGYN to come back in and get on with the ultrasound. And after a moment of not being able to find the baby, its heartbeat fills the room, leaving Will and Grace stunned.

As much as I was looking for some kind of loophole in this story a few weeks ago, I have to admit that this moment, the one where everything about this pregnancy became real, was so touching. I love that Grace got to have this moment with Will, and I love how much they’re here for each other. Hearing Grace’s baby’s heartbeat makes Will realize what he wants, and he decides that he’s going to be a dad and do it on his own (reader, when he said he was going to do this “just like my best girl,” I melted). I’m so sad that McCoy and Will are done; I really loved them together, and while I knew we would eventually end up here just based on the whole long distance thing alone, part of me is still disappointed that it didn’t work. But he’s got Grace by his side no matter what, and that means the world. It’s going to be interesting to see where Will goes from here. But at least he won’t be alone.

Kids, I didn’t realize how starved I was for a Jack and Karen storyline until this week? How are we just now getting one of these, four episodes into the final season? Karen knows she’s going to need help as the new owner of the Blattsville Millstones (or, as she likes to call them, the Batman Wheat Thins, and really, they should consider renaming the team), and she starts by calling on the one person who knows as much about baseball as she does: her Poodle. And while he’s serving a definite look in that uniform and they’re making definite choices about introducing rhinestones to the team, that’s about all they’ve accomplished. But even though Karen’s got Danley on her back, waiting for her to mess everything up, all hope is not lost; it turns out that someone from Karen’s past is about to wheel in a cart full of muffins and minor league baseball expertise.

Listen, I love Vanessa Bayer, and I thought it was great that they decided to bring her back this season, even if I was a bit confused as to why she was reprising the role she played back in the first season of the revival. Her stint as Amy the cake baker in “The Beefcake and the Cake Beef” felt like such a one-off deal with no real chance of bringing her back, but I have to say I’m intrigued with what’s been set up in this episode. Since Karen turned Amy’s bakery into a neo-Nazi hub by ordering that MAGA cake, it shut down, and now Amy is relegated to making muffins from the batter she mixes in her bathtub and going door-to-door in office buildings delivering the goods. But she also happens to be from Blattsville, she’s been a huge fan of the Millstones her whole life, and she knows exactly what to do to improve the team that doesn’t involve mandatory drug taking (sorry, Karen). It’s a great plan–or at least, I’m assuming it is; I’m in the Jack and Karen camp when it comes to sports, but it sounded good. Karen’s not ready to take that advice, though; she’s fully prepared to take her drugs and her rhinestones with her to the interview Danley has planned for her. And it goes exactly as well as you’d think it would.

Here’s what’s infuriating about this plot to destroy Karen: it’s bad enough that Danley is trying to work out some kind of revenge thing all because of his unrequited love for my girl. But the fact that Stan is in on this too, and is so excited about Karen’s potential failure just makes me see red. Fuck this guy. After everything he’s put her through during this whole series–original run and revival–it’s just so ridiculous to me that he gets joy out of her humiliation. I hate him now, to the point where I can’t believe there was ever a time when I didn’t, and he in no way deserves to get what he wants. Karen isn’t about to let him have it, either; just as she realizes she’s in need of a plan to get the Millstones on track, Amy returns to the office to grab her cart, jogging Karen’s memory and allowing her to pitch Amy’s ideas for the team to the reporter. And with that, Danley loses the battle.

Once Danley leaves the office, Jack and Karen are celebrating their victory with cookies and martinis when Amy walks in for the third and final time asking Karen to hire her, since her idea was the thing that saved Karen’s ass in that interview. And after consulting with Jack (and realizing they have no idea what they’re doing with this team), Karen brings Amy on board to help turn the Millstones around. I really like the idea of Karen and Amy teaming up after everything that went down in “The Beefcake and the Cake Beef.” There’s a lot of potential in this unlikely partnership, and because Karen owning a baseball team is the foundation of this partnership, I’m really excited to see where this goes as the season progresses. I have a feeling this is going to be the thing that distracts my brain from screaming over Grace’s pregnancy, and I have a feeling I am going to be so grateful for that distraction.

And while Amy’s ideas will probably be better for the team in the long run, I have to say I am extremely on board with those bejeweled uniforms. Baseball really should sparkle more.

Honey…What’s This? What’s Happening? What’s Going On?

• Grace being excited that the doctor is next to the deli where they think her name is Grape is everything to me?
• When it comes to Jack McFarland entrances, this one ranks pretty high for me:

• Apparently the Blattsville Millstones team colors are brown and rust, and if that’s the case, maybe Karen was in the right for refusing to let them get dressed last week.
• All I’m saying is that if stadiums offered ten cent martini nights, I would be attending all of the baseball games until the end of time.
• That’s my girl:

• “So now I’m not just old, I’m haunted?”
• Danley Walker can suck it, but I thought it was kind of sweet that they cast Meredith Salenger (Patton Oswalt’s wife) as the reporter he brings into Grace Adler Designs in the hopes of humiliating Karen.
• Speaking of guest casts and real life connections, Grace’s OBGYN was played by one of Debra Messing’s actual BFFs, Ali Wentworth.
• “I can only assume it’s a boy, ‘cause they’re always hiding something.”
• Okay, as frustrated as I am by the pregnancy storyline, one of my new favorite hobbies is going onto the Will & Grace Facebook group and reading all of the comments from people who are confused as to why they’re pretending that Grace doesn’t already have a kid, like the revival premiere didn’t take care of that. There’s an alarming amount of people who throw these posts up, and I think it’s kind of hilarious that some people are annoyed that Grace is neglecting the 13-year-old daughter (I did the math from the first series finale to now) that Karen dreamed in a martini daze.

What did you think of “The Chick and the Egg Donor?” Let’s chat in the comments.

Featured image source: NBC

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