S11.E18: It's Time

[FormerMod-a1]

Quote

Will is determined to not reminisce about his life in the city or his ex; Grace has false alarms of going into labor; Karen attempts to get closure with her ex-husband; Jack's dream of taking a bow on a Broadway stage becomes a very real possibility.

Original air date: April 23, 2020

[chitowngirl]

Well-that was...underwhelming

[Annber03]

I totally thought Grace was going to go into labor while Jack was performing on stage. Kinda wish we'd seen both her and her new baby and at least a little of Jack's Broadway debut. 

Still, a nice ending all in all. I like that Will and McCoy are back together :). 

"That seaman on the floor is my husband!" LOL. 

[sashayshante]

Wow. And I thought the original finale was awful. All that build up and we don't even see them with the babies? We should have seen that happening when they didn't have Grace show until about 3 episodes ago.

[Snow Apple]

Was that really Debra and Megan in the statue of liberty scene? It looked like they used body doubles because they never showed both their faces at the same time.

Last year's season finale would have made a better ending.

[Blakeston]

Estefan was still alive at the end of the episode, so I didn't get everything I wanted.

But on the plus side, there was nothing as ridiculous as Beverly Leslie signing over his fortune to Jack in exchange for sex, and then dying from a gust of wind.

[jewel21]

I wanted to see Grace's and Will's kids so that was a bit disappointing. Everything else as fine and I like that Will got back with McCoy and Will and Grace will continue to co-parent. 

[A.J.]

2 hours ago, Snow Apple said:

Last year's season finale would have made a better ending.

So true.  I loved, loved, loved that episode.  That was one of the best of this entire run.   

[Prower]

2 hours ago, sashayshante said:

Wow. And I thought the original finale was awful.

Ah come on. This had a few problems, but the original finale suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucked. I'm so glad it will forever be just a weird hallucination Karen had.

2 hours ago, sashayshante said:

All that build up and we don't even see them with the babies? We should have seen that happening when they didn't have Grace show until about 3 episodes ago.

I think they overcorrected a bit too much from the last finale, where they showed way too much and all of it crappy.

But overall, it was a nice ending. Also a nice last shot.

Edited April 24, 2020 by Prower

[KWalkerInc]

The fact that Karen hinted that getting access to a lot more money was a factor in why she reunited with Stan oddly made me feel better about that resolution.  It's still lazy as hell though.

I did like how they handled McCoy's return.  I was afraid from the episode description that they would just jump back in and end Will's plans with Grace, which would have been really abrupt when they hadn't had McCoy on for most of the season.  It's interesting that the writers changed course and decided that Will and Grace's dynamic wasn't so bad after all.  Two years ago, the whole (awful) finale was everyone deciding they had to be married immediately--even to people they barely knew--so that they "wouldn't end up like Will and Grace."

[Harvey]

I love that Karen ended up with Stan. They are clearly perfect for each other. Lorraine Finster's appearance was so fun and unexpected 🙂

Although I knew it about it well in advance, I was still happy that in the end McCoy and Will got together.

[Snow Apple]

I almost forgot this one throwaway line. When Jack was listing all the ways the understudies can be taken out, one of the suggestion was a respiratory infection. Yikes! I know this was filmed way in advance but I'm surprised they didn't edit that line out.

 

[ThePurpleArcher]

The last shot of Will turning off the lights in his apartment is a tired cliche by now. 

It was original when 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show' ended on that note (Mary turning the lights off in the office, and closing the door) and became a classic over the past 43 years (her show ended in March, 1977).  It still brings tears to my eyes - even in repeats.  Yet so many long-running shows have ended that way, it has lost it's sentiment.

[willgracefan]

4 hours ago, Snow Apple said:

I almost forgot this one throwaway line. When Jack was listing all the ways the understudies can be taken out, one of the suggestion was a respiratory infection. Yikes! I know this was filmed way in advance but I'm surprised they didn't edit that line out.

 

Right! I caught that line too. They finished in December, plenty of time to edit that line out. 

[iMonrey]

WTF. That's it? When the half hour ended I thought there was going to be another episode. Then that dumb retrospective started and I realized that was it. Wow. Much like the whole reboot it was pointless and anticlimactic. The whole thing just felt so cheap and lazy.

I'm one of the few that thought the original ending made more sense. The reason Will and Grace were never successful at long-term romantic pairings with other people is that they were too codependent on each other. They really had to break up in order to move on with other people. 

This whole season just felt off but somehow I expected more from the finale. Certainly more than this.

[ams1001]

I was kind of expecting it to end in a hospital room with everyone gathered around Grace's baby, and possibly with Will's baby being coincidentally born at the same time. It would have been pretty cliche, though, so part of me is glad they didn't go that route. I guess they sort of fulfilled the "audience meets the baby" trope with Will's flash-forward vision of the toddler-age kids playing together in the new house in the previous episode.

I liked the comments about the picture throughout and then Will taking it with him at the end.

