Will and Grace Review: Who’s Sorry Now (Season 10 Episode 4)

For me, the best sitcoms are the ones that are able to artfully weave playful romps with delicate, emotional nuance. It is a hard balance, but it is one that Will and Grace has proven it strikes well.

The show demonstrates this beautifully in Season 10 Episode 4, “Who’s Sorry Now?” a season highlight.

Karen’s decline in the face of a pending divorce finally begins to arrive. She confesses that she’s giving up on love. Tasked with clearing out her mansion as it readies for sale, Karen and Jack dig through her belongings.

Jack, newly “certified” as a psychic, tries to test out his skills and cheer her up in the process. He puts on a pair of Rosario’s glasses and “channels” her, her spirit overtaking him in an effort to encourage Karen to put herself out there.

Sean Hayes’ physical comedy is excellent here, but it’s hard for anything to live up to the banana-face-cream gag in “The West Side Curmudgeon.”

WILL & GRACE — “Who’s Sorry Now” Episode 205 — Pictured: (l-r) Sean Hayes as Jack McFarland, Megan Mullally as Karen Walker — (Photo by: Chris Haston/NBC)

The best parts of this episode are the moments between Will and Grace–finally! While our titular pair have had funny scenes in Season 10, they haven’t had the caliber of material that we are fortunate to enjoy in this episode, allowing both Debra Messing and Eric McCormack to not only spit out some funny lines but also do heavy character-driven work.

What starts as a spat over almond butter evolves into a larger fight about Grace’s inability to ever truly apologize to Will.

As the two sift through their old letters, it is revealed that Grace never read a thick letter from Will, the very first one he wrote after their failed engagement/his coming out.

Grace admits she was in too much pain at the time to open it. Will is deeply hurt, confessing that freshly out, he desperately was wishing to be “normal” and very much missing his absent best friend.

Will asserts, “I always say I’m sorry; you never say it because I am constantly apologizing for the original sin of hurting you.”

Viewers of the original series may remember the episode showcasing their failed engagement, Season 3 Episode 9 “Lows in the Mid Eighties.” Interestingly, the last time we saw Will and Grace reflect on the breakup and the associated pain that came with it (also in that same episode), it was raining, just as it is in this episode — surely, an intentional choice.

That episode — devastatingly funny as it is in moments — is heavily about Grace’s pain and humiliation. She outs Will to her mother and refuses to speak to him for a year.

Years later, she expresses pain at Will’s decision to sleep with another woman after their breakup. It is continually about her and not at all about any of his potential trauma. The revelation that she never read his letter only adds insult to a long-buried injury.

Grace finally reads Will’s letter, realizing his cries for help and his suicidal thoughts at the time.

Grace: You’re right, I didn’t think about your pain. I only thought about mine. Because that’s the way the story of the gay guy and the straight girl’s always told. But you were just being who you are and you were scared to death that the world was gonna find out and hate you for it. I’m sorry for not being there when you needed me most. I’m so, so sorry. The fact that you’re a gay man did not ruin my life. It made it so much better.

Watching this moment in the episode, I sobbed. Even retyping Grace’s monologue, I sobbed. I appreciate how Debra Messing performed it; I appreciate whoever wrote it even more.

When people find out I review Will and Grace, they often ask “But did it really need to be brought back?” This episode is a great testament to how Will and Grace has many things left to say.

In its past iteration, so much of the focus was on Grace’s pain and her monologue is true; in television and in real life, we can too easily focus on the narrative and feelings of straight people when someone in their life comes out.

In the original run of the series, they didn’t mention mental health challenges young people in LGBTQ community experience. On average, they are far more likely than their heterosexual peers to experience suicide ideation or attempt suicide themselves.

Here, it’s abundantly clear how seriously Will considered suicide after coming out. That’s important to acknowledge, especially for a show that has such a mainstream (read: BIG) platform.

Finally, beyond demonstrating a tremendous amount of empathy for the LGBTQ community, this episode is also a beautiful exploration of how friendships can still evolve and grow.

There are not many shows currently airing that focus so closely on friendship in your forties and fifties, but it’s important to note that you can still challenge, surprise, and learn to love your friends better, even decades into your relationship.

Stray Thoughts:

• There’s a great moment with the Grace Adler cutout from Will and Grace Season 10 Episode 1, “The West Side Curmudgeon” where Debra Messing looks like she’s about to break character and laugh at Sean Hayes’ wild gesticulations as he hastily tries to rid himself of a pen he planned to use to draw a penis on the cutout’s face.
• I love the line Will wrote in his letter to Grace “with a Capital G and that rhymes with C and that stands for Coitus.” I am a sucker for a good Music Man reference, and even more so when I remember it’s also likely a sly reference to Eric McCormack’s own stint in the Broadway revival.

What did you think of this episode of Will and Grace? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Reviewer Rating:

User Rating:

 

Will and Grace airs Thursday at 9/8c on NBC.

Follow us on Twitter @telltaleTV_

Want more from Tell-Tale TV? Subscribe to our newsletter here!

20 TV Characters Who Really Need a Hug