“The first finale was a wish fulfillment for the audience that wanted to see this heteronormative narrative take place,” Will and Grace co-creator Matt Mutchnick told Deadline. “With this finale, we were more at peace and had come to terms with society, it’s more acceptable for these two people to be together and have lovers and live under one roof and still call themselves an American family.
“A gay man and a straight woman are very close and adore each other and speak the same language so they’re going to raise their children together.”
These children are imminent at the end of Will and Grace, which ended with Grace going into labor. Before hinting at the future of these characters, however, the show tied up their presents. Will ended up back with McCoy (Matt Bomer), Karen (Megan Mullally) ended up back together with Stan (who fans still did not get to see), and Jack (Sean Hayes) got to make his Broadway debut.
Will’s reunion with McCoy (Matt Bomer), his one-time fiancee who left him after freaking out about their relationship, came after the gang first discovered he was back in New York when he appeared on television in the taxi they were in so Karen could meet Stan at the Statue of Liberty. Will spend most of the episode saying he had no interest in seeing the man who jilted him.
However, Grace eventually runs into McCoy in the men’s bathroom at Jack’s performance, and Will makes a fool of himself by chasing after his ex’s town car. That did not stop McCoy, however, from waiting for him in the hallway of his building. He explained why he freaked out the first time and the two seemed to be heading towards what they called a “happily ever after.”
Karen, meanwhile, arrives at the Statue of Liberty after a surprise reunion with her ex-stepdaughter Lorraine (Minnie Driver), now working as a cabbie. At Lady Liberty, Karen waited for Stan and thought he was not going to show up, only for him to arrive in a helicopter with (another) marriage proposal for her.
Jack’s Broadway debut, meanwhile, came after the understudies above him had a remarkable streak of bad luck. In a joke that already has not aged well, Jack joked that, “My dream of taking a bow on a Broadway stage is only a car accident, a death in the family and a respiratory infection away from coming true.” After the first two understudies fell victim to bacterial parasites and the third had measles, Jack took to the stage.
In a fun piece of fan service, the Will and Grace series finale finally explained who the portrait of a man in Will’s house was of. After debunking the assumption that many fans had that it was of Will, Will told us it was a painting that, “my mother gave my father, but he didn’t like it because he thought it was too gay.”
Asked by Deadline why the show was ending now, co-creator David Kohan said: " It feels right. It feels like we went out on the terms that we wanted to go out on. It feels like we didn’t overstay our welcome and we didn’t end prematurely either. I feel pretty good about that.”
As for whether the cast will ever return for a second comeback, Mutchnick said: “We’re not coming back. There’s no version of us coming back. David and I don’t want to do it anymore.”
The Will and Grace series finale is streaming now on NBC.
