Will & Grace – The Beefcake and The Cake Beef

By: Kelly Kearney

A sweet confectionary somehow injure our moral integrity. When it comes to food, Grace rarely takes sides (she’s too busy eating) but discrimination in the name of buttercream frosting is where the designer draws the line. Elsewhere, Will jumps into a relationship with his ex but are things moving too fast or has the lonely lawyer finally found his one true love? Its rushed romances and civil rights on this week’s “Will and Grace.”

Will’s In Love

After last week’s breadcrumb trail and deep like Instagram fiasco, Will (Eric McCormack) decided to put himself out there and call his ex, Michael (Cheyenne Jackson). Now the two are inseparable and Will is head over hells for his former turned current flame and it is starting to become nauseating. Like most new relationships, Will’s head is in the clouds and his brain is running on 24/7 Michael and Jack (Sean Hayes) and Grace (Debra Messing) can barely stomach his obsessive cheer. Someone needs to tell Will to turn down his relationship enthusiasm and Grace nominates Jack to do the dirty work.

Meanwhile, Karen (Megan Mullally) heads to the local bakery where she runs into a problem when the owner Kim (Vanessa Bayer) refuses to create a MAGA (“make America great again”) cake for her good friend Donald Trump. Even after the woman tries to be nice, Karen, the conservative idealist responds with, “Oh, we don’t care about the problems of the white working class. We just said that to win the election.” Karen Walker speaking truth, justice and the MAGA way.  No matter how politely Amy explains why her morals prevent her from making a cake for a man whose immorality does not jive with her strongly held convictions, Karen plays the victim and demands her Presidential birthday cake. The two women are locked in a battle of wills and Karen has no other choice than to take her problem to the first bleeding heart liberal/fashion disaster she knows, Grace Adler. Karen calls the office and Grace’s assistant Tony (Anthony Ramos) answers while his boss is busy working. He takes a message and appeases Karen with a description of whatever fashion fail Grace came to work in. Once Tony relays the message, Grace jumps into social justice action when she assumes the baker is infringing on Karen’s right to buy a gay themed cake. Then Tony drops the bomb: The cake is for Donald Trump. Grace’s fervor for free market capitalism and the Bill of Rights, takes a nose dive and she wanders back to the office letting Karen stew in her republican bake shop outrage. Refusing to help Karen doesn’t sit right with Tony and he makes his case for free speech reminding Grace that if one person’s rights are taken then all our rights are in danger. Reluctantly, she agrees with Tony and heads to the bakery to help Karen and her MAGA cake dilemma.

Jack Thinks Will Should Pump the Breaks

Back at the apartment, Will is still in his love haze and Jack’s had enough. He summons the courage to talk about Michael and how Will might be rushing into things with his ex. Will deflects Jack’s concerns and after we see Michael, its clear why – he is HOT and appears to be into Will as much as Will’s into him. Besides a few cheesy quirks, Michael seems perfect, but something about what Jack said starts to nag at Will and he tells Michael about his talk with Jack. Michael understands why Jack is wary of their relationship, he wants Will all to himself! Michael thinks Jack has been in love with Will forever so it’s only natural he would try to come between them. This news hits Will hard and its obvious this had not occurred to him.

Over at the Bakery, Grace has a chat with Amy about free speech but truly, her heart isn’t in it. Amy and Grace share the same ideas but the right to be treated equally no matter who we are or what we believe are rights Grace can’t back down from, no matter how outrageous they are. Speaking of outrageous, Karen’s listening to Grace’s wishy-washy support and says, “Frist they came for the filthy rich, and I said nothing…,” yeah, she went there, and it stops Grace in her tracks. At that point it’s a contest between Amy, who is kind of a mess herself, and Karen, to see who will back down on this cake request first. Will it be the hypocritical baker who thinks she can discriminate against anyone she doesn’t like, or the drunk millionaire ranting at a transgender man and thanking a disabled man for the wider bathroom stalls. **Side note** It’s truly a tribute to Megan Mullally comedic chops that Karen Walker can be so despicable and yet, so lovable. With hate speech being launched like cruise missiles, Grace swallows her partisan pride and stands behind Karen’s civil rights, if gays deserve wedding cakes, then Trump deserves his MAGA cake. Our unalienable rights and the freedom to believe what we want is what makes America great. Grace’s isn’t backing down, even though Karen makes it extremely hard to support when she’s yelling racially charged insults at a Latino man.

That’s What Friends Are For

Thinking its possible Jack could love him, Will has another talk with his friend about Michael’s theory that Jack might love him. Screeching like a howler monkey in heat, Jack can’t believe that Will is falling for Michael’s tricks. He thinks Michael is using Will like his own personal ATM, but Will shuts him down and refuses to believe it. That is until Michael shows up asking for Will to invest in his new gym and its clear Jack was right, Michael is a big user and Will fell for it.

At the bakery, Amy finally gives in and makes Karen’s cake and as you can imagine, the Walker gloating is epic. Grace asks to see the design, but Amy hesitates to open the box. When she finally does, its revealed that the MAGA cake has a couple of convenient typos and now says, “IMAGAY.” Amy refuses to change it so a frustrated, Grace decides to fix it herself and nabs a frosting bag. Amy grabs her hand and the two go back and forth until Grace’s ends the argument by smashing her own face through Trump’s cake. It’s a win for free speech, a win for civil rights and a defining win for Grace who loves to argue but not as much as she loves cake. Not to mention, once the word gets out about Amy’s MAGA cake, her business starts to boom. Every self-proclaimed Nazi in NYC is lining up for their freedom cakes and Amy decides to shelve her morals in the face of true capitalism.

Back at the apartment, Will admits that Jack was right about Michael and ads that he once considered a relationship with his friend. There was that time on the balcony when Jack was nervous about coming out to his mother and Will thought he could maybe love him. It was a fleeting moment and Will realized he couldn’t risk their friendship if the relationship didn’t work out. Jack is just too important to him. Will turns to Jack and asks him if he ever thought about it and Jack bursts into laughter and says, “Nope, not once.” All jokes aside, these two know how important they are to each other, romance or not, they are in this for life. In the end, it’s no surprise when they make a pact for the future. If they are old, gay, grey and still alone, they promise to meet in the middle if the Brooklyn Bridge…if only to have someone throw them off it, and really, isn’t the definition of love?  For Will, Grace, Jack and Karen love can come with unexpected twists and turns but throwing your pathetic friend off a bridge? That’s kind of love comes straight from the heart.