Transcript for Episode 28: Will and Jack Kiss on Live TV
This is the transcript for the installment of the show in which we discuss the Will & Grace episode “Acting Out.” If you’d rather listen to Glen and Drew than read what they say, click here. The transcript was provided by Sarah Neal, whose skills we recommend wholeheartedly.
Jack: Yes, I'd like to speak to the president of NBC, please.
[audience laughs]
Jack: This is Jack McFarland. How long will he be in the meeting? Very fine. I'll call back later.
Jack: Hi. I'd like to speak to the president of NBC, please. It's Julianna Margulies. I have a cold. Hello? Hello?
Will: How do you stop unwanted homosexuals from invading your office?
Jack: [laughs awkwardly] Come on. We're going down to the network to protest. Chop chop.
Will: You're still on that? Wow. I thought that would go away as quickly as your last big issue, the underrepresentation of gay animals at the Bronx Zoo.
[audience laughs]
Jack: They brought in a family of fruit bats. Coincidence? I don't think so.
[audience laughs]
[theme song plays]
Drew: Hello, and welcome to Gayest Episode Ever, the podcast where we talk about the LGBT-focused episodes of classic sitcoms—that is really hard—the LGBT-focused episodes of classic sitcoms.
Glen: Stop yelling at me.
Drew: I'm Drew Mackie.
Glen: I'm Glen Lakin.
Drew: And in case that intro did not tip you off, today we are talking about Will & Grace.
Glen: Can you imagine if there are people who listen to this podcast who have never seen Will & Grace?
Drew: When I started this podcast and told people about it, I was at least surprised how many people asked if we were going to do Will & Grace. I was like, "No." The whole idea was doing episodes of TV shows where the TV show wasn't actually gay and they're doing gay one-off.
Glen: This is the gay sitcom.
Drew: Every episode is basically gay. I guess people will be happy that we're finally talking about it, but—
Glen: I don't think anyone's ever actually happy, but sure.
Drew: We are talking about "Acting Out," which first aired on February 22, 2000, midway through the second season. It is the one that we're just going to call "Jack and Will Kiss on Live TV"?
Glen: Mm-hmm.
Drew: Glen, what was your relationship with Will-and-or-Grace?
Glen: Well Drew, I watched it, obviously, and I think—I was trying to think through my feelings for the show at the time. I know I dropped off in avid viewership in college. It wasn't like Frasier where I had to watch Frasier. And I think maybe I was careful not to embrace it too much in high school—
Drew: Because then they'd figure out that you were gay.
Glen: Yes. Then they would know I was a gay. I think because Will was sort of fastidious and thin, I was nervous of direct comparisons to him, and so yeah. I have a relationship with the show, but I stopped watching after Season 4.
Drew: That makes sense. I'm pretty much only familiar with the first two seasons because then I went to college and TV just kind of dropped off. When I say "familiar," I do not mean intimately familiar because by the time this was on I did know I was gay, and I was nervous about associating myself too much with it. But also, my parents actually watched the show and liked it and thought it was funny, which was a huge cognitive disconnect for me because I didn't think they would accept having a gay son, and the fact that they were getting enjoyment out of the show just did not make sense to me. But also, I couldn't watch it around them because there were so many gay elements that I felt very uncomfortable. It just made me embarrassed to have them talking about even a non-sexual element of gay culture. It just made my skin crawl.
Glen: It was weird to have friends who used the show as a Rosetta Stone for talking to me, like, "Oh. He's more of a Jack," when they were trying to talk about their gay friends maybe to set me up, or like, "You'd like him. He's more of a Will." It's like, what are you trying to say to me? They're both very similar.
Drew: Yeah. It's weird thinking about that being a binary where—they are more similar than they are different in a great many ways.
Glen: Yes.
Drew: So I know a lot of people who listen to this show do have very strong positive associations about Will & Grace, especially gay men younger than me seem to like it more than gay guys our age or older, and I don't have much of a relationship with it. It kind of makes me feel like I'm missing a gene, like when Call Me By Your Name came out and I just was not moved by it and everyone else seemed to love it.
Glen: I mean, you're fucked up in other ways, but I don't know that this is necessarily symptomatic of that or evidence of it. It's just a timing thing—some things just latch on. And for people younger than us, they were realizing they were gay as the show came out, and so they were able to see a mostly positive depiction of gay men on TV on a regular basis. And although being gay was sort of the hook and subject of the show most of the time, it's not like every storyline was just revolved on them sucking dick, trying to get laid.
Drew: No. Sometimes Grace had a storyline.
Glen: Grace actually probably had more storylines, or at least more storylines that stick out to me. When you first asked what's my relationship to this show, in my head I was screaming, "Ned and Stacey! Ned and Stacey! It's where Stacey gets to be Stacey again," because she's basically Stacey from Ned and Stacey.
Drew: In a better environment for her, yeah.
Glen: Yeah. I think she was allowed to shine on this show, and it's why gay men love Debra Messing.
Drew: I like her. Again, I just probably haven't seen enough of the show to see her become comedy brilliance. I kind of wanted her to become the next Lucille Ball.
Glen: I think that's where people—
Drew: Sometimes she looks a little bit like her. For a second you can kind of see a Lucille Ball face, and then it's gone. But this show—the character I enjoy on this show is Karen—
Glen: Well, yeah.
Drew: —at the exclusion of pretty much every other aspect of the show. When she's onscreen, I'm happy. I like her. Things that I'll fault other characters on the show for she gets a pass for, and I can't really explain that because her and Jack function very similarly at times. They're both outsized wise-crack machines that—
Glen: Narcissists.
Drew: Yeah—that we use to contrast Will & Grace who are more subdued and they're the protagonists. They're actually supposed to be more well-rounded characters, at least at the beginning.
Glen: Well, Karen doesn't have the weight of plot on her shoulders most of the time. Obviously, there's her storyline with Stan later on and her relationship with Rosario, but she can just be fun. And then actually, whenever I teach TV—which is not often, but I do mention the Karen phenomenon, which is you have a character who first season is a more subdued version of what they then become.
Drew: I listened to the pilot to hear what the voice sounds like. It's so weird hearing not-the-Karen, basically.
Karen: I know. I'm late. My driver had another bronchial incident. It was disgusting. I had to raise the partition. But that's no excuse. I should be punished. I'm writing you a check.
[audience laughs]
Glen: Yeah. She just sort of evolved into the Karen that we remember, but for the first season she was a real person.
Drew: And then they figured out who she really was, and then—
Glen: Right.
Drew: Yeah. That makes sense.
Glen: Same thing with 30 Rock. You look at Liz Lemon first season, and she is sort of the straight man to everyone else in the show, and then Tina Fay leans into her quirks.
