MOVEABLE FEAST

Will & Grace

Season 4 (2001)

Rosario digs in

Nick and I recently bought and watched the complete series of Will & Grace, start to finish.  Minus the holidays episodes, at my insistence.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: holiday episodes must only be viewed during their appropriate season!  So we were excited to now be able to go back and watch the Thanksgiving episodes we earlier skipped.  Out of all the holidays Will & Grace made the most of Thanksgiving, with several hour-long special episodes over the course of its 8 seasons.  Despite the extra running time, however, the holiday usually just played backdrop to whatever drama the characters were currently undergoing.

A case in point is this episode, in which Will, Grace, Jack and Karen all agree to visit their respective families on Thanksgiving before heading back to share a meal together.  They leave maid Rosario to watch over the cooking turkey and set a strict time limit for each obligatory family visit. 

First Karen visits her (always unseen) husband Stan in jail and is upset when he tells her she should start sleeping around.  Next up is Grace, who takes the gang to her Aunt Honey’s.  Aunt Honey is played by the always welcome Lainie Kazan, but she’s barely given anything to do save wear a fabulous muumuu.  Instead the focus is on the equally vibrant Debbie Reynolds in the role of Grace’s overbearing songstress mother.  Grace ends up telling her mother off and the group promptly departs when their allotted time is up.

Debbie sings the blues.

They then visit Jack’s stepfather, bringing Jack’s son Elliott with them.  Jack is infuriated when his stepfather is kind and friendly towards Elliott in a way he never was toward Jack.  Once again the group makes a hasty departure and arrive at their final destination: Will’s parents’ house.  Will’s dad is off with his mistress and Will’s patrician mother, played to the hilt by Blythe Danner, is holding court.  When Will’s brother attempts to ditch out early they force Will’s mother to chose who stays and she chooses the brother over Will, much to his surprise.

It's a very WASPy Thanksgiving, Charlie Brown

While all of this is happening Rosario is slowly devouring the turkey and then attempting to cover up her gluttony.  Once the foursome make it home, ready for their meal, they then decide to go back and wrap up their unfinished business at an even more hectic pace.  Everyone gets some form of closure and make it back yet again only to discover that Rosario has polished off the last of the turkey.

Ron Swanson, is that you?!

Whew!  That’s a lot of story but sadly none of it is that compelling. Will & Grace was at its best when it was zany and frivolous; all of the attempts at going deep are frankly a bore.  My favorite section is the part dealing with Will’s family.  We get the most Thanksgiving in those scenes as well as a guest appearance by a pre-mustache, pre-Parks & Recreation Nick Offerman (who is married to Megan Mullaly in real life) as a sexy plumber who tempts Karen.  In addition to Offerman, this episode does feature an impressive line-up of guest stars, including one of my favorite drag queens, Coco Peru, in the pre-credits scene, a memorable party-line split-screen between all of the characters.

Coco Peru, in the center of the bottom row, minus her wig.

Recurring Themes: We have our first occurrence of Multiple Meals (even though they don’t do a lot of actual eating).

The Menu: Turkey

Thanksgiving Quotient: 3

See It, Skip It, Own It?

This episode is both somehow overstuffed and yet not fully satisfying.  Maybe watch just the scenes set at Will’s house or skip it altogether.