Will & Grace Is Dorsum and It's Like It Never Left

L-R: Debra Messing equally Grace Adler, Eric McCormack as Will Truman. Photo: Chris Haston/NBC

A truly satisfying Boob tube reboot can either boldly take familiar characters into surprising, experimental territory (run into: Twin Peaks: The Return) or it tin say: Spiral information technology. Permit'southward do what works and more or less pretend as if no time has passed.

Will & Grace, which originally ran on NBC for eight seasons from 1998 to 2006, sprints full barrel toward choice B. That said, its ninth season premiere — ambulation Thursday at 9 on NBC, if you somehow missed the promotional train — doesn't feel entirely familiar. That's because the get-go episode of the the out-and-proud sitcom focuses heavily on Donald Trump, as Grace (Debra Messing) gets hired by the president to redecorate the Oval Office — Karen (Megan Mullally), a Trump supporter and friend of Melania (natch) recommended her for the job — and Volition (Eric McCormack) goes to Washington to encounter an anti-EPA Republican senator who likewise happens to be a hottie. Jack (Sean Hayes), of grade, comes along for the Amtrak ride … and to hitting on an quondam friend in the Hugger-mugger Service.

Information technology's not surprising that Volition & Grace would shoot right out of the gate with political cloth considering that'due south what got us hither in the first place. The thought to bring back the comedy about a gay homo, his hetero all-time girlfriend, and their scene-stealing closest pals came out of a short go-out-the-vote video made by the Volition & Grace crew during last twelvemonth's ballot. Now, a year later, Will & Grace is dorsum on network television, Donald Trump is in the White Firm, and Grace Adler is dropping the term "fake news" into conversation.

One of the things that feels a trivial off about episode one — called, appropriately, "Xi Years Later" — is the fact that the dialogue and plot lines take been contorted unnaturally to tap into the current political moment. Will & Grace was certainly progressive in that it was the first broadcast comedy aimed at a mainstream audience that, from the very start, depicted the lives of gay characters. The evidence was rarely overtly political, though. Sometimes its reliance on gay stereotypes and jokes at the expense of Karen's El Salvadoran housekeeper Rosario were pretty regressive. While it makes sense that the current commander-in-chief would exist on these characters' minds, it'south more a little forced and weird to see Karen belongings up a curtain swatch in the Oval Office while Grace pairs it with a Cheeto. ("I need to brand certain information technology works with his coloring," she says wryly.)

What is not forced or weird at all, though, is the comedic chemistry between the iv leads. Messing, McCormack, Hayes, and Mullally haven't lost a unmarried sassy footstep in their years out of each other's orbits. Happily, episodes two and iii revert to more traditional Volition & Grace discipline matter — dating issues, problems in the workplace, and fast-paced, frequently concrete comedy — that gives them the opportunity to more than effectively work their charms.

At that place'south an extended bit in episode 2 involving Karen, Grace, and a malfunctioning voice-activated shower that requires the 2 women to argue over whether or not Karen, who continues to audio similar an angry baby doll on helium, deserves a heighten while floating in the slowly filling equivalent of a human being goldfish bowl. It'due south the stuff of archetype I Dearest Lucy–style comedy and both Messing and Mullally take an instinct for information technology that quite literally expands when immersed in water.

The men remain equally gifted. McCormack however consistently delivers his sarcastic bon mots with the dryness of a Saltine left out in the desert, while Hayes is nonetheless every bit endearingly frenetic and wicked in his retorts. "He doesn't like Madonna," Will says of the 20-something, played by Ben Platt of Beloved Evan Hansen fame, that he's attempting to date. "He should exist beaten with a VHS copy of Evita," Jack responds without even a millisecond of hesitation. Will & Grace is cleverly written and directed with crisp polish by veteran James Burrows, who has directed every single episode in the evidence'southward unabridged run. But it wouldn't be nearly every bit fun to lookout man without these four actors.

The new Will & Grace handles history in fascinating means. Every bit all the Trump talk suggests, the show makes a concerted effort to assert that information technology'southward happening in 2017, with all the references to Grindr and Obamacare that entails. Merely watching it too is alike to jumping through a portal back to the year 2000: The stars haven't changed, the campy sense of humor hasn't changed, even the twinkly, pianoforte-based musical interludes haven't changed. The opening scene in the first episode underlines that bespeak past making it clear to the audience that merely about everything that occurred in what was then accounted the series finale didn't actually happen: Will and Grace did wind up with other partners but are now divorced. They as well never grew autonomously or went on to take kids who would eventually current of air upwards at the same college, as "The Finale" from 2006 unsaid.

"That tracks," Karen says, with more than a twinge of irony, as all of this is chop-chop explained.

It doesn't track at all, of class; if another series declared that major elements of its ain finale suddenly weren't catechism, information technology would exist a preposterous, disastrous motion. Merely on Will & Grace, it doesn't even matter. The appeal of this weekly semi-sexually fluid rom-com has zippo to do with what really happens in the lives of actual gay and straight New Yorkers. It was and is about spending time in this utterly silly, farcical corner of fantasy Manhattan, with these particular dysfunctional gay and straight people. Possibly we don't need them to take on Trump, simply right now, a lot of Americans may demand the refreshing intermission from reality that Volition, Grace, Jack, and Karen provide. It's overnice to have them with us again.

Will & Grace Is Dorsum and Information technology'southward Similar Information technology Never Left