Drew: And also Jenna Maroney became a huge cartoon.
Glen: Right.
Drew: The thing that I think about when I think about how Karen is my only real in on the show is that thing that Guy Branum talks about—Guy Branum, in case you don't know, is a comedian here in Los Angeles. He is gay. He's very smart, and he's very funny. And he's not patting himself on the back when he says this, but he says that a big reason that there's a ton of famous lesbian comics who are big—some of the biggest female comics are lesbians. That is not the case with gay men. And he says it's because gay men have trouble supporting other gay men on stage or in performance or as a representation of themselves.
Glen: Or in life.
Drew: [laughs] Yeah. They would rather relate to a female character or a drag queen, so they would rather read queerness into Karen—for example, what I'm doing now—than relate to Jack or Will, and I actually think this is a good example of it where I'm like, "Wait. What's going on with me when I do this?" Because I do have this problem sometimes where I tend not to relate to explicitly gay things. I would rather do what we've been doing this entire show and pick apart the little scraps that other shows give us than feast on this gay buffet, basically.
Glen: That could be an evolutionary thing where growing up you just learned to dissect your gay content and digest it outside, like you're a bug and you regurgitate it—or whatever animal does—and just picks apart the goo left in front of it.
Drew: Did you just call me a bug? [laughs]
Glen: Or something.
Drew: No. That's great.
Glen: Yeah. But you don't digest things the way that they are being offered to you now. You can't just be given a gay burger. You have to put the meal together yourself.
Drew: I think the gay burger, we're getting that with Vida on Starz where it's just like, "We're going to give you everything right now," and I am really enjoying it, maybe because it took me this long to be ready for something that was not coding it at all and just trying to give you a realistic depiction. But also, it's not really gay men. It's lesbians in Boyle Heights. So I can relate to that because it's different and I feel like I'm learning something.
Glen: Right. Is there any gay character on TV right now—a male character that you can digest?
Drew: Both shows are not on anymore. But watch Looking, and the character I liked the most was Dom, which is weird because his experience was the least like mine because he was the oldest of the show, he was dealing with stuff that I wasn't, really. And then Max on Happy Endings, which is not who I am, but I like that there was something else. Who the fuck else is gay on TV right now?
Glen: Like, everyone.
Drew: I'm having trouble thinking of a single, gay, male character.
Glen: The Other Two?
Drew: [whispers] I haven't seen it yet. I know. I should watch it. Pose is another example where—the gay male character is the one I relate—I'm interested the least in. I want to see more of Blanca.
Glen: I was terrified you were going to say Evan Peters, and I was just going to throw this table.
Drew: No. We haven't started watching Season 2 yet, and I don't even know if he's part of it. But every time he's on screen in Season 1, I'm like, "Go back to the family of girls. I want to see them more." I have been told—maybe five times in my life, I had someone explain to me why Will & Grace is actually a great show and I should actually give it a second chance and watch it more. They've all been women. I've never had that experience from a man. I've always had women be like, "Oh, my god. No. It's actually great."
Glen: Maybe you're pushing against it content-wise, but structurally it's a strong sitcom of the times. I do think it's definitely—not a relic, but something that worked better when it first aired. It doesn't age in the same way that an episode of I Love Lucy ages, and I just think when it first came out the aggressive wordplay and sometimes plays on pop culture and references in general popped and were smart and funny. And I just think that we get those from Twitter and Facebook now, and so what we want out of our TV experiences are less of a funny, jokey take on the horror that we're experiencing.
Drew: That's true. I'm inclined to agree with that, although you did make me remember that I really like Difficult People, and I really like Billy Eichner's character on that show. And in a lot of ways, that works like a darker, shittier version of Will & Grace—even down to the hair color on the girl—and that show is just a fucking joke machine. We'll see how that show ages in a few years. But I was not invested in those characters at all. I was just there to be like, "More jokes. More jokes. More jokes," and percentagewise they hit more than they didn't.
Glen: So, this episode.
Drew: So this episode, it aired February 22, 2000. Will & Grace, of course, aired for eight seasons on NBC between 1998 and 2006, two more in either—
Glen: Now times?
Drew: Now times as zombie sitcom or delightful revival, depending on how you look at it. It is interesting how you said that this show maybe didn't age quite as well as other shows, and it's the one where the revival actually seems to be doing better than most of them. Murphy Grown—Murphy Ground—
Glen: [laughs]
Drew: Murphy Brown, gone. Roseanne—
Glen: Changed.
Drew: Yeah. People apparently really like this one, and I'm going to talk about that in a second. Will & Grace stars Megan Mullally.
Glen: End of list.
Drew: And Eric McCormack, Sean Hayes, and Debra Messing. They won 18 Emmys and were nominated for 83 more.
Glen: Juh?
Drew: I think maybe the reason—I just thought about this. Maybe the reason I don't like the revival series is that the stepping stone to that was that "Get Out the Vote" special that they did before the 2016 election, and it is possible that I cannot extricate my feelings about that period with this show now because it does kind of turn my stomach a little bit.
Glen: Also, the first episode of the revival is very Trump and politics focused.
Drew: And I don't think it was very well handled. You might remember that I was extremely angry, that I wanted that 22 minutes back after we watched that.
Glen: You were very angry.
Drew: Yeah. That was one of the less enjoyable things I've seen in a long time.
Glen: I was afraid to watch it with you in the house again.
Drew: I don't think I ever watched anymore.
Glen: You did not.
Drew: No. That's it. Okay.
Glen: [sighs]
Drew: So Will & Grace was in the second season when this episode aired. Will & Grace was not in the Top 30 this season but would be the 14th most watched show next season, and by Season 4 it had reached the highest it ever got, and it was the ninth most watched show for Season 4, tied with Leap of Faith.
Glen: I remember.
Drew: I have never heard of this show. Sarah Paulson?
Glen: Yep.
Drew: It's a sitcom that aired for at least a year on NBC and apparently did well—gone. I have no memory of it ever existing. Also, Regina King was on it.
Glen: Hmm.
Drew: This episode was directed by someone named James Burrows.
Glen: What? Never heard of him.
Drew: I think we've heard that name before somewhere. And then this episode was co-written by the creators David Kohan and Max Mutchnick, Mutchnick being the gay one of the pair and David Kohan being the straight one. Also, he is the brother of Jenji Kohan who is the showrunner of Orange is the New Black and Weeds, executive producer of Glow. She is married to Christopher Noxon, who is another writer, and Christopher Noxon is the brother of Marti Noxon, who is the writer who contributed more episodes than anyone else to Buffy.
