The Big Vent is the 9th episode of the first season.
Will and Grace become preoccupied at the drama of their downstairs neighbor. Karen helps Jack produce his own play.
Synopsis[]
Love Among the Coconuts: a Caribbean Fantasy[]
"Will" and "Grace"
Jack is exploring a new career as a playwright and asks both Will and Grace for help, but they ignore him in favor of the drama going on with their neighbors. With Karen's help, Jack finally starts to put his play on stage but realizes he needs to rewrite it to channel more what is important to him.
When Will and Grace finally come to watch the show, they realize that the new play is about two characters, "Will" and "Grace", who ignore their friend "Jack" until he passes away and they realize how much he means to them. "Will" and "Grace" commit suicide to be with "Jack" again only to find out that he is in heaven and that they are going to hell instead.
Days of Our Vent[]
In the middle of winter, Will and Grace find relief on the vent in the middle of their apartment and accidentally hear a couple getting intimate on the apartment downstairs. Things get more interesting when they overhear that the woman is having an affair with her husband's brother.
Their obsession with eavesdropping through the vent goes out of hand, with Grace missing work and Will blowing his plans to help Jack, who is trying to produce a coming-of-age play he had written.
With the intention of showing up and leaving right away, Will and Grace come to watch Jack's finished play and find out he had rewritten the entire material and is now about two friends who take another friend for granted, an obvious reference to what they have been going through.
Cast[]
Main[]
- Eric McCormack (Will Truman)
- Debra Messing (Grace Adler)
- Sean Hayes (Jack McFarland)
- Megan Mullally (Karen Walker)
Guest[]
- Corinne Bohrer (Judy)
- T.F. Sullivan (Thomas)
- Robert Curtis Brown ("Will" actor)
- Jensen Daggett ("Grace" actor)
- Titus Napoleon (Roger Waka-lana-huki)
Notes[]
- Although Karen deems Jack's writing as terrible after reading his play's script, she later falls in love with his novel "To Weep and to Willow: A Harlequeen Romance", which he writes in the episode An Old-Fashioned Piano Party.
- Jack mentions that he was harassed outside a gay bar by a pair of drag queens dressed as Rosemary Clooney. Miguel Ferrer, who appears as Nathan Berry later in the season is the son of Clooney.
Cultural references[]
- Karen asks Rosario to read "Green Eggs and I'm Hammered" to her stepchildren, after the Dr. Seuss story Green Eggs and Ham.
- Will sarcastically claims that listening to their neighbors sounds better than the controversial MTV reality show The Real World: Seattle.
- When Will mentions gesturing emphatically with a taco in his hand, Grace thinks he was doing an impression of jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. However, Will tells her he was doing the Joker of actor Cesar Romero from the television show Batman.
- Jack decides to rewrite his play exclaiming "I'll take Painful Things for $500" similar to choosing a category in Jeopardy!.
- When Will and Grace come to see Jack's play and see the crowd, he sarcastically quips, "Where's Mr. Kotter?", imitating Boom Boom Washington from the 70s sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter where the eponymous teacher teaches a group of remedial high school students.
Media[]
Quotes[]
| Grace: | The poor husband slaves away 18 hours a day, while she carries on an affair every day this week. Except Wednesday. |
| Will: | Which ironically is hump day. |
| Jack: | What do you think of my glasses? What do they say? |
| Will: | They say... "guys don't make passes at girls who wear glasses." |
| Jack: | And guys don't make passes at guys with fat asses. |
"Love Among the Coconuts: a Caribbean Fantasy"? I don't know, honey. Sounds like a dessert that repeats. — Karen
| Grace: | That would be totally immoral. It would break the commandment about... um... coveting thy husband's brother's ass. |
| Will: | Wow. I break that one all the time. |
I guess maintaining the 13 shades of red in your hair keeps you so busy, you don't have any time for recreational reading. — Jack, when Grace did not read his play
| Karen: | Your play stinks. |
| Jack: | It does?! Which pages? |
| Karen: | Uh, the ones with words on 'em? |
| Will: | We need ice cream. What flavor of ice cream goes with the destruction of a loveless marriage? |
| Grace: | Rocky road. |
Honey, did you really think you could get into Heaven wearing body glitter? — Karen