#and then retconned the entire storyline the early seasons are based off of??

[anotherpapercut]

I know several people who like LOVE seasons 5-7 (11th doctors run) and think the storylines and moffats writing are brilliant and I don't get it!!! what am I missing??? why does literally every single episode have the exact same stakes: Rory/Amy/the doctor is dead. forever. so dead. but wait!!! what if they aren't!!! why do so many of the explanations for why they're not actually dead feel so rushed like they were added at the last minute!! why does every single queer character act kind of weird and awkward about being queer!! why does the doctor casually say that women are inferior when no one's around!!! what the fuck!! hello!!!

[roughentumble]

#prev i would LOVE to hear more about that stance /gen (via @bradycore )

oh!!! sure thing!!

so in earlier seasons, it's established though minor dialogue that the way prophets work in supernatural is that they vanish off the face of the earth once they've finished telling whatever story they were meant to tell, because they only exist to deliver a divine message and are no longer needed once the work is done. so if you notice these brief bits of dialogue, and then watch the s5 finale, it's very obvious that what chuck is, is a prophet! he had no control over his life, over the story of sam and dean, and even goes out of his way to avoid writing certain things and changing the story to avoid messiness in his readership(i.e. avoiding writing about sam drinking demon blood). his alterations have no effect on reality, only on the scripture of sam and dean that would live on. he is not authorial, he's receiving divine inspiration based on the lived reality of sam and dean, which he then interprets into holy script(or in this case, dime-store checkout fodder). when his mission is done, and the story of sam and dean is finished(because kripke always meant for s5 to be the finale of the whole show, or at least the portion of the story he was willing to tell), chuck ceases to exist! his works are left for people to find and publish "posthumeously", as with all works of prophets in the supernatural universe

but some people didnt pick up on that dialogue, because it was pretty minor! so they thought chuck disappearing was because he was supernatural, and fan theories spread that he was god.

the show in later seasons then becomes notorious for interfering with and contradicting its own lore from early seasons, and most likely has no lore bible, at least in part because its cheap CW fodder that the network didn't care about beyond its money making potential(<-mean opinion, sorry). chuck then gets reintroduced as god, following fan theories based on a faulty memory of the show.

it's entirely contradicted by earlier lore, and could only have come about by misremembering what was established, so i dont recognize it as "wholly canon", personally! its like two different shows in my head because otherwise remembering it makes me want to scream.

there's plenty of fun that comes from the god storyline, dont get me wrong, i just wish god had been a different guy we hadnt met before. but saying "oh my chuck" drives me personally up a wall, because "chuck as prophet" and "chuck as god" exist to me in totally different eras and levels of Show Continuity/Reality

i know both things are canon now because retconning happens, even within the kripke era, and it isnt like the evilest sin ever, its just. it bugged me when it was a fan theory, and then it became canon, becoming my personal bugbear. i cant believe the people who were wrong got validated! an everyday experience for the correct supernatural watcher

whichever one wins will be erased from everyone’s minds instantaneously never to be used again. choose wisely

[miggydiaz]

for the salty ask: 3, 7, 10, 11, 15, 16, 19, 22, 23, 24, 25 and 27 for spn

I had to do this one today because I have a LOT of Supernatural feelings and so a lot of these are even longer than my CK one. But thanks for the ask @wonderwolfballoon!

UNPOPULAR SUPERNATURAL OPINIONS AHOY: INCLUDES ANTI-DESTIEL SENTIMENTS AND OTHER UNSAVORY ELEMENTS

3. Have you ever unfollowed someone over a fandom opinion? 100000000% I have unfollowed someone over a fandom opinion in the SPN fandom. SPN was the fandom that taught me to make JUDICIOUS use of the blocking feature tumblr offers in order to curate my experience. I would actually encourage anyone and everyone to use the blocking feature if they disagree with people. Honestly, we don’t owe anyone our time or energy, especially on the internet! It is much healthier than sending or responding to hate, IMO. 7. Is there anything you used to like but can’t stand now?* This is actually a hard one for me to answer, so let me start by saying -- I have not seen a SINGLE episode since 9x05? I think? Whichever episode was the Dr. Deanlittle one where he talks to animals. I just couldn’t do it anymore. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the first 5 seasons, and they are all I watch anymore and I pretend nothing else exists after that (except The French Mistake because that episode is hilarious). But uh... I guess the simple answer is when I was originally watching it, I really loved Dean. He was brash, snarky, rough around the edges... but kind of soft in a I’m too toxically masculine to deal with my softness sort of way that I love seeing characters grow out of as they mature. But when I go back and rewatch now, much older than I was in 2006 when I first started watching, I see how awful a lot of his older behavior truly was. I still love Dean, and I will be a Dean girl until I die probably, but sometimes you gotta remind yourself that your faves have been problematic in the past so you don’t put them up on fandom constructed pedestals.

10. Most disliked arc? Why? AND AS A BONUS, MY ANSWER to 11. Is there an unpopular character you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why? I could write a literal essay about all of the problems I have with the later seasons (the ones I watched, which encompasses 6, 7, 8, and a few episodes of 9). But by far and away, the thing I hated most, was the Men of Letters.

Okay, this is where I am going to recognize my love of certain characters is at FUNDAMENTAL ODDS with how that character develops later and what history and background we get later on them. I RECOGNIZE this character is problematic, and I would NEVER STAND for his shit IRL, but fiction is complicated and nuanced, and fantastic circumstances do not make for normal behaviors. That being said, with all warnings I could possibly give, and with the full understanding that what I am about to say is basically fandom blasphemy of the highest order...

I like John Winchester’s character.

I know, I know. If you wanna stop reading and block me now, you are free to do that. I will not hold it against you. I am not about to apologize for anything he has done. I just need to contextualize why I have such an issue with the MOL storyline and it starts with the simple fact that I liked John Winchester as he was originally presented.

To me, and with the full understanding that I am answering this from the perspective of someone who DOES NOT regard anything past season 5 as personal canon, John Winchester is the perfect example of a truly complicated character. Here’s a parent who, if we take the pilot and the original s2 Djinn episodes at face value, could have been a great parent, who then got shoved into a fantastically impossible situation and made terrible choices that he thought were necessary in order to keep himself and his sons safe. That does not EXCUSE the heaps of abuse that he piled onto Dean in any way. We know John and Mary didn’t have a great marriage. But we also know from the pilot that John was at least a caring and present father, mostly,  for the 4 years he got to parent in a normal world, and that if Mary had lived, John would’ve been a softball playing dad who raised his kids and had a loving marriage with his wife. (Again, I need to reiterate, I did not watch anything past the early episodes of s9. If there is later canon that negates this, I do not know about it, nor do I want to because I don’t think of anything past 5 as canon) This is all important to me because these things emphasize that John was “NORMAL”. He was a mechanic, from a family of mechanics, whose father didn’t bail on him (a man in the episode where Dean is transported back in time to Lawrence tells John to ‘say hi to your old man for me’ or something to that effect). He was just a midwestern dude. Giving John Winchester a fantastical background through this Men of Letters bullshit made me SO MAD. First of all, I hate when later canon negates previous canon. I cannon TELL you how much I hate it. And the later seasons of Supernatural are riddled with stuff that doesn’t make any damn sense in the context of original, Kripke written canon, which is exactly why I stopped watching. That’s not ~Evolution of the show.~ That’s conveniently forgetting stuff that made your show and its premise so successful to begin with in order to keep filming episodes so you can keep making money. It’s the sacrifice of art for capitalism and yes I know this is a stupid TV show but as a writer myself it PISSES ME OFF.