Glen: I'm going to need some red string.
Drew: I just like to think of what these dinner parties must sound like, but also I kind of imagine they probably might not talk about TV at all—
Glen: No. They probably do.
Drew: Okay. Do you know what episode David Kohan and Max Mutchnick also wrote?
Glen: No.
Drew: The Trump episode that made my brain want to die.
Glen: Oh! Mm-hmm.
Drew: Yeah.
Glen: For the record, I love the revival, and you should staff me on it if anyone is living—living? Oh, my god—listening.
Drew: We hope people are living and listening. Mostly. We're not into—okay. Never mind. The other thing I should say before I discuss reasons why this show didn't always work for me and isn't my favorite is I do acknowledge that this show did do a lot to change American perception about gay people. It's been said many times, and I think they're right, and this episode might have been one of the ones that helped do that especially because it's focused on portrayal of gay men on TV. And that part of the plot, actually, I think they do a really good job with, but I can quibble with the jokes on the show but still be like—it obviously worked for a lot of people and made people like my parents watch a show about gay people, so that's something.
Glen: It didn't "make" them.
Drew: It tricked them into watching gay people.
Glen: Yes. Gay people are very tricky.
Drew: Mm-hmm. Do you remember the episode with the water bra?
Glen: Yeah.
Drew: Yeah. I can remember my parents coming downstairs as I was doing homework or something and being like, "What are you guys laughing at?" And they were like, "Oh. Those two gays are touching Debra Messing's boobs." Yeah.
Glen: She ruined a painting.
Drew: She did ruin a painting! She probably put—do they have to pay—how does that resolve itself?
Glen: I don't know. I think there's insurance.
Drew: Okay. So this episode opens very strangely because to my knowledge—I can't think of another episode where this happens where the scene is filmed in actual New York, not on the fake Seinfeld set of New York, but it's shot differently. It looks different, doesn't look like a sitcom, and there's no laugh track—which is very odd.
Glen: Yeah.
Drew: Why do you think they did that?
Glen: Well, there's no laugh track because there's no live audience because they're outside filming on location. So had there been a laugh track, it would have been very obvious like, "Oh, we added this in," even though they do add laugh tracks in when there is a live studio audience.
Drew: They just—
Glen: I don't know. The same reason—like, yeah, I'm vain, but I'm not going to wear fake glasses to give people a key piece of evidence to point out that I'm vain.
Drew: Right. Okay. That makes sense. I was working a little bit ahead, and I was making sure that the Friends episode we're watching very shortly was the right one, and there is a scene shot outdoors there as well in the cemetery, and they have the cam laughter there. I guess it's a weird creative decision to be like, "Do we do it or not?" And they said no. To me, someone who's like, "This show doesn't always make me laugh," it made it even weirder to watch where I'm like, "That was a joke."
Grace: He's sweet. He's kind. He's very in tune with my body—he's a little too fond of the gentle forehead kiss. It's like being kissed by my grandmother, except Josh doesn't have a mustache. But still, he's a solid B/B+.
Will: What do they seal these things with, high-grade epoxy? Cookies should be easily accessible.
Grace: Hey. We're talking about my cookies here.
Drew: And then Jack shows up on a bike and calls Will fat, basically.
Glen: Yeah. That's a running gag.
Drew: Obviously, Jack thinks he's better-looking than Will. Does the world also think that?
Glen: No.
Drew: Okay. Because there's a character who hits on Jack and doesn't really seem to pay attention to Will. I think they're of equivalent attractiveness, right?
Glen: Yeah, but sometimes one might hit on the less good-looking friend if they were to pick up that the less good-looking friend was 1) maybe more their type or 2) sluttier. We should also mention that Will is carrying a bag of groceries and trying to get into a bag of Milanos. I only mention that because I have a reach-around for it.
Drew: Oh! Okay. Please, reach around there, Glen.
Glen: That sometimes getting inside something or someone sexually or emotionally is a lot of work.
Drew: That's fair.
Glen: And then sometimes your friend rides by and throws all your work in the trash.
Drew: But also, Jack isn't really interested in getting inside anyone emotionally. He just wants the one—maybe that doesn't hold up that well, because he wants to be inside people. Do we know if Jack is a top or a bottom or what? Is that ever addressed on the show?
Glen: I'm sure it's addressed. I'm sure he's vers.
Drew: I guess that makes sense.
Glen: Should we just—unless you have anything important to say about Grace's B-plot, let's just get it out of the way.
Drew: Yeah. I guess we can just tie it up at the end, because we can just go through—yeah. So Corey Parker—he's a regular on the show for the second and third seasons. He appears a lot. I thought he might have been a one-off character, but he shows up quite a bit.
Glen: Oh. I forgot about them.
Drew: I have no memory of him whatsoever. He's like a soft, gentle, kind of hippie-ish, alternative medicine guy, and he's very thoughtful towards Grace, and she doesn't like that. Which I get—he's a lot to deal with. Do you know how that character's arc resolves on the show?
Glen: No.
Drew: So in the third season they have an open relationship, and Grace starts dating Ben, the Gregory Hines character, and eventually she has to choose between Ben and Josh. And I don't know who she actually chooses, but at that point it's revealed that Josh slept with Jack, and Will's response—according to what I read—was "I can't believe you ended up with another gay guy," and I don't love that. I don't know how this character evolved over the course of the show, but I don't like the idea that a nurturing man ends up being somehow less than heterosexual and that's the end of his character. That's a weird arc.
Glen: Right. And also, Will referring to him as a gay man when he's clearly bisexual.
Drew: Or something. Yeah. Like, that's not really what "gay" means. Is there anything else to bring up with this?
Glen: I have a reach-around for it.
Drew: Oh, please. Reach around.
Glen: Whatever. It's not a spoiler. Okay. So my entire takeaway from this B-plot of Grace being with a man that she's just not really into, although it changes, knowing they're together for another season. But the fact that we do see them in bed naked and are confronted with their sex lives when the entire A-plot is about how we have to fight to show two men who are into each other kissing on TV.
Drew: That's a very good point. I did not think about that.
Glen: So Jack asks what they're doing that evening—
Drew: We're rewinding back to the opening scene where they're walking in New York.
Glen: We're not rewinding. We're just sort of—
Drew: We're kicking Grace's stupid boyfriend to the side so we can concentrate on the gay thing.
Jack: What are you guys doing tonight?
Grace: Josh and I are going to the movies.
Jack: Wrong. Will?
Will: I was going to go to the gym, and then—
Jack: Wrong! Ugh! What is the matter with you people? Will, tonight you're making dinner, and the three of us will be parked in front of your TV to watch our new favorite sitcom Along Came You.
