Will & Grace Review: Dead Man Texting (Season 10 Episode 10)

Will and Grace Season 10 Episode 10, “Dead Man Texting,” feels like a big disappointment and lackluster follow up to Will and Grace Season 10 Episode 9, “Family Trip.”

This is bound to happen on occasion but it’s nevertheless disappointing after a string of solid to strong episodes. This episode is easily one of the weakest of the season.

The episode features two commonly used tropes: a Weekend at Bernie‘s-esque device and the heavily relied upon “I’m-in-two-different-events-occurring-at-the-same-location” set up. Neither device is that funny on its own, and Will and Grace doesn’t really do anything new to reinvent them.

I have been wondering for a while when we were going to get exposed more to Will’s work teaching law.

There’s a lot of potential for comedy and character development lurking within that storyline and it’s seemed odd that the show has continued to put it so much on the periphery. Will’s job played a large role in the first iteration of the show, so it seems natural that the evolution of his career would be significant here.

Alas, that has never really materialized, which I could forgive if the show had not tried to suddenly act as though there were high stakes associated with Will’s change in profession.

Desperate to win the approval of Professor Rice, whose opinion weighs heavily in Will’s ability to receive an offer to teach full-time, Will and Grace concoct a plan to host Rice for dinner and play to his heartstrings.

The dinner is not going well and when Rice collapses, Will and Grace believe him dead.

On Grace’s urging, they take the professor’s phone — and after awkwardly getting a retinal scan of their “dead” guest’s eye to open his locked phone — send a text giving Will his full support (and offering to donate to Grace’s campaign for the interior design presidency role that bubbles up now and again).

First, let’s start with the easy stuff: Debra Messing has been brilliant this season. Both her dramatic work and her storyline with Noah have given her rich material to play with but this politics storyline — if you can even call it that — is a weak link.

Ever since it was first introduced in Will and Grace Season 10 Episode 1 “The West Side Curmudgeon,” it’s been a nuisance and I have yet to see a spin that has made it seem funny or even relevant.

I would much rather see a comical situation surrounding Grace mentoring a young woman or trying to be involved in real politics, so being reminded again of this inane interior design society plotline, however briefly, is not welcome.

Next, building a whole storyline around an assumed dead man in the living room feels cheap and easy for this show, and given that both Will and Grace at this point have grappled with loss close to home, it feels outside the realm of believability that they — even at their most exaggerated, ridiculous moments — would treat this development so cavalierly and take advantage of it to help Will get a job.

I understand that the show is a comedy, and that can mean painting in broad strokes, but the revival of Will and Grace is best when its characters are broad but its situations maintain a sensitive inner truth. That feels like it’s missing.

Lastly, it struck me as odd that Will was so upset at the notion of losing his teaching job. The tears he cried as he expressed how much it made him remember his love of the law felt hollow.

This isn’t a reflection of Eric McCormack’s work; this is strictly a writing issue. You simply can’t act like something is deeply meaningful when it’s barely been mentioned or shown the whole season.

I have been wondering when Estefan would return for awhile now. Appearing after a long absence from the show, I was almost immediately reminded why I don’t like that character very much: he has no true personality outside of being a vehicle for the occasional joke and in this episode, he seemed even more like Hank Azaria’s character from The Birdcage. 

Only Hank Azaria did it better.

Karen and Estefan hate each other and Jack struggles to balance celebrating his birthday with both of them. When the evening explodes in a knockdown fight in a restaurant, Jack and Karen have to get to the bottom of her distaste for Estefan.

Coming off the heels of her divorce, much of her rage is actually poorly expressed fear of losing Jack. This in and of itself is a fairly compelling angle. Karen has a tendency to act out when she’s feeling vulnerable so exploring how her divorce demands she renegotiate her current relationships is interesting territory.

With that said, the impetus for Estefan and Karen’s feud come out of nowhere — especially on his end — and that’s an overarching problem with the entire episode. Similar to the storyline with Will’s teaching job, there’s no foundation for this story. It feels slotted in and unearned.

Stray observations:

• When do we get Noah (David Schwimmer) back?
• Line delivery of the episode goes to Debra Messing for “Aren’t you glad we didn’t melonball his eyes out?” or Eric McCormack, eyes wide, calling Grace Hannibal.

What did you think of this episode of Will and Grace? Do you think Estefan and Jack will actually make it down the aisle? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Will and Grace airs Thursdays at 9:30/8:30c on NBC.

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