/rant

ALSO, the idea that this toxically masculine family was set on this path by Heaven, and inherited this curse that put them on this path from their mother was such a good plot twist in its heyday. We spent four seasons thinking of Mary Winchester as a victim of circumstance, whose fate could not have been avoided because she was the mother to Sam, who is effectively cursed. And then, we learn that its BECAUSE of Mary that this ball even got rolling in the first place. IDK if you were around for that time in the fandom but at least in my circle, this was a big fucking deal. There had been so much (rightful) discourse about John before this, and what kind of parent he was, that Mary became almost deified in the same way Dean deifies her. And then we find out that this whole story gets set in motion by a decision she made because this was the life she found herself in. This was great. It was interesting. And even though the MOL doesn’t negate any of this, it does give John this weirdly fantastical that isn’t necessary. Let this guy be just some Joe Schmoe who fell in love with a kick ass hunter and had no idea any of this even existed. Let Mary and her want to be ‘normal’ be a complicated moral choice that fundamentally altered the paths of her husband and sons. It’s good tv!

Also, I fucking hate the bunker. The best episodes are Dean and Sam having moments in the car, or while in motel rooms on their cases, or whatever. I don’t mind them having a home base. I’m fine with that. But if a building could ever be a Mary Sue character, the bunker is it. I hate all of the MOL storyline, starting with this place.

I may not even tag this as Supernatural, I don’t need angry later season stans in my inbox.

15. Unpopular opinion about the manga/show?

There’s nothing good about anything that happened after season 6. It’s all a bunch of retconning bullshit. Season 6 had its moments where it was interesting, so I cut it a little bit of slack, but as far as I’m concerned, the show ended in season 5. I’m not sure that’s necessarily unpopular, but it does feel that way on tumblr, so. 

16. If you could change anything in the show, what would you change?

Aside from ending it in season 5?

Oooh, I’m about to blaspheme again. I am definitely not tagging this as Supernatural.

I would never have introduced Castiel, and I would’ve given that entire storyline to Anna. Or, alternatively, I would’ve flipped their story lines.

Look, for whatever it’s worth... I agree with the idea that Dean Winchester is a repressed bisexual. His Dr. Sexy love, the entire storyline with Benny in season 8, etc. I just don’t think he feels romantically about Castiel. And like, that’s okay! Just because you’re not into someone who is into you doesn’t mean you owe them a relationship or anything, no matter what the fandom thinks.

But I also think Dean has a big problem when it comes to women. Again, obviously later on in the series, Dean shifts and Charlie happens and Claire Novak and I know all of these things from gifs okay, context is not applicable here because I have none. But early on, Dean struggles A LOT with thinking of women as A) capable and B) trustworthy. He exists in a perpetual state of identifying women along the Madonna/Whore binary. Even Jo, however you feel about her, and to be clear, I loved Jo, but he doesn’t stop thinking of her really as a kid until they’re about to shoot the devil. Up until then, he’s genuinely surprised Ellen lets her out of the damn house.

Giving him a strong, capable woman who rebels against Heaven for HIM would have fundamentally altered Dean’s perceptions of women much earlier on than we get and would have forced him to examine some of that misogyny head on.

Dean has no problems trusting men. This is why the entire Gordon fiasco happens, right? It was less work for him to trust Castiel because Castiel is the inverse of Ruby. Angel to her Demon. Angels and demons don’t really have genders, but for the sake of presentation of vessels, man to her woman. Not even getting me started on the problematic parts of having significant demons mostly symbolized by women (Meg, Ruby, Lilith) and having significant angels mostly represented by Men (Castiel, Michael, Lucifer, Zachariah, Gabriel, Raphael), and how that ties into the idea of Original Sin and yada yada, but just like it’s interesting to have Mary and her decisions be the catalyst for the story, it’s interesting to have this badass warrior angel in Anna who marches down to Hell to yank Dean out, and through her interactions with him, decide to rebel against the ultimate patriarchy, while Dean gets an equally strong female counterpart to Sam’s Ruby, a woman for all intents and purposes that he respects as a soldier and an ally and not just a potential piece of ass.

Also, Castiel fans being literally unbearable is why I left the fandom. Nothing against Misha or anything, and not even anything against Cas as a character (who I very much enjoyed in seasons 4 and 5), but his fans have always been the worst and they try to insert him into everything.

19. What is the one thing you hate most about your fandom?

Castiel/Destiel fans, which even though I also hated the direction the show was going, drove me out of the fandom. Not like, personally or directly, but just the sheer mental hoops they had to jump through in order to make their ship work and I just got tired of seeing all of the contrived meta on my dash. Oh, and the rampant misogyny that came out of those early Castiel fans. I didn’t appreciate it from the Wincest corner, and I definitely didn’t appreciate it from the fans of the new guy. Gross.

22. Popular character you hate?

Oof. I don’t know. I don’t really hate Castiel, because again, I liked him a lot in seasons 4 and 5. Even 6 was interesting, even if I don’t regard it as my own personal show canon. I don’t think there was a popular character in those first five seasons I ever really hated. I didn’t fundamentally hate a character at all until the MOL stuff came around. Um. Yeah, I don’t really have an answer for this.

23. Unpopular character you love?

Pretty much every female character ever. Jo, Ellen, Ruby, Meg... although Meg became more popular as the series went on, Anna. Um. OH, BELA. Bela ESPECIALLY, I recently rewatched season 3 and I cannot emphasize how MUCH I love Bela. She was the best purely human foil ever. Bela is hands down the character I love most that the fandom had frothing at the mouth hatred for. It doesn’t help that I legitimately think Lauren Cohan is one of the most beautiful women on the planet. But seriously, Bela. Hands down.

24. Would you recommend XXX to a friend? Why or why not? 

I have! Many of times, and ALWAYS WITH THE CAVEAT to stop at the end of season 5. Not a single one of them has listened to me and almost all of them came to me at the end of the finale and were like WHY DID I WASTE SO MUCH TIME, and I don’t want to say I told them so, but like, I explicitly in neon colored text once told them so, so like, idk what to tell them. But yes! I think if someone is interested in some classic mystery television that has an overarching theme of family and forgiveness and striking out against the boxes that life tries to put us all into, SPN is a great show. But only the first 5 seasons. Also, be prepared for some thematically problematic parts of the show because there’s a lot of cishet toxic masculinity in those early seasons, and we should examine our media critically. There’s also a lot of good though too, and IMO, the good outweighs the bad.

25. How would you end XXX/Would you change the ending of XXX?

I would’ve ended it at season 5. I would’ve had Sam escape the pit and seen him standing under the street lamp, but then I would’ve had him walking away to leave Dean with Lisa (btw, side note, I DIDN’T like Lisa because I don’t think Dean would ever be truly happy with someone completely outside the life). Not because Sam doesn’t love his brother, but because he *does* love his brother, and because he would want Dean to be happy, even though Dean and Sam’s ideas of what makes the other happy have always been a little bit screwed up.. but that’s a different story.

27. Least shippable character?

Probably Zachariah. God, could you imagine? And... maybe Alastair, but I’m sure there are fics out there that I do not want to think about.