Grace: And why is it our new favorite sitcom?
Jack: Because tonight Ed and Gerard are going to kiss—only the first ever primetime network kiss between two gay men!
Will: Oh. That's tonight?
Jack: It's in TV Guide. Don't you read?
Drew: So in this context, I actually tried to find definitively what the first gay male kiss was on TV, and it's harder than you'd think. Back in 1998 there was that episode of That '70s Show that I keep talking about with Joseph Gordon Levitt called—it's called "Eric's Buddy," but I actually wrote it as "Eric's Bussy," which is not inappropriate. That aired in 1998, but that's a kiss between a gay character and a straight person who's not resisting exactly, but he's not gay. Eric's not gay. So then in 2000, there was a kiss on Dawson's Creek between Jack and his love interest on the show, and that was a definitively male-male gay kiss, and I can't find a sitcom example of that. It might have actually been on Will & Grace for all I know, but I actually couldn't find definitively that. But also there's the San Francisco season of The Real World, which was 1994, where you see Pedro have a commitment ceremony and kiss his real-life partner, but that's not broadcast network, and that's not necessarily primetime.
Glen: Right.
Drew: By the way, the first lesbian kiss happened in 1991, but weirdly, on Friends when they had the lesbian wedding, they cut away. That was 1998. That would have been late enough that it wouldn't have been a big deal since L.A. Law was seven years earlier, but they still—the 8:00 time period, at least, wasn't cool with that.
Glen: What I'm learning recently is that some people are okay with some storylines in the context of a drama and not okay with other storylines in the context of a comedy.
Drew: Which is weird. You'd think a comedic take on it would be less offensive than a serious, dramatic take on it, but—
Glen: Oh, well. Did you ever get weirded out by Will's TV nook—how he has a living room with a couch and seating, and then there's a little nook for the TV where anything more than two people have to squeeze.
Drew: I assumed that was something that was created just for shot-getting purposes, but that's not something anyone would actually have in real life, right?
Glen: Some people with houses have a living room and then a separate room for TV watching, but in a New York apartment, I can't imagine.
Drew: No. Probably a set creation thing more than anything else.
Glen: Okay. Well, they're all there—minutes Karen—watching this Along Came You, waiting for the gay kiss.
Gerard: So it's just us?
Ed: Yeah. We're finally alone.
Gerard: Yep. Just us. Ed, don't move. You have an eyelash.
Will: Oh, please. That's the oldest line in the book.
Jack: I've used it.
Grace: Me, too.
[audience laughs]
Jack: He's moving in. It's going to happen! Oh, my god. Do you understand this is bigger than the moon landing?
Will: One giant step for man-on-mankind.
[audience laughs]
Grace: Here it comes! Here it comes.
Jack: Ah! Let's hold hands!
Grace: Okay!
[audience laughs]
Gerard: I think I'm about to kiss you.
Ed: I think I'm about to be kissed.
Grace: Gay sex is so hot.
[audience laughs uproariously and applauds]
Grace: This is it! This is it! This is not it. Where is the camera going? Why are we looking at a fireplace?
Jack: Get off the flames and follow the flamers!
[audience laughs uproariously and applauds]
Drew: When you're watching this scene, are you like, "This is funny?" Because watching it, I'm just like—these are jokes that I don't find funny. And maybe I'm just—I don't know. I can't tell if it was something that I just won't ever have found funny or if it's something that has aged particularly poorly for me.
Glen: So I wrote down a bunch of the jokes because most of them are wordplay, and most of them are just added to the—if you took the jokes away, the scene would still be there.
Drew: The plot would move along just fine, right.
Glen: Yeah. And so I think that's what you're feeling because they're good, well-written jokes, but maybe in hindsight they are feeling tacked on and forced and not necessarily intrinsic to the characters or what's happening.
Drew: Yeah. I think those remind me of Drag Race puns where it's like, "Well, you did something there, but it was the lowest level of comedy you could have achieved." I'm just—I'm not going to be a jerk about it.
Glen: No. They're technically fine, good jokes. It's just that I think—I don't know. There's something about the cleverness that was very on trend on the late '90s through the early 2000s, and I think we just—it rubs us a little bit differently now, or some people don't have, or some people just have moved beyond that form of comedy.
Drew: I do have trouble with almost all of the sophisticated New York sitcoms from the Must See TV heyday. Most of them I have trouble watching now. So we'll see how I do with Friends very shortly. But the fact that this show cuts away from the kiss I think is a reference to the Melrose Place kiss. Doug Savant's character Matt, the boring guy, got a kiss in 1994, and when they lean in for the kiss they actually slow down the footage and then cut to Andrew Shue's character watching them kiss. And I assume that's what the reference is because that was a big deal. People did notice it. There was buzz, like, "Oh. The guys are going to kiss on the show. It's going to be a first-time thing," and then Fox chickened out at the last minute. But that was also six years before this, so it's not really a timely reference. But there's a more contemporary thing that's going to happen towards the end of this episode that we'll give context for.
Glen: Yeah. And then the scene ends with Jack actually making a thoughtful argument that by cutting away from the gay kiss the network is sending the signal that the way he lives his life is disgraceful.
Jack: The network promised we were going to see some guy-guy lip action.
Grace: You know, for someone who has a gay porn collection that requires its own storage facility—
[audience laughs]
Grace: —you seem pretty upset about one kiss.
Jack: Missing the point, Darling. By doing this, they are sending a clear message that the way I live my life is offensive.
Will: Jack, the way you live your life is offensive.
[audience laughs]
Will: But they should have shown those guys kissing.
Drew: I completely agree with him on this point. There's really no other way to read that. Also, when Jack gets mad, he reminds me of Daffy Duck a little bit.
Glen: Oh. Yeah. We are treated to a scene from the B-plot that we can skip past, except Karen—which we see for the first time in this episode—getting a lovely line.
Man: You call me later?
Grace: I will.
[characters sigh suggestively]
Karen: He should be killed.
[audience laughs]
Drew: I enjoy Megan Mullally so much, and the reason I like—she's what I think great comedy is, which is she doesn't do machine-gun-fire jokes like Jack does. Jack talks a lot. She doesn't. She lands strategic lines, delivers them with impeccable timing, and then that's it. She's in and out, and I really like the way she's used here.
Glen: Also, her jokes seem more grounded in her character's personality or coming from that point of view. She has a much stronger point of view for her character in that she is crass, rich, white woman spending money she did not earn and treating the lives of others as another of her playthings—and she thinks highly of herself, and so usually her jokes are just in that line of argument, like, "Oh. This is me telling you how to live your life in a way that is more entertaining to me.
