The season 2 finale of the Will & Grace revival aired on Thursday, April 4. Although the show has been renewed for another year, it could’ve ended on the note that it did given what they were able to pack into a 22-minute episode.
“Jack’s Big Gay Wedding” was the title of the finale, and boy was it ever. The initial plan was for Jack (Sean Hayes) and Estefan (Brian Jordan Alvarez) to get married in Spain. Things changed when their flight was initially delayed, then canceled.
The episode began with Grace (Debra Messing) and Will (Eric McCormack) arguing over her boyfriend Noah (David Schwimmer) not going to the wedding. I’ve never been a fan of the Grace/Noah relationship, and neither has Will clearly, must to Grace’s frustrations.
Karen (Megan Mullally) is still having an identity crisis over if she’s a lesbian or not. She had her first same-sex kiss with Nikki (Samira Wiley) on last week’s episode after the two were trapped in Karen’s office building during a snowstorm.
Will’s boyfriend McCoy (Matt Bomer) gets an amazing job offer overseas in London, which makes both of them happy but frightened at the idea of a long distance relationship. McCoy turns down the offer to stay with Will, which only confuses things for them as Will didn’t want him to do that.
So there’s a lot of problems going into the finale that blissfully play themselves out at the end of the show. Estefan comes up with the idea of getting married at midnight in the airport. What, do you wanna have our honeymoon in the men’s room?” Jack joked. “Why not?” Estefan replied. “That’s where we had our second date.”
The problem in this is that they have no one to marry them. Cue legendary drag queen Coco Peru, who angrily greets them after discovering she wasn’t invited to their wedding. Turns out she’s an ordained minister, as she was heading to Miami to marry her sister, so it became a crisis averted kind of situation for Jack and Estefan. She agrees to marry them before the scene fades to black.
Grace has a chance encounter before the wedding with a chef named Marcus (Veep star Reid Scott). He talks about dropping everything he has going on currently for a trip to Europe with no return date. This interests Grace in two different ways: the attraction towards him and a possible life shift for her. Noah never shows up to the wedding, even though he could’ve as they didn’t wind up going to Spain. Grace then hops on the flight with Marcus for what could be the start of her next relationship.
Will & Grace hilariously draws from the iconic episode of Ellen DeGeneres‘ sitcom Ellen in regards to Karen’s sexuality. Smitty the bartender (Charles C. Stevenson Jr.) convinces Karen that she’s not a lesbian, she’s just lost. This is, of course, after he tells another heartbreaking tale about his family and she cracks up about it. Nikki then arrives only for Karen to stutter over her words when trying to tell her that she’s not a lesbian. “I’m straight,” she says over the airport P.A. system. Ellen did the exact opposite when coming out to the woman she liked during “The Puppy Episode”.
The airport wedding then happens between Jack and Estefan, even though most of the people who were in attendance were waiting to board their next flight. Will and McCoy were in their own personal hell towards the back of the ceremony, which did a 180 after Will proposed to him right before Jack and Estefan became official.
This makes Jack freak out before Will compliments him and things resume to normal. So Will and McCoy are engaged, Jack and Estefan are married, Karen is straight but lost and Grace is off on another potential romantic adventure.
If this was the series finale. I’d be fine. Yes, there is the unknown with what could happen with Karen and Grace in particular, but everyone else ended up OK. I don’t think they will renew W&G past the third season of its revival, and if that’s the case, then it will be interesting to see how these writers actually end each of their storylines.
If I could write the series finale, based on how the season finale went, this is how it would go. Will marries McCoy and they do make the move to London so he can start his dream job. Jack and Estefan will adopt or use a surrogate and become first-time parents. Karen finds herself. I’m not sure how, but I hope there’s more emotional development with her as the character Megan has portrayed has had so many levels to it that range from hilarious to depressing.
For Grace, it could go a multitude of ways. Grace has a lot of Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) in her in terms of how she navigates the world of dating. There could be this Sex and the City ending where she either ends up with Marcus, Leo (Harry Connick Jr.) or by herself. As for now, any of those things work, however I hope that Grace’s ultimate conclusion is that she is enough. A man does not define her.
This is the opinion of one contributing writer and not that of Instinct Magazine or other Contributing Writers.
He’s too young for Jack