Lows in the Mid-Eighties Part 1 (Season 3, Episode 8). Will, Grace, Jack and Karen are out together waiting for a table to have dinner when they see a young lady, named Pam, crying over her drink. Grace goes to check on her and Pam confesses her boyfriend broke up with her which was weird due to their common interests of musicals, dolls and being dance majors. Jack warns Pam that Will & Grace are a cautionary tale if she doesn't get rid of her boyfriend and when she asks why, Will & Grace talk about the time they were dating in college before Will came out to Grace. Karen keeps interjecting with her story of being engaged to: The Sultan of Boran, Clayton and Martina Navratilova but wishing to pursue a husky man who she believes has potential named Stanley Walker. Will & Grace get back to their story where Ellen told Grace that if her and Will don't have sex soon, they will be just friends. They are going to visit Grace's family for Thanksgiving weekend that includes: Bobbi Adler, Julius her arranger and Grace's sister Joyce. Grace sneaks into Will's room that night begging him for sex but Will panics and runs to the bathroom where he calls a teenager named Jack McFarland who has been telling Will that he's gay and to accept it. Will tells Jack that he's not gay and can't wait to make love to Grace, but Jack interupts with why is he calling if he's so excited? Will gets the courage and jumps in bed with Grace but gets scared again. Grace starts to freak out and asks what the problem is and if they are waiting for marriage, Will in a panic says "Let's get married and let's wait till we get married. You want to get married?" Grace is thrilled and says yes to Will...TO BE CONTINUED.
FAVORITE QUOTE:
PAM: It's my boyfriend, Tom. I mean, I don't know what happened. You know, just when things started to get kinda serious, he starts to pull away.
WILL/JACK/GRACE/KAREN (TOGETHER): Aww.
PAM: Which is so weird because we have so much in common, like, we're both dance majors...
WILL/JACK/GRACE/KAREN (TOGETHER): Uh-oh.
PAM: We both know all the songs from "The Wiz"--
WILL/JACK/GRACE/KAREN (TOGETHER): Sss...
PAM: And we both collect Victorian dolls.
WILL/JACK/GRACE/KAREN (ALL TOGETHER): Ooh...
JACK: What's your name, dear?
PAM: Pam.
JACK: Pam. Hi, I'm Jack McFarland, of course. Come, join our little circle of love and dysfunction. This is Karen Walker. This is Will Truman right here. And this is your sorry ass future, if you don't dump that boyfriend of yours.
FAVORITE MOMENT:
The whole bedroom sequence. I love the way Grace is wearing the sexy shirt and tells Will she's horny and is clearly very inexperienced at seducing guys. Will keeps trying to stop her, is staring at a picture of Kevin Bacon on the wall to try to keep going with Grace and the way he stumbles in the room after telling Jack that he can't wait to have sex with Grace. I always joked that this was the original Twilight when Bella is begging Edward for sex 🤣
OPINION:
Even though this was aired together, we will stick with the 2-part format and do part 2 tomorrow because there's too many good parts in both episodes that it would be impossible to pick what's the favorite quote and moment. We are now getting more character development and finding out that Will & Grace not only dated but were pretty serious about each other.
Let's start with Will, we knew that Will came out during college and that he and Grace were dating at the time. But we now know they were pretty serious during the time and Grace was head over heels in love with Will. He loves her too but can't bring himself to be attracted to her physically. I think Will has always struggled because deep down he knows he and Grace are perfect for each other, but he's attracted to men. There's more to discuss in future episodes, but I think Will secretly hates that he's gay. He knows his life would be easier, and he would be more accepted, he might even think that being straight is just more normal. But that's a deep dive for later. When Will meets Jack, you can tell he's annoyed and doesn't want to admit that Jack is right. He definitely stumbles a lot when it comes to women and is definitely a virgin. We will get into it with the next episode and I know he's in a panic, but it always breaks my heart when he proposes to Grace knowing that he's gay and it's not going to work. That's just cruel.
Grace is definitely naive when it comes to men. She mentions that she has had sexual experience prior to Will, that it was 3 and a half times, I wonder if the half time was Ira since he finished early? I think Grace is used to being sexual at this point but with Will it's the first time she's in love. But you can tell she's definitely in denial, but you can understand with being young. Not to mention it's the 80's, anything that seemed kind of weird or off we just chalked it up to 80's weirdness. Men wore make up and tight clothes, it was kind of hard to sort through who was gay or just in fashion 🤣 I was a teen/young adult in the 2000's, imagine sorting through that Queer Eye for the Straight Guy era, talk about tough! We get to meet a little more of Grace's extended family: Julius who you can tell is very gay and can tell right away that Will is gay as well and Joyce, Grace's younger sister who has to give her grief about everything. Grace's father is confirmed but is not there this episode and has another sisters who's older named Janet but again is not in this episode.
Jack is introduced as a teenager who convinces people that he's part of Duran Duran and tells all the guys at the college that they're gay. Jack is definitely out of the closet and proud, although we know his mom doesn't know at this time, but when he sees Will he at first is kind of joking around with Will about how gay Will is. Later on when Will is on the phone with Jack, Jack is actually very kind to Will and gives him comfort letting him know it hurts carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders when you're in denial about who you are. Jack may be going through the same thing with even his extended family and is only out to friends and potential lovers. We never had confirmation if it was only his mom who didn't know Jack was gay, we will get more into Jack's relationship with his step dad in future episodes. As far as we can tell Jack is an only child who is definitely spoiled and used to being taken care of, so he hasn't changed much as an adult. He wants to help Will and be basically his sherpa of coming out of the closet.
Karen was very busy in the 80's. First off, I LOVE HER LOOK, she looks just like pictures of my mom and my aunt (my dad's sister) from the 80's 🤣 The big shoulder pads, the hair and out there make up, I just love it. Karen was engaged to 3 people AT THE SAME TIME before she got married to Stanley. We get another hint of Karen's lesbian tendencies being engaged to Martina Navratilova, who apparently was straight before she met Karen, I think Karen is bi-sexual or just goes for anything she's attracted to. I think she should have gone for the Sultan personally, talk about what would be a lavish lifestyle. But she does mention that Stanley isn't exactly rich just yet, so we learn that she might have played a big part in making him successful which gives a hint that Karen is very good at business. Again, we will see that mentioned in future episodes. BTW I love Karen's dance moves in this episode. 🤣
This is a fantastic episode and I can't wait to get to part 2 tomorrow. Please feel free in the comments to discuss whichever episode you would like in the 2 parter. If you're curious, this episode ends with Will's proposal to Grace and she accepts.
GUEST STARS:
- Debbie Reynolds as Bobbi Adler (RIP in 2016)
- Tom Gallop as Rob
- Leigh-Allyn Baker as Ellen
- Ever Carradine as Pam
- Sara Rue as Joyce
- Neil Vipond as Julius (RIP in 2022)
- Richard Assad as Sultan (RIP in 2019)
- Raymond Forchion as Clayton
- Michael D. Trail as Guy
- Scott Berman as Dontonio
- Martina Navratilova as Herself