‘Will & Grace’ Fans Are in Love With Show’s Overtly Political Return

But fans were divided on how the first episode in 11 years dealt with the original series finale

Will & Grace
NBC

(Warning: Contains spoilers for Thursday’s season premiere of “Will and Grace.”)

After 11 years and a hell of a lot of societal changes, “Will & Grace” made its return Thursday night. And judging from the reaction of fans on Twitter, NBC will definitely not regret bringing the groundbreaking show back for another season.

But first up, the show had to deal with its much-debated original series finale. The last episode of season eight went several decades into the futures of the four leads, and featured, among other things, marriages, children, and a 22-years-long falling out between the two title characters. (Yes, it was a bummer.) The show was clearly going to have to come up with a clever way to explain how tonight’s ninth season opener could pick up less than halfway through Will and Grace’s not-speaking-to-each-other period.

The answer? Think “Dallas,” but with way more booze. Fans were predictably divided as to whether or not it worked.

Some hated it:

https://twitter.com/gohomeben/status/913575868705988608

Some were shocked:

Some were confused:

https://twitter.com/msshanitarenee/status/913575038447648768

But plenty loved it:

And if you want to actually see that massive retcon for yourselves, here you go.

Meanwhile, not just society, but television has changed dramatically since “Will and Grace” went off the air in 2006. So it was that the writers made the most of a newfound freedom to more overtly talk about politics in a period when same-sex marriage is the law of the land, but Donald Trump is president.

The episode had a lot of jokes about the current era — and at the expense of the current occupants of the White House. And fans largely loved it. Not least of all because of the episode’s final, “F-you Trump” scene:

It wasn’t just the ending, however. Fans for the most part loved the politics running through the entire episode.

https://twitter.com/echerneff/status/913574758050140160

To be fair, not everyone loved the show’s overtly liberal return. Some were afraid it might bog the show down…

https://twitter.com/SkylarJordan/status/913576908448829440

While others clearly just disagree entirely.

But there were other fans here to remind people that the show, simply because of its premise, was always political:

But lest we forget the most important thing about the passage of time:

Ross A. Lincoln

Ross joined TheWrap as a news editor in 2017; he was previously associate editor at Deadline from 2015-2017, and before that comics editor at The Escapist, and features editor at Game Front. As a writer, in addition to TheWrap his bylines can be found at Deadline, Box Office, The Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, The…

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