Will & Grace – The West Side Curmudgeon

By: Kelly Kearney

“Will and Grace” are back with a new season of laughs that are sure to appeal to the curmudgeon in all of us. This week we said hello to a new man in Grace’s life and like all things with the interior designer, the two don’t get off to a good start. Speaking of first impressions, Jack goes into full meltdown mode when he has to Skype for the first time with his fiancé’s parents. He desperately wants them to approve of his relationship with their son, but he’s worried that he won’t live up to their expectations. Can he make his soon- to- be- in-laws love him much as Jack loves himself? Probably not, but Jack is going to give it a try, even if he has to nip and tuck his way to their approval.

We open on a party in the lobby of Will and Grace’s apartment building. Grace (Debra Messing) is running for President of the Society for Interior Designers and she’s bribing them, but not with tax breaks. She is doing it with free food and refreshments.  Considering Grace doesn’t even recognize her neighbor of eighteen years Mrs. Timmer (Livia Trevino) who just happened to save her life after a spider bite, this campaign could use some work.  It’s a good thing Grace has Will (Eric McCormack) by her side, making jokes and offering ideas, because Grace isn’t the most likable resident in the building and Will is a good buffer between them and her. Even the salty spider bite neighbor says, “Your wife is yappy and rude,” and Will, with his quit wit and low-key sarcasm, responds with, “That’s why we never have sex!” Nobody does gay/straight marriage jokes quite like “Will and Grace.”

Also helping Grace out is Jack (Sean Hayes), whom she paid to blend in with the crowd in hopes his friendly demeanor will drum up votes. It’s almost like Grace knows Jack less than she knows her neighbors because McFarland can not do subtlety.  It’s just not in his DNA. So, it’s no wonder he shows up in anon-subtle brightly colored crop top and yoga pants that are so tight that Grace says she can see his, “LuLuLemons.” Grace calls Jack out for not taking this party seriously so Jack bids the campaign along with Grace’s ‘tude adieu and “namastay’s away” off to yoga class. So far, operation run for office has been a flop.

As Jack’s leaves the party to go align his chakras with a little downward dog, he passes by an angry ranting man who Will and Grace recognize as the West Side Curmudgeon (David Schwimmer), NYC very own angry Twitter celebrity. Grace and Will love him and you can see why, he hates the same things they do which is pretty much a win/win for Grace, who would love to use his social media followers to secure their votes. Grace goes to talk to him and fangirls all over the curmudgeon (a/k/a Noah) who isn’t the least bit impressed, especially after she tells him that she’s running for the President of the New York Society for Interior Designers and would love a shout out from him on his Twitter account. The Curmudgeon, named for his constant complaining, isn’t even pretending to be impressed over Grace’s story about celebrity religions leading her to a love of chicken salad! It’s evident Noah makes Grace nervous and with that comes her chatty and awkward behavior and the Noah HATES chatty red heads. Of course, he is internet famous for not liking anything, red hair or not, but something Grace must’ve said intrigued him because he takes one of her pamphlets as he walks out the door. Grace tells Will she thinks Noah likes her and took the flyer because it had her phone number on it but Will isn’t so sure, especially after he sees the Curmudgeon just posted a joke about Grace and her dumb campaign minutes after he walked out with the pamphlet in hand. He tweets that her campaign is the “dumbest award in New York” and she is livid over being duped by the man who has managed to make a living off of his bad attitude.

Enter Karen (Megan Mullally) who barges in on Will eating breakfast while in a huff after witnessing her boobs walk down Madison Avenue. Will assumes she’s hallucinating…because why wouldn’t she be? But early morning cocktails aside, she did see a woman with her breasts climbing out of the subway. She knows they’re her breasts because she stopped and glared until the woman admitted they were new and called the Karen Walkers. The boob thief even assumed Karen got a pair of Walkers from the same doctor and she is speechless. She would never go to an Italian plastic surgeon. For some reason, Karen doesn’t trust Italian doctors and even less so when they start passing out knock off knockers. Getting to the point of the interruption, Karen asks Will to shut down this counterfeit jug operation and make the doctor stop giving out her best assets. Those sweater puppies are not even trademarked, and she wants the doctor out of business. Will really doesn’t practice law since he quit to partner with Grace in the design business, but he promises his friend he will see what he can do. As Karen leaves, Jack walks in and in the millisecond that the two past each other in the doorway, Karen manages to, keep Jack up to speed on the boob drama, insult Will and scare Jack into thinking he’s not good enough for his fiancé Estefan (Brian Jordan Alvarez). Apparently in that split second, they crossed paths and Jack found a box of photos of Estefan’s exes. Now, he’s worried he can’t compare to his man’s former lovers. He’s feeling old and out of his league and so he wants the number to the boob doctor to get a little lift before he has to Skype with Estefan’s parents.

