"It was a difficult season," the show's Sean Hayes told reporters at the annual TV critics summer tour — especially because four of the season's scripts had to be thrown out when pregnancy put Messing out of the picture.

Messing required increasingly elaborate devices to camouflage her growing belly, including a potted plant that made her look, said co-star Eric McCormack, "like Artie Johnson delivering the line."

The best method, he said "was to just start writing a lot of fat jokes. It was hysterical."

"My favorite line Dave Foley had on it was, 'Boy you eat a lot, don't you,"' said Hayes. "That was it."

The pregnancy put Messing in the odd position of watching the sixth season finale at home.

"It was a really unique position to be in, because I really felt like a viewer," she said. "I didn't know the story line because I wasn't reading the scripts at the end, because I wasn't there. So I felt really like I was able to experience the show in a completely new way, and I thoroughly enjoyed it."

Now that she's back, new situations are planned for her, as her doomed-from-the-start marriage to Harry Connick Jr.'s Leo (never listed as more than a guest star) ends.

"This is going to be a year of tremendous growth for Grace and for all the other characters, because we're going to be dealing with her relationship not having worked out, and at the same time Will will be in a relationship," said executive producer Alex Herschlag.

Bobby Cannavale will continue as Will's romantic interest, Herschlag said. "We've never had that dynamic before on the show."

There are plans for the supporting characters as well, including Hayes' manic Jack becoming an executive at a fictional new gay network.

"Every year we talk about giving him a substantial job to go to," Hayes said. "And he always ends up getting fired or quitting or whatever. But I think he'll still be acting on the side, and it will give him something to grab on to and sustain throughout the whole season.

"But he'll still be Jack," added another of the show's producers, the newly added Dave Flebotte. "He'll still be broke all the time, even though he's making good money."

As for Megan Mullally's Karen, Herschlag said, "We've never had the opportunity to have Grace and Karen single at the same time.