[Snow Apple]

Yeah, how long is McCoy going to stick around knowing Grace is part of the deal? She's always going to be number one. McCoy will be behind Grace, two babies, and probably Jack.

Like Michael(?) once said, dating Grace is dating both Will and Grace. A threesome but not the fun kind.

[Bruinsfan]

Overall I liked it a lot better than the original series finale. Grace and Will seem to have grown comfortable with their BFF dynamic, Jack got to live out his Broadway dream, and Karen owned up to the fact she loves Stan('s fortune). Certainly it didn't have awful things like W&G being on the outs for years after finding significant others. And seeing Lorraine Finster again was a treat—I only wish Shelley Morrison, Debbie Reynolds, and Sydney Pollack were still with us to have made appearances.

 

About the only thing I didn't like was McCoy coming back and referring to HIMSELF as Prince Charming. My jaw dropped when Bomer said that line, and I waited in vain for Will to reply with a snarky comment or McCoy to explain he was talking about Will. With Vince I could envision a happily-ever-after, but McCoy is going to get run over by a bus while captivated by his reflection in a store window.

[JayD83]

It was worse than the first finale.  It wasn't funny, it wasn't heartwarming, and it wasn't dramatic.  It was very basic and incomplete. 

What a waste. 

[marina707]

I'm not sure how/how long a Will and McCoy relationship could work, so I kind of didn't see the point of his return. The reason things didn't work between them to begin with was that he didn't want kids, and that's enough of a dealbreaker when having a kid is some nebulous thing that exists in a hypothetical future. A kid that more or less already exists is an even bigger deal, and unless I missed something, McCoy hasn't changed his mind. (Not that he should, I don't want kids either, but I feel like it does make you incompatible with someone who wants/has them.)

There's a Deadline interview with the writers (here if anyone's interested) that makes it sound (at least to me) more casual (it refers to Will and Grace having "lovers") and I guess if you don't want kids and are seeing someone who has them it's not quite as big a deal if it's a more casual thing and you don't plan on marriage or a super committed relationship or whatever (and I guess in that case it's not necessarily as much of an issue that, like Snow Apple said, Grace will always come first), but "happily ever after" (at least in the context it was said in) doesn't really convey that, in my opinion. I'm probably putting way too much thought into it, though.

But overall, I liked it much better than the first finale.

[scrb]

I have absolutely no recollection of the orig. finale.

may have to watch it somewhere.

Eh I didn’t like the pregnancy story line and they dropped it for a few episodes, which was ok.

 

[TVbitch]

I thought the writing was better in this episode, with crisper banter bouncing back and forth among the cast, and the actors a bit more in character. The stuff in the taxi was pretty classic saucy Will & Grace. I had to watch it twice cuz the jokes were flying and I wasn't catching them all.

 

 

[iMonrey]

If I'm being generous, I'd say this was the "correction" for all those fans who hated the original ending where Will and Grace broke up and led separate lives for 20 years. But whereas the original felt thoughtful and introspective, this just felt slapped together to me. McCoy showing up out of the blue just felt tacked on too. Are we supposed to believe he's the love of Will's life? Their relationship was relatively brief; Will was with Vince a lot longer, and that's who he wound up with long-term in the original series. It was a much more serious relationship, where they drifted apart, broke up, then came back together. The thing with McCoy never felt serious, he's such a cartoon. 

It's interesting they never established a love interest for Grace though, if they felt it that important for Will to end up with one.

[ams1001]

It must have been underwhelming if two days later there aren't even 25 comments on it (I just scrolled down and counted 22, not including the initial thread starter).

[Gothish520]

I will definitely take it over the original finale, and I like how everyone "ended up", but it felt like there was stuff missing. I feel cheated out of seeing at least one baby! Demi Lovato was nowhere to be found - another sweet scene with her and Will would have been nice. 

I like McCoy and Will together and I'm glad they are giving their relationship another chance, but again, I would have liked to see a bit more of them discussing things and a tender moment. Also would have enjoyed a cute scene between Jack and Estefan. And maybe something with Will and Grace starting to move in to their new house.

Basically, another half hour covering the above situations and this would've been perfect, lol. This series really deserved a proper hour-long finale.

[sashayshante]

It never made sense to me that they wrote out the father of Grace's baby. He had a momentary freak out, then realized he was being an ass and wanted to be part of the baby's life. While they didn't have to pair Will and the guy off, making her decide to raise the baby alone seemed selfish. Which, of course, Grace is, but denying her baby a relationship with his father for no substantive reason made her seem unredeemably selfish. It wasn't the empowering decision I think the writers were going for.

They either should have committed to W/G choosing to raise the babies together as their own version of a family or had them both pair off. Having them buy a house together in some teenty-tiny suburb only to have McCoy come back made no sense. And COME ON but neither W nor G would be happy living in some out of the way suburb.

[MaryMitch]

I'm one of the few (apparently) that loved the original finale. And I liked this one too, for the most part.

