And just like that, the ninth season of Will & Grace has come to a close. It was a season fans definitely didn’t expect to get back when the curtain fell on the sitcom over a decade ago, since the phrase “series finale” used to mean something a bit more final. Of course that’s no longer the case and everything old is back in primetime again, for better or for worse!

So which was it, better or worse? The Will & Grace revival added 16 more episodes to the show’s canon (although that season premiere erased a big chunk of Season 8 so…. who knows) and we got to hang out with this fabulous foursome on Thursday nights just like we did in the good ol’ days. But how did a Bush-era button-pusher fare in the age of Trump, and did it recapture the magic? Was it all worth it and are we ready for more?

Now that Season 9 has sashayed away, Decider’s resident Will & Grace watchers Joe Reid and Brett White have a lot to say about the season that was and–more importantly–the season that could be.

Joe Reid: So I thought it was interesting that the in-show note that Will left us on as the season ended was telling Grace “we’ve gotta make some changes.” I don’t think that was meant as meta-commentary, but it made me think whether there will be any changes going into season 10. This is a show that came back very much unchanged from where it left off, save for a newfound over focus on real-world politics that, as we’ve also seen on Roseanne, is apparently how we make sitcoms “relevant” in 2018. Anyway, in the spirit of Will’s wishes, what’s the biggest thing you’d change about the show going into next season?

Brett White: This may sound a bit roundabout, but I think the show should change by going back to how the original series played out. Okay, to explain, the original series actually allowed the characters to progress a teeeeeeny bit. Okay, maybe just Grace, and maybe I’m only talking about Grace moving in and out of Will’s apartment, and her getting married to a husband that was never going to be a series regular. But still, there was a forward momentum (the glacial kind that ’90s sitcoms practiced). I am so glad that Will & Grace came back and did away with all the radical changes seen in the time jump in the series finale, but it gave us a season wherein a bunch of characters in their late 40s/early 50s were acting like 30-year-olds. I want to see a shook up status quo!

Joe: Brett, you know I can’t support a Leo agenda. But I get what you’re saying. And I feel like the show does too. As they moved into the back half, there was an increased focus on Will and Grace taking inventory of their lives. Grace has that meltdown at her friend’s baby shower about having chosen a career over family; Will had that reckoning with Vince at Vince’s wedding and then later started dating bad-idea Michael again (and seemed really into the idea of marrying him before he revealed himself to be a shit). I feel like there’s some conflict between the show being what it wants to be (the no-strings good-time double-entendre carnival it was at its best) and what it feels like it should be (a sitcom that reflects real things about gay/urban/liberal life in 2018). I still think all of the Trump stuff this season has been gears-grindingly cringe-y, but I also like any plot that doesn’t boil down to “Will and Grace are too close to be able to work together.” How did all the Trump stuff land for you?

Brett: Y’know, it worked better for me than Roseanne’s barely-there yet in-your-face approach! I was all in on the premiere episode and how it addressed it, partially because it gave me Kyle Bornheimer as a gay secret service agent (thank you, sitcom god). I thought the Trump cake episode, aside from bringing more Vanessa Bayer into my life, was a frustrating watch mainly because I spent the entire half hour trying to parse what the show was saying, how they were saying it, how I felt about it, and how I should feel about it. I guess that’s the very definition of “distracting.” But as you pointed out, I think the new season was cleaved into halves, one free-wheeling and the other a little more serious. Kind of a microcosm of the entire original run, in a way.

Joe: Okay, Vanessa Bayer in the cake episode was one of my favorite comedic performances of the whole year, but yes, a very frustrating episode to watch because the message was very muddled. Which brings me to my biggest issue with this season: the Karen problem.

