CVK and I watched the last episode of WILL & GRACE last night. Now, whether you like the show or hate the show, you must admit, it's been a successful series and a final episode is an event. We snuggled up on the couch with some designer chocolates that I bought in Vegas last weekend and watched the first hour, which was a retrospective of the series. It was fun, but you see the same thing in the extras session on the boxed sets. The best blooper was Debra Messing's inability to keep a straight face to the candy striper/nurse played by THE BRADY BUNCH MOVIE's Jennifer Elise Cox.

The second hour was the final episode itself. I was left unsatisfied. I think they blew it. Now, does everyone remember the last episode of FRIENDS? How they went for emotion rather than belly laughs? They did the same thing on W&G, and I felt the same kind of letdown. First of all, they tried to pack too much into the hour: Grace's fear that by being with Will all these years, she's ruined whatever chance of happiness he may have had, their arguing, their reconciliation, Karen's bankruptcy, etc. By jumping forward in time (TWICE!), there were too many missed opportunities: Grace and Leo's second wedding, the birth of Grace's baby, Will and Vince's union, the conception of their baby (who birthed the artificially-inseminated child?), the wedding of their children PLUS the fact that we did not get a chance to say goodbye to some of the semi-regulars on the show. A wedding would have been a marvelous opportunity to say farewell to/learn the fates of Rob and Ellen, Joe and Larry, Will's mother, Grace's mother and Jack's son Elliot. We will never know what happened to these characters, whom I've grown fond of over the life of the show. Imagine what would have happened if instead of a rushed final hour, they had devoted the entire last season to these events? Imagine the power of an episode where Grace decides to give up her interior design business and strictly be a wife and mother? Or the episode where Jack comes to the realization where he's not qualified to do ANYTHING other than be a kept man? Or that for all his roloflex of boyfriends, his lifelong companion will be Karen? Is he jealous of Will and Vince? Even with Karen's company, is Jack lonely without a man to call his own? What about Karen's dream of being a mother, forever unrealized? You can see what I mean.

Finally, my biggest sticking point: there is no way I can ever believe that Will and Grace would avoid each other for two years over an argument. No way. These people have been through the toughest of times, things much worse than Leo returning and forcing Will out of fatherhood. And once they make up, they just drift apart over the next 20 years because their lives are too busy?? NO. WAY.

That's why the show was ultimately disappointing for me...BUT.

It was emotional all the same.

I remember when Mel Blanc died. Mel, for those of you who don't know, was an incredibly talented actor who did the voices of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tweety Bird, Sylvester the cat, Porky Pig, Barney Rubble, Speed Buggy and so many others. When he passed away, I thought, "Wow, that's too bad" and didn't think too much more of it. Then, a month or so later, I went into a Warner Brothers Store in Chicago and ended up in the lithograph section, where I caught sight of a picture that I'll never forget as long as I live.

It showed Bugs, Daffy and the rest of the WB cartoon characters that Mel had voiced, standing in a group, their heads bowed in respect before a lonely microphone on a stand. At the top of the picture was one word: SPEECHLESS. I felt like I had been hit on the head with a mallet, and a black hole opened in the pit of my stomach. There would never be another Mel Blanc-voiced Bugs Bunny cartoon again. Never. They're all in the past. I immediately bought the picture and took it home.

This has led to more sad pictorals. When Muppet creator Jim Henson died, there was a one-panel cartoon of Mickey Mouse (Disney had just bought the rights to the Muppets) with his arm around Kermit the Frog who was waving to the distant figure of Henson in silhouette as he walked through clouds, presumably to Heaven. When Jackie Gleason died, I saw a heartbreaking cartoon of Alice from THE HONEYMOONERS, her head in her arms face-down on a kitchen table, Ralph's bus driver's cap before her. That about killed me, and I wasn't even a fan of that show. When Audrey Meadows died, someone made a cartoon of Alice and Ralph reunited in Heaven, and I felt a little better. When Charles Schultz died, it was as if Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, Lucy and the gang went with him. There would be no more Peanuts cartoons, only what existed now.

I guess I'm trying to relate how I feel, now that WILL & GRACE has gone the same way. Unless there are specials, their lives are over. We know how they end up, and what we don't know, we never will. And I wanted better for them. For all of them. And for us.

If you're still here, and you haven't strained your eyes from rolling them around in your sockets, saying "Geez, Jett, is a fucking TV show," then you know what I'm talking about. Good for you.

JBK