Photograph: © PacificCoastNews
NBC has ordered a pilot for Happy Peppers, a comedy by Max Mutchnick, co-creator, writer and co-Executive producer of Will & Grace. Happy Peppers is about an adult brother and sister who end up living together for the first time since they were kids, after one of them suffers a big loss. The network is looking at the new show as a companion piece for Will & Grace’s 10th Season.
In Will & Grace news: we have been missing NBC’s most popular comedy. The series is taking a little break after airing the first six out of 16 episodes in Season Nine of the landmark series. Will & Grace originally aired 1999-2006.
Dan Bucatinsky, Matthew Letscher and Barry Bostwick, who each enjoyed especially nutty story arcs on Shonda Rhime’s hit Scandal on ABC, are each set to guest-star on upcoming episodes of Will & Grace.
Bucatinsky, Photograph: © WMTV, PacificCoastNews
Bucatinsky is reprising his role as Neil from a season two episode, The Hospital Show. Neil was guy who has a date with Will that goes terribly wrong. Bucatinsky met his husband, filmmaker Don Roos, in 1992 when Roos invited him to be his date at the premiere of his movie Love Field. They married in 2008, during the four months same-sex marriage in California was briefly legal. Bucatinsky also wrote a memoir Does This Baby Make Me Look Straight?: Confessions Of A Gay Dad, which has been optioned for television. On Scandal, Bucatinsky played a journalist who was the husband of the President’s Chief of Staff. He won an Emmy Award for the role in 2013. He will appear in the upcoming Steven Spielberg newspaper drama, The Post with Meryl Streep.
Letscher, ABC Television, via YouTube
Letscher was the villainous Billy Chambers, Chief of Staff to Vice President Sally Langston on the first and second season of Scandal. He has tons of theatre and television credits. He played real life Ambassador Chris Stevens in 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers Of Benghazi, and his is in Kingsman: The Golden Circle, currently in theatres. Letscher is straight, but he was born that way.
Bostwick, Photograph: © Joe Sutter, PacificCoastNews
Silver fox Bostwick is the 6′ 4″, sexy, agile, energetic actor and singer of the Broadway stage, films and television. You probably know him as the nerdy Brad Majors in the phenomena known as The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). Bostwick was featured on the sitcom Spin City (1996–2002), and played the original Danny Zuko in Grease (1972) on Broadway. He won a Tony Award the musical The Robber Bridegroom (1977). Although he has appeared in many musicals, Bostwick is straight, not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Guest stars on Will & Grace this season have include one of my favorite lesbians Jane Lynch (Glee), and hotties Max Greenfield (New Girl), Andrew Rannells (Girls) and Kyle Bornheimer (Agent Carter).
Returning from the show’s original eight-season run are Harry Connick Jr., Minnie Driver and Leslie Jordan. Bobby Cannavale and Molly Shannon are also set to reprise their roles this season.
Spoiler: When we last saw Will & Grace, the episode dealt with the death of Karen’s longtime maid Rosario following a heart attack. When the gang goes to visit Rosario in the hospital, Karen promises to throw her a quinceanera when she is discharged because Rosario’s mother had never given her one. However, Rosario dies in the hospital and Karen then turns the funeral for her longtime sidekick into… a quinceanera.
The episode is heartbreaking and hilarious.
Rosario had been played by the great Shelley Morrison during the series first eight seasons, plus the cast reunion’s 2016 Vote Honey video. During her 68-episode run, Morrison not only played Karen’s maid and BFF, but also Jack’s wife. They married to get her a green card in season two.
Morrison retired from acting in 2012. When it was decided that they would write Rosario out of the series, the creators told Morrison about their plans to kill Rosario off.
The same episode dealt with the December 2016 passing of Debbie Reynolds, who appeared in 10 episodes of the show’s original run as Grace’s mother, Bobbi Adler. It was revealed that Reynolds’ character had passed away before the events of the reboot. Grace attempts to console Karen by talking about her mother’s death, saying:
“I get what you’re going through. When my mother died, I was a wreck. On the day of her funeral, my sister had to dress me. I couldn’t even do my own blowout and I really wanted pretty hair for my mom, you know? But I made it and everyone said how brave I was and how pretty I looked and everyone said how proud they were of me. It doesn’t change how much it hurts.”
Currently on hiatus because of something called Thursday Night Football, Will & Grace has a special Christmas episode airing December 5, and then is set to return with new episodes on January 4. The show is already renewed for a 13-episode second season.
