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“I was sure they would cancel us.” that is what Debra Messing told the audience at the Paley Media Center in New York on Monday June 5 when asked about filming the pilot episode of will and grace in 1998. Sitting next to the show’s creators, max mutchnick and david kohanand her show partner, Eric McCormack celebrating 25 of the show^he anniversary, she’s singing a very different tune now.

His fear was not unwarranted: the show debuted just 2 months later Ellen DegeneresHer own show was taken off the air after she came out as a lesbian. However, will and grace defined his legacy early on, unapologetically but equally hilarious as it followed the complicated lives of two single best friends, one of them an openly gay man, in New York, and was celebrated for it.

Speaking with Eric McCormack and the show’s creators at the event, I asked each of them to choose one episode from the show’s storied 11 seasons that they felt best exemplified the show’s legacy and impact on the LGBTQ+ community, honoring the Pride month. For creator David Kohan, it all goes back to the beginning.

“The pilot,” said David, “the first episode was what started it all. And, though things changed over time and things got refined, it was there. I was there in the pilot.” The “it” he is surely referring to is the undeniable chemistry and love that Will and Grace have for each other, and the foundation that established that love is love, whether it be romantic, familial or friendship love.

Meanwhile, Eric, who deservedly won an Emmy for his role as openly gay lawyer Will Truman, thought the two-part Thanksgiving special in Season 3, “Lows In The Mid-Eighties,” better captured the legacy. of the program. The episodes feature flashbacks to the fateful night in 1985 when Will finally came out to Grace while he met her family, including debbie reynolds like Grace’s mother, for the holidays. “That’s my favorite,” Eric admits. “For a lot of personal reasons, it’s a flashback to Will coming out and Jack encouraging him to come out. The work that Deb and I had to do, we had already played the characters for two and a half years, and then we finally showed them as children in love, but with him confused and Jack as the wise sage to help him get through that. That’s my favourite.”

Perhaps a perfect complement to that episode is Max’s choice. During the show’s 2017 to 2020 reboot, the creative team explored parts of the lead couple’s journey that were overlooked the first time around. In season 10, it is revealed that Grace never read a rather long letter from Will that she wrote right after her failed engagement and her coming out of her closet. While the Season 3 episode laser-focused on Grace’s pain and humiliation, in this episode, the goal is to show how devastated Will was after Grace couldn’t forgive him, and the fact that she never apologized. for leaving him when he needed her most. When she finally reads the letter, she discovers how close she came to losing him, as he admits that she had thoughts of hurting herself.

“I really liked the episode we did in the reboot about Grace not being able to apologize,” Max said. “What that found out about their relationship and who they are to each other and what they’ve meant to each other, that’s what it is. That’s one that stands out to me.”

Speaking of the reboot, when the idea was brought up during the panel discussion at the Paley Center with the returning show’s Isaac Mizrahi, the team said pretty definitively that it would never happen. (Although Debra liked the idea of ​​making Will & Grace: The Golden Girlsand honestly, that’s what I’m here for, who am I sending money to?) However, with so much struggle facing the LGBTQ+ community right now, and the show always up to the task of addressing important conversations, I asked the creators what would be the issues they would most like to address with the show if it were still on the air today.

“The ban on literature and books is way up there,” Max said, “because no one got in our way when we wrote.” David agreed, adding: “The scapegoat and the use of him as a hot topic for political expediency; It’s so disgusting. And right there, at times like this, I really miss the show the most.

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