With a Season 3 Renewal, Will & Grace Plans to Be More Politically Relevant Than Ever
The long-awaited Will & Grace revival still has two episodes left to air in its first season and it’..
The long-awaited Will & Grace revival still has two episodes left to air in its first season and it’s already been picked up for a third by NBC. Not only that, but episodes will be added to expand Season 2 from thirteen to eighteen installments, Deadline reports. The people want more Will & Grace, and NBC is more than happy to give it to us.
At Saturday’s Will & Grace PaleyFest panel in Los Angeles, the producers and cast dished about what they’d love to do with all this extra time. The show has always been politically charged—talk of revival was sparked by a 10-minute election themed mini episode released online in 2016—and NBC is not planning to change that anytime soon. “[Producer Dave Kohan] would love to do a story about citizen Trump. That’s the story he wants to tell next year, but we’re not going to tell that story until we get to that point [in reality],” executive producer Max Mutchnick told Variety. “The world is very political right now, so those are the stories we’re telling because it’s what’s going on in the world.”
From its very beginnings, Will & Grace was notable for addressing politics and gender and social issues in every episode, something that the cast and crew agree is unique especially to sitcoms. “Sitcoms have always reflected the times we live in—always, always, always,” said Sean Hayes, who plays Jack McFarland on the show. “That’s one of the great things that means Will & Grace is relevant and will always be relevant. Under that umbrella of relevancy is pop culture, sex, politics. This is one of the few shows that the characters in it are living the same lives as the audience, and that adds to the relevance.” A recent episode of the revival season involved a discussion of the freedom to express political views, centered around a plot that had Megan Mulally’s Karen Walker order a “MAGA” cake from a bakery that refused to make it for her.
Debra Messing called the current political climate a “very fertile time” for our society, though, first and foremost, Will & Grace is about allowing people to relax. “It’s been a very chaotic, stressful, confusing time in our country for over a year,” she said, “and so to be able to make people laugh, to give people a respite for a half-hour every week, gives us great joy.”
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