Karen Walker was by far my favorite character in the original run of the show, and it’s certainly not like Megan Mullally’s comedic skills have dulled. But for whatever reason, the writers have fully lost the touch for writing that character. Writing Karen as a one-percenter Trump supporter makes sense, in that a real-world version of Karen would totally be a Trump voter, but much like with what’s currently happening on Roseanne, having the character go full-bore MAGA for Trump feels like we’re reducing these characters to their demographic profiles. (This is more complicated with Roseanne because of Roseanne Barr’s personal politics, so let’s stick to Karen.) While it’s likely that Karen would have been a Trump voter, it’s far more likely that Karen wouldn’t have voted at all and would not be able to keep her mind focused on one thing long enough to be a consistent supporter of anyone, Trump included. It feels like Karen was the show’s cheap entry-point into making the show “relevant,” and, again, there is apparently only one way to make “light” comedies relevant, and it’s spelled T-R-U-M-P (a word that most definitely would not have qualified for Jack’s gay spelling bee). It bums me out that they wasted Karen this way. She’s gone from being my favorite character to my least favorite. How did Karen land for you this year?

Brett: You comparing it to Roseanne really crystallized The Karen Problem for me, just now. I’m a newcomer to this show; I binged the entire original series on Hulu after Season 9 premiered last September! So I didn’t live with Karen for 8 years, week by week, the way other fans did. For that reason, it’s all kind of a binge-induced blur, and watching Season 9 alongside Seasons 1-8 got it all jumbled in my head. But yes, what you’re saying, I totally see that. Basically, I like your rationale more than what we saw.

I do like what the show did with Jack, a character that I think is constantly being reevaluated as gay culture deals with internalized homophobia and how we handle (or find power in) stereotypes. He’s a surprisingly complex character, and Sean Hayes attacks him with the same gusto. That body magnets/Spanx sequence from earlier in this season, it’s one of the best bits of physical comedy the show’s ever done. And obviously I loved his one-on-one with his gay grandson. That right there was the show handling modern politics in a truly unique and thoughtful way, way more than the cake episode (again, Bayer was brilliant in it).

Joe: How did we like Jack with the shorty cop boyfriend? Or his more recent beach-bum lover? Has the show figured out how to write Jack in a relationship? I’d say that’s not the Jack we want, but I love Jack and want him to be happy!

Brett: My overall note to these revival shows, all of them, is that we all still have the original series to go back and watch. These shows need to find a balance between hitting the nostalgia notes and going to bold new places–because, again, these feel like extra credit seasons! So while Jack in a relationship might have seemed weird in the original show and not what fans wanted, I’m all for them using these extra credit seasons to push him to new, happier, or weirder places. For that reason, I loved the shorty cop arc (as a short gay man with facial hair, I felt a little seen). I don’t know how I feel about him getting with Estefano since we literally just met him (and so did Jack) but, you know, I am kinda into seeing Jack as a bridezilla. Go for it! Why not?!

Joe: Ohhh, exploring the newfound world of legal gay marriage through the lens of Jack McFarland might be a winner of a season 10 storyline. And maybe that would be enough to lure Veronica Cartwright back as Judith! She’s my top season 10 wish-list item. Care to include yours among your final thoughts?

Brett: I mean, they teased us all season long by having an unseen Judith on the other end of a phone. Stop teasing! Deliver! This season did a solid job of bringing back the greatest hits of guest stars, like Molly Shannon and Minnie Driver. I want to see Season 10 give us new guest characters! What could Tituss Burgess do? I’d love to see Claudia O’Doherty do a guest spot. Why not some Drag Race alums? Bring in Trixie Mattel or Bob the Drag Queen! Or–please lord–Chris Evans?? I’m all about Season 10 being all-new.

Joe: I will say, for a show that got (often rightly) crucified for overdoing guest stars, they mostly stayed on the smart side when it came to cameos this season. But now that you’ve gotten the idea of Trixie and Bob the Drag Queen on season 10 (wedding planners??), it’s all I’m going to be able to think about. I think season 9 was better than I feared it would be, but not as good as I wanted it to be. There’s room for improvement, and I think that includes cutting it out with the constant need to remind us that you read the news (and please, no more “Mike Pence is gay” jokes!) and getting back to why these characters have such a rich comedic history with each other.

Where to stream Will & Grace