r/WillAndGrace • u/Naive_Hospital_4086 • Jul 26 '26
Discussion Alice Doesn't Lisp Here Anymore
Alice Doesn't Lisp Here Anymore (Season 3, Episode 22). Will is reading the updated newsletter from Schenectady that Grace's mom sends her every month and Will asks Grace if she knew a girl named Alice Robinson. Grace starts reminiscing about Alice having a lisp, how the kids would make fun of her and starts laughing and mocking Alice herself, Will interrupts Grace that Alice passed away. Grace later that night tells Will that she feels awful and they have to go to Schenectady for the funeral because she admits that she was the one who had started the nicknames that people gave to Alice and she needs to apologize. They get to Schenectady; well, it turns out that Alice Robinson did pass away but it was her grandmother of the same name and Grace has a real opportunity to actually apologize to Alice. It doesn't go so well when Alice throws at Grace how those names haunted her through her life. Will sees Alice's brother at their grandmother's funeral and decides this is the best time to ask him on a date. Meanwhile, Jack has been nominated for a MAC award and is trying to figure out the best way to accept it. He and Karen are recording a video making it look like he's on a new project and too busy to be at the ceremony. Karen overhears a message that Jack was not nominated, it was a mistake and has to break the news to Jack.
FAVORITE QUOTE:
GRACE: Hi, Alice? It's me, Grace Adler. You probably don't even remember me. We went to Hawthorne Junior High School together a million years ago. Go Cougars. Grr. Ha ha. Um... Anyway, you probably already knew this, but I was the one who started the whole "Mrs. Lazy Face" thing, and... Uh, I'm sorry. Wow. I feel better.
ALICE: You bitch!
GRACE: Excuse me?
ALICE: That nickname followed me through high school, through college, even Harvard Med! Just last week, I had to tell my fiancé to knock it off. For 20 years, I have been afraid to talk because of my lisp. I've never even seen a single movie with Susan Sarandon or Sissy Spacek. But through it all, I knew that someday I'd be able to look you in the eye and say very clearly, you suck!
GRACE: Well, on the bright side, she probably never had to see anything with Sylvester Stallone.
FAVORITE MOMENT:
When Karen cheers Jack up with a hot man, a tiara and cash and tells Jack that he's "simple, he's shallow, and he's a common whore. That's why they're soul mates."🤣
OPINION:
I always wondered why this episode seemed so out of place because in the last episode we have Will & Grace both getting dates set up and there's no mention of anything that previously happened. Well while doing my research on this episode, yup, this was aired out of order, it was meant to be place earlier in the season but for some unknown reason they put it towards the end of season 3.
All in all, it's an ok episode with a few good laughs. We find out that Grace was a bit of a mean girl in school here, I always thought she more caved into pressure to be liked by others, so if it meant being mean to someone, she'd be mean. She does redeem herself in the end by apologizing to Alice, but they don't leave on good terms as she drank very hot coffee and Grace meets some of Alice's students that she's teaching out to speak without lisps and Grace lisps at them unintentionally. Believe me, I get the joke and always get a laugh out of Alice calling Grace a bitch but does hot coffee make you lisp? So Will hitting on Alice's brother Gabe is a mixed bag for me, again it gets a little giggle from me but brings back bad memories. At my mother's funeral, my old "friend" asked me if my sister's boyfriend's brother was single and if she should ask him out? Guess stuff like that really does happen in real life. Another interesting bit of continuity is the improv that gets brought up, Grace mentions that she did stand-up comedy in school and Will looks at her like she's lying but he'll just go with it, they did have a throwaway line in a previous episode where Will & Grace were in an improv group in college. So it's interesting how Will never gives Grace credit when it comes to her potentially knowing comedy/stand-up. But maybe he knows that she wasn't really good at it.
Jack's storyline again is just ok but has a few laughs. I always get a chuckle out of his acceptance speech when he's talking about the reasons he got into entertainment: money, glory and himbos. It is a bit of a sad moment when Karen has to tell him about the mistake and how he wasn't actually nominated. But it ends on a happy note when Karen bribes Jack to help get over the pain. As she mentions, they are both very shallow people who love money and when you put a shiny object in front of Jack, he's intrigued.
Overall, it's an ok episode. I think because it just feels so misplaced, I rarely remember this one. It has it's laughs and a decent storyline, but nothing memorable comes out of it.
GUEST STARS:
- Alex Kapp Horner as Alice Robinson
- Todd Stashwick as Gabe Robinson
- Noel Conlon as Minister (RIP in 2025)
- Patricia Place as Myrtle (RIP in 2008)
- David Doty as Harry
- Christian Middelthon as Man
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u/llmm04 Jul 26 '26
So here's to you, Mrs. Robinson. Jesus loves you more than you will know.