Will & Grace Review: The Chick or the Egg Donor (Season 11 Episode 4)
There’s an uptick in quality on Will & Grace Season 11 Episode 4, “The Chick or the Egg Donor.” However, all of its pieces still aren’t quite gelling, so while it’s a good episode with some compelling guest stars, I hesitate to call it a great one.
The problem really lies with the B story, which follows Karen and Jack as Karen further explores her work with the minor league baseball team she acquired during Will & Grace Season 11 Episode 3, “With Enemies Like These.”
This whole story is rather inexplicable and really begs the question…why?
The entire baseball team plot line seems so arbitrary and honestly, having rich and fantastical Karen and flamboyant Jack lead a baseball team feels lazy. Forget baseball, this show is pitching softballs when it comes to comedy.
The overarching story doesn’t work but I will give credit where credit is due. On a macro level, the story doesn’t work, and even Patton Oswalt’s presence doesn’t help matters.
I genuinely like Owalt, as well as his real life wife, Meredith Salenger, who also appears on this episode, but the show doesn’t really know how to use either one of their talents well. Both are funny in their own right — just read their Twitters — but they come across flat on this episode.
I don’t think the fault is necessarily in their performances either. The writing just gives them almost no great comedic beats.
With that said, there are at least a few good barbs and Vanessa Bayer, returning as baker, Amy, makes the most of another thinly sketched role. For the second episode in a row, Will & Grace is also reminding me of all the great SNL alums out there. Come back to TV more often, Vanessa Bayer and Chris Parnell!
True to her SNL training, Bayer can make even the most banal and basic lines funny with her exceptional delivery, and she milks every opportunity. “Hakuna Matata” has never sounded so desperate and sad.
The line of the night is also in reference to Bayer. While Karen recognizes Amy, she can’t quite place her correctly, and instead assumes she’s Lori Loughlin’s kid. She quips, “I told her no one would buy you as a varsity rower.” Zing.
The main story between Will and Grace works much better and it’s starting to become more clear how the revival may be setting up its ending.
One of the biggest faults of the original series finale was that Will and Grace spent many years estranged, raising children separately for almost two decades without speaking.
While I have rolled my eyes that the revival is once again using a pregnancy storyline, it’s possible that the show is trying to rewrite history for the better.
Maybe this time, both Grace and Will will take on their parenthood journeys as they always should have: together, and completely in step.
While the revelation that McCoy didn’t want children and Will was going to leave him and embark on parenthood alone may have some as a surprise to some, it follows given what we’ve seen so far. It has been strange that McCoy and Will have been embarking on such a significant life step while so physically far apart, and we’ve had plenty of small hints that children are Will’s greatest hope.
His revelation that he wanted kids wasn’t simply born this season. The show has been planting seeds for awhile, including most notably in Will & Grace Season 10 Episode 12, “The Pursuit of Happiness.”
I noticed then that the show lingered on Will with a baby, and even then it didn’t seem accidental.
Besides the poignant moments between Will and Grace, that storyline also features the performer of the night, Ms. Ali Wentworth!
Wentworth is one of Debra Messing’s real life best friends and a gifted comedian to boot, so her inclusion here makes sense; she easily understands the energy of the show and her performance as Dr. Saperstein is the best part of the whole episode.
Cheated on by her husband, Saperstein goes postal mid-appointment and ends up sobbing uncontrollably under the sheet as she examines Grace. Gotta love a good visual gag, and Will & Grace almost always delivers in this area.
I hope we will see Wentworth pop up again. You hear that, Will & Grace? More friendship, more crazy ob-gyns, less rhinestoned baseball players.
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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Cristina Iskander
Cristina is a Broadway enthusiast, book lover, and pop-culture fanatic living in New York City. She once won a Fantasy Bachelor contest (yes, like Fantasy Football, but for The Bachelor), and can banter about old school WB (Pacey + Joey FTW) just as well as Stranger Things and Pen15. She's still upset Benson and Stabler never got together and is worried Rollins and Carisi are headed down the same road, wants justice for Shangela, and hopes to one day walk-and-talk down a hallway with Aaron Sorkin.