Will & Grace Review: Where in the World is Karen Walker? (Season 10 Episode 2)

Thursday was National Coming Out Day, and what better way to celebrate than with an episode of Will and Grace? Will and Grace Season 10 Episode 2, “Where in the World is Karen Walker?” delivers plenty of laughs.

To some extent, I understand why the powers that be led with “The West Side Curmudgeon”: it had a big-name guest star and a flashy physical comedy sequence that can lure viewers.

However, “Where in the World is Karen Walker?” is overall a more well-rounded episode and works better as a kick off to the season.

In the cold open, Will muses, “We’ve got to make a change. We said we would; why haven’t we?” The characters are certainly trying now: Will is embarking on a new career as a law teacher at Columbia University, and Jack is working through his commitment issues.

While Will’s insistence to say “Will Truman, Teacher” every time he introduces himself is funny, it’s also very much a pleading attempt to create a new identity for himself.

Will, fastidious to the point where he paints his beard to make it less gray, does not adjust well to change, and that’s the very thing he is trying to do this season. I hope to see more bumbling discomfort, as Eric McCormack hits those beats so well.

As an aside, the beard jokes in this episode — ranging from a dig at Grace to smudges left on Grace, Karen, and Jack’s faces after a meaningful hug — were funnier than they had any right to be.

Jack’s commitment issues are not a surprise, though I appreciate how fully Sean Hayes physically commits to every bout of panic that Jack experiences as he wrestles with the idea of forever with Estefan.

I don’t think Jack and Estefan are meant to be together forever and I would be genuinely surprised if they made it down the aisle at all, but I do hope their relationship over the season helps Jack grow so he can find his forever relationship.

Karen wistfully describes marriage as “hiding the jewelry and blaming the maid” and Jack deserves a match with whom he can have that level of twisted love.

For the bulk of the episode, Karen Walker is gone, girl, and her disappearance after Stan discovers her affair with Malcolm creates the structure for the episode. Will and Grace shines when it gives Megan Mullally snappy dialogue and lets her run wild with it, as it does here.

I have noticed that the Core Four have different strength as actors. For example, Eric McCormack is strongest when he is reacting to someone else, rather than driving the action.

Mullally manages to make both her reactive moments, like her opening scene with Smitty, and moments where she is driving the comedy, like the bus scene with Linda or bathroom scene with Jack, crackle.

Now that Karen is officially getting divorced from Stan, I am eager to see how the show plays up Karen’s inevitable break with reality. She already boasts a tenuous relationship with it as it is and we saw the tip of the iceberg in this episode. I anticipate a delicious descent into lunacy.

Her singledom, paired with Grace’s burgeoning relationship with Noah and Jack’s commitment issues present some exciting potential for future episodes.

Stray Observations:

• My favorite line of the night – on a night with so many wonderful lines – was from Jack, describing Karen’s directions to him upon her departure: “I’m supposed to delete her porn and set your closet on fire.”
• I would very much like to figure out how to make the phone-in-the-towel-turban look work.
• I spit out my drink when Linda, a Midwestern tourist Karen/Anastasia Beaverhausen befriended, flatly confessed she’s “slowly poisoning [her] father-in-law.” That was one of the funniest comedic deliveries I have heard in a while. You go, Linda!
• I have been a fan of Malcolm (Alec Baldwin) in the past but this appearance felt very one-note.

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

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

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