[eichy815]

Back to Lanford: How the ‘Roseanne’ Reboot Can Pick Up Where The Conners Left Off

With classic sitcoms and dramas being continued in “sequel” form – Fuller House, Heroes: Reborn, Girl Meets World, Prison Break, 24: Legacy, and the recently-announced Will & Grace update among them – it was only a matter of time before one unthinkable television giant joined the pack.

That classic series is Roseanne, the working-class family sitcom that ran for nine seasons on ABC from 1988 to 1997.  America’s first extensive introduction to stand-up comedienne Roseanne Barr, the series took a spot amid the echelon of TV’s greatest heavy-hitters.  Barr played Roseanne Conner, a blue-collar mother in the small town of Lanford, Illinois who managed her dysfunctional, unfiltered brood:  lovable-but-occasionally-volatile husband Dan (John Goodman), spunky-and-precocious eldest daughter Becky (first played by Lecy Goranson; later recast with Sarah Chalke in the role), tomboy-turned-downbeat-rebel Darlene (Sara Gilbert), and sweet-talking schemer D.J. (Michael Fishman).

Roseanne and her younger sister, the romantically-unlucky Jackie (Laurie Metcalf), toiled in an erratic series of thankless jobs – factory worker, salon sweeper, trucker, restaurant server, police officer – before finally opening up their own restaurant in their hometown.  Meanwhile, along with their constant financial insecurity, the Conners dealt with a variety of other life stressors – new marriages, somber divorces, pregnancies, extramarital affairs, school drama, hostile coworkers, unhinged peers.

Along the way, several recurring characters joined the cast:  Roseanne and Jackie’s childhood friend and coworker, the self-conscious Crystal (Natalie West); Darlene’s pushover boyfriend (and eventual husband), David (portrayed by The Big Bang Theory’s Johnny Galecki); David’s older brother, bad-boy-turned-dolt Mark (the late Glenn Quinn) who eloped with Becky; Jackie’s “baby daddy” and short-lived husband, Fred (Michael O’Keefe); self-centered lesbian gal pal Nancy (Sandra Bernhard); Roseanne’s anal-retentive boss-turned-business-partner Leon (Martin Mull); and Roseanne and Jackie’s overbearing widowed mother, Beverly (Estelle Parsons), who was perpetually meddling in their personal lives.

So the announcement that Roseanne will be returning for a tenth season (after 21 years off the air) has delighted many of its fans...including myself.  Most of the original cast is slated to return, in some capacity.  Obviously, this will be easier to do in some cases rather than others, as Galecki presently stars on The Big Bang Theory while Gilbert is a daily cohost of The Talk.

Still, given all of the taboo issues from the 1990s that Roseanne proceeded to tackle, head-on – homosexuality, abortion, domestic abuse, addiction, racism, sexism, mental health – think of how many new controversies and watercooler topics in the 21st Century the Conners could react to.

Just pick any of the social issues that I write about over at Morpheus magazine. The possibilities are endless.

Here’s what we know so far:  Season 10 of Roseanne will debut on ABC, sometime midseason.  Its initial order will be for eight episodes – however, if the commercial and viewer response is positive, additional episodes will presumably be green-lit.  I assume it will still be in multi-camera format, taped in front of a live studio audience.

There’s one potential glitch, though;  the series finale, entitled “Into That Good Night,” aired on May 20, 1997.  On the heels of Season 9, which saw the Conners striking it rich from winning the lottery – and living out many fantasy-style experiences as a result of their newfound wealth – the series finale episode ends with a voiceover monologue where Roseanne Conner reveals that all of Season 9 was just part of an elaborate story she had been writing.  Since the protagonist had been established as a talented writer early in the show’s run, this seemed to gel fairly well with the show’s canon while negating some plotlines from the final season that many long-time fans had hated.

Except it wasn’t just “The Lottery Season” that was part of her story-within-a-story.  Roseanne Conner reveals that the entire series contains elements that she’d altered as part of her character’s overall writing career.  Dan actually died from his heart attack at Darlene’s wedding in the Season 8 finale.  Becky was actually romantically paired with David, while Darlene was actually with Mark – Roseanne had just switched them.  Jackie was really a lesbian and never dated men.

This left a bad taste in many fans’ mouths.  How were we supposed to know what all from Roseanne’s first eight seasons really happened...and which stuff the protagonist created through the power of her pen?

Many longtime fans of the series would like for Season 10 of Roseanne to dismiss everything seen during Season 9 as just some elaborate fantasy sequence.  Other fans hated Season 8 (the one right before “The Lottery Season”), and would like for that season to be largely ignored as well.  The problem with that:  Roseanne Conner became pregnant with her final child at the beginning of Season 7 (to synchronize with Barr’s real-life pregnancy) – and that pregnancy storyline lasted well into the beginning of Season 8 (culminating in a Halloween-themed episode where Roseanne goes into labor and names her son after Jerry Garcia – who appears as her “spirit guide” while in the hospital).

Early rumblings are that Season 10 will simply ignore Dan’s death and pretend like it had never happened.  But as I wrote about, back in March, on the topic of Will & Grace’s forthcoming sequel series – I feel that would be a mistake...and sort of an insult to the intelligence of the fanbase.

I say – take the best elements of all nine of Roseanne’s seasons, and rationalize that anything from those nine seasons which the writing staff wishes to retcon should be considered part of an anthology of short stories (or, in the case of Season 9, one larger novel) that Roseanne Conner wrote during her downtime as a blue-collar mom.

This way, Dan is still alive, Darlene and David are still married, and everyone retains the same qualities and distinct personality traits that we loved (or hated) about all of them.

Furthermore, any outlandish plotlines from any of the sitcom’s nine seasons could be retconned as either part of an anthology-based individual short story or as part of one of Roseanne Conner’s assorted longer (unpublished) novels.

For example, when snooty Cousin Ronnie (Joan Collins) blew into town in February 1993:  it turns out, that was just a short story written for Roseanne’s own amusement – because, in her words:  “I always wondered what it would be like being related to someone like that bitch Alexis from Dynasty.”

Or, when Darlene experimented with drugs in 1994 – yep, another short story!  This one focusing on the danger of smart kids who end up inexplicably making stupid choices.

The Gilligan’s Island  fantasy sequence from the Season 7 finale episode – another written daydream of Roseanne Conner.

Roseanne’s March 1995 kitchen visit from a gaggle of legendary TV moms...yeah, really just a satirical written piece illustrating Roseanne Conner’s outlook on motherhood.

That crazy January 1996 food fight that Roseanne and Jackie had in the middle of the “Buy ’n Bag” – yet another short story Roseanne wrote in order to blow off some steam.

Oh, and granddaughter Harris was never born with a lung defect...that had been one of the few serious storylines in Roseanne’s longer “lottery-based” novel.

They could even do a fun gag with the alternating Beckys – including episodes where Lecy Goranson and Sarah Chalke take turns playing Becky, from one scene to the next, Patty Duke-style (as they teased during the Season 8 premiere).  Chalke is rumored to be returning as a totally new character, which could also be tied to Roseanne Conner’s in-universe writing.  This would also allow them to explain all of the constant cameo appearances from celebrities, in-jokes, tribute episodes, and off-the-wall storylines that popped up even before “The Lottery Season” ever happened.