Drew: And also reflects how ungrounded she is because her perception of what is normal is completely implausible for almost anyone else. So the next scene, we're in Will's office, and Jack is trying to call the president of NBC, trying to pretend that he's Julianna Margulies. [And it's also my 00:29:00] "Oh, yeah. Julianna Marguiles, NBC star. I guess that's before she turned a million dollars an episode to be on another season of ER, which is crazy.
Glen: Yeah. She did well for herself.
Drew: Yeah. She's great, and now they're like, "Come back to The Good Fight." She's like, "Nope. Give me money." Will shows up, and he's not super into Jack's protest. He's not going to help him out with his legalese. He brings up this joke about the Bronx Zoo—that the Bronx Zoo didn't have accurate representation of gay animals, and Jack brings up fruit bats. It's a thing he does. He does that.
Glen: But how happy were you to see Harriet?
Drew: Harriet, yes! What's her name—Jo Marie Payton from Family Matters. I forgot that she played Ben's assistant—will's boss, who Grace eventually dates. I am so happy that she's on this because a few years after Family Matters went off the air, she ditched that show before the last season and got recast, which is crazy. And I am glad that she got some time on what was a prestige sitcom. Being mean and delivering a level of attitude she was not allowed to do on Family Matters even in her crankiest moment, and I love her so much.
Mrs. Freeman: When you and your boyfriend here are done with your little game of slap-and-tickle—
[audience laughs, applauds, hoots, and woos]
Mrs. Freeman: —Mr. Doucette would like for you to call him in the car.
Will: He's not my boyfriend.
Mrs. Freeman: Whatever you say.
Glen: Which is strange because she was allowed a little bit of that when she was on Perfect Strangers.
Drew: And that is why I'm glad you brought that up because I always like reminding people Harriet was the link between Perfect Strangers. Harriet Winslow started on Perfect Strangers. Family Matters was supposed to be about her—if not her and Carl—and then it became "The Steve Urkel Show." But she's great. I like her. Will says [to] leave the protest to Woody Harrelson and his hemp flipflops, which is interesting because he did join the cast the next year as a love interest for Grace?
Glen: Yeah. A very serious love interest for her.
Drew: But he's a funny character, right?
Glen: Yeah.
Drew: Will is not willing to help Jack on this, and the scene ends with what I guess we're supposed to assume is a deeply felt thing where Jack is expressing how disappointed he is in Will and leaves.
Jack: Will, are you coming are not?
Will: Jack, no. I'm sorry. I can't.
Jack: Well then, just so you know, we are no longer friends.
Will: Yeah. That's what you said last week at the movies when I left you the black jujube.
[audience laughs]
Jack: Thanks a lot, Will. Thanks for recognizing when something is really important to me.
Drew: And it's just weird because I don't really believe that I'm supposed to feel big feelings from this character.
Glen: Yeah. That's the issue with it is that Jack accuses Will of not being able to recognize when something is really important to him, which is not necessarily a fair argument to make when you are a character who acts like everything is really important to you. And so he's basically trying to say, "Will, you should be able to understand that I'm bullshit 98 percent of the time, and this is a rare instance where I'm sincere, and I need you to immediately recognize that."
Drew: Yeah. I will never do that to you. Don't worry.
Glen: I will say that Will is maybe a little too quick to throw in the towel because Will takes the side that if the network didn't show it that means no one wants to see it—advertisers don't want to see it and audiences don't want to see it, so maybe we should just drop it—and so I actually do side with Jack on the issue, but not in his assumption that everyone should just immediately assume that he's being sincere.
Drew: I agree. Even if Will is right, it's still worth fighting for because that doesn't necessarily have to be the deciding factor. So then we cut to Will's apartment, and he's compulsively cleaning—
Glen: It's Grace's apartment. He's cleaning her apartment.
Drew: Oh. That's right. They live across the hall from each other.
Glen: Yeah.
Drew: They eventually move into the same unit, right?
Glen: Yes. Season 1 they lived together, and then she moves across the hall. I forget what the fight was about. And then she will eventually move back in with him since that is the concept of the show.
Drew: Okay. He's a compulsive cleaner when he's stressed out. That's a character thing?
Glen: Yeah. Well, in this instance, it's more that—as Grace points out—he acts like a good friend to her when he's a bad friend to Jack.
Drew: Oh.
Glen: So the fact that he's cleaning her apartment is he's trying to be nice to her because he feels bad about—
Drew: That's how she knows what happened with Jack?
Glen: Yeah.
Drew: Okay. Her takeaway I don't agree with, which is basically that Will should support Jack even if Jack's cause is stupid and he doesn't believe in it, which I don't necessarily think is true. Again, if a friend, perhaps you, came up with a cause that I thought was actually hairbrained, I'd be like, "I'm sorry." I don't think there's anything wrong with being like, "I'm sorry. I can't."
Glen: I think there are degrees—like if I wanted to kill someone, sure, stop me. But if it's like, "I’m going to go sit outside this hotel and picket because they are mistreating their work staff, or they are allowing some sort of dignitary from a country that burns gay people—" I don't know.
Drew: I don't think those are stupid causes, though. But yeah.
Glen: I don't know. It depends how much it puts you out, and I don't know—I guess Jack hasn't really come up with any concrete thing for Will to actually engage with or turn down other than storm NBC offices.
Drew: Also because Jack is inept and doesn't really know how to do anything, which is probably why he needs Will's brain power to come up with any sort of a plan.
Glen: Right. And then Grace probably complains about her boyfriend that we don't really care about right now.
Drew: We do not care about that. It is so weird that he's not a one-off character. So the next scene—these scenes go by very quickly, by the way.
Glen: And there's a lot of them.
Drew: There's a lot of them. Sometimes it's almost like Simpsons-scene level quick, which I didn't know—is that characteristic of the show?
Glen: I think so.
Drew: In the next scene, Jack is at NBC, and the receptionist is glaring at him.
Jack: Do you really think that look scares me? [scoffs] I once walked in on Faye Dunaway with a wig cap.
[audience laughs uproariously]
Drew: Faye Dunaway is timelessly crazy, so that never really—
Glen: And also, gay men love Faye Dunaway.
Drew: Since I've moved to Los Angeles, I have met so many people that have real-life Faye Dunaway stories because apparently she's just Tasmanian deviling all over town and just crashing into people and being Faye Dunaway all the time. I am disappointed that I haven't seen her yet.
Glen: Don't be disappointed, because apparently that'd mean she'd hit your car.
Drew: We're mostly skipping over the Grace storyline, but there is a Karen scene that comes up after this where she's calling Karen for tips in being mean, because Karen is obviously a pro at that. And Karen gets a very good line.
