Grace Expectations

Grace Expectations is the 16th episode of the eighth season and the 186th overall.

James starts to show a side of him Will has never seen before. After finding out she is pregnant, Grace decides to tell the father.

Synopsis[]

"Let's Meet Us the Fetus"[]

The day after her green-card wedding to James, Grace comes back from the doctor to check up on her nausea and finds out that she is pregnant with her ex-husband Leo's baby from their brief encounter on an airplane a while back. Will wonders if she should tell Leo, but Grace says that his clinic said that he is out of the country. Later, Grace confesses that Leo is actually in New York, but she is finding it difficult to tell him.

Grace finally meets up with Leo at a café, but before she could mention her pregnancy, Leo tells her about his engagement to another woman. Grace realizes that Leo has moved on so decides not to tell him and wishes him well. Back at the apartment, Grace laments how she is going to be alone in raising her child. Her friends assure her that she has a family who will be with her every step of the way.

The Hot Canadian Freak Store[]

While at the coffee house, Will is surprised when James cuts in line by pretending to have a dying mother at the hospital. He confides with Jack the side of James he does not know about, as they only have known each other for five days. Although Jack tells him to not worry as James may just by "edgy", Will realizes later that James is selfish, cruel and unsympathetic towards the disabled. Immediately, Will and Grace decide to annul her marriage to James so he will be deported back to Canada.

Cast[]

Main[]

Guest[]

Harry Connick, Jr. (Leo Markus)
Taye Diggs (James Hanson)
Brooke Baumer (Woman)
Jennifer DeMille (Woman #1)

Notes[]

Last appearance of James. He and Grace get annulled at the end of the episode and he presumably gets deported shortly.
One of the two episodes written by producer Janis Hirsh, the other being Forbidden Fruit.
Grace sings a line of Sheena Easton's 9 to 5 (aka "Morning Train") to Grace's tummy. Interestingly, in the next episode, Dolly Parton's 9 to 5 is played. Both songs were released in 1980.
Will mentions that he has never been to Vancouver. In reality, Eric McCormack who is Canadian-American lives in Vancouver.

Cultural references[]

Thinking Grace is carrying James' baby, Karen refers to it as a "Jewish black baby", which according to her is called a macaroon. Jewish people in the US usually consume chocolate-dipped macaroons during Passover season.
Karen refers to Grace as "mile-high mom", referring to the mile-high club because Grace became pregnant when she had sex on a plane.
Karen mentions that she was alive during the Great Depression in the 1930s, implying that she may be at least 70 years old.
When Grace's hormones surge, she angrily hurls insults and Will rhetorically asks if she is giving birth to Roseanne, after the titular character in the 90s sitcom known for her brass attitude.
Karen refers to James as Seal, after the British singer who is also black and bald.
Will says Jack thinks Vice President Dick Cheney was a bondage toy ("dick chainey").

Quotes[]

Oh, my God. Pregnant? That's... That's whatever you think that is, I think that is, too. — Will, being supportive

Grace, you're going to have a Jewish black baby. I believe that's called a macaroon. — Karen

I'm taking a nap. I might be out for a while. Wake me if you hear a baby crying. — Grace

Hey, what's in the bag, fag? —

Will:	You've been out for, like, twenty hours.
Grace:	No wonder I'm hungry. I've missed, like, seven meals.

If she offers to powder baby, say no. — Will, on Karen's baby daddy skills

Will:	You're gonna have Leo back, and I've got James. Could we actually have everything?
Grace:	I think we might. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?
Will:	I am. Let's call our friends and rub it in their faces.

Grace:	I hope I picked the right thing to wear. I'm going for the love-of-your-life-who's-not-trapping-you-into-marriage-with-a-surprise-pregnancy look.
Will:	God, I remember the first year that look hit the runways. I thought, "Who's going to wear that?"

Honey, you do have a family. And I don't mean those Jews in Schenectady. I mean us. — Karen