Here’s an example of how I would write it:

***********************************************************

ROSEANNE CONNER

As Barr herself opined during a 2009 blog/interview, she muses that Roseanne Conner is probably now operating a marijuana dispensary alongside Jackie.  Actually, that would seem to fit in well with both the current political climate and Barr’s own political leanings (she supported Bernie Sanders during last year’s primaries).  Roseanne and Jackie could have opened up a ganja-outlet called “The Munch Box” – attached to, and operating next to, the still-thriving “Lunch Box” (which now offers up pitas and calzones in addition to its loose-meat sandwiches, as a way of satisfying Lanford’s evolving clientele).

Aside from that, Roseanne is most likely doing what we loved the most about her:  knocking together the heads of her relatives (or other clueless acquaintances), calling out social injustices in any small way she can, and daydreaming about how she might piece together a better world in her wildest fantasies.  Oh, and writing.  Lots and lots of creative writing in her very own basement “dungeon” – I mean, “office.”

DAN CONNER

When Season 10 of Roseanne opens, it could be revealed that Dan did indeed suffer a heart attack at Darlene and David’s wedding...but, unlike what was revealed to us in the Season 9 finale (which was really just the ending to one of Roseanne Conner’s plethora of alternate-ending short stories), Dan is still alive and kicking as he approaches his seventies.  Now, however, he’s living on SSI/SSDI/Disability and does under-the-table work at a local pawn shop (since he’s in no cardiovascular condition to complete heavy manual labor).

DARLENE CONNER HEALY

After marrying David in 1996, Darlene indeed achieved her dream of getting out of Lanford.  She became a Hollywood writer for an adapted television version of her successful comic, “Fairy Scary” (a sci-fi/fantasy hybrid graphic novel series about a race of dark fairies who covertly bioengineer humans into what we know as vampires, zombies, and werewolves).  She moved herself, David, and their daughter, Harris, out to L.A. so that she could work full-time while David functions as a stay-at-home father raising young Harris.  Although she’s an overworked staffer on the TV incarnation of Fairy Scary (now in its fifth season), Darlene maintains her biting wit and dark view of the world.   Oh, and she’s upgraded from being a vegetarian to becoming a vegan (much like Gilbert in real life).

D.J. CONNER

More mature but still a fan of occasional mischief, D.J. is now an independent filmmaker who travels the country to document human interest stories and political agitators.  Upon graduating from film school in Chicago, D.J. journeyed out to Hollywood for a trial visit – where Darlene helped to hook him up with some initial contacts.  Eventually, though, D.J. decided that the West Coast wasn’t for him; he realized he preferred going to where the stories actually took place, rather than trying to bring them to him.  He’s currently unattached, having had several short-term girlfriends.  He still remains friends with some of his female peers from his middle & high school years:  Heather (Heather Matarazzo), Lisa (Ashley Johnson), and Geena (Rae’ven Kelly).

BECKY CONNER HEALY

Becky, now widowed after Mark (the late Glenn Quinn) died in Afghanistan in 2003, finally achieved her dream of attending college following the loss of her husband.  She graduated from a four-year university in 2013 – although it took her more like six years to do so, since she had to juggle part-time work on top of it.  Still sharp and feisty, Becky manages a clothing boutique in Lanford...and is considering a run for political office, in light of everything that’s gone on with the new Trump Administration.

JACKIE HARRIS

Since her dalliance with Prince Carlos (the late Jim Varney) was all a part of one of Roseanne’s longer novels, we learn that Jackie did indeed experiment with lesbianism following her split from Fred.  Contrary to what Roseanne stated in the epilogue of her Season 9 book, Jackie is actually bisexual...but still remains unlucky in love whether it comes to men or women.  Jackie continues to co-own “The Lunch Box” with her sister, and is supportive of her only child, openly-gay (yes, her prediction came true!) twenty-four-year-old son Andy.

DAVID HEALY

He’s still Darlene’s obedient husband, although he’s slowly finding subversive ways to come into his own.  While he can’t always fly out to Illinois to visit his in-laws, David has done a good job of keeping Darlene grounded and relatively-sane amid the cutthroat jungle that is Hollywood.  He was able to be a stay-at-home dad for a majority of Harris’s childhood; but now that Harris is in her early-twenties, David works part-time as an assistant at a Pasadena-based Caltech physics lab so he doesn’t get completely bored.

NANCY BARTLETT

Since she’d stopped appearing as frequently during the show’s last few seasons, here’s a retconned scenario I have constructed for Nancy:  quite awhile after her split from Marla (Morgan Fairchild) in the mid-1990s, the flighty lesbian ended up marrying new character Wendi (portrayed by actress Christine Dunford) – the owner of a small Northern Illinois pet store chain.  “Wendi’s Whiskers” has since expanded into 27 other states...and Nancy now travels the country peddling pet food on behalf of her wife, after having sold her share of “The Lunch Box” to Anne-Marie (Adilah Barnes).

LEON CARP

He did indeed marry charismatic attorney Scott (Fred Willard) in early-1996...however, the garish, over-the-top gay-themed wedding that Roseanne threw for them was really – you guessed it! – one of Roseanne Conner’s short stories.  Beginning in 2011, Leon and Scott adopted three children (who are currently teenagers)...and the overbearing Leon has uncharacteristically settled into the role of an awkward “soccer dad” while Scott thrives as a legal eagle serving his many clients in Chicago.

CRYSTAL ANDERSON CONNER

After Ed (Ned Beatty) died, Crystal opened up a Lanford-based day care center in her home.  While serving as a chatty-but-compassionate sounding-board for Roseanne, Jackie, Nancy, and Anne-Marie, the tightly-wound Crystal began immersing herself in the world of do-it-yourself crafts (she claims that Rosie O’Donnell was her inspiration).  Within the past year, Crystal has secured a deal on Shark Tank to market her homemade line of insulated cozies for baby bottles and lunch boxes.  She is also actively being courted by Clinton Kelly to serve as a part-time correspondent for “Clinton’s Craft Corner” on The Chew.

JERRY GARCIA CONNER

Born in late-1996 (although whether or not he was actually born on Halloween might be retconned differently), the Conners’ youngest child, Jerry (portrayed by actor Kian Lawley), is still living with his parents at the age of 21 after having dropped out of college.  However, Jerry isn’t a total slacker – upon his remarkable weight loss in high school, Jerry started up a popular YouTube channel on blue-collar health, which is broadcasted out of the Conners’ basement...oh, Jerry has just come out to Roseanne and Dan as transgender.  The youngest Conner kid now goes by “Geri” and is preparing for gender reassignment surgery – with which Roseanne and Dan are both still trying to come to terms.

ANDY HARRIS

Now at the age of 24, Jackie’s only child, Andy (portrayed by actor Cameron Bright) is a happy-go-lucky cosmetician who often operates out of his cousin Becky’s boutique.  He’s currently dating a “bad boy” – yes, there are openly-gay bikers in Lanford – much to the chagrin of his overprotective bisexual mom.  Amid the last two decades’ worth of upheaval in his Aunt Roseanne and Uncle Dan’s life, Andy has somehow managed to become the “heart” and positive energy of this wacky, brooding Midwestern extended clan.