Grace: It's Grace—Grace Adler.
[audience laughs]
Karen: Honey, how'd you get this number?
Grace: You gave me this number in case of emergencies, remember?
Karen: Oh, yeah. Right. Right. Good. Yeah, I want you to have it. Stanley, have Butler change all the phone numbers on the second floor.
Glen: I didn't know what Karen line you were going to pick out, but the one I picked out from the scene is—
Grace: [whispers] I can't get rid of this guy. He's a sweetheart, but he's just not for me, and I just—I just don't know how to say it to his face.
Karen: Yeah. Well, say it to his bald spot as you push him out of the cab. Bye-bye!
[audience laughs]
Grace: No, no!
Glen: "Say it to his bald spot as you push him out of the cab." [laughter]
Drew: She is so good. I think they obviously love writing for her because they can take it to another level, and they know that she's going to mail it every time. I love her so much. Stan, in this scene, is played by Ben Acker—I think he's here in L.A. He was a production assistant on the show, but him and Ben Blacker co-created the Thrilling Adventure Hour, which was a series of—I think they did them at Largo. It was radio plays and are in podcast form and are actually pretty good.
Glen: He has okay feet.
Drew: And it ends with Karen's advice being like, "Tell him that you're in love with Will. That'll be your way out of it." Actually—
Glen: What? Oh. Time for a commercial?
Drew: We're going to take a little commercial break. What would be the best way to say this?
Glen: Just say, "Hey, Glen. Shut your dumb mouth. We're going to commercial."
Drew: Hey, Glen. Shut your dumb mouth. We're going to commercial. Commercial!
[Gayest Episode Ever promotes a single-release party at A Love Bizarre]
[promotional spot for Leap of Faith plays]
[promotional spot for Will & Grace plays]
[Gayest Episode Ever promotes their Patreon and thanks contributors]
[Will & Grace transition music plays]
Drew: Whenever you're ready.
Glen: Yeah. I'm ready. Wait. I'm not.
Drew: Why did you say that you—never mind. Okay.
Glen: Why did I say that I what?
Drew: You interrupted me to say you were ready when you were clearly not ready.
Glen: I just changed my mind after I said it.
Drew: K.
Glen: I can change my mind, Drew.
Drew: I know. It's being recorded. Everyone's going to hear you change your mind live.
Glen: Okay.
Drew: So we're back at the NBC office.
Jack: Just as Ed and Gerard were about to kiss, they cut away to the fireplace, and I just find that reprehensible. What's your complaint?
Woman: I want Carson back.
[audience laughs]
Jack: That's important, too. Have you always been political?
Woman: You're speaking a little too loudly.
Jack: Oh. I'm sorry.
Woman: No. Not you.
[audience laughs]
Drew: Jack is speaking to a woman that we're clearly supposed to imply is homeless and crazy?
Glen: Yeah.
Drew: She's wearing what looks like a rug, and she's played by this woman named Mary Pat Gleason.
Glen: She's in a lot.
Drew: I'm not going to list off her credits because—
Glen: I think her most-known appearance for gay viewers would be from the episode of Sex and the City "My Motherboard, My Self" where Miranda's mom dies, and she plays the shop clerk who helps Miranda size a bra.
Drew: She was in fact on Sex and the City. You are correct. The list—it reads like an episode list of our show. She's been on everything. She's also in Troop Beverly Hills. She's one of the troop leaders.
Glen: Hmm.
Drew: Mm-hmm. She's at NBC because she wants Carson back on the air. Carson not dead at this point. He doesn't die until 2005. So it's not that looney tunes that she's there to do that, I guess. But Jack's presumption is that she's crazy, and we later find out that she has 25 people living inside her, and none of them own a toothbrush. I'm like—yeah. Okay. She's kind of funny. She's good at this little role. Eventually, this tall, lanky network guy comes out and essentially says, "No comment. Thanks for your interest, but no comment."
Craig: Hi. I'm Craig Fissay, Executive Vice President in charge of public relations for the office of the president of the network.
Will: You're his assistant. We spoke earlier.
Craig: Anyway, I've been sent down here to respond to your complaint regarding the kiss on Along Came You.
Jack: Yes. We are outraged. I hope you presented him with my letter and the petition.
Craig: I did.
Will: And what did he have to say?
Craig: Well, it was discussed at length, and the final word is—no comment.
[audience laughs]
Craig: Good day, gentlemen, and thank you for visiting us at NBC.
Woman: [sings] Ding-ding-dong.
[audience laughs and applauds]
Will: Wait. Whoa, whoa, whoa. We are loyal viewers and consumers, and we find your policies unfair and discriminatory. What you need to understand—
Craig: No, sir. What you need to understand is that this network has a responsibility to its audience. Now I understand your disappointment—believe me, I understand. Hi.
Jack: Hi.
[audience laughs]
Craig: But you will never see two gay men kissing on network television.
Jack: It's a gay network! For god's sake, the symbol is a peacock!
[audience laughs uproariously]
Drew: I actually looked it up. It's been a peacock only since 1956 because of color TV—which I'm like, "Oh, yeah." That would not be a good logo. It would just look like a turkey in black and white. Terrible logo. And though it's been the peacock for our lives continuously, between 1956 and 1980, there are chunks of time where they actually didn't use the peacock anymore. They kept going back to it. And then we're back in actual New York with Jack and Will leaving the actual NBC building in Manhattan, and again, it's sort of always jarring when there's that difference in the way it looks and there's no laugh track. There's a Ruth Bader Ginsburg joke that completely falls flat.
Glen: Yeah.
Jack: That was appalling. It's a travesty of justice. We need to take this all the way to the Supreme Court. We have friends there. We'll talk to that gay justice—that little fellow we like with the glasses?
Will: Jack, we've been over this. Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a woman.
Glen: Apparently, she looks like a little boy to Jack.
Drew: Yeah. He thinks they have an ally on the Supreme Court because of her, which you do.
Glen: You do. Yeah.
Drew: He talks about how maybe he could write an epic poem about this and post it on his website www.justjack.com. Nothing there. You'd think NBC would have kept something there. Nothing loads.
Glen: It's weird to also hear people emphasize the www. We don't have to do that anymore.
Drew: Have I [told] you about [how] someone pointed out to me that saying "worldwide web" is three syllables and "www" is nine syllables? It's actually much harder to say that than to just say "worldwide web."
Glen: You bring it up once a week.
Drew: Do I? That doesn't seem right. Jack sees the NBC Today show set, and he's like, "Oh. We could go talk to Al Roker, and maybe he would let us get our message out." They run over to the Today show where people often go with signs and wave signs—and still do it today?