Meanwhile, Grace can’t get over Noah’s Tweet, so she is stalks him to a diner where she demands he take the insulting post down. After all, it could cost her the election and all she wanted was a boost from Noah, not the total destruction of all her chances at winning. Grace lets him know that she is shocked by his Twitter shade because he was obviously flirting with her, but he swears it was only annoyance and she is crazy. That might be true, but there is definitely a spark between these two. Sure, Noah is a jerk and yes, he won’t take down the Tweet but it’s clear he’s gotten under Grace’s skin.

Speaking of skin, Jack meets with Karen’s nemesis doctor and is given some medicated cream to numb his face before his procedure. Typical Jack ignores the directions and lathers it all over his face like mask, hoping that more is better. Will warns him about getting addicted to the knife, but Jack’s not listening. He’s too busy licking the cream off his lips and this particular numbing cream can have drastic effects like numbing your face, mouth, tongue and hands! In a matter of minutes, Jack experiences all of those effects at once. His hands go numb, his face droops, his speech is slurred and he quickly adopts a medication induced, incoherent mumble. What’s worse is he got the time for the Skype call mixed up and instead of calling Spain later when the cream might wear off the call has to happen right now. Slobbering like a St. Bernard, Jack is a mess and about to internet meet his fiancé’s parents for the first time. Will is trying to comprehend Jack’s dramatic slobbering meltdown and decides to have a good time trolling his ridiculous friend through this tragedy. He tries convincing him that bananas will reverse the numbness and, in a panic, Jack tries to peel the lifesaving fruit but his hands are too numb. Jack winds up fist smashing the banana and licking it off the table until he realizes Will pranked him.

Grace is still haunting Noah at the diner over his Tweet, but he doesn’t care because he thinks her interior design race is stupid. It seems the WSC doesn’t care much about anything, but specifically beautification of New York. Noah explains that he is so sick of seeing cupcake shops put the porno shops out of business. He likes his city dirty so, he has no respect for Grace who lives for artisan cupcakes. Noah is old school New York and prefers NYC to be rat infested and as dark as his attitude, vastly different than Grace, who wants to beautify New York one cupcake shop at a time. The two-start arguing, and Grace accuses Noah of being alone and angry over failing at life but, he turns the tables on her and claims that is why she’s stalking him. She never wanted to be a divorced woman, alone in her late 40’s and living with her gay bff. The truth hurts and Grace leaves in a huff.

Over at the apartment, Jack is still feeling the effects of the numbing cream and manages to dial Estefan in Spain with his nose. Not only is Jack mumbling and slobbering from the cream fiasco but Estefan tells him his father had a stroke and hopes Mr. Mumbles will ignore the fact the older man is struggling with his speech. Of course, this all blows up on Jack’s face when Estefan’s father thinks Jack’s mumbling is mocking his disability. Estefan accuses him of being cruel until Jack mumbles his excuse about the cream and somehow his love understands every word. Their true love knows no bounds even the bounds of Jack and his dumb ideas. These two might be soulmates because Estefan doesn’t want a nipped and tucked man, he thinks Jack is a snack and perfect just the way he is.

After threatening a lawsuit, Will comes through for Karen when the boob doctor agrees to stop using Walker’s name. Karen and Will have a sweet moment talking about getting old and how much it sucks. Will promises to always be there for her, no matter how old they get.

Despite walking out twice, Grace sits down with Noah at the diner to give him a final piece of her mind. She accuses him of being afraid to strive for greatness, after all he gave up a writing career to be an internet celebrity. The Curmudgeon blows her off while knocking her on her speech that she wrote on toilet paper in the bathroom. He might act like her TP monologue was lame but something she said sunk in because Grace notices he knows an awful lot about her life.  Asking if he Googled her, Noah bobs and weaves away from the truth until Grace threatens to grab his phone and scope out his Google search history. Finally, he drops the attitude. He’s been cornered over the Googling anyway and just stares at Grace for a long pause and then gives in. The West Side Curmudgeon agrees to remove the tweet and then invites her for some rice pudding on him. We all now Grace can’t say no to a handsome and single man, but she’s even less likely to if that man is also buying her food.