HARRIS CONNER HEALY

Darlene and David’s daughter (and only child), Harris (portrayed by actress Ciara Bravo) – now at the age of 19 – has become sort of a spooky Wednesday Addams-style young adult.  Harris is a conspiracy theorist who opted to skip college so she could collaborate on a Chicago-based startup magazine run with several of her “Generation Z” peers.  Her writing skills have taken on more of a “political revolutionary” tone than either her mother’s or her grandmother’s – and she plans to help convince her Aunt Becky to mount a congressional run in this new political era.  Oh, and Harris has also picked up the torch of developing an adversarial relationship with great-grandmother Bev – much to the delight of her own Grandma Roseanne!

BEV HARRIS

The erstwhile mother/grandmother who grated everybody’s eardrums like nails on a chalkboard, Bev (still portrayed by Estelle Parsons, contingent upon Parsons’s availability) presently globe-trots with her lesbian lover, Joyce (Ruta Lee) – and occasionally appears on the YouTube channel of grandchild Geri...entertaining Internet voyeurs with her bewildered 21st Century musings.

NANA MARRY

As a tribute to the late Shelley Winters, the Conners’ favorite Nana Mary (Roseanne’s great-grandmother) died in 2007 of congestive heart failure, after a whirlwind night of gambling in Las Vegas.  Nana Mary’s spontaneous jackpot of winnings from her last day on Earth is what enabled Becky to be sent to college (with Nana Mary having willed her eldest great-grandchild the cash on the back of a cocktail napkin).

HEATHER

Not introduced to audiences until Roseanne’s final season, the cerebral Heather (Heather Matarazzo) dated D.J. throughout their high school years...but she and D.J. split several months before he followed Darlene out to California.  However, Heather and D.J. still remain good friends; she works part-time at Becky’s boutique.

BONNIE WATKINS

Roseanne’s one-time coworker at Rodbell’s, Bonnie (Bonnie Bramlett) disappeared from the Lanford scene to become a traveling country singer who eventually was discovered by Dolly Parton during a Nashville festival (Bonnie may have even been drawn to Nashville after a chance meeting with Loretta Lynn at “Lanford Days” in 1993).  While she hasn’t been directly involved with much of their drama since the mid-1990s, Bonnie often returns to Lanford to give hometown concerts, which also boosts the area’s tourism.

LONNIE ANDERSON

Crystal’s oldest son (recast with Eric Szmanda in the role) is now an insurance broker who has helped his stepsiblings Dan and Roseanne navigate the perils of the Obamacare exchanges.

GEORGE

D.J.’s socially-awkward classmate, George (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is now a successful Hollywood showrunner who had helped to open some major doors for Darlene after Darlene’s first several unsuccessful years in Hollywood.  He has also come to the aid of his old buddy, D.J., in making some prime filmmaking contacts – D.J. and George currently have a good-natured “bromance” on those intermittent occasions when they get to reunite.

MOLLY & CHARLOTTE TILDEN

The two sisters who were the Conners’ new neighbors during Season 5 have, ironically, traded roles from the yin-and-yang personalities of their own teenage years.  Charlotte (Mara Hobel) is now an edgy biker chick (she was the one who introduced Andy to his current boyfriend, in fact), whereas Molly (Danielle Harris) has settled in as a rather conservative stay-at-home mom married to one of the junior partners at Scott’s law firm.

MIKE SUMMERS

The smarmy politician (portrayed by character actor Mark Blum), who tried to solicit Roseanne and Dan at the end of Season 4, now resides on the streets of Lanford as a homeless bum.  After losing political campaigns in 1992, 1998, and 2002, Mike was briefly taken in by a then-childless Leon and Scott (whom he’d met at the local Lanford Republican Club) – yet, they kicked the wannabe politico out onto the street after Citizen Summers took things too far in mooching off of them.

***********************************************************

Of course, these are just several scenarios that could unfold.  With Roseanne Conner’s hobby as a prolific writer, there are all kinds of ways to explain away the things seen during Roseanne’s nine seasons that the show’s writing staff chooses to determine were simply a figment of the Domestic Goddess’s imagination.

Hopefully, the new creative team behind the Roseanne reboot won’t follow the wayward advice of purists by awkwardly cherrypicking-and-disregarding the show’s canon in some seemingly random or haphazard manner.

Instead, the talented cast and creative forces behind Roseanne have an opportunity to bring Roseanne Conner and her brood into the new millennium while recapturing the spirit of the iconic family sitcom with which we all fell in love.

[kinetic-elaboration]

April 19: Thoughts on 1x11 We Are Grounders Pt 1

It’s late, I’m all upside down, and I just reread some of my old meta so I’m thinking about how Smart I am and also how bitter I am about this show. So here’s more of my rewatch!

Today’s episode, We Are Grounders Part One

I wonder if Jaha was so quick to throw up his hands and walk away from the DNR group in S4 because, especially prior to what was basically a religious conversion, he has a similarly strong death instinct himself. I’m not saying he didn’t do everything he could in favor of survival many times, but honestly how many other times has he been like ‘well, okay, tried everything, time to die’? Like compared to other characters? I’m not saying he actively wants to die so much as that he is more comforted than the average bear by the possibility of a ‘good death.’ (Also I think this has a lot to do with having lost his son tbqh.)

Note to self: someone I’m assuming is a station rep referred to her constituents.

An incredibly bleak but fitting ending for this show would have been to kill the Ark in S1 and then to have the delinquents and grounders kill each other in an escalating S2 war. It would have fulfilled certain foreshadowings/themes of the first season (all the war escalation stuff, the nuclear-age throwbacks) and it also would have been an appropriate ending for all these truly terrible, morally rotten people.

Literally Jaha v. Kane is Jasper v. everyone else (or at least, like, Clarke and Monty) in S4. Truly this show ran out of original ideas after 2 seasons, see again my previous point lol.

Speaking of Jasper there is my angular boy.

There is nothing about the delinquent camp I don’t like. Raven in like a council-level position, ish, Bellamy’s speeches and blatant emotion, everyone’s outfits.

I completely forgot Tristan existed.

I also forgot how many fake out main character deaths this show used to do. Abby, Finn. Can’t get away with that 4 seasons in. The audience knows anyone important is getting a real death scene.

Omg Bellamy has a whole like war plan with little figures and stuff.

Bellamy has this reputation for being all emotion and I think that’s him at heart but ignoring Clarke, Monty, and Finn’s disappearance is a logic-based decision. A sort of...overcompensatory logic-based decision. Also not in line with the show’s morality, like, at all. Hence why he drops it later.

Yet again impressed by how Jasper managed to change more than any other character over 4 seasons while still remaining IC. Even young and comparatively innocent he could be snarky and sarcastic and he also was honest and straightforward in his confrontation with Bellamy, and he kept on being all of those things later, but with bitterness and bite.

Murphy (having just obviously suffocated a boy): He stopped breathing. I was trying to help him. Jasper (nodding slowly): Yep, sounds about right, totally legit, lots of evidence that that is what went down. Yep.

Also I’m like 99% this ep is basically their last canon interaction so btw this was the end of what is absolutely, canonically (see the pilot and the Pike-class flashback) a same-station-forged friendship. And probably also explains why Murphy’s reaction to Jasper’s death was like ‘Jasper who???’ though that doesn’t make it any less an unforgivable sin.

There’s nothing not perfect about this scene overall, but the most perfect thing is “Tell Bellamy what?” coming from Jasper’s pocket. I love both that he tried to be sneaky and the comedic value of it.

TWO HEADED HORSE TWO HEADED HORSE TWO HEADED HORSE.

