11 essential ‘Will & Grace’ episodes
“Will & Grace” returns Thursday, Sept. 28, and it’s time to reconnect with the Fab Four.
Last week, the original eight seasons dropped on Hulu and are now available for purchase in the iTunes and Google Play stores after years of only being accessible via syndicated reruns and DVDs.
Before you tune into Thursday’s premiere, watch these essential 10 (OK, 11) episodes that will reacquaint you with Will, Grace, Jack and Karen, complete with some choice lines from each.
“Love and Marriage (Pilot)”
Season 1 | Episode 1
A shaggy-haired Will comforts Grace after she walks out on her fiancé. Karen doesn’t have her unmistakable squeaky voice and doesn’t share a scene with Jack, but the themes of friendship, soul mates and destiny offer a glimpse of things to come.
Will: Honey, I don’t need your man. I got George Clooney.
Grace: Sorry, babe, he doesn’t bat for your team.
Will: Well, he hasn’t seen me pitch.
“Das Boob”
Season 2 | Episode 3
Grace’s small bosom was the focus of several digs and laughs throughout the series, and her attempt to impress an exclassmate with her water-filled bra provides the most remarkable physical comedy on the show. Unfortunately, the waterlogged brassiere deflates, much like Grace’s self-confidence, and makes for a handful of an episode.
Will: There was a time when I was a boob man. Of course, it ended when my mom switched to formula.
“Lows in the Mid-Eighties”
Season 3 | Episodes 8 and 9
Permed hair and loud patterns reign in this two-part throwback to 1985 when Will and Grace dated in college. Will does anything he can to avoid having sex with Grace and eventually comes out to her — only after he proposes marriage and Debbie Reynolds pops in as Grace’s mother.
Karen: Honey, let me give it to you in a nutshell. Your boyfriend’s a big, flaming, feather-wearing, man-kissing, discodancing, Vermont-living, Christina Aguilera-loving, Mykonos-going... Honey, take it on home!
Jack: Tom’s queer, dear.
“Bed, Bath and Beyond”
Season 4 | Episode 7
A devastated, bedridden Grace is fresh off the blow from her breakup with Nathan (Woody Harrelson) and Will, Jack, Karen and even Rosario are left to help pick up the pieces. Their attempts to comfort her culminate in a dramatic shower scene that ultimately causes the group to address their own emotional baggage. Sometimes retreating to bed can be the best way to deal with loss, after all.
Karen: I’m moving on. I’m firing people again, I’m having fun!
“Moveable Feast”
Season 4 | Episodes 9 and 10
The Thanksgiving episodes are some of the funniest of the series. The musicalchairs plot featuring the Fab Four bouncing among separate family functions that introduce a slew of guest stars (including Blythe Danner as Will’s WASPy mother, Beau Bridges as Jack’s stepfather, and the return of Debbie Reynolds).
Karen: (Stan) wants me to be sexually satisfied while he’s in prison. I don’t know why — he certainly didn’t care while he was out!
“Homojo”
Season 5 | Episode 15
After marrying dreamboat Jewish doctor Leo (Harry Connick Jr.), Grace moves to Brooklyn and realizes she and Will have to find a new groove. In their time apart the once-inseparable pair are out of sync and struggle to win their storied game night’s “Suck on It Cup” against their suburban friends. The moral of the episode? It’s not just the big life events that bring friends together but trivial jokes “that people really care about,” Will says. We’re also introduced to Stan’s mistress, Lorraine Finster (Minnie Driver), who tempts Jack with her flashy gold-digger ways but he soon turns back to Karen.
Jack: During all my struggles you’ve constantly been partially there for me. Is there anything I can pretend to do for you now?
“Last Ex to Brooklyn”
Season 6 | Episode 2
Leo invites his stylish editor ex (Mira Sorvino) to a dinner party with Grace, who brings along the crew as she attempts to ensure there’s no drama. And there isn’t — until it’s revealed that Leo’s ex is actually the only woman Will slept with after breaking up with Grace in college. And it turns out their vodka and Squirt-soaked tryst on her futon means a lot more to her than it did to him.
Grace: She’s beautiful, she’s funny, she’s smart. She’s like my twin!
Karen: Yeah, right, honey. Just like Randy Quaid is Dennis Quaid’s twin.
“The Finale”
Season 8 | Episodes 23 and 24
The two-part finale ties together the themes of fate and destiny that were introduced in the first episode. It even features callbacks to George Clooney on and ends with a kiss between the titular characters that mirrors the pilot’s final scene.
Seeing Will and Grace implode (again, over the possibility of raising a child together) and jumping 17 years into the future is too much to cram in during the show’s final moments.
Creators Max Mutchnick and David Kohan announced that the time-jump is now a mere fantasy — in fact, so are the kids and partners. It’s now listed as a special feature clip on the show’s Hulu page, meant to be forgotten like Karen’s dominatrix movie.
“We never would have gone in that direction if we weren’t ending the show,” Mutchnick said at the Television Critics Association Thursday last month.
Karen: You know, sometimes it seems like our sole purpose in life is just to serve Will and Grace.
Jack: Right? It’s like all people see when they look at us, “they’re the supporting players on the ‘Will and Grace’ show.”
Karen: But, you know, to be fair, we couldn’t really have our own show. I mean, we’re fun for poops and giggles but it’d get silly after a while. Not enough heart.