- I liked that we didn't see the baby(s). This show is about Will and Grace, and I like that they ended it with them (and of course Karen and Jack).

- I liked all the callbacks and winks to Jack's past jobs.

- I didn't like the return of McCoy; didn't see any chemistry there. Plus he was a jerk for not calling Will when he must have known Will would hear he was back in town.

- I liked the "turning out the lights" moment; that's just classic.

[Harvey]

5 hours ago, sashayshante said:

It never made sense to me that they wrote out the father of Grace's baby. He had a momentary freak out, then realized he was being an ass and wanted to be part of the baby's life. While they didn't have to pair Will and the guy off, making her decide to raise the baby alone seemed selfish. Which, of course, Grace is, but denying her baby a relationship with his father for no substantive reason made her seem unredeemably selfish. It wasn't the empowering decision I think the writers were going for.

They either should have committed to W/G choosing to raise the babies together as their own version of a family or had them both pair off. Having them buy a house together in some teenty-tiny suburb only to have McCoy come back made no sense. And COME ON but neither W nor G would be happy living in some out of the way suburb.

They wanted to include the father of Grace's baby in the final season but they couldn't because of scheduling conflicts, that is why she decided to do it solo.

The father was Leo, Noah, Nathan or James.

Quote

Max Mutchnick revealed that they knew exactly who the father was. That they didn’t let viewers in on the secret, Kohan said, “was intentional.”

How come? Turns out, they couldn’t get the W&G alum that they needed for the episode in which they wanted to clarify the baby’s paternity. “It’s not one of those guys that you met [in Episode 2, ‘Pappa Mia’],” said Mutchnick. “There’s a backstory that we’re not going to share. Something else happened. It wasn’t an immaculate conception, but she did leave out one person she was with in Europe, and that’s who the father is. There was a scheduling issue that made it impossible to happen.”

Still, the duo was willing to divulge a big hint. Teased Mutchnick: “We had decided creatively that a past lover of hers was the father, and she saw him in Europe.”

https://tvline.com/2020/04/24/will-grace-baby-father-series-finale-dad/

Let's keep in mind that in the original run of the show, Leo moved to Italy and Grace mentioned being there too, so I think him being the father is a lot more likely than Noah who is a New York city resident.

[Gothish520]

8 minutes ago, Harvey said:

They wanted to include the father of Grace's baby in the final season but they couldn't because of scheduling conflicts, that is why she decided to do it solo.

The father was Leo, Noah, Nathan or James.

Let's keep in mind that in the original run of the show, Leo moved to Italy and Grace mentioned being there too, so I think him being the father is a lot more likely than Noah who is a New York city resident.

Maybe it's Nathan! He was my favorite of Grace's loves, but I did like Noah too, until he became an ass. Well, more of an ass, lol.

Edited April 27, 2020 by Gothish520

[Lone Wolf]

 

On 4/24/2020 at 5:09 AM, Snow Apple said:

I almost forgot this one throwaway line. When Jack was listing all the ways the understudies can be taken out, one of the suggestion was a respiratory infection. Yikes! I know this was filmed way in advance but I'm surprised they didn't edit that line out.

 

 

On 4/24/2020 at 9:34 AM, willgracefan said:

Right! I caught that line too. They finished in December, plenty of time to edit that line out. 

The writing was slightly tone deaf this season - I remember there was a joke about Casey Anthony in one episode that was really insensitive, IMO.

It was an okay finale to an okay reboot.  I had fun watching (and snarking) this time around, but I'm not going to miss it.

 

[link417]

I never got the hate for the original finale, but I liked this one too. It did seem a bit rushed, like they were trying to tie up all the loose ends at once, but I’ll take it. I’m gonna miss this show.

I loved the running gag about the painting. It was one of those things you’d notice but never paid too much attention to, so it was nice that they had all thought it was Will all this time, and that he felt attached enough to come back for it.

[marshmallows]

Wow so much hate for this finale from the fans.

I feel like I might get ambushed for saying I liked it.

For me, the original finale was so sad. It was always Will and Grace and then they just split them up for like 20 years. That just seemed like a slap in the face to me.

I love that Will and Grace finally became comfortable with essentially ending up together in a non-romantic way (honestly the way a lot of marriages end up turning out to be anyways). They truly loved and accepted each other. They would always be there for each other. They were each other's rock. 

Loved Jack getting his debut and I actually found the line about the respiratory virus funny (in a dark humor kind of way). I'm glad they didn't edit it out.

Also loved Karen getting back with Stan. It just made sense. 

Also liked the turning off the lights and walking out the door. I'm a sucker for cheesy classic stuff like that.

The only thing I didn't like so much was McCoy coming back. I'm not against Will being able to have a love interest. It just felt undeserved and rushed.

Overall, I was pleased with the revival and the finale. Honestly, it was the only revival I've watched that has been done right.

[sydney365]

Watching the ending is like saying goodbye to a dear friend. I do not think there will be a TV series that can bring me same level of joy and same intensity of laugh