I Second That Emotion

I Second That Emotion is the 2nd episode of the eighth season and 172nd overall.

Will helps Karen with her bottled emotions. Grace unexpectedly becomes Jack's guest for his talk show.

Synopsis[]

Love me back, dammit![]

138447214 - Edited — "I paid two hundred bucks for this."

Grace agrees to decorate the set of Jack Talk in preparation for an appearance by actor Harrison Ford. However, Harrison Ford cancels and Jack is forced to start the show with an unknowing Grace as his guest. The audience is impressed that Grace is best friends with a gay man and that is involved in the New York gay scene. When Jack remarks that Grace loves everything about gay men, she shares that she does not like gay men who don't like themselves.

Later, while getting her hair done at the salon, Grace and the hairdressers watch Jack Talk where they find out that her interview has been edited in a way which made her seem homophobic. This results in Grace being harassed by gay men on her way home, including the hairdressers. After forcing Jack to put her back on the show to clear her name, Grace gets booed. However, she delivers a passionate speech about loving gay men even though they do not care for her.

One brick at a time[]

Will checks up on Karen, whom he thinks is not dealing with the recent news that her husband Stanley lied about his death. When Will asks Karen to let her feelings out, she admits that she is feeling empty and confused and even more alone than she did when thought Stanley was dead, which causes her to finally break down.

When Karen's emotions get out of hand, she accuses Will of not dealing with his problems himself. Will looks at his failed relationship with Vince and the successful career he left behind and realizes that he is also in denial about his true feelings and begins to sulk in the choices he made. The two decide to "leave the walls up and all the feelings on the other side".

Cast[]

Main[]

Guest[]

Charles C. Stevenson Jr. (Smitty)
Mathew Botuchis (Dave "Elizabeth")
Matt Crabtree (Stage Manager)
Thomas J. Hamilton (Guy)
Sachiko Hayashi (Harumi)

Notes[]

This is the first time Will is able to get through to Karen to open up about her feelings. He does the same thing when Karen mourns over the loss of another loved one in the episode Rosario's Quinceañera.

Cultural references[]

Will and Grace discuss Katie Holmes' picture mouthing "help me". Holmes had recently been engaged to actor and notorious Scientologist Tom Cruise. Grace alludes to the rumor that the couple do not sleep on the same bed, saying that Holmes "made her own twin beds."
- Later in the episode, Karen parodies Cruise's interview on the Today show earlier that year, where he dismissed psychiatry as a pseudoscience and criticized actress Brooke Sheilds who openly admitted to taking antidepressants while suffering from postpartum depression.
Karen says he has joined fitness and weight loss establishment Curves. She also mentions being into the Harry Potter book series, which at the time had just released its fourth book, and that she is secretly rooting for the villainous Slytherin house.
Karen mentions that she became so upset that she went to the Mercer Hotel and threw a phone at the front desk clerk, referencing the recent incident where New Zealand actor Russell Crowe did the same thing when the clerk refused to help him place a call.^[1]
While taking out "bricks" off her wall, Karen implies being related to the kidnapping of heiress Patty Hearst in 1974. Karen also implies that she was the woman who posed nude with actress Vanessa Williams during the 1984 Miss America controversy, where Williams was forced to resign as the Miss America title when the photos were about to be published by Penthouse magazine. In reality, the model Williams posed with remains unknown.
When a messy Grace comes into the apartment after being trashed at the salon, Rosario refers to her as Simba, after the lion in The Lion King.

Media[]

Quotes[]

Will:	Okay, look at this picture. If you look at it closely, I swear you can see Katie Holmes mouthing, "Help me."
Grace:	Please. She made her own twin beds.

—reading a magazine

Shame on you! Bad queens! Bad queens. Do you even know who you're booing? I have been devoted to you for decades. When I was a little girl, I showed you mine when you showed me yours. Even though you didn't care. When I was in high school, I showed you mine when you showed me yours, even though you didn't care. And when I was in my twenties, I slept with you, even though you still didn't care. And now, you sneer at me at the Chelsea Market, and you-- you throw macaroni salad at me on Christopher Street? And it's so not fair, because I love you people! I have always loved you in a very unhealthy way. For my own personal development, so now love me back, dammit! — Grace

Will:	I've had tons of successful relationships!
Karen:	That all ended.
Will:	Successfully!

Any hag worth her salt has that speech ready to go for the day you guys turn. — Grace

References[]

↑ (June 7, 2005) "Russell Crowe Accused of Assault With Hotel Phone" The NY Times

[1] (June 7, 2005) "Russell Crowe Accused of Assault With Hotel Phone" The NY Times

[1]