Glen: Yeah.
Drew: Yeah. Al Roker is pre-weight loss. I was like, "Oh. That's right. He lost a ton of weight." Do you know what his sitcom connection is—aside from being in this episode of Will & Grace?
Glen: I'm afraid to answer.
Drew: His first cousin once removed is Roxie Roker who played Helen on The Jeffersons—the role that Kerry Washington played in the restaging we just watched—and also, Roxie Roker is the mother of Lenny Kravitz.
Glen: Oh, my god.
Drew: Which means that—I think he's the first cousin once removed to Lenny, and then maybe the second cousin to Zoë Kravitz.
Glen: Crazy.
Drew: It's just a very odd extended family tree.
Glen: At this point we're also shown that everyone else we've seen this episode is watching the Today show—the assistant at work, Grace in bed with her boyfriend, and Karen still in the bathtub.
Drew: Mm-hmm. I like that we see Mrs. Freeman—she's making a lewd comment about Al Roker, I guess.
Glen: She's really into Al Roker.
Drew: She's really into Al Roker.
Al Roker: Oh, I'm sorry. Let's take a look and show you what's going on as far as your weather—
Mrs. Freeman: Mmm-mm. Big ol' handsome warm front coming in from the South. Whew!
Drew: So the Karen scene, it's on but she's not really watching it because she's talking to Stan off screen, and there is an erection joke that I did not know—
Glen: Soap on the rope?
Drew: No! She's like—
Karen: Oh, Stanley. You know I don't find that funny! Now get me another towel and put it on the real towel rack!
[audience laughs]
Drew: He has a boner, and he's hanging the towel on his boner. That's something I feel like Just Shoot Me might not have been allowed to get away with, but this show did get away with a lot of sex jokes, I think. Yeah. Jack is trying to lay all of this out to Al for some reason, and he's just letting him do it. You'd think they would have pulled away immediately. Then what happens?
Glen: And then Will sees that the camera is on them, grabs Jack, and kisses him.
Drew: Mm-hmm—proving the network executive wrong.
Jack: Al! Al!
Will: Jack, there's a thousand people here. He's not going to talk to you.
Jack: Al! It's my birthday! I'm 100 years old! Talk to me!
Al Roker: [laughs] What's your name?
Jack: Hi. Oh, my god. Al Roker [laughs awkwardly]. I don't know if you recognize me, but my name is Jack McFarland, and I do a one-man show every Wednesday night at the Duplex called Just Jack—additional info on my website at www.justjack.com.
Al Roker: Just Jack? What happened to Jill? You guys have a fight? "No, it's my pail of water." "No, it's my pail of water!" "No, it's my pail of water." [laughs]
Jack: Oh, my god. That's so funny. Anyways. The reason we're here—I don't know if you're aware, but on this week's episode of Along Came You, there was supposed to be a kiss, and there wasn't.
Al Roker: Well you know, Jack, sometimes a kiss is just not a kiss. Do we have any anniversaries here?
Jack: Oh, whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Back to Jack. We went to complain, and this closet case upstairs—cute in an offbeat way, got his number—totally gave us the brushoff. And I just want to know how long I'm going to have to wait until I can see two gay men kiss on network television.
Will: Not as long as you'd think.
[audience explodes into approving "woos" and applause]
Karen: Oh, my lord!
Mrs. Freeman: Not your boyfriend my ass!
[audience laughs uproariously]
Grace: That's the love of my life, kissing that guy.
[audience laughter intensifies]
Drew: This, of course, is based on a real-life event. In 1999, Brian Patrick Thornton and his boyfriend and fellow activist, a man named Rich, were—in the wake of murder of Matthew Shephard, and were trying to find ways to promote gay visibility and general gay rights, and they had this idea to go to the Today show audience section with a sign that says, "Jill will you marry me?" and try to trick Al into thinking that he was trying to propose to Jill on air. And eventually, it did work. And he wrote a blog entry about it, and he talks about they had to dress in their most heterosexual-looking clothes because they didn't want to tip everyone off, and they thought they weren't going to talk to them, and they were like, "We blew it. They know we're gay. They're on to us." But no, they fooled them, and eventually Al comes over and talks to them about this.
Al Roker: Interesting. We've got two—two things happening here.
[the crowd cheers]
Al Roker: This guy. You want to ask your girlfriend to marry you?
Brian: Jill. I have something I have to tell you. I'm so happy that I love Rich!
Al Roker: Oh, lovely! There you go!
[the crowd goes wild]
Al Roker: And here's the good news for you. Over here—if Jill says no, you'll say yes. I don't think it matters. Okay. Let's take a look. Show you what your weather is right now. We're looking at afternoon temperatures in the 110s. See, they wouldn't do that on Will & Grace.
Drew: And they start talking about weather. So we're on the weather map of the United States and he's kind of laughing about it, and he's like, "That's something you won't see on Will & Grace, which is interesting." That is a very meta chain of events where they were like, "Yeah. Now you're going to see it on Will & Grace. He's not being awful about it or anything. He's very surprised and just trying to maintain composure because that was probably not what he expected was going to happen, clearly. So that's that, and then we're back at Will's apartment?
Glen: Yeah. This is a pretty low-energy scene considering what they just did. They're just—are they eating ice cream? Whatever they're doing, they just both sort of very lowkey.
Drew: They're getting bottles of water.
Glen: Yeah. They toast bottles of water. I know at some point Jack had a secret crush on Will—or not-so-secret crush on Will, and so kept joking that Will was secretly in love with him, and that part always made me slightly uncomfortable.
Drew: The secret crush part, or the joking that Will was in love with him part, or both?
Glen: Both. Like, the fact that these two gay best friends have to—there must be something there.
Drew: Right. You don't have to Sam-and-Diane this.
Glen: Yes! And so then Grace comes in, and she's mad that them kissing on live TV ruined her excuse to break up with Josh.
Drew: Yes, because Grace and Josh were watching this, and she's just told Josh that she's actually in love with Will, and then she's like, "Well. There he is. Kissing a man on live TV." It's a good thing everyone was watching the third hour of the Today show on this day; otherwise, none of this would have come together quite as well. It ends with Grace saying, "Some queen on the Today show blew my alibi," and the literal last line is, "You know she's talking about you"—Will and Jack to each other. Jack kind of gets an okay line—no. I guess it's Will's line. Jack's worried that some of his many boyfriends might see this and it could ruin five serious long-term relationships, and Will's response is "That's a lot of balls in the air."
Glen: Mm-hmm—like testicles!
Drew: Yeah. I'm glad they got a testicle joke in there. And that's it. End of the episode.
