Vince Is Returning To ‘Will & Grace,’ So Here’s A Refresher On Where He & Will Left Off

When you reminisce about Will & Grace, you probably think about the friendship between — who else? — Will and Grace. But maybe it's time to shift your focus to what happened between Will and his boyfriend Vince. In the original Will & Grace finale, we find out that the two besties, played by Eric McCormack and Debra Messing, have actually been estranged and living very separate lives. Will doesn't wind up raising a kid with Grace, but actually ends up raising a son with Vince, played by Bobby Cannavale. Before Will & Grace returns to NBC on Thursday, Sept. 28, it's worth looking back at Will and Vince's relationship — even if it may not play much of a role in the revival.

Will first meets Vince in the Season 6 episode "Courting Disaster," when he's teaching Karen how to drive. It's Vince, a cop from Brooklyn, who pulls him over, and when Will goes to court looking to fight the ticket they find out their friends have actually been trying to set them up for months. From there, the two have their ups and downs like any couple.

After Vince is fired from his job on the force in Season 7, he ends up on Will's couch, which doesn't go over well. The two decide to part ways while Vince gets his life together. This is the first time the couple breaks up, but it wouldn't be the last. The two eventually get back together in Season 8, but when Will picks Grace over Vince, the two once again decide to part ways. To be fair, Will chooses to help his pregnant bestie, because her boyfriend Leo (Harry Connick Jr.) has left her and she's all alone. That's kind of what friends do, right?

That's why fans were surprised when it's revealed in the 2005 series finale— just one episode after Will and Vince break up — that Will and Grace are no longer on good terms. This two-part episode flashes forward to a dark timeline where Will and Grace are living completely separate lives because Grace decides she just can't live with Will forever. She ends up saying yes to Leo's proposal, but doesn't tell Will, leaving him feeling betrayed.

Grace eventually marries Leo and raises a daughter named Laila. Will has a son named Ben with Vince. And it's actually their children that bring them together on the first day of college. All ends happily ever after — there's even a wedding between Will and Grace's kids.

If that finale feels a bit too farfetched for you, don't worry, the creators, David Kohan and Max Mutchnick, agree. They've already said that fans should just forget everything about that "sad" finale in this revival, which has already been picked up for Season 2. There will be no time jump or estrangement or kids for Will, Grace, Karen, and Jack when the show returns.

“We frankly did not want to see them being either good parents or bad parents,” Kohan told Entertainment Weekly. “We wanted them to be Will and Grace.”

In fact, McCormack revealed to Us Weekly that Will will be dating in the new series. "He's got a little bit more self-confidence and that's going to leave some very interesting dating things," McCormack said. "For anyone who says, 'Is Will going to date?' Yes!"

Clearly, Will and Vince's happily ever after is not really a thing anymore. But, for fans of Vince, he won't be completely forgotten. Messing posted a photo of her on the Will & Grace set with Cannavale. "ANOTHER fan fav from our little show of yesteryear," she wrote. "@bobby_cannavale is in the house!"

Being that we're supposed to forget about the kid-filled flash forward, it's unclear what Cannavale's cameo means for Will. Here's to hoping it means there's still a chance Will and Vince will end up together after all.