"Will & Grace" Move On

Where there's a Will, there's a Grace. Until Thursday night, anyway, when their platonic love affair comes to an end.

The award-winning NBC sitcom Will & Grace is throwing itself a two-hour going-away party this week after eight seasons of gaiety, which, while not always groundbreaking, were always loaded with racy double entendres and sharp zingers.

While the series was lauded by GLAAD and publications like The Advocate for prominently featuring not just one, but two, out-and-proud main characters and accurately representing the gay community, Will & Grace mainly stuck to the formula--make 'em laugh.

Because it was a comedy--a pretty raunchy one at that, and it got even more so as the years went by--the show didn't tackle too many polarizing issues besides ones that apparently are socially acceptable to make jokes about, such as infidelity, single motherhood and death.

But it did also address gay parenting, homophobia and what it's like to be a member of a minority (if you've got oodles of money or rich friends) and in doing that became a groundbreaker.

The poignancy of Will & Grace when it began in 1998 (although it slowly oozed out of the series as the guest stars and cheaper laughs started pouring in) was that the two main male characters who were gay were far more comfortable in their own skin than the straight female lead could ever hope to be.

Sure, it doesn't seem that risqué, but the openness of Eric McCormack's Will and his best friend, Jack (Sean Hayes), may have been surprising to some viewers in the show's early days. A gay man not trying to hide his sexual preference from someone? What?!

"Eight years ago, a show with two gay guys would have seemed niche," McCormack told the Associated Press. "The opposite's happened. Kids watch it, old women watch it. Everyone wanted to know when Will was getting a boyfriend." (Not quite everyone--after losing its Friends in 2004, the show lost more than 50 percent of its viewership, which topped 17 million a few years ago. Season eight averaged 7.8 million viewers a week.)

And there lies the show's cultural significance that led GLAAD President Neil Giuliano to issue this statement upon the series' demise:

"Will & Grace has given unprecedented visibility to gay, lesbian and bisexual people. This is a comedy that created an emotional connection between millions of viewers and its characters. Audiences laughed along with characters like Will and Jack, and a door opened for viewers to have a greater understanding of our lives. For many years to come, Will & Grace will continue to open hearts and minds as it lives on in syndication."

Its further cultural significance, of course, was that the show won 12 Emmys, including one for Best Comedy and acting honors for McCormack, Debra Messing, Hayes and Megan Mullally.

Meanwhile, the series' title may have been Will & Grace, but it was Hayes' narcissistic struggling actor Jack McFarland and Mullally's pill-popping socialite Karen Walker who sashayed and squeaked into viewers' hearts.

Both supporting players won an Emmy, a Golden Globe and multiple SAG Awards for their roles as the voices of mad reason behind Will and Grace's zany codependency.

A line from the series finale says it all:

Karen to Jack: "Do you find them exhausting?"

Jack: "I always have."

After a one-hour retrospective at 8 p.m. Thursday, the season finale presumably will see that the characters are happy as they head into the annals of television.

"I can tell you that it's funny and, as in the pilot, the episode is about the characters Will and Grace, with the characters of Jack and Karen there to support the Will and Grace story--which I think is the way to end the show," Hayes said diplomatically, when Tribune Media Services asked him for hints about the show's send-off. "Jack and Karen don't need these incredible loose ends to be tied up, although we'll give the fans some kind of closure for them as well."

One can assume that the return of Harry Connick Jr. as Leo means Grace will tell her ex he's the father of her baby and they'll ride off into the sunset together. Will is about ready to set up house with boyfriend Vince (Bobby Cannavale, who won an Emmy for guest-acting on the show), so perhaps he'll be able to stop acting mortally wounded whenever Grace experiences an instant of happiness. (Of course, the exact same thing can be said about her.)

As for Jack and Karen, well, put them anywhere with martinis in hand and people to make fun of and they'll be just fine.

Mullally, 47, is set to host her own syndicated talk show in the fall, but the end of Will & Grace was enough to make even Karen shed a boozy tear.

"There were a lot of snotty, tearful faces all around the set," Mullally told People recently. "When we got to the very, very last scene, everybody was just a mess. We started sobbing and hugging each other. That was it."

McCormack, 43, who has starred in The Music Man on Broadway, is currently in New York rehearsing for his lead role in the dark-comedy play Some Girls, which opens June 8.

"My saddest moment was the last time I stood in Will's kitchen," he told People. "That was the most colorful position for me, standing there and stirring something. It was my pulpit, the place where I delivered my best jokes. Deb and Megan and Sean I can see again, but not my kitchen."

Hayes, 35, has a few projects in the works at Hazy Mills Productions, the company he runs with business partner Tom Milliner.

"As sad as I am to leave, to not be able to see these people every day, I'm looking forward to other experiences in life that I haven't had the opportunity to seek out yet," Hayes said.

Messing may have gotten her fill of playing a pregnant woman this season, but she can't wait to spend more time with her two-year-old son, Roman, now that she doesn't have to say Grace every day. "Since the show wrapped, I've been able to just relax with him and go to Gymboree," she told People.

In the end, no matter how many boundaries the show did or didn't cross, there's no arguing that Will, Grace, Jack and Karen were masters of both the one-liner and at taking care of each other.

"I think the humor of the program got people there and I think the relationship got people to stay," the show's cocreator, Max Mutchnik, told the AP. "In the case of Will & Grace it's about friendship. Everybody wants that kind of relationship in their lives. Gay, straight, black or white--that's second to it."