Glen: Yep.
Drew: When we watch Frasier or Cheers or a lot of the other shows, I laugh, and this one didn't make me laugh, and—I don't know. I wish it made me laugh, but it doesn't.
Glen: There are jokes. It's a well-written show. It just doesn't age as well as some of the other sitcoms because it was timely, and that's what it wanted to be, and the flipside of that is you don't always—
Drew: More than anything else we watch, it reminds me in tone of Murphy Brown where it's a lot of references bouncing off each other, and those often didn't age super well either. Yeah. I guess Murphy Brown didn't really make me laugh that much either.
Glen: I don't know. I know sitcoms want a three-jokes-per-page thing, and there are jokes that are just forced in there, and Golden Girls has this, too, where things are said just because they're a joke—there's just a rapid-fire nature of the jokes. But in terms of this being a meaningful gay episode, it is.
Drew: They did that part well. That was well thought out. And I guess that's the more important part.
Glen: I probably should have saved that Grace B-plot genius for right now because I have nothing else, really, to say.
Drew: I have one more thought about the presence of this show during the time it was on. Are we allowed to have opinions now about the fact that Sean Hayes never came out during the entire run of the show?
Glen: You are allowed to have these opinions.
Drew: I feel like it's weird, but also—I'm kind of in a weird paradox where it is kind of fucked up that he felt that he could not be openly gay in Hollywood, even considering the kind of role he was playing. Maybe he would have been losing roles that he could have gotten otherwise.
Glen: He was also in gay movies. He was in Billy's—
Drew: Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss, yeah—right before this came out.
Glen: Right.
Drew: He was also in this commercial for Pepsi or something where he played the guy who gets the girl. And there was a period right before Will & Grace started where that commercial was still airing. You were just like, "It's called 'acting,' I guess." I don't know. I feel weird because I want to respect someone's ability to come out on their own terms and only disclose [to the world the only person 00:53:50] that they want to, but I also think visibility is really important. And it is certainly partly Hollywood's fault, but also it's a personal choice to not come out even though you are this figure, and—I don't know. I don't know. I can't resolve it down to anything that makes sense to me.
Glen: Maybe it would have changed something, but I think people just assumed he was gay. I knew that he was publicly straight, but I don't—he didn't push back in any sort of—
Drew: He just didn't talk about it.
Glen: Yeah, which—it's whatever.
Drew: It's what Kate McKinnon is doing now, too, and people have opinions about that. But this was more than a decade before.
Glen: Yeah. I think maybe he just thought being on this culture-altering show was enough, and he didn't want to also be the gay actor on the gay show and become the gay figurehead for us. He wasn't looking to fight that fight. He just wanted to act and be on a show, and I think had he come out he would have also had to have been very political, which could have been helpful. But unless someone wants that role, it's not on us to volunteer someone to be the general of the gay marriage battle or things like that. He thought he was doing enough.
Drew: When you said "general," I was thinking of the Army of Dancing Faggots from the end of Blazing Saddles.
Glen: I was thinking of Captain Crunch.
Drew: Okay [laughs]—who is gay in real life. Most people don't know that. I think it's interesting that this is something that hangs around Sean Hayes where it's like, "It's weird that he never came out. It's kind of fucked up because he was on this show," but that's not something that David Hyde Pierce has to deal with even though he was on a very high-profile sitcom, and his character wasn't gay but his character certainly had the mannerisms in that ballpark, and no one really seems to fault him for not coming out—
Glen: Because his storyline, basically, revolved around a straight romance with Daphne. And so again, it's acting. People should be able to act straight if they are gay, but I can see at least more so what the pushback was, like, "Well, we can't have you come out because we need people to see the romance with you and Daphne as realistic."
Drew: "You need to be TV's most effeminate heterosexual."
Glen: Yeah.
Drew: Did I do okay discussing my feelings about Will & Grace without seeming combative?
Glen: No. You seemed combative and hateful, but whatever.
Drew: Okay.
Glen: Did I seem perfectly okay and happy with this show?
Drew: You never seem perfectly okay and happy with anything—
Glen: That's true.
Drew: —except Thurman.
Glen: Well, Thurman is beautiful and makes me cry when I think about him.
Drew: I've been dreading talking about this show this whole time because I didn't know how to communicate myself honestly and be like, "This is a show that didn't work for me," but I'm not undercutting other people's enjoyment of it, but also—
Glen: You're just calling everyone who loved Will & Grace an idiot.
Drew: Big fucking idiot. All of you. Yeah. Glen, if people are angry about something I said and they want to tweet at you, what Twitter handle should they tweet at?
Glen: They can find me on Twitter @IWriteWrongs—that is "write" with a W—on Instagram, @BrosQuartz—B-R-O-S-Quartz. And if they wanted to hear my voice said by other people through my words written, they can still check out my movie Being Frank at theaters in multiple cities, probably the cities that a lot of you live in. So go to beingfrankfilm.com, and check out where it is playing near you.
Drew: We'll put a link to beingfrankfilm.com in the show notes so you can click there and find out all the new places it's playing this week.
Glen: Yes, please.
Drew: You can find Drew—that's who I am—on Twitter @DrewGMackie—M-A-C-K-I-E. You can find this podcast on Twitter @GayestEpisode. Listen to all previous episodes of this show at gayestepisodeever.com. Also, we're on Facebook. You can find us. Please subscribe to this show on Apple Podcasts or wherever else you happen to get your podcasts. If you're on Apple Podcasts—formerly known as iTunes—and you want to give us a review, please do that. We appreciate all the reviews we get, and we will read all of them in future episodes. This week's review comes from HBot3000 who says, "Finally, a podcast that talks about what it was like to grow up gay—and in my case closeted—in the '80s and '90s and how differently a lot of pop culture things read from that point of view. If Drew and Glen had not created this podcast, I would probably have, and it would be so bad. So they are heroes on multiple levels." Thank you, HBot3000. Yeah. Give us five stars and some words, and you will hear us—me read those words eventually.
Glen: Because I can't read.
Drew: Glen's illiterate—which the fact that you wrote a movie script is all the more impressive. As we mentioned on the show earlier, you can support us by going to patreon.com/gayestepisodeever. We appreciate all your contributions. This is a TableCakes podcast. TableCakes is a Los Angeles based podcast network. If you want to listen to the other shows on this network go to tablecakes.com. And that is it for this episode of Will & Grace, which we probably will never talk about again.
Glen: Why? I think we will.
Drew: Okay. Well, what do I know?
Glen: Nothing.
Drew: Episode over!
Glen: Bye forever.
["Angel of the Morning" by Juice Newton plays]
Katherine: A TableCakes production.