Will & Grace Review: Eat, Pray, Love, Phone, Sex (Season 11 Episode 1)

What is that I feel? Deja vu? Will & Grace, I feel like we’ve been here before.

Let me back up. When NBC announced it was moving up the premiere of Will & Grace‘s final season (for real, this time!) from its original midseason debut, I was ecstatic.

By the end of Season 10, the show had found its rhythm.

There’s something that’s comfortable and familiar about Will & Grace and the show had managed to do the near impossible: it found a way to continue to give us the things we loved about the show while pushing its characters in new and exciting directions. No small feat.

That’s part of why Will & Grace Season 11 Episode 1, “Eat, Pray, Love, Phone, Sex” is so confounding.

Familiarity and comfort is good; feeling like we’re repeating history? Not so much.

When Will & Grace returned, it famously wiped big parts of its eighth season from history, most notably that Will and Grace both had children and that they had a huge falling out because of Grace’s pregnancy and reunion with her ex-husband, Leo.

Children didn’t fit into the vision of the revival, said the show runners. After all, who wanted to see Will and Grace as parents?

This development has always been one of the harder ones to swallow and requires a significant level of cognitive dissonance. How do you accept and embrace a show that so actively denies almost a year’s worth of plot?

Fast forward to the premiere of Season 11. Will wants a baby. Grace is unexpectedly pregnant and the father’s not in the picture.

Haven’t I seen this before?

Granted, a few things are different.

Grace is older and less haunted by the absence of a man in her life. Her biggest concern is that she was “gonna do so many great things with [her] life…[she] was gonna watch so many shows!” It’s not even clear who the actual father of her baby is.

Will’s excited to start a family with his partner, McCoy, and isn’t looking to be the surrogate father of Grace’s baby. He envisions their two children running around the apartment together. 

Plus, there is an additional twist here: Jack too is considering starting a family. (Can you imagine Jack of Season 8 doing this? I do not, so kudos to the writers for slowly helping him grow into someone where this even feels feasible).

The pregnancy revelation is maddening but the episode succeeds in spite of this. 

It’s paced well with zippy, clever writing. I started writing down lines I thought were particularly clever until I realized I was essentially transcribing the episode.

Interestingly enough, the Core Four are mostly separated throughout the episode and are only fully together at the end.

This may be a subtle nod to what’s to come and how their respective lives are evolving. They are building and cultivating lives outside of each other, but luckily have a soft place to land in their friendships.

While Will’s (Eric McCormack) phone sex tutorial with Karen (Megan Mullally) is funny — because anything Megan Mullally does is funny — the best storylines of the episode belong to Jack (Sean Hayes) and Grace (Debra Messing). 

Sean Hayes excels when he has to do physical comedy and the show wisely capitalizes on that. Amidst an absurd fight over a cuckoo clock that plays “Conga,” Estefan throws Jack’s beloved Cher doll down the trash chute.

Naturally, the only response to such an affront is to dive in head first and Hayes leans into the moment, milking his ride down the chute for everything it’s worth. It’s not a bit that every actor could make work, but in his capable hands, the segment soars.

Surprisingly, the Estefan/Jack relationship is starting to make sense. I’m surprised as anyone to write that, but it’s been nice to see Jack in a solid partnership without sacrificing his essential Jack-ness. I’m looking forward to seeing how that relationship deepens and matures. 

Debra Messing does few things better than break into histrionics and wow, does she get to flex that muscle on this episode. Since Grace was clearly so conflicted about news of her pregnancy, it’s surprising that the show doesn’t show her exploring her options.

That last point really gets at something larger.

Once we leap past the fact that the pregnancy storyline feels like a retread, the weakest parts of this episode are really the things that are absent from it: a lack of discussion around Grace’s options, zero closure with Noah (David Schwimmer), and no return appearance from Marcus (Reid Scott).

Scott was so compelling with Messing in last season’s finale, and I hate to see that kind of chemistry go to waste. It’s possible that we could see him again this season, but I won’t hold my breath.

All in all, it was a strong start to the season, setting the stage for a season of life altering changes. Let’s go!

Stray observations:

• As much as I love that Karen’s refers to herself as a pansexual superstar, the comment feels a little off given last season’s finale, where she wrote off her feelings for her girlfriend as a misguided phase and reaction to loneliness, emphatically making it clear she preferred men. So…now she’s pansexual?
• I hope McCoy gets back from London soon. If you’re going to pay money for Matt Bomer to be on the episode, let him actually do something other than sit at a computer!
• Demi Lovato reportedly filmed a special appearance this season. What are the odds she’s a surrogate for McCoy and Will?
• The best line of the episode goes to special guest star Caroline Julian (of Bones fame) who summed up Grace as a “seven layer dip of mistakes.”
• The runner up for best line of the night goes to Sean Hayes, who soothingly uttered “I’ve got you, babe” to his Cher barbie upon their reunion at the bottom of the trash chute.

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

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

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