When Grace and Frankie premiered on Netflix in May of 2015, the streaming service saw immediate dollar signs. By having two women in their seventies (at the time) lead a show, Netflix was ushering in a new market to their service while simultaneously introducing a new, younger generation to Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda.
65 episodes later and Grace and Frankie has become Netflix's longest running live-action scripted comedy series. The audience can't get enough of Tomlin and Fonda (and the equally talented ensemble cast) and the critics can't get enough of the duo who have been nominated for five Emmys between them for their roles as Frankie Bergstein and Grace Hanson.
However Grace and Frankie proves a tricky one for the audience initially. Millennials see a show about older women and think they can't relate and people of Tomlin and Fonda's era can't wrap their heads around the concept. But to write Grace and Frankie off because of appearances is a mistake. The show is funny, thoughtful, provocative and a conversation starter and it features Jane Fonda using profanity, liberally!
Premiering in 2015, Grace and Frankie stars Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin as two women starting life over again as they find out that their husbands have been having an affair...with each other.
Source: Wikipedia
Warning, season four and five spoilers ahead.
After the last season of the show where G&F's children decided that the time was right to send their mothers to a retirement village, the audience was outraged. The show was an example of older women living life their own way, making their own choices and their own mistakes. The final felt unjust and served to highlight how quick people are to take away the rights of the elderly for their own piece of mind.
On the back of a stellar season four, the fifth season promised so much. Comedically, season four reached great heights for the majority of the core cast. Every episode had its own piece of laugh out loud funny. Fonda was ice cold and cutting in her witty remarks. Tomlin was eccentric and just down right hilarious when she hit her mark. Even Sam Waterston's Sol had his moments.
Some of the funniest moments in Grace and Frankie come when the pair express themselves with choice gestures and vocabulary.
Source: The AV Club
In season four creators Marta Kauffman of Friends fame and Martin J. Morris were building to a very noticeable crescendo. The season was an example of drama writing done well as each episode raised the stakes higher and higher, leading to a final scene that rocked viewers.
What made season four such a landmark was also the departure from the themes that the show has been guilty of falling back into now and again. Namely, Robert's inherent selfishness and Grace and Frankie being locked in never ending fights.
With the beach house sold and the very future of G&F up in the air, viewers flocked to Netflix on Friday night when season five become available for streaming. From the beginning there was laughter, poignancy and an immediate regression back to the old days of G&F as Robert cared more about himself than trying to find his ex-wife who had gone missing from a secure retirement facility.
As two women who founded and run a successful vibrator business, it was only a matter of time before Grace and Frankie escaped the retirement village.
Source: Indiewire Video
Because Martin Sheen's Robert isn't the main draw to G&F I was willing to forgive his lack of development for the sake of my own enjoyment. But there were other things I couldn't quite move past. The cliffhanger that promised to set up the whole season seemed to resolve too quickly and easily. This could be forgiven if there was more drama to look forward to, however the biggest issues were Grace trying to win back the attention of former flame Nick (Peter Gallagher) and Frankie rediscovering her hippie roots.
As we moved closer to episode 13, familiar issues started to rear their head. Frankie's inability to take proper care of herself. Grace meddling with the aforementioned issue. Frankie's ability to be careless to a fault. And then, the inevitable fight between the two which seems to set their relationship back to the very beginning, despite their repeated conversations centring around not being able to live without the other.
Again, I would be willing to forgive and forget if the show held true to its trademark humour. Instead, the jokes felt played out and the best material showcased in the fantastic teaser trailer was basically all used up by episode four. I could count on one hand the funniest moments from all 13 episodes of season five, i.e Frankie telling the world that she and Grace sneak into each other's rooms and kiss on the mouth in the dead of night.
A still from the dramatic season four final that left Grace and Frankie and audiences alike feeling despair.
Source: Awards Daily
What makes G&F a powerful show is its willingness to talk about what is considered taboo. Every season to date has picked a topic and thoughtfully explore it throughout the course of 13 episodes. Instead, this year, issues were picked up and dropped within the course of an episode- Frankie extending the timer on a pedestrian light and Grace's addiction to Adderall, to name a couple.
Despite being a comedy, the show regularly blurs the line between drama and comedy and this was shown during G&F's last fight which, as Grace herself laments, definitely felt as if something broke between them. The penultimate episode ultimately felt like the finale and the image of Frankie putting her hand on Grace's empty beach chair was just as heartbreaking as the two of them sitting on those chairs at the end of season four and realising that their home was sold.
The finale, called The Alternative, was a glorified filler episode aimed to express the importance the two women hold in each other's lives. During the last three minutes of the episode the audience finally gets to see present day Grace and Frankie coming to the realisation that despite their fight, their lives are far better for being best friends.
Over the course of five seasons Grace and Frankie have realised that they are much better together than apart.
Source: Netflix
They run down the beach towards each other (a scene worthy of any great rom-com) and express how they bought each other back to life. Finally the audience feels as if they can breathe a sigh of relief, if the season ends there at least we know that they will continue to navigate their next chapter together. But the kicker is yet to come. Grace has married Nick in the wake of her fight with Frankie.
Frankie drops to her knees and stares out at the ocean as the viewers are left to contemplate the fact that G&F as we know them, will never be the same again.
While the season on a whole may have been an uneven mixture between the signature comedic tones of the show, compelling stories and disappointment, the events of the final episodes draw the audience back in and have them counting down the days until season 6 premieres, because it is hard to imagine how Frankie B and Grace can ever recover from this.
Kauffman and Morris are lucky that they have the star power of Fonda and Tomlin leading this show. Their portrayal of Grace and Frankie, their chemistry and humour will always have the audience coming back for more, no matter what, but that isn't an excuse to stick to the same formula just because it has given you five seasons already.
Season grading: B
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