Lincoln was criminally underused. He not only saved Finn and Clarke, he “killed one of his own people to do it.” This isn’t about Octavia. He’s just been looking for an excuse to rebel his whole life.

Jackson’s being so lovely and supportive and Abby’s still calling him by his last name. Knowing this show they probably forgot it was his last name.

Today’s reminder that Octavia likes literally 4 people in the universe lol. And one of them was Jasper. Until the show forgot about that too but whatever not bitter.

RE: Raven getting in under the floor. I’m thinking about my fic and my work around for opening the dropship from the outside and okay on the one hand if such a device existed, Raven would probably know about it as much as Monty but on the other hand, there has to be a way to close the dropship from the outside, because it’s closed in S3 and there’s no one in it. So logically it should open from the outside too, without recourse to loose panels and stuff. So maybe I was a little, like, short-cut-y in my solution but the show is not consistent so we’re even. (We’re not even but I’m self-conscious now.)

Bellamy talking on the walkie with Murphy might honestly be the most beautiful he’s ever been.

Legit question: who do the Grounders battle? They have this coalition, with like Ambassadors and shit. Which doesn’t mean they can’t battle each other but there’s also some diplomacy going on, like, clearly. Which should make battling less necessary, one would think. And even if they do battle each other, over fucking what??? Land? Literally never seen solid evidence that land boundaries matter to them. Shits and giggles? Bragging rights? They have an enemy in Mount Weather but Lincoln sure as shit wasn’t fighting battles against them.

T100 drinking game: take a shot any time says ‘cauterize the wound. Take two if they actually cauterize a wound.

“We lost Clarke, we can’t lose Bellamy too” is probably the first indication literally anywhere in the show that anyone acknowledges Clarke as an delinquent leader.

I miss the Raven + Jasper dream team. Tbh Raven has so few people who can appreciate her professionally. It’s literally Monty, Wick for a hot second, and Jasper (even though his skills aren’t the same as hers, they fit with hers nicely).

I miss my alternate universe where Jasper lives but becomes pacifistic in nature, where he abandons this ‘give me something to shoot through’ attitude and eschews the use of weaponry entirely.

I don’t think this show is 40% as badass or sick as it makes itself out to be but every now and then it lives up to that ideal. I mean this extended psychological torture sequence in which Murphy makes Bellamy hang himself is super fucked up.

The young Jaha and Griffin families were adorable.

“If you were never [in the tunnels] how did you map [them]?” / “Spoils of war.” I realize this is probably just quick plot-hole filling but nevertheless I sense a story here.

The Reapers were also a sick and twisted invention of this show. I feel like in S2 it was pretty clear that the Reapers were given dead bodies to feed on, so either I’m wrong/the Mount Weatherians were more efficient in their use of their limited resource of Sky People bodies versus Grounder bodies/the show has bad continuity/that living dude in the cart is an outlier/some combo of the above.

“The Eastern Sea” lol. The Chesapeake probably.

I never cared for Luna but she could have been cool and also she and Lincoln are ex’s pry this headcanon from my cold, dead hands.

I’m pretty sure Finn pounding in the Reaper’s head was his first kill. Would his S2 story be possible without that moment?

“They look up to you. Almost as much as they look up to Clarke.” Okay I’m sorry, this is just textually, canonically wrong. This is the show retconning Clarke’s position as a leader. And it’s so unnecessary! Her story line works better if she isn’t positioned as the main delinquent leader, imo. Like, lines like that are outliers that don’t make sense within the universe; they’re obviously outwardly pointed: here audience, Clarke is protag 1 and Bellamy is protag 2 and she’s the REAL leader, don’t forget that order! If you do, you might occasionally question her leadership credentials later, when we lazily write everyone just following her regardless of their actual interactions with her or the most recent developments of her storyline! (Not that I think they were already setting up the laziness of S4 this early, but I do think they were tipping the hand of their own biases and their inability to tell the difference between what’s going on in-universe and what the audience sees and understands.)

On the other hand “Well I think the princess is dead, but I know the king’s about to die, so who’s really going to lead these people, huh?” is a good line and I do like positioning Bellamy as king (of these people specifically) versus Clarke as a princess (of the Ark--an old position based on a class background that is irrelevant to their current society).

Lol @ Murphy’s plans being delinquent-domination though. Like that was going to happen.

Actually I think Finn’s S2 story line is created in the moment when he washes the blood off his hands: he’s killed, which changed him, and Clarke comforts him in that critical moment, and he comes to associate her with that event and its aftermath. He also says “I should have fought for you,” which I see as this...hard to describe but like...the creation of a devotion beyond what he’s so far felt. Not that he loves her more but that he’s convinced himself he loves her more, that she can save him in some way, that she is necessary to him. He has a lot of idealistic notions and I think this narrative gets created within him with Clarke at its center and everything else gets blurred out. Or something.

This Jasper and Bellamy scene is the best because it combines two things I love: Jasper’s hero-worship crush on Bellamy, and Jasper’s intense devotion to Monty. I’m a little sorry that Clarke and Finn’s return/these loser Grounders robbed us of a Bellamy and Jasper rescue mission though.

I guess it’s possible Bellamy said “Whatever the hell we want” all the time but really I think it was just the one time and the writers have already forgotten that Jasper never heard him say it omg sometimes I just want to knock their heads together their memories are such shit. (Yes I’m also bitter about Jasper’s pilot outfit returning out of nowhere in S4 and Clarke wearing his intact goggles in S5 even though he already smashed the plastic out of the lenses sometime in S3.)

Poor Jasper. He thinks Monty’s come back with them. He barely even has time to process that disappointment before they start debating whether or not they should leave.

Basically I have a lot of Jasper feelings.

Bellamy’s speech is better than Clarke’s. Come on Griffin, never start with ‘my opponent is right’ that’s a bad rhetorical move. I also find it intensely unrealistic that they’re all like ‘yes, Clarke, we will do what you say!’ when, I cannot emphasize this enough, she has literally never led them before. All of her leader decisions have been strictly BTS. Her only real advantage here is that they know they have no gunpowder and few other resources, so it’s probably just a straight up fear-flight.

“Crowds make bad decisions. Leaders do what they think is right.” I mean basically the theme of the show there lol.

I’m going to rant about this next time I watch but just gonna say here that Clarke is definitely, unequivocally, ultimately wrong in this and Bellamy was right. They should have stayed. People literally died because Clarke tried to take them out when she shouldn’t have.

The camp doesn’t look like I expect or picture in my head...where are their tents? How much land did they claim?

I remember watching this the first time and thinking Jaha’s plan to get them to the ground on the Ark itself was the outright coolest thing I’d ever see and you know what? It holds up. I stand by it.

[eichy815]

‘Will & Grace’...Saving Face?

Millions of sitcom fans fondly remember the 1998-2006 NBC multi-camera comedy Will & Grace – exploring the platonic friendship between a gay male and a straight female.  Needy lawyer Will Truman (Eric McCormack) and self-centered interior designer Grace Adler (Debra Messing) bounced off of each other as they endured a comedic roller-coaster of heartwarming camaraderie offset by resentment and miscommunication.  Their misadventures were punctuated by the constant presence of their scene-stealing mutual friends:  flamboyant wannabe-thespian Jack McFarland (Sean Hayes) and egotistical socialite Karen Walker (Megan Mullally).

Last October, creators Max Mutchnick and David Kohan wrote a ten-minute “mini-episode” reuniting Messing, McCormack, Mullally, and Hayes as their original characters.  In the “webisode,” Grace, Will, Karen, and Jack deal with the controversies of the upcoming 2016 Presidential Election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.  The “reunion episode,” filled with plenty of social commentary and familiar quirks from these four classic characters, was a big hit with viewers – and, apparently, with NBC.  The Peacock Network has green-lit a “limited series” revival of Will & Grace, to air ten episodes sometime during the 2017-18 season.

Many observers are anticipating that NBC will air the rebooted version of Will & Grace sometime during the fall, rather than holding it over for midseason.  I personally think NBC should schedule Will & Grace in its old time slot of 9:00 PM (Eastern/Pacific) on Thursday nights.  It could air during the ten weeks leading up to NBC’s mid-November premiere of Thursday Night Football; and, its companion sitcom (in the 9:30 PM time slot) could be The Happy Peppers, a new multicamera sibling-based comedy starring Genevieve Angelson (House of Lies) and Jon Rudnitsky (Saturday Night Live).  Mutchnick is also a co-creator of The Happy Peppers.

But, in spite of the plethora of TV series “sequels” that are being revitalized across the television landscape, others have asked the question:  can a sequel to Will & Grace actually be any good?

In November 2016, entertainment writer Marc Berman (commonly known online as “Mr. Television”) expressed skepticism and concern over whether a sequel to Will & Grace could actually be interesting or relevant in the modern era.  Berman cites his desire to see a Will & Grace reboot return to the ambience and writing style of the show’s first few seasons – and he slams what he felt was “lazy writing” from its later seasons.  He points to what he views as an overuse of gay jokes, crass humor, and unnecessary (in his mind) big name guest stars.

According to Berman, there are some improvements that the ten-episode Will & Grace sequel could hypothetically bring to the franchise:  Karen’s sharp-tongued maid, Rosario (Shelley Morrison), being utilized more frequently; developing Jack’s professional life; and disregarding the flashforward from the May 2006 series finale.

I agree with Berman on his first point, as I love me some Rosario!  And more personal development for Jack would certainly be welcome – although Berman seems to conveniently forget that Jack was indeed employed as a cable network TV executive during Will & Grace’s last couple of seasons.

But on his final point, I believe Berman is absolutely dead-wrong.

Like it or not, the flashforward to 2026 – at least, in some iteration – is part of Will & Grace’s canon.  I hate it when any TV series completely disregards past canonical developments in its storylines, as that is a true sign of “lazy writing.”  Of course, when TV writers want to negate a past plot development, there are other creative ways of “retconning” the storyline so that the established canon isn’t 100% contradicted.

This is what the upcoming Will & Grace revival should strive to do.  Entertainment writers Tierney Bricker and Chris Harnick recently co-wrote a speculative piece speculating how Mutchnick and Kohan might conceivably accomplish this.

Some of Bricker’s and Harnick’s suggestions are rather tongue-in-cheek – such as doing a crossover with NBC’s time travel sci-fi/actioner, Timeless (which may not even be renewed for next season), or making the revival into a dark comedy spoof in the spirit of NBC’s The Good Place.

Others of Bricker’s and Harnick’s ideas are more plausible.  One of their proposals would be to give Will Truman and Grace Adler totally separate storylines, using an Arrested Development-esque model of having Jack and Karen serve as the “ambassadors” between Will and Grace, on behalf of the viewing audience.  This technique wouldn’t disrupt the show’s continuity, but it would pose the obvious drawback of preventing McCormack and Messing from interacting on-screen together.

Another proposal from Bricker and Harnick would be establishing that the series-ending flashforwards from 2008 and 2026 were all just a dream.  Presumably, this would have been from the singular perspective of either Will, Grace, Jack, or Karen.  This would allow Will and Grace to heavily interact in a “reset” while not entirely negating the presence of those flashforwards.

For those of you who don’t remember the series finale:  Will cuts Grace out of his life after she inexplicably gets back together with her ex-husband, Leo (Harry Connick Jr.), who’d cheated on Grace back in Season 7.  The timeline jumps forward two years, to 2008: where Will is back with his ex-boyfriend, Vince (Bobby Cannavale).  Grace and Will, both in happy relationships, reunite temporarily – but, once again, they determine that their rekindled friendship can’t really sustain itself.

Then, the timeline jumps ahead once again – to the year 2026, where, through a twist of fate, Will’s son and Grace’s daughter cross paths as new college freshmen; romantic chemistry is implied between Will and Grace’s kids (both of whom are presumably heterosexuals).  Obviously having missed each other during their time apart, Grace and Will finally make a genuine effort to reconnect as friends; the final scene shows them watching old syndicated episodes of ER together while they discuss their kids’ upcoming nuptials.

In light of this canonical glimpse into Grace and Will’s future, Bricker and Harnick additionally float one idea that’s rather intriguing:  to have the Will & Grace revival be, essentially, a multi-camera comedic version of NBC’s popular new hit, This is Us – where Will and Vince’s son, Ben (Ben Newmark), and Grace and Leo’s daughter, Lila (Maria Thayer), reminisce about their parents’ adventures back in their younger days.  This would sort of be a blend between the storytelling technique of This is Us as well as the approach of flashforward scenes driving the narration as in How I Met Your Mother.  

Of course, the flashback/flashforward reminiscing of Ben and Lila wouldn’t really work unless the original actors who portrayed them were available to appear at least on a part-time basis.  Newmark has been a behind-the-scenes Executive Producer of assorted other series, while Thayer is an on-screen series regular on TruTV’s comedy Those Who Can’t (and, since TruTV is affiliated with NBC’s owner, Time Warner, they could very easily arrange to film around Thayer’s schedule).  But I really dislike when either sitcoms or dramas abruptly recast characters with actors who look or sound NOTHING like the original (the alternating Beckys from Roseanne was a little different, because the in-jokes to the recasting where actually interwoven into the scripts themselves).  And yes, I realize that they recast John Slattery with Steven Weber as Will’s brother, in Season 8.  It doesn’t change my (and other viewers’) aversion to any “miscast recasts.”

My own solution would be go with some variation of Bricker and Harnick’s Arrested Development / How I Met Your Mother hybridization for Will & Grace’s ten-episode sequel – with a little bit of retconning to actually force continuous interaction between Will and Grace themselves.

Here’s what they could do:  set in 2017 or 2018, Jack and Karen conspire with Leo and Vince (assuming that NBC can get Connick and Cannavale back for some return guest appearances) to “reunite” Will and Grace against the conflict-torn former best friends’ wishes.  Obviously, if either Connick or Cannavale are unavailable, they can easily be written as doing something else off-screen.  These ten episodes could even be set over the course of two or three weeks, along a self-contained episodic timeline (after all, the final season of How I Met Your Mother took place almost entirely within the timeline of one weekend!).

Obviously, the season finale would feature another fight or tiff...snowballing and creating yet another rift between Grace and Will.  If additional seasons of Will & Grace are ordered beyond 2018, this would need to be addressed accordingly.  But it wouldn’t be unprecedented:  at the end of Season 2 and into the first portion of Season 3, besties Jack and Karen also had a falling out that they eventually repaired.

So how would this approach end up gelling with the canonical insinuation that Grace and Will had remained estranged from each other for nearly twenty years?  Again, through a little bit of retconning.  It could be established that Will and Grace remained estranged for a majority of those two decades...but they reunited for brief periods, every now and then (perhaps sometimes involuntarily – again, due to the other characters orchestrating it).  This would also allow the 2016 election-themed “reunion” episode to be canonical.  

Maybe there were unique circumstances under which Will and Grace reunited, by happenstance, in the months leading up to the 2016 Presidential Election (hence the content of the “reunion episode”).  But, later on in early-2017, Grace and Will would find themselves divided once again by a petty squabble in the aftermath of Trump’s contentious election.  This could seamlessly be portrayed via a flashback sequence – then jump to several months later, when events (perhaps tragic events) cause Grace and Will to temporarily reconcile and hang out as BFFs once again?

Besides, who wouldn’t want to see Leo and Vince in a fun little “bromance” of their own, together?  This could only serve as the source of additional tension between Grace and Will themselves.

Such retconning would fall in line with the on-again off-again nature of Will and Grace’s platonic friendship.  Although they were unquestionably supportive of one another throughout their lives, a lot of palpable underlying hostility seemed to always linger between Grace Adler and Will Truman.  Some of this can probably be attributed to the remnants of sexual tension that had always remained within the context of their friendship.  It’s also very conceivable that Will and Grace would make the conscious decision to NOT introduce Ben and Lila to each other, as young kids – after all, if Will and Grace are hesitant about the prospect of whether their friendship can continue to work again, I seriously doubt they would choose to bring each other’s children into their mutual lives.

Perhaps, in the show’s timeframe, the period spanning from late-2016 to around 2019 was actually riddled with spurts of Will and Grace awkwardly trying to revitalize their friendship – and succeeding, for short periods of time...but ultimately growing apart, once again, due to lack of empathy and other toxic factors that get in the way.  Eventually, this gives way to Grace and Will becoming estranged on a more long-term basis...not reuniting for another nine or ten years until they cross paths again at Lila and Ben’s dorm in the year 2026.  Maybe, because of all they’d been through together, the time lapse “felt” like longer than it actually was, from both Grace and Will’s perspectives?

Indeed, the October 2016 “reunion episode” was filled with the same layers of raunchiness, implied interpersonal conflict, and character-based potshots that were so often seen during show’s original eight-season run.  Anyone who was watching it could sense that these four friends had a ton of unresolved-but-unspoken issues festering between them.  The four of them each being so incredibly self-involved also still rang true, even after ten years off the air.

For example, Grace is more upset about Jamie Dornan having an “ass double” than she is about Trump becoming the Republican presidential nominee.  Meanwhile, Will is hopelessly infatuated with both House Speaker Paul Ryan and journalist Anderson Cooper.  Karen’s own flighty support of Trump is due to her personal friendship with him and Melania – peppered by Karen cluelessly spewing bigotry without really realizing it.  Jack, for his part, is riled up and bitter over how “Brangelina” announced their breakup during the same week when his own relationship fizzled out (Jack’s boy toy, Dakota, apparently broke up with Jack via text message), resenting the celebrities for allowing their problems to overshadow his own personal drama.

The main characters all retain their hopeless attributes.  Will still cracks lame jokes that no one finds funny.  Karen doesn’t realize that Barack Obama was America’s first black president.  Jack hasn’t even decided whether he’s going to vote – in fact, he’s under the impression that the election will be held on the first day in December.  And Grace tries to make Karen feel guilty for being a Trump supporter by reminding Karen how Karen’s maid, Rosario, could face deportation under Trump as a person of Mexican descent; Will then promptly reminds Grace that Rosario is actually El Salvadoran, to which Grace sneers, “What’s the difference?”

The rest of the episode involves Will and Grace each trying to convince Jack to vote for Hillary, while Karen tries to convince her “poodle” to vote for Donald (especially after Jack reveals he’s registered to vote in Pennsylvania – a pivotal swing state).  Karen tries to use xenophobia, warmongering, and invoking natural disasters to take advantage of Jack’s naiveté.  At the same time, Grace tries to appeal to Jack by invoking patriotism, the concept of shattering the “Glass Ceiling,” and the importance of U.S. Supreme Court justices.

Of course, Grace mistakenly thinks that Hillary used to be U.S. Secretary of Defense – until Will corrects her and points out that Hillary was actually U.S. Secretary of State.  Grace ends her pitch to Jack by hilariously serenading him with an ear-piercing rendition of “Go Tell it on the Mountain” – at which point, Will and Karen play rock/paper/scissors to determine which of them will be tasked with painfully pinching Grace to snap her out of her vapid spell.

But Jack doesn’t like the fact that Hillary wears pantsuits.

Will finally manages to convince Jack to vote for Hillary by informing him that Katy Perry (whom Jack worships) has endorsed Hillary.  The episode closes out with Rosario observing the wayward quartet, as she scoffs:  “Talk about a basket of deplorables!”

Overall, the episode was really well-done and flowed beautifully.  It captured the characters’ heavily-flawed essences with absolute perfection.  And, contrary to Berman’s opinion, I believe the Will & Grace revival could only be enhanced by snagging some cameo appearances from actual real-life celebrities who are timely to today’s headlines – maybe even Anderson Cooper, Jamie Dornan, or Katy Perry, themselves?   Unlike many critics out there, I really enjoyed high-profile celebrities appearing as themselves in guest spots on Will & Grace – Candice Bergen, Bebe Neuwirth, Sandra Bernhard, and Cher provided some of the best ones!

In fact, Will & Grace should try to bring back as many recurring characters as possible – if they can be organically worked into the storylines.  Jack’s biological son, Elliot (Michael Angarano).  Will’s demented mirror-image-of-Grace gal pal, Val (Molly Shannon).  Sociopathic hospital nurse, Sheila (Laura Kightlinger).  Grace’s freespirited sister, Janet (Geena Davis), and their moody younger sister, Joyce (Sara Rue).  Will’s playful nephew, Jordy (Reed Alexander).  Karen’s forlorn perennial bartender, Smitty (Charles C. Stevenson Jr.).  Will and Grace’s charades-loving mirror-image best friends, Rob and Ellen (Tom Gallop and Leigh-Allyn Baker).

Hell, they could even find a way to bring back JoMarie Payton as the sarcastic office assistant, Mrs. Freeman.  Devise an excuse to write in Reginald VelJohnson as a cop for a stunt casting bit – and have a little mini-Family Matters reunion between Carl and Harriette Winslow.

The only character who it would be difficult to resuscitate would be Karen’s neurotic frenemy, Beverley Leslie (American Horror Story’s Leslie Jordan) – who entered a marriage-of-convenience with Jack to help Karen recoup her loss of fortune.  The diminutive Beverley ultimately dies after an abrupt wind sweeps him off the edge of a balcony in 2008 – and Jack inherits Beverley’s fortune, becoming a platonic “sugar daddy” to a suddenly-broke Karen.  There are, however, several ways in which the writing team could bring back Beverley Leslie:  as a ghost who haunts both Jack and Karen, having faked his death and being sentenced to house arrest, or even in the form of a long-lost twin brother (yes, it’s a soap opera cliché – but it’s Will & Grace!).

Overall, there’s a lot of great potential for the Will & Grace revival – regardless of whether or not it runs past 2018.  But I would implore its creative team to AVOID making the cardinal mistake of completely